The Next Pandemic: SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19

[reddogblitz]

47 minutes ago, BullBuchanan said:

We're now up to 500 Benghazi's happening every single day and rising. I wonder how many investigations there will be into the administration in charge.

 

If Trump wins there will be plenty.  But they won't be investigating what happened so as to not make the same mistakes again next time.  They will be find something/anything to nail Trump's hide to the wall.

[Buffalo_Gal]

8 minutes ago, GG said:

 

Italy, Spain & NY are reporting mortality figures that are double the historic trends for these months.  If anything, NY has been undercounting Wuhan related deaths.

 

All "with" becoming "from."  People first noticed it in Italy, and then NYC and Spain. I posted a video of Dr Brix's answer yesterday when asked about it. The US is now doing this.   "With" does not necessarily mean "from" regardless of how the numbers are being cooked.

 

[Deranged Rhino]

50 minutes ago, BullBuchanan said:

We're now up to 500 Benghazi's happening every single day and rising. I wonder how many investigations there will be into the administration in charge.

 

There's what the true hope is. It's not about saving lives, it's about "getting Trump." 

 

Speaking of investigations, how come you're still cowering in fear about having an honest discussion about the last big investigation? Could it be that you're all talk and no game? 

 

Nahhh... that can't be it  

 

 

 

On 4/1/2020 at 9:56 AM, Deranged Rhino said:

@BullBuchanan -- Time for you to show the whole board that you have this whole scandal down, and weren't fooled at all into believing a narrative concocted by the USIC, DNC, and 44's White House. We can do this with civility and we both might end up learning a thing or two -- that is if you got the stones for it. And I hope you do.  

 

 

You contend that the Russians and their proxies interfered in the 2016 election more than the USIC and previous administration. (please correct that if it's inaccurate). I contend that the USIC and its proxies (including 44's administration, the establishment media, and the DNC/HRC campaigns) interfered FAR more, with a more disastrous impact on the country and our civil discourse. That is not to say I'm arguing Russia did nothing, they did, just that what they did was comical (and ineffective) compared to what the USIC did.

 

Only one of these positions can be correct. So let's dig in and see which one holds more merit based on evidence and fact, not opinion and supposition.

 

We'll start with a few simple premises upon which I think we both can agree -- correct any you disagree with:

 

1)The United States Government, especially Langley, has a long history of meddling in the elections of sovereign powers.

2) Anything the Russian intelligence services can do, like meddle in an election, the US intelligence community can do with better funding/training/and efficiency. 

 

Those are two undeniable facts, backed by history, budgets, and their success rates. 

 

The major thrust of the Russian operation into the 2016 election, per three congressional studies and Mueller's own report, was to purchase around $100k of ad buys on Facebook. These ads largely were (sloppy) memes designed to cause division and chaos rather than favoring one party over the other. Ads like these: 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 


 







 
 

 

(spoiler tag added for space purposes)

 

These ads were but a drop in the bucket compared to the almost $1 billion dollar campaign run by the Clinton machine, and an almost equally extravagant Trump campaign. Yet, we are to believe that $100k of (not even targeted) ad buys somehow drowned out close to a billion dollars worth of advertising from the DNC or GOP? To put this in perspective, Bloomberg just ran an all out assault on the digital media space, dropping close to a quarter of a billion dollars in less than three months into the marketplace and he wound up winning... American Samoa. 

 

How did Bloomberg's money do so much less than the Russian 100k? 

 

To underline this point even further, to show how ineffective the Russian campaign was, the Mueller prosecution team was just forced to drop its case against the only Russians Mueller indicted in his two year probe due to faulty evidence and specious legal arguments. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/16/us/politics/concord-case-russian-interference.html

 

The only way you could argue that Russia interfered/meddled in the election more than our own government is if you were to take the position that they did more than just Facebook ads -- something not even Mueller, Congress, or the FBI ever could prove after several years. If you have something more they did, please share. If not -- then you have to see that your position is already weaker than you'd like to admit. 

 

Of course, proving Russia was ineffective in their attempts to interfere is only half the discussion. The other half lies in proving that the USIC and its proxies interfered in a more dastardly and demonstrable fashion. And I can do that, with reams of evidence to back it up. But it's best to start slow, and start at the very beginning of this whole scandal. With a primary source document I'm willing to bet you've never seen or even heard about: 

 

This is a declassified FISC Opinion memo from Justice Collyer. It was declassified in April of 2017 by DNI Coats, and was originally compiled in the fall of 2016 at the height of the campaign. It's a 99 page document I recommend reading in full, but for the sake of expediency and this conversation, pages 82-84 of the document itself cut to the heart of the matter and will, in time, show you where the whole "Russia narrative" actually began.

https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/icotr/51117/2016_Cert_FISC_Memo_Opin_Order_Apr_2017.pdf

 

This document discusses an audit of the FISC and multiple illegal intrusions into the 702 program from within the FBI and DOJ for at least four years prior to 2016. These intrusions and abuses of the 702 program paint a picture of gross criminal conduct which was routinely carried out by the highest levels of the FBI and DOJ under 44. This matter came to the FISC's attention in September of 2016 when then head of NSA, Admiral Rogers (an Obama appointee), noticed an alarming rise in the number of illegal 702 queries being conducted by private contractors (not FBI or DOJ personnel) without the proper warrant or oversight. 

 

(Page 82): "NSA examined all queries using identifiers for 'U.S. persons targeted pursuant to Sections 704 and 705(b) of FISA using the [REDACTED/Likely X-Keyscore] tool in [REDACTED]... from November 1, 2015 to May 1, 2016." Id. at 2-3 (footnote omitted). Based on that examination, "NSA estimates that approximately eighty-five percent of those queries, representing [REDACTED] queries conducted by approximately [REDACTED] targeted offices, were not compliant with the applicable minimization procedures." Id. at 3. Many of these non-compliant queries involved the use of the same identifiers over different date ranges. Id. Even so, a non-compliance rate of 85% raises substantial questions about the propriety of using of [REDACTED / likely X-Keyscore] to query FISA data. While the government reports that it is unable to provide a reliable estimate of the number of non-compliant queries since 2012, id., there is no apparent reason to believe the November 2015-April 2016 period coincided with an unusually high error rate."

(Emphasis my own) 

 

In order to understand what this document is discussing, it's important to understand how the FISC works, what the 702 program is, and what powers the DOJ NSD and FBI CID hold in their respective agencies. It's also important to know what a Title I FISA warrant is, how it works, and how they're granted. Once you do understand these elements (and I'm happy to walk you through any of them that you may have questions about), this document becomes quite chilling. It's laying out how there were ROUTINE abuses in the most invasive, and powerful, surveillance tools within the USIC by unauthorized private contractors working for the FBI and DOJ -- so much so that 85 percent of the searches were deemed illegal by the FISC and NSA both.

 

This is a MAJOR scandal for the Obama administration, breaking in the early spring (April) of 2016 when Rogers first told the DOJ/FBI that the NSA was doing an audit on their 702 queries. The type of scandal that would bring down his entire legacy if it were to come out, and detonate much of the party's leadership. Even bigger, there's every reason to believe these kinds of abuses were happening in 43's administration as well, meaning this scandal was a threat to not only Obama, but the entire establishment GOP and DNC as well. It quite literally was an existential crisis for the most powerful politicians and gov't employees in the country. And you, likely, never heard boo about it. 

 

The information and data contained within the 702 program, and available through tools like X-Keyscore, is the mother lode if one were ever inclined to apply pressure or to blackmail a political rival (or private citizen). Obama ran on a platform of reducing the security state, of stopping these sorts of abuses of our 4th amendment rights. I know this because it's why I voted for him twice. Yet, here is Admiral Rogers, in the spring of 2016, exposing that (once again) the Obama administration's word meant dick. They weren't only expanding the surveillance state (doubling its size in 8 years), they were routinely running illegal searches on private citizens for the purposes of blackmail and extortion. How it works is easy -- need to make sure a vote goes your way, or an appeals judge rules in your favor? Check his digital footprint, find his secrets, and exploit them to get him to comply with your wishes. This was so routine it was almost SOP from 2012-2016 at least.

 

Admiral Rogers not only knew this, and had the evidence with this audit -- he was demanding the DOJ and FBI leadership (Comey, McCabe, and others) to explain all their illegal searches to the FISC. That put these powerful people in serious legal peril. These were egregious violations of the constitution and their oaths of office. Decades in prison awaited them all if they weren't able to adequately explain their illegal activity. And they knew they couldn't explain it without admitting to further crimes. They were, quite literally, fukkked. A massive scandal which threatened to take out all of establishment DC in one massive media explosion was hanging over their heads like the sword of Damocles. 

 

At the time this was breaking, early spring of 2016 (March/April), there was ZERO talk in the media about Trump/Russia. It was not a story. It wasn't even a blip on the radar. In fact, the only discussions about Russia at the time were coming from the Clinton campaign while discussing her platform on what to do in Syria. She was taking the position (with her neoliberal handlers) to implement No Fly zones in Syria. Which sounds great, until you understand that in order to enforce those No-Fly zones would require US pilots to drop bombs on Russian AA sites in the region and kill Russian troops along the way.

 

In other words, the only Russia news peculating was HRC's desire to start a war against them over Syria. 

 

There was no talk of Trump and Putin. 

 

There was no dossier. 

 

There was nothing... just a massive scandal uncovered by Obama's own NSA director which threatened to not only expose the Obama administration for unparalleled civil liberty abuses, but threatened to take down Clinton and the Bushes in the crossfire. 

 

A change in the narrative was needed. 

 

That's why, just 24 hours after Rogers alerted the DOJ and FBI to his audit, President Obama met alone in the Oval Office with Mary Jacoby -- the wife of Glenn Simpson. Within 72 hours of that meeting, the DNC had hired Simpson's oppo-research shop, Fusion GPS, who then went and hired Christopher Steele. All within days of Roger's move. This isn't speculation, it's proven with White House visitor logs. 

 

... Then, within about a month, the Russia narrative began to gestate. 

 

This is the starting point to a much larger conversation. It's not opinion. It's backed by years of research, first hand interviews, and primary source material. 

 

 

[GG]

6 minutes ago, Magox said:

 

Right, but that is assuming we do nothing...Which is not what happened anywhere.  Some places may have been late to the game (NY) and I don't blame NY because who could have truly made the decision to shut down the entire city off of just a few community infection cases?  

 

But, I thought you were making the argument that if the Virus were to spread more in the U.S that it would end up being like Italy and Spain?  With the heightened awareness that there now exists, I would put the odds of the rest of the U.S looking like Italy and Spain's mortality, infection and fatality rate per capita at below 1%.

 

My concern is how we get back to normal and if people get complacent about this thing, even with the increased awareness.

 

 

[Franco_92]

 

[shoshin]

14 minutes ago, Doc Brown said:

My concern is getting back to a functioning society again when these restrictions are lifted.  There's not really a plan for that yet despite the short term optimism of the curve flattening due to social distancing.

 

My biggest concern too. And we can't have a state-by-state plan where NYS opens fully and PA stays shut down because that just messes up PA. It has to be centrally managed and agreed to. The crowd here hates talk of a national plan, so let's just say the all the governors cede their decisions on this to a central power to organize them coming out of this. Whatever you want to call it. It just cannot be state by state. 

[Magox]

3 minutes ago, shoshin said:

 

Rural America is currently seeing a rise in deaths/1000 at a similar rate as urban areas. It has just taken longer to get there. 

 

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/08/us/coronavirus-rural-america-cases.html

 

No part of America is immune to this, except those that change their actions dramatically. 

 

I just provided the numbers.  They can say whatever they want to say, the facts are the facts.

[Deranged Rhino]

2 minutes ago, reddogblitz said:

 

If Trump wins there will be plenty.  But they won't be investigating what happened so as to not make the same mistakes again next time.  They will be find something/anything to nail Trump's hide to the wall.

 

That was what the FBI/Mueller did with Russia... They weren't looking for evidence of collusion/conspiracy because they knew it didn't happen. They were using the investigation as a pretext to get the surveillance tools and warrants needed to sift through Trump and his entire team's lives for any crimes they could pin on him. 

 

... And they came back empty. Because unlike his counterparts in DC, Trump is clean.

[Doc]

2 minutes ago, reddogblitz said:

If Trump wins there will be plenty.  But they won't be investigating what happened so as to not make the same mistakes again next time.  They will be find something/anything to nail Trump's hide to the wall.

 

You mean "try to find."  But fail, like they've been doing.  If they had anything, they would have won by now.

[Nanker]

16 minutes ago, GG said:

 

Italy, Spain & NY are reporting mortality figures that are double the historic trends for these months.  If anything, NY has been undercounting Wuhan related deaths.

 

We can go back, but personal habits will absolutely have to change.  Forget about hugs and shaking hands for a while.  Washing hands whenever you see a faucet.

And wearing masks. Must wear a mask. 

10 minutes ago, Doc Brown said:

That's the part that scares me as old habits die hard.

Common man. You get a mask too!

[GG]

5 minutes ago, Buffalo_Gal said:

All "with" becoming "from."  People first noticed it in Italy, and then NYC and Spain. I posted a video of Dr Brix's answer yesterday when asked about it. The US is now doing this.   "With" does not necessarily mean "from" regardless of how the numbers are being cooked.

 

 

Then you can make the same argument about flu-related deaths.  

[Magox]

5 minutes ago, GG said:

 

My concern is how we get back to normal and if people get complacent about this thing, even with the increased awareness.

 

 

 

Well, it should be a concern.  And we will have to see what plan they come up with.  But keep in mind, and i have said this probably like 10 times here already.  The Federal government will only provide guidance.  Ultimately it will be up to the states to put in their rules based around the guidance but they actually have enforcement mechanisms.  Then it's up to the companies if they feel comfortable enough to open up.  Then, it will be up to the citizens if they want to show up to work.  If the populous doesn't feel somewhat comfortable with it, then you will see a lot of people staying home.

 

But a one-size-fits-all strategy is not prudent.  Every state has their own internal dynamics and they will be the ones laying it out more so in detail.

[Foxx]

1 hour ago, B-Man said:

 

"... in Pennsylvania, cases are skyrocketing at the rate of a thousand a day..."

 

im'a go out on a limb here and say that, even at this time of year the regular flu dwarfs these numbers.

[Gary M]

16 minutes ago, Doc Brown said:

That's the part that scares me as old habits die hard.

 

My personal habits changed a while ago, I was in a Ponderosa in Geneva NY, went to the restroom and someone from one of the stalls finished their business and walked out without washing. I was turned off by buffets for a long time after that.

 

Now if I do go to buffet, finger foods are first, then I go wash my hands and hit the rest of the buffet. Sometimes I even use a napkin to touch the serving utensils.

 

I hardly ever get sick anymore, have had a couple of cases of food poisoning, one was an under cooked egg roll at a Chinese restaurant in Leroy and the other was K of C in Geneva.

 

I did have a rare form of salmonella once as a teenager, put me in Hospital for a week. I figure if that didn't kill me nothing will.

[3rdnlng]

2 hours ago, Gene Frenkle said:

Gone? It's going to be bad, but isn't that a bit dramatic?

No, it isn't. Much like Camelot our country is an idea, not a piece of ground. If we lose the Idea then we are no longer exceptional. If we are no longer exceptional then we become just another developed country without direction and will soon become China's minion. 

 

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

 

 

 

 

[SoCal Deek]

I'm out here in California and Governor Newsom just finished his daily press conference. He takes calls from phone-in reporters.  One piece of crap journalist gal tried to coax him into dumping on the Federal government's response and support and he simply refused to do it. He more or less scolded the 'reporter'.  I was super impressed! In fact he praised the coordination. Never been a big Newsom fan, but at least he understands that now is not the time for this junior high nonsense!  Somebody get the memo to the media.....please.

[Foxx]

1 hour ago, GG said:

 

I'm not arguing today's stats.  I'm projecting what will happen if this thing spreads across the country and starts hitting areas that are generally older and not as healthy.

what is happening in Florida?

[billsfan1959]

Just now, SoCal Deek said:

I'm out here in California and Governor Newsom just finished his daily press conference. He takes calls from phone-in reporters.  One piece of crap journalist gal tried to coax him into dumping on the Federal government's response and support and he simply refused to do it. He more or less scolded the 'reporter'.  I was super impressed! In fact he praised the coordination. Never been a big Newsom fan, but at least he understands that now is not the time for this junior high nonsense!  Somebody get the memo to the media.....please.

 

Not a fan of Newsom; however, he has been one of the few Governors (D) that kept the political rhetoric to a minimum and actually tried to work with Trump - and Trump reciprocated in kind.

[Nanker]

3 minutes ago, Gary M said:

 

My personal habits changed a while ago, I was in a Ponderosa in Geneva NY, went to the restroom and someone from one of the stalls finished their business and walked out without washing. I was turned off by buffets for a long time after that.

 

Now if I do go to buffet, finger foods are first, then I go wash my hands and hit the rest of the buffet. Sometimes I even use a napkin to touch the serving utensils.

 

I hardly ever get sick anymore, have had a couple of cases of food poisoning, one was an under cooked egg roll at a Chinese restaurant in Leroy and the other was K of C in Geneva.

 

I did have a rare form of salmonella once as a teenager, put me in Hospital for a week. I figure if that didn't kill me nothing will.

Warm buffets can be a real danger zone. Rice in particular. It can have bacillus Cereus. https://www.livescience.com/65374-bacillus-cereus-fried-rice-syndrome.html
Many people thought they were sick from MSG. Not so. Improperly stored and heated rice was likely the culprit. 

[Foxx]

49 minutes ago, GG said:

 

The rest of the country is benefiting from the March 13 shutdown.  If that didn't happen, most US large cities would be going through NY experience right now.

it is hard to prove a negative.