What am I missing here? Or . . . what is Biden missing.?
Talk of character from the likes of Schiff?
“Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” former Vice President Joe Biden said President Donald Trump should have stopped air travel from China sooner than he did to fight the coronavirus pandemic by saying 45 nations had already blocked “China personnel from being able to come to the United States.”
How did “45 nations” block China personnel from being able to come to the United States??? (nowhere have I seen any explanation of a possible source for this ridiculous charge by the pathetic “Sleepy” one.) dlh
Biden’s statement is completely false. 45 other nations did not “block China’s personnel from being able to come to the United States before the president moved.”
Later in the interview, Biden reversed course and claimed that shutting down borders was not an effective way of preventing the spread of the disease.
Claims Trump is ‘retaliating against his political enemies’ in “the dead of night”?!
On Friday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “The Last Word,” House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) reacted to the firing of Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson by stating President Trump is “retaliating against people that are on his enemies list and doing it in the dead of night” as people are dying. Schiff stated, “We’re in the middle of a pandemic, and what is this president doing, as thousands of people are dying? He is retaliating against people that are on his enemies list and doing it in the dead of night. This is just another showing of the character or the lack of character of this president.
Why would any respectable news source ever hire an idiot like this to ‘report’ on news events?
Watch the video…it’s instructive. And the mainstream media claims that ‘social media’ (blogs like Veritaspac) are not reliable in passing along accurate reporting. dlh
——-
“… Reporter Asks President Trump About Shutting Down Grocery Stores to Stop Spread of Coronavirus – So We All Can Starve” (VIDEO)
President Trump on Sunday held another Coronavirus press conference.
A … reporter actually asked President Trump about shutting down grocery stores and fast food joints.
“So why even have a few businesses open? Why don’t they shut everything down? Groceries stores are open, fast food places — why even take a little chance? Just shut all of it down temporarily,” the reporter said.
Free the population from government house arrest as soon as possible and put a stop to the globalists’ attempted reset of the economy.
JUDI McLeod is a favorite columnist of mine. I don’t find her to be as shrill as some writers on the ‘ far right’. And her columns always seem to be backed up by solid research.
This particular column is disturbing to me.
In it Ms. McLeod is citing Deborah Birx, MD, a member of President Trump’s task force addressing the Coronavirus pandemic, and a regular spokesperson/expert on Trump’s daily briefings on the disease, as being a part of the ‘globalist movement’ that seeks to bring down the Trump presidency and eliminate America’s nation sovereignty.
It happens that, of the ‘experts’ appearing regularly on the briefings, Dr. Birx is one in whom I have had the most confidence. I’ve appreciated her candor and the way in which she humbly presents her findings and the data on which they are based in language most of us laypersons can understand. More than most ‘experts’ we hear from these days, she acknowledges the possibilities of error in even the best data models .
In her column, Judi McLeod raises some issues and questions about Dr. Birx, however, and about several of the medical and epidemiology experts Trump has assembled to aid him in dealing with this horrific virus which is sweeping the world in the most terrible way.
McLeod’s warnings and doubts that she raises in her piece are troubling and most certainly deserving of some very intensive journalistic inquiry: dlh
From the Canada Free Press:
– “For the sake of the survival of the entire Western World, hope and pray that the staged living corona virus nightmare currently going on doesn’t go over the president’s head: It appears that the medical scientists leading the White House Task Force may be working toward a total reset of the world economy.
– “Doctor Deborah Birx is not just the scarf-adorned lady scientist politely duking it out with reporters at your daily Task Force pressers, she sits on the board of the Bill and Melinda Gates Global Fund and has since 2014.
– “Birx was appointed by President Barack Obama as America’s Ambassador at Large and U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator in April of 2014, and according to the WayBack Machine by May 20, 2014 was appointed to the board of The Global Fund.
(Note: For us, any one who has a position with impact on White House policy-thinking, and was ‘appointed to a post by’ President Obama, sends up a bright red flag! Bold is our emphasis) continuing from Canada Free Press:
– “Both mainstream and social media have patently ignored an April 2nd Gateway Pundit story written by Cristina Laila revealing that The IHME (Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation) model for the Coronavirus the White House is relying on is “complete garbage.”:
– ‘It Predicted 121,000 Americans Hospitalized by yesterday; Actual Number…31,142’. (Gateway Pundit, April 2, 2020).
“The US economy has been virtually shut down, unemployment spiked and small businesses are on the verge of shuttering based on faulty projections.
“The IHME model is using New York and New Jersey data and applying it to the rest of the US.
“It predicted that over 121,000 Americans would be hospitalized yesterday (Wednesday) over the Coronavirus, Sean Davis of The Federalist said.
“The actual number? 31,142.
“For example, the IHME model predicted 1,716 people in Texas would be hospitalized yesterday from the Coronavirus, but the actual number of Texans hospitalized is 196.
“In Georgia, the IHME model predicted that as of yesterday, 2,777 people would have been hospitalized due to the Coronavirus.
– “This is down from the 1.7 million American deaths predicted by a key UK scientist which sent the entire country into panic mode.
“Millions and millions of Americans are going to lose their jobs, their homes and their savings.
“These so-called “experts” owe the American public an explanation and not just ever-changing models to terrify the masses.”
“Numbers about COVID-19 victims are starting to add up to suspicion.” (Canada Free Press, April 3, 2020)
In every major news event cell phone videos invariably materialize. Every shooting, fire, earthquake, tornado. Where are the videos of the hospitals being overwhelmed with patients?
Something is creepy wrong and very scary about this:
Looks like we’re all being had, Mr. President
“Creepy how both Dr. Anthony Fauci and Bill Gates had some kind of crystal ball to see the arrival of COVID-19 on the watch of President Trump:
— “WHOA! Dr. Fauci in 2017: President Trump Will Be Challenged By a “Surprise Global Disease Outbreak” (Gateway Pundit, April 3, 2019)
Pardon us while we ridicule Cuomo, the Dems latest savior
Untouched but not retouched photos
From a couple of days ago in the NY Post (Cuomo’s spokesperson in response to questions as to whether “does he or doesn’t he” . . . says “of course not” — meant to add “who ya gunna believe me, or your lying eyes?”
Now in our humble opinion this goombah (meant in its most affectionate way of course) is trying to show them off. Who would wear a shirt that clings like that for any innocent reason . . .? What a goofball.
From the NY Post:
Andrew Cuomo looks like he’s ready for action — at a Jersey Shore nightclub.
The governor set the internet on fire Tuesday with wild speculation that two bizarre protrusions seen poking out from under his shirt were actually nipple rings.
Twitter and Reddit users furiously debated just what was going on under Cuomo’s official white polo — but his spokesman threw a big bucket of cold water on the idea that the 62-year-old public servant was into some wild piercing.
“Of course not, sorry, internet,” senior aide Rich Azzopardi told The Post.
The denial came after users, keeping abreast of the gov’s daily coronavirus briefings, spotted the apparent jewelry through his “State of Emergency” shirt.
“Is it just me or is Cuomo’s nipple totally pierced?,” read one tweet on Saturday, which turned into a Reddit thread that attempted to get to the bottom of the issue.
“There’s definitely something going on under there,” one user wrote, with another dubbing the possible piercings “the single greatest discovery by humanity.”
“If it is, I like him even more.”
Some cyber-sleuths tried to find alternate theories, like maybe Cuomo tapes his nipples to prevent chafing, or that they are unusually shaped.
Or maybe it was just a bit nippy that day.
Bernie Bro disappointed, was all in for Bernie, and then Cuomo upsets his thought processes
Fellow New Yorker when asked if Cuomo has them “well duh”
Excerpts from a segment from Rush’s program today. In coming days we will expand on this and what some of the implications are to the way the virus is being fought. Bold our emphasis
RUSH: I’ve been chomping at the bit to get here ever since last night, folks, and we’re finally here. EIB, Open Line Friday. Let us get started.
So I was just watching Fox here, their Outnumbered show, and David Asman, who I really admire, one of the people on the show. And, by the way, folks, I’m very happy, there are a lot of people — well, not a lot. There are an increasing number of people beginning to pick up my refrain: When is this gonna end? This is not sustainable. This uncertainty cannot go on. What is the future? Where are we looking? When are we looking at reopening?
And David Asman just said that he wants to hear from Dr. Fauci when we’re gonna be able to. Dr. Fauci? Folks, if it’s left up to Dr. Fauci, we’re not gonna reopen ’til a year from September. We’re not gonna open until we get a vaccine, if it’s left up to Dr. Fauci. We didn’t elect Dr. Fauci. Everybody has a lot of admiration for Dr. Fauci. He’s 79 years old, he’s been at the National Institutes of Health, he was instrumental in overcoming the medical blockade that was killing so many people from AIDS and HIV. He’s done great work, don’t misunderstand. But we didn’t elect Dr. Fauci, and Dr. Fauci’s not the guy that ought to be the one determining when we reopen the economy. And we are going to have to do this.
The jobs report is in. The U.S. economy lost a total of 701,000 jobs in March. And I hate to tell you, the Drive-By Media is crowing about it. You watch them report it, and you almost get the impression they’re happy about it. And it just burns me. I’m gonna have to go a long way in exercising some discipline and self-control today, because there’s just a lot of stuff that is beginning to really trouble me.
For example, these briefings. The briefings are great. They have been great. But you know what? There’s a sense of permanence setting in on these briefings. And it is obvious that the people in these briefings love the process of the briefings. And we’re not hearing anything about the end of any of this in the briefings. The briefings continue to be focused on the apocalyptic nature of the virus. Apocalyptic nature of the virus. Governor Cuomo’s briefing just concluded. His was wide-ranging, but it also was a focus on the apocalyptic nature.
So you want some facts? Here’s some facts. We’ve now surpassed 6,000 deaths. The ballpark number right now, because it’s a moving number, 6,550 deaths; 700,000 jobs lost. That’s as of now, about 100 jobs lost for every death nationwide from the virus. Now, most of the deaths, not all, most of the deaths are of elderly people, people that have underlying health issues or a combination of both. I don’t know how many of the deaths are people, say, working at grocery stores or gas station attendants, liquor store clerks, people working for essential businesses. I don’t know what the death rate is among people working at essential businesses. But it doesn’t seem to be reported to be very high.
So 6,550 deaths; 700,000 jobs lost. Here’s NBC News and the way they’ve reported it. And literally, folks, they are crowing about this, because it’s bad for Trump. In their minds, anything bad for Trump is good. Now, by the way, these unemployment numbers are not as bad as most of them were hoping. They were hoping for worse. In fact, unemployment only went up to 4.4%. Do you realize how much worse off we’d be if there had not been the three years of a roaring economy from 2017 to the present, that cushion? I’m not kidding.
There were media people reporting/hoping that the unemployment rate would reach 15% to 20%. But despite that, despite the percentage number, the economy lost 700,000 jobs. And NBC is saying that this number only represents the tip of the iceberg, and they added that the worst is yet to come. And I swear, I think they were excited. As journalists get excited by bad news, by doom and gloom, the worst is yet to come.
Let me read to you from the NBC article. “Economists and market participants are in agreement that the April jobs report will better illustrate the havoc wreaked by the coronavirus on the workforce. Some economists are predicting the employment number could be as high as 20 million.” Okay. When I came back to this program on Monday, one of the things that I immediately zeroed in on was the models and how I was made nervous by them, the models that were projecting 2.2 million dead if we didn’t do anything. Then they projected between a hundred thousand and 200,000 dead. And then they upped it to 240,000. We’ve never met the modelers. We’ve heard their names in some case, but the modelers have never shown up at a briefing to explain their work.
On Wednesday after the dire death models were touted at the White House briefing, I again commented that all we keep getting is this modeling data and wouldn’t it be great if the people doing the modeling actually showed up to explain it. Well, guess what? I have two stories today.
The Washington Post has a story where the modelers now think these numbers are too high. The modelers have gone to the Washington Post to say that they don’t think these numbers are accurate, meaning the 240,000. We know the 2.2 million number is not accurate because that was if we hadn’t done anything, no social distancing, no mitigation. But they’re saying now that the 200,000 to 240,000 death number is not accurate, the very modelers who gave us these – (interruption) Oh, you don’t believe me? Well, let me share with you a couple of headlines here. “Experts and Trump’s Advisers Doubt White House’s 240,000 Coronavirus Deaths Estimate.” White House? White House? See how this is working? Experts, Trump Advisers Doubt.
So they put out this number — 200,000, 240,000 deaths — earlier in the week. Now they come along and say, “The Trump White House is wrong!” Well, the Trump White House relied — along with Dr. Birx and Dr. Fauci — on the models, which I had a bad feeling about from the get-go. I could play you the audio sound bites of me from Monday and Tuesday if you want.
A second story: “Trump Officials Privately Question White House Coronavirus Death Toll Estimate.” The Washington Post and TheHill.com. Two stories — and I’ll tell you what I think this is. I think the media may be trying to set the table to deny Trump credit for lower fatalities. Look, everybody knows how bureaucrats work. You give us a worst-case scenario, 2.2 million but it ain’t gonna be there — a hundred thousand, 240,000.
Then the deaths come in at, say, 60,000 to 80,000, they say, “Oh, my goodness. We were so wonderful! Look at it! Look at it! We lowered the death toll with our social distancing” or whatever. But in the same time here, I think they’re trying to deny Trump credit for the lower failures and all bureaucrats are gonna try to claim here. . . .
(referencing a friend who he has been in communication with)
He lives in Chicago; I met him years and years and years ago. When I met him, his family was very Chicago liberal. He was apolitical, but he followed along with the family. He knew who I was. We became friends. I got two emails from him last night. Normally, I would keep this to myself, but this really profoundly affected me, and it reminded me why I do what I do.
“Rush, . . .
“You ought to have a live ticker of all the people who have recovered from the virus and survived it. All these media companies are salivating over reporting the devastation of our lives that we have worked endless hours and made immeasurable sacrifices to build. This is the greatest country in the world. You are the only person who seems to be fighting for our way of life.
“I’m gonna continue to write these emails to you because it’s therapeutic for me, and if my emails are annoying, feel free to say, ‘Chill out,’ and I’ll go away. On the positive side, I’ve become a hell of a teacher for my kids. I’ve loved being able to be around them lately. Stay healthy. Keep fighting.”
So I replied — I thanked him — and he sent back another email. This was the follow-up: “Rush, it’s insane. I could go on for hours. It’s driving me crazy. If I end up having to sell my house in a horrible market or if I can’t pay my taxes because of this, I’m gonna have to tell my kids it was because Americans were shamed into becoming Europeans. . . . .
It’s unsustainable, and I am worried for everybody in this circumstance. I know we have got these bailout and aid packages, but the money is not gonna get to the people as fast they’re trying to get it to people, and there’s some really great work being done in that area. Mnuchin opened the briefing yesterday and was great. He’s gonna try to maintain viability for small businesses, keep payrolls open even when the businesses are closed.
It’s a tremendous objective, and it’s a great effort It’s gonna require a lot of logistical coordination, and I really hope they pull it off. But it still is a really scary thing, and I’ve been through it when the economy was roaring. I’ve been through it in the 1980s, when I was the only one not doing well or one of few not doing well. I’ve experienced it all. I can relate to it.
I know how frightening it is. I know how it’ll tax your self-esteem. I know how it makes you feel worthlessness. I’ve been through all of it. And I despise it, I hate it — and when it’s not necessary, it frustrates me even more. As I say, there are a couple of people now writing, “Hey,” one in New York, “Governor Cuomo, can you start talking about when this is gonna end instead of just the daily apocalypse?
. . .
This is from the Washington Examiner: “Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Biggs…” The Freedom Caucus is a conservative group in the Republican caucus in the House of Representatives. “Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Biggs: Get America Back to Work.” Amen!
Let me give a couple pull quotes. “We are crippling our economy and witnessing the destruction of the life savings of entrepreneurs and investors who have created small and medium-sized businesses. At least 10 million workers have lost their jobs over the past two weeks. Friday’s jobs report showed that the unemployment rate worsened by almost a full percentage point in March, and it’s only likely to get worse.
“A quarter of small businesses say they’re close to closing, so millions more workers are expected to be unemployed in the weeks and months ahead. … Currently, state and local governments are attempting to determine what businesses are essential. In the process, they are wiping out the soul of the American economy.” Congressman Biggs says, “It’s time for a new approach, one that values and protects all life.”
Folks, this is not a debate about life versus money, lives versus money. This is lives versus lives. The debate we are having in this country… Don’t let anybody tell you this is about money versus lives. It’s not. It’s about lives versus lives. We’re telling people, “Your work is essential; yours isn’t. Yours is essential; yours isn’t. Yours is essential; yours isn’t. You get to go to work; you get to get paid. You don’t.”
That’s lives versus lives, and that is not good. “We must give hope to the public and set forth a plan to reopen the economy…” Exactly! Get rid of this uncertainty. There needs to be a light at the end of the tunnel. We must announce “a plan to reopen the economy and remove oppressive government restrictions. Right now, the cure is proving worse than the disease itself.”
Thank you, Congressman Biggs. I know I’m not alone in this. Don’t misunderstand. Even John Podhoretz, a Never Trumper extraordinaire, is writing today about Andrew Cuomo. The headline: “Please, Andrew Cuomo — Give Us Some Reason to Hope During Coronavirus Isolation … By which I mean: We better be flattening the curve. …
“So far,” Governor Cuomo, “we are cooperative and uncomplaining, because we understand that we are part of an effort to keep our health system from collapsing under the weight of excessive numbers of COVID-19 sufferers — which matters to us far more, by the way, than the fear we might catch it.
“But here’s the problem, and it’s something our newly and nationally celebrated governor, and others … need to be aware of. They have to give us reason to believe that this period … has been of value.” They need to give us reason that this is gonna end. “That isn’t coming through during the governor’s daily news conferences.”
What’s coming through is love of process. People are falling in love with the permanence of this. People are not necessary falling in love; people are starting to accept the permanence of this. This ought not be permanent in anybody’s mind. Everybody involved in this ought to have as their primary objective ending this and putting this country back to work. Why isn’t that at the forefront? We can walk and chew gum at the same time.
We can have the same concern for the health aspects. We can have that and still have the same concern for the economy, and putting people back to work. Thank you, Congressman Biggs.
Why are food personnel not wearing a mask if the concern is so real?
So we were treated with another breathless coronavirus flash news bit from the QCTimes a few hours ago. This one about the community being “untreated” with the availability of over-the counter ice-cream treats at a local “landmark” enterprise. Permit us to riff off of it:
As of Friday, April 3 at 10:00 p.m. all Whitey’s stores will be closing temporarily. As much as we would love to stay open and continue serving the Quad Cities, we are closing out of an abundance of caution to ensure that our employees are staying healthy and safe at home during this time. This does not affect Whitey’s availability at grocery stores at this time.
The decision to close was not an easy one and we know the road ahead is uncertain, but we want to thank you all for your constant support over the years.
We will continue to provide updates on our social channels and website, so stay tuned! But in the meantime, we hope everyone stays safe and healthy and that we will be back to doing what we love, serving you ice cream, very soon!
Reading it we see that the management is concerned about the employees of the company. They mention “out of an abundance of caution”. Still their reaction seems strained, however understandable given the hysteria surrounding the outbreak.
One will better understand our critique if you have visited any of the still open eateries of any sort of late. Many have adapted to current heath reg’s by allowing walk-in and carry-out accommodated by “social distancing” interval markings on the floor and “sneeze guards” installed to protect personnel. None permit dining-in under current regulations. Many were already equipped with drive-up service.
Whiteys ice-cream parlors, if they ever did allow it, have mostly eschewed “dining in” although they do provide picnic tables or benches outside. Most people have always carried the delectables into their cars practicing sequestering.
The counters at the Whitey’s facilities already provided built-in distancing for much of the interaction with personnel and product. So for those reasons their closure seems a particularly strained reaction.
Would not a rigorous wipe-down patrol of public contact surfaces have sufficed? Maybe issuing a free cough mask to each entrant if they are that worried? Or is it, as for so many of these decisions, follow the money trail? Is the promise of federal grants contingent on lay-offs and closures? We do not know, and “Whiteys” is one of the good guys – very charitable and all, but the questions arise — how much or many of these decisions are health driven, how valid are the concerns, and how much are they a matter of government enticement versus market driven? We would love for a Whitey’s spokesman to respond and explain further.
Viewing the pictures attached to the QCT article we have a suggestion. Note the hairnets shown in the production of the Whitey’s ice-cream. We have noted that many of the preparation personnel in the outlets wear “ice-cream” hats. Regrettably those are not shown in the QCT pictures. No one wants a hair in their tutti frutti. But why would such a business (any restaurant) not adapt to the virus concerns by requiring a sneeze mask be worn by serving /preparation personnel in order to help stay open and accommodate concerns? Personnel would not look any more goofy and a mask is probably more important in the serving line anyway.
We’re All in This Together…Well, Maybe Not ALL of Us
(These “news” organizations would be the first to complain and criticize Trump for not providing enough information about the government’s efforts to combat the coronavirus pandemic.)
“There have been a lot more empty seats at President Donald Trump’s daily news briefings – but no, news organizations aren’t boycotting the events in protest or attempting to silence him, despite what he suggested at a briefing this week.” (Of course not! Anybody think the Post and Times and NBC would not make every effort to cooperate with and support Trump?)
According to the Washington Post:
“Instead, something else is afoot: Reporters are keeping their distance because they are concerned about the health risks at a time when many consider the president’s evening news conferences to have become increasingly less newsworthy.
“The decision by such outlets as The Washington Post, The New York Times and CNBC to stay away may be fundamentally changing the character of the briefings. With veteran White House reporters on the sidelines, the president has primarily engaged with TV journalists, including one from a small, far-right conservative news channel that rarely gets such a prominent stage.
“The Post, The Times and CNBC stopped sending reporters to the briefings – which have taken place in the Rose Garden as well as the more cramped confines of the West Wing’s James S. Brady Press Briefing Room – after two White House correspondents were suspected of having contracted covid-19, the disease caused by the virus. (One of the reporters, who hasn’t been publicly identified, tested negative on Tuesday, according to ABC News’ Jonathan Karl, the president of the White House Correspondents Association).
“Times Executive Editor Dean Baquet said his organization has withdrawn its reporters from the briefings, both because of health considerations and the uncertain newsworthiness.
Reporters continue to monitor them on TV and report anything worthwhile. (There you go. Their “reporters” will determine what’s “newsworthy”; they’ll even ‘interpret ‘ what is reported in the briefings.)
“Nowadays, it seems they make little news,” he said. “We, of course, reserve the right to show them live [via streaming] if we believe they will actually make news. But that hasn’t happened in quite some time.”
Who wouldn’t want to support a campaign with that for a theme ? dlh
Washington (CNN)New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said America “was never that great” during a speech on Wednesday, drawing criticism…
Cuomo made the comments in the context of a larger argument about gender equality and women achieving their full potential.
“We’re not going to make America great again. It was never that great,” Cuomo, a Democrat, remarked at a bill signing event in New York City. The comment was met by an audible reaction from the crowd.
His comments were a response to President Donald Trump’s campaign catchphrase — “Make America Great Again.”
“We have not reached greatness. We will reach greatness when every American is fully engaged,” Cuomo added. “We will reach greatness when discrimination and stereotyping of women, 51% of our population, is gone, and every woman’s full potential is realized and unleashed and every woman is making her full contribution.”
But never rule anyone out when the leading contender for the Demo nomination is “senile positve” Joe Biden
Via Gary Bauer at Campaign for Working Families:
Carlson’s Prediction
Tucker Carlson is predicting that Joe Biden won’t be the Democrat nominee in November. Carlson said people close to Biden have told him that the former vice president isn’t up to the task of taking on Trump. “He’s not going to make it, and the people around him know it,” Carlson said.
He also predicted that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo was the “most likely” Democrat to replace Biden on the national ticket.
It’s a concern that the ‘pandemic’ has moved everything having to do with the criminal activity of Obama, Brennan, Comey, et al, et al, et al off the news pages. We have not forgotten and dedicate this post to commentary regarding the latest report from Inspector General Horowitz.
The DOJ IG is a disgrace…and we’ve all breathlessly awaited his (whitewash) “call it like it is” report
As regards Former FBI Director “Big Jim” Comey’s a job performance appraisal doesn’t get much worse than this. It seems Big Jim’s self-serving “higher loyalty” should have been a devotion to ‘higher competency’.
But there are two things about the IG’s report for which we can all sit back and “allow things to move along since there really wasn’t all that much to see here:”
1) IG Horowitz, as is his won’t, failed to see, or at least made NO mention that there was any of that dreaded “political bias”, and,
2) Not to worry folks ! FBI Director Wray has it all under control. FBI personnel are being trained to ‘be accurate’, somewhat ‘competent, and, not that they ever were, ‘politically biased’.
Here are some excerpts from the Wall Street Journal’s story on the IG report which was released this week, along with some of our observations:
The IG released its report on the FBI’s FISA performance this week. It was as expected. Unavoidably critical but anxious to file it under “Move on; nothing much to see here”: “The report said investigators didn’t reach any conclusions on whether the errors were material to the applications themselves or would have influenced the court’s decisions to approve the applications.”
Huh!?
Well, we should not worry. FBI Director Chris Wray has everything under control (he’s training FBI personnel to be ‘accurate’, competent and not politically biased; Uh, gee, I wonder why nobody ever thought of that before!):
“FBI officials stressed the agency already was in the process of taking steps to improve its surveillance application process. The “findings underscore the importance of the more than 40 corrective actions that [FBI Director Chris] Wray ordered late last year,”
Missing but implicit (at least to our cynical eye) was the IG’s propensity to be unable to find any ‘political bias’. (The report said investigators didn’t reach any conclusions on whether the errors were material to the applications themselves or would have influenced the court’s decisions to approve the applications. The report did say the pattern “undermines the FBI’s ability to achieve its ‘scrupulously accurate’ standard for FISA applications.”)
More highlights from the WSJ ‘story’, “”FBI WIRETAP REQUESTS SHOW PERSISTENT FLAWS” (bold our emphasis):
“More than two dozen Federal Bureau of Investigation applications to monitor Americans suspected of having links to foreign intelligence or terrorism had errors in their files, a Justice Department watchdog said, representing 100% of the sampling of applications he examined.
“The results point to widespread problems at the FBI, including sloppy recordkeeping by case agents, and indicate the shortcomings aren’t limited to those previously found in the highly scrutinized requests to surveil for former Trump campaign aide Carter Page.
“The report said investigators found facts in all 25 applications that were either not supported, not clearly corroborated or inconsistent with documentation in factual-support files, though it didn’t look at the broader case file for such information. It said the review had found an average of 20 issues per application, with as many as 65 issues in one, and fewer than five in another.”
The results point to widespread problems at the FBI, including sloppy recordkeeping by case agents, and indicate the shortcomings aren’t limited to those previously found in the highly scrutinized requests to surveil for former Trump campaign aide Carter Page.
In a report released Tuesday, the Justice Department’s inspector general said he discovered “apparent errors or inadequately supported facts” in the files meant to provide factual support for the information cited in the 25 secret applications. Those requests sought wiretapping authority from a special court under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, a law that is the subject of pointed debate in Congress.
The findings follow a December report in which the watchdog found a series of errors in the FBI’s pursuit of a wiretap against Mr. Page, a former Trump foreign-policy adviser.
In four additional applications, the FBI couldn’t locate the files of factual support, the report said.
Applications were reviewed across eight FBI field offices that involved surveillance on Americans related to counterintelligence or counterterrorism investigations between October 2014 and September 2019, it said.
FBI officials stressed the agency already was in the process of taking steps to improve its surveillance application process. The “findings underscore the importance of the more than 40 corrective actions that [FBI Director Chris] Wray ordered late last year,” the FBI’s associate deputy director Paul Abbate wrote in response to the new report.
But some privacy advocates said the new findings vindicated their views that problems with FISA are systemic—rather than evidence of bias against President Trump and his campaign, as Mr. Trump has suggested—and far broader than the public knows due to a lack of rigorous independent oversight.
“If an application as sensitive as Page’s had serious problems, it was highly likely there were going to be issues elsewhere,” Jake Laperruque, senior counsel at Project on Government Oversight and a former Senate aide who worked on surveillance issues.
In particular, the review found that the FBI hadn’t adhered to a set of internal standards, known as the Woods Procedures, that were adopted in 2001 to better safeguard against FISA application abuses. Those procedures—designed to ensure the accuracy of facts represented in FISA applications—have long been cited by the FBI to answer concerns of potential privacy abuses in the secretive surveillance system that was established more than 40 years ago.
“We do not have confidence that the FBI has executed its Woods Procedures in compliance with FBI policy,” the report said.
MAYBE ‘BIG JIM’ COMEY MIGHT WANT TO MAKE SOME REVISIONS TO HIS BOOK, “A HIGHER LOYALTY”.
POWERLINE sees it about the same way we do
DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report “helps the FBI politically because it undercuts the narrative among President Trump and his supporters that the bureau cut corners to surveil the adviser, Carter Page, as part of a politically motivated conspiracy.”
Eli Lake takes a look at the latest Department of Justice Inspector General report on the rot at the FBI in the Bloomberg column “The FBI Can’t Be Trusted With the Surveillance of Americans.” Subhead: “An inspector general report finds that the bureau has been systematically unscrupulous.” I posted a copy of Horowitz’s OIG “memorandum” hereyesterday.
It is not hard to believe how pervasive the rot at the FBI is, but the Horowitz memo should serve as a call to action and to the administration of justice in the matter of Donald Trump. However, that is not quite how it is being received. Lake writes, for example, that we have “a system that relies almost exclusively on the FBI being scrupulous with its facts. [Yet] Horowitz’s findings show that the bureau has been systematically unscrupulous.” Eli doesn’t call out the New York Times, but the Times is Exhibit A of what he calls “the twisted politics of the Trump era.” How twisted? This twisted:
In the twisted politics of the Trump Era, some of bureau’s defenders might actually view this report as good news: It shows that the investigation of the Trump campaign was not necessarily politically motivated. The bureau made the same kinds of mistakes with suspects who were not connected to the Trump campaign.
That’s hardly reassuring — and the malpractice that the report uncovers is a much larger problem than the FBI and its defenders may wish to admit. So far, the response to Horowitz’s December report has been a series of administrative reforms, such as a requirement that FBI field offices preserve their “Woods files” and a mandate for new FISA training for FBI lawyers and agents. That’s all well and good. But one need not go back to the bad old days of J. Edgar Hoover to see that the bureau has been careless in its monitoring of U.S. citizens.
The Woods procedures were issued in 2001 after Congress obtained a memo from the FBI’s counterterrorism division detailing surveillance abuse in the late 1990s. One target’s cell phone remained tapped after he gave it up and the number was reassigned to a different person. Another FBI field office videotaped a meeting, despite a clear prohibition on that technique in its FISA warrant. In 2003, an interim report from the Senate Judiciary Committee concluded that the 2001 memo showed “the FBI was experiencing more systemic problems related to the implementation of FISA orders” than a problem with the surveillance law itself.
Very little has changed in the intervening 17 years. That’s why it’s foolish to expect new and better procedures will work this time. A better approach would be an aggressive policy to prosecute FBI agents and lawyers who submit falsehoods to the surveillance court. The best way to prevent future violations is to severely punish those who commit them in the present.
Radio host Larry O’Connor read a passage from the [Times’s] report [on the Horowitz memo] to Nunes during the Examining Politics podcast on Tuesday. It said DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report “helps the FBI politically because it undercuts the narrative among President Trump and his supporters that the bureau cut corners to surveil the adviser, Carter Page, as part of a politically motivated conspiracy.”
“So, the good news for the FBI is that they trampled on people’s rights all over the place, not just people who worked with Donald Trump’s campaign,” O’Connor said. “Is that the takeaway we should have here congressman?”
You can hear Rep. Nunes’s response in the podcast of the interview segment below, preceded by Larry’s interview with Mark Cuban.
Quotable quote (Chaitin quoting the Times): “The finding of systemic incompetence is devastating for the FBI. But, in the Trump era, the discovery is leavened by an unusual side benefit for the bureau: It undercuts the narrative fostered by President Trump and his supporters that the botching of applications to surveil his campaign adviser Carter Page is evidence that the FBI engaged in a politically biased conspiracy.”
The article below is from American Greatness (free subscription and highly recommended publication). It is by Julie Kelly and expresses important considerations. Accompanying it are some insightful comments we picked from those that were attached to it. The YouTube video set forth below the American Greatness rendering exposes the deliberate lying media treatment of the ChiCom virus; aka CCP virus; aka Wuhan virus; aka coronavirus; aka COVID-19.
There’s still time to find a balance between public health and the economy: Trump must find it before April 30.
Last year, Glacier National Park in Montana began removing signs that warned visitors the park’s gigantic glaciers would start melting away by 2020 due to global warming. Park officials altered other climate change flair such as brochures and displays to postpone the threat to sometime in “future generations.”
Like so many claims about the catastrophic consequences of anthropogenic global warming, predictions about disappearing glaciers were quickly memory-holed. And, as usual, the experts behind the flawed science that misled millions of people to believe their actions would cause the destruction of one of nature’s most awesome sights didn’t apologize. No scientist or government official even had the guts to stand up and say, “Oops, my bad.”
Quite to the contrary—prophets of nonexistent doom are often cheered as heroes no matter how many times they’ve been wrong.
Take Dr. Michael Mann, for example. The Pennsylvania State University author of the infamous “hockey stick” graph is still considered a god among the international climate change set; his graph launched the modern-day climate movement even though his work has been widely refuted by scientists and hacked emails showed how he and his fellow researchers manipulated data to “prove” their theory.
Now, we have the latest version of the hockey stick graph and it is related to COVID-19. The alarming visual indicates a huge spike in estimated deaths and hospitalizations in the United States from coronavirus infections over the next few weeks. Last week, a researcher at the University of Washington released a study that appears to serve as the scientific justification to extend the CDCs social distancing guidelines until at least April 30.
Christopher Murray, director of the university’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, warns that daily fatalities will climb from zero on February 24 to a high of 2,214 on April 15. (Much like Mann’s hockey stick graph that claimed to show warming temperatures, data from the period before the spike cannot be accurate since the first case of coronavirus in the U.S. was reported in mid-January. If it’s as contagious and as lethal as we’ve been told, hundreds if not thousands of people would already have died from the disease in the first two months of the year unbeknownst to healthcare providers.)
By May 2, based on Murray’s model, more than 60,000 Americans will be dead; by the beginning of August, nearly 84,000 of our fellow countrymen will have succumbed to the disease.
The need for hospital beds, intensive care units, and ventilators will far outpace supply, according to Murray. By this Friday, U.S. hospitals will need more than 135,000 beds, nearly 26,000 ICUs and more than 20,000 ventilators to accommodate COVID-19 patients.
And this disaster scenario will occur even with the draconian measures enacted at the federal, state and local level to slow the disease’s death march.
“The estimated excess demand on hospital systems is predicated on the enactment of social distancing measures in all states that have not done so already within the next week and maintenance of these measures throughout the epidemic, emphasizing the importance of implementing, enforcing, and maintaining these measures to mitigate hospital system overload and prevent deaths,” wrote Murray. From Common Sense to House Arrest
The White House, apparently, is listening. After first disputing an outlandish study produced by the UK’s Imperial College that projected a few million Americans would die from COVID-19 this year, Dr. Deborah Birx presented Murray’s report to the president over the weekend. Birx referred to Murray’s model in a Rose Garden briefing on Sunday.
“It’s anywhere, in the model, between 80,000 and 160,000, maybe potentially 200,000 succumbing to this,” Birx cautioned. “That’s with mitigation.” She insisted that the current measures would need to continue “with a level of intensity.”
During a confusing press briefing Tuesday evening, Birx and Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, presented the models to the American public. The president solemnly prepared the country for a “very tough two weeks” that could witness the death of 100,000 to 200,000 Americans. But neither Birx nor Fauci could convincingly explain the data supporting the ominous charts—while Birx seemed married to the ultimate death toll, Fauci tap-danced around the study’s projections, wish-casting about better outcomes and riffing about how new information would improve the model’s efficacy.
So in a matter of weeks, relying on sketchy and incomplete data, government experts have pivoted from offering common-sense steps to fight a virus to declaring government-imposed house arrest. “Flattening the curve” is old news; preventing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans requires tyrannical diktats that a month ago freedom-loving Americans could scarcely imagine.
COVID-19 wasn’t transmitted person-to-person before it was transmitted person-to-person. Masks weren’t necessary; now, they might be part of a required uniform should anyone dare to leave the house. It’s like a bad flu; now it’s way worse than the flu.
Governors are one-upping each other in an egregious power play that defies science, common sense, and decency in a despicable trampling of constitutional rights. The appeal to authority, a common tactic to quash any dissent in the climate change debate, is in full effect as laypeople are warned not to question the advice of credentialed medical and health professionals.
The consequences of this collective overreach—and that’s putting it mildly—have been mind-boggling. The world’s most vibrant economy is at a standstill. Millions of hourly employees are being laid off or let go as unemployment claims skyrocket to historic levels with the worst yet to come. Small business owners fear bankruptcy. The stock market is tanking while politicians on both sides of the aisle, along with the president, concoct bailout plans to fix the economic disaster they helped create.
School children and college students are done with public classes for at least five months. Job offers to college graduates have disappeared. Weddings, graduation ceremonies, and funerals are prohibited. Places of worship are shuttered; religious leaders who defy a government guideline—not a law on the books—to serve their flock are being arrested. Daily joys like a stroll on the beach or dinner at a restaurant or a game of pickup basketball or a round of golf have been stripped from our lives with shockingly little protest. And an army of Karens are policing public spaces to tattle on Facebook if anyone refuses to submit.
Sick people suffer alone; seniors are cut off from family and friends. Lonely children are further isolated as schools close down and their teachers and friends are out of reach. Panic and fear are weaponized to dictate individual behavior. Echoes of Climate Alarmism
It all has an eerie ring to those of us who’ve covered the climate movement. (Barack Obama connected climate and coronavirus in a tweet on Tuesday: “We’ve seen all too terribly the consequences of those who denied warnings of a pandemic. We can’t afford any more consequences of climate denial.”)
And just as happened with the climate change agenda, farfetched models with incomplete, untested data drive public policy decisions. Anyone who disputes the experts or challenges the assumptions must hate the environment or the children or the future. (In the case of COVID-19, you must hate grandma.) Anyone who laments the destruction of the economy is a heartless, greedy money-grubber. “Profits over people!” the detractors are taunted. The goalposts keep moving, doomsday is extended, but harsher and harsher actions are nonetheless demanded from above.
So, what if, as Trump accurately said just a week ago, the cure is worse than the disease? What if Murray’s models are woefully off by a factor of five or even 10 but it’s too late to salvage jobs or small businesses? His data is already way off: As of March 31, Murray predicted the U.S. would need 98,000 hospital beds for COVID-19 patients but only 22,000 were hospitalized that day.
Will the White House, much like Glacier National Park, just change the message while the agitators escape any accountability?
The president is trying to do the right thing but this is a breaking point. If Trump ruins the economy and torches his solid economic achievements based on a handful of flawed models and the evolving opinions of unsure advisors, it will be hard to walk it back. If these figures don’t move to support Murray’s modeling—and fast—Trump needs to reconsider his plan.
There’s still time to find a balance between public health and the economy: Trump must find it before April 30.
Select comments appended to AG article:
AntiPoliticallyCorrect longplay
I agree, That’s why i can’t help but feel like something else is going on here. If he listens to the experts and they are wrong, he loses. If they are right, he loses all his gains. If he goes with his gut, and is wrong, people die. If he’s right, people live and economy is on track. I wouldn’t want to be in that situation. But it seems very scripted.
Jason P
With a gestation period of under two weeks, Italy tried a two-week lockdown, then we tried a two-week lockdown. This was supposed to show who had or didn’t have covid-19 in lieu of mass testing. Subsequently we’d know who needs help and who is in the clear. Both countries tried this and it didn’t help us. Now we’re told we have to do this another month and perhaps a year until a vaccine is found. For what? There’s no stopping this virus. We’ll still have the 200,000 deaths even with mitigation.
The common sense solution is to isolate seniors and those caring for seniors while the young and healthy get back to work. They healthy will develop a herd immunity and by the summer we all can come back out. If we continue the lockdown I predict massive unrest. This won’t work.
Jack Armstrong
Unlike the climate predictions, this one will be proved wrong in very short order. I suspect that Trump and team know that the model is off, and Trump is just playing the game. He will look like a brilliant leader when the death toll ends up being a fraction of the prediction.
Phil James Jack Armstrong
Unfortunately, if he plays the game until April 30th, our economy will be destroyed. We have already done significant damage, another month will be devastating. Trump started off strong but now he is letting the doomsayers steer the ship. The model they talked about in the briefing today is already wildly wrong but we are full steam ahead on lockdowns.
Garrett W. Sheldon
Thank you for this intelligent, sane analysis, which I think most Americans feel at the gut level. This is an overreaction (not to say overkill) which is based on problematical statistical modelling, fear, and political manipulation. I hope with the rapid development of diagnostic tests and medicinal cures (both of which are found, only need to be mass produced and delivered) this hysteria will be over sooner than later and we will learn the valuable lesson of how easily people can give up their rights and martial law can be established. Fortunately, we still have enough common sense and free speech that this should be averted. For now. But with google’s new censorship scheme and the Deep State’s unending efforts for survival, this may just be a dry run. Pray for God’s mercy and protection over our country.
basehitz
“If these figures don’t move to support Murray’s modeling—and fast—Trump needs to reconsider his plan.”
Have you not noticed Trump’s ability to out-fox the foxes yet? My key takeaways of the big picture: 1) Trump has aggressively pushed the cheap and effective drugs, which have now been proven in multiple countries in documented cases, and is finally being accepted by our medical “professionals” though reluctantly. FDA wanted a year or more to approve. Trump got it already. When Cuomo’s tests and others finally make news, it will be a new ballgame. Trump even used this phrase. He knows what’s going on. 2) The medical establishment is aggressively pushing a new vaccine, which when offered to a panicked world, they will make a fortune in profits. They need to keep the panic alive. They also need to suppress the cheap solutions. Fauci’s history demonstrates he is part of the medical establishment and serves the interests of Big Pharma. 3) The fake news media is willing to destroy the country economically and/or kill millions of people just to hurt Trump. So they will also fuel the panic. BTW, Big Pharma spends $5/yr in advertising. Media will hide the real solutions on cheap drugs in service to their benefactors. And they also bash the cheap drugs . . . probably just because Trump supports it. 4) Based on current actions being taken, item #1 will win, because #2 takes too long. 5) Fake news media will have further decimated it’s already destroyed reputation for both hyping the virus and bashing the remedy. 6) Trump will take all the poker chips again.
linda goudsmit
The only think this article missed is that the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), founded by Dr. Christopher J.L. Murray, is committed to globalism and the the UN 17 sustainable goals. This is political science, not medical science. http://www.healthdata.org/n… IHME – Publication date: November 25, 2019 “SEATTLE – The lack of data, particularly in low- and middle-income countries, combined with the absence of international standards for data management, is hindering efforts in measuring progress toward meeting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) according to a viewpoint published in the international medical journal The Lancet.
“We cannot make progress without being able to measure progress,” said Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO). “Strong health data is essential for highlighting who is being left behind, and why. Together, WHO and IHME and other partners are working to strengthen country data systems for better decision-making, and better health.”
The viewpoint is a collaboration by global health experts from several countries and organizations, including WHO and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington’s School of Medicine.”
Tony_Petroski
Ms. Kelly states that “There’s still time to find a balance between public health and the economy.”
I recommend she read the March 28, 2020 article written by Roger Kimball, “It’s Not a Choice Between Lives and the Economy.”
There’s no “balance” to be struck here. Lives will be lost no matter what course is chosen. Is the current nationwide lockdown to combat the spread of a virus wise policy given that it is leading the nation into a second Great Depression? Perhaps. Should the lockdown continue until the end of April? Indefinitely?
And what to do about the scary flu viruses coming at us in the Fall?
This criminal and illegal shut-down of the nation has to end immediately.
Forwarded by HP: Of note – people who received flu vaccines more likely to be diagnosed with COVID19. – (self-select factor perhaps??)
So we were treated with another breathless coronavirus flash news bit from the QCTimes a few hours ago. This one about the community being “untreated” with the availability of over-the counter ice-cream treats at a local “landmark” enterprise. Permit us to riff off of it:
Would not a rigorous wipe-down patrol of public contact surfaces have sufficed? Maybe issuing a free cough mask to each entrant if they are that worried? Or is it, as for so many of these decisions, follow the money trail? Is the promise of federal grants contingent on lay-offs and closures? We do not know, and “Whiteys” is one of the good guys – very charitable and all, but the questions arise — how much or many of these decisions are health driven, how valid are the concerns, and how much are they a matter of government enticement versus market driven? We would love for a Whitey’s spokesman to respond and explain further.
the hairnets shown in the production of the Whitey’s ice-cream. We have noted that many of the preparation personnel in the outlets wear “ice-cream” hats. Regrettably those are not shown in the QCT pictures. No one wants a hair in their tutti frutti. But why would such a business (any restaurant) not adapt to the virus concerns by requiring a sneeze mask be worn by serving /preparation personnel in order to help stay open and accommodate concerns? Personnel would not look any more goofy and a mask is probably more important in the serving line anyway.
It was Andy Cuomo’s daddy (Mario) who gave “deeply devout Catholic Democrats” their ‘great election rationale’: 
Washington (CNN)New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said America “was never that great” during a speech on Wednesday, drawing criticism…