bevin @1–
I was going to provide that link, too. He presaged it somewhat at his Facebook by providing several postings highlighting Camus. He’s not alone when it comes to the scenario he portrays. Do note that the scenario implies resistance from Eurasia; that the permanent lockdown’s only meant for the Outlaw US Empire and its vassals, but primarily for North America. And for Whom is amply clear–The Rentiers. During this time, I suggest reading Shadowstats on a continual basis, although he doesn’t update his commentary daily.
At his Facebook, Pepe doesn’t provide a link for what follows:
“THE US’s $100 BILLION GERM WARFARE INDUSTRY
“DR. FRANCIS BOYLE UNPLUGGED
“Now THAT’S what we call a bombshell.
“‘There is a consistent pattern of the USG getting all these Nazi Biowarfare Death Scientists going out into the public record and arguing that Covid was just natural deliberately in order to undercut my argument that it is a bioengineered biological warfare weapon in which they are implicated too by selling it to PRC. For example, this Ebright also doing this is sitting there with a BSL3 on his Rutger’s Campus. Ditto for Garry at Tulane. Ditto for these people at UTexas Medical Center. Ditto for Fauci, etc. There are well over 13, 000+ of them. You have to do your “due diligence” on all these people.’
“Dr. Boyle has stated in the past, in no uncertain terms, that the US Biowarfare Programs have ‘13,000 Death Scientists Hard at Work’ and that the US’s $100-billion Germ Warfare Industry is a ‘Criminal Enterprise.’
“He should know: he’s the author of U.S. Biowarfare Act.
“There’s more:
“‘I don’t mean to toot my own horn here. The situation is far too existential for that. But I issued my Worldwide Alert all over the internet and to the mainstream news Media that this was a biological warfare agent that leaked from that Wuhan BSL4 on Friday, January 24. I then gave that interview to Geopolitics that went viral all over the world.
‘Ever since then, one after another, these Nazi Biowarfare Death Scientists have come out of the woodwork to refute what I was arguing as of January 24. So there is a consistent pattern here. All you have to do is a little “due diligence” on their Nazi Biowarfare Death Science Dirty work to discredit them. As I have done with Ebright and his BSL3 on the Rutgers Campus. When Ebright told me personally and some others that this Wuhan coronavirus was not bioengineered, I confronted him with Rutger’s BSL3 and provoked him into defending himself. He did not respond. A Deafening Silence. Ditto for the rest of them. I call them all Covid Deniers.’
“And they should all be in the slammer:
“‘All these people doing Nazi Biowarfare Death Science Dirty Work face life in prison under my Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989 and they know it because I had previously notified them all to that effect in scientific publications at the time. So they have no alternative but to cover it all up. Covid Deniers.'”
And here again is the link to the 3-way discussion between Escobar, Norton and Blumenthal.
And as usual of course, Pepe provides numerous links in his article that will take time to follow up on to get the bigger picture.

Posted by: karlof1 | Apr 2 2020 17:02 utc | 4

Every crisis is an opportunity. Thus the necessity to create crisies.

Posted by: Noah Way | Apr 2 2020 17:16 utc | 6

I just ticked another item off my bucket list last night. I finally sat down and listened to Miles Davis’ Dark Magus. It just seemed like the right time.

Posted by: Dr Wellington Yueh | Apr 2 2020 17:47 utc | 8

@ #9 Ben: The term ‘conspiracy theory’ was created by the CIA in the 1950’s to disparage ideas contrary to propaganda.

Posted by: Noah Way | Apr 2 2020 18:12 utc | 10

More bad news from capitalism’s propaganda boys Japan, South Korea and HK.
Japan:
Japan education officials divided on reopening schools amid COVID-19 outbreaks
Japan weighing support to rush life-saving machines to virus-hit hospitals
Experts warn of health care collapse in Japan if virus keeps spreading
Head of Japan medical society in U.S. urges Japan to hurry COVID-19 measures
Nikkei also stated, yesterday, that Japan’s testing capacity is just one seventh of Germany’s (I won’t post the link here because it is in Japanese and is paywalled). The rate of testing in Japan is negligible for all practical purposes.
South Korea:
Virus fallout: Empty in-flight meal carts [PHOTOS]
PM:’It’s still too early to ease social distancing’
Seoul to conduct coronavirus test for int’l arrivals at Olympic stadium
Foreign selloff continues despite gov’t measures
Hong Kong:
HK sees 80% rise in new Covid-19 cases
All of these news (which are all in favorable MSMs, so I cannot be accused of delving in obscure far-leftist tabloids or blogs) point to that my old hypothesis is probably the correct one: that those countries/provinces/cities (with the exception of sui generis Singapore) were successful in containing the first wave of the COVID-19 not so much because they already had favorable cultural traits, but mainly because they are fervent anti-communist, Mainland China haters. Therefore, they already had a military-logistical plan ready-made to isolate themselves almost instantly from the Mainland.
However, the second wave will come from the West – against which these countries/provinces/cities have absolutely no protection (either political, ideological, military or logistic). They will be ravaged.
The main reason I don’t buy this “cultural habits” hypothesis (albeit I don’t believe it is wrong per se, just that it doesn’t erradicate the pandemic), is very simple: the COVID-19 is an entirely different beast from the old SARS. Just wearing masks, just getting some social distance, just letting your shoes outside won’t be nearly enough to contain the SARS CoV-2. An absolute, ruthless lockdown for at least two months (each wave) is needed. The State must impose a forced general strike on the capitalist class if it wants to have a fighting chance against this virus. It will also need to expropriate (by force, if needed) all the means of production in order to keep the supplies ready and flowing rationally. It’s either that, or a descent to barbarism and neofeudalism.
At Chinahand’s twitter, this was shared:
“it is striking to see how much foreign media have, unfortunately, failed to effectively depict Japan’s science-based strategy.”
This is the alleged “science-based strategy”
Ms. Yoshino must not be a conoisseur of science, because that “strategy” doesn’t make any sense against COVID-19. How are you going to identify the clusters without mass testings, given the the COVID-19 already is transmissible at the end stage of its incubation period, when symptoms are extremely mild.
Again, I repeat: this strategy may have been effective against the old SARS, but won’t be against this new one. This one is dign of the status of pandemic. It will roll over Japan’s healthcare system.
–//–
BONUS NEWS:
More economists now using the D word: depression
They are 12 years too late, as the depression begun with the 2008 meltdown, not now. Marxist economists have already been treating the post-2008 capitalist world as a depression since the very beginning.
Those wizards at Chicago, Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, Oxford, Cambridge etc. etc. should call down, give up, be humble and start reading Marx.

Posted by: vk | Apr 2 2020 18:30 utc | 12

@myself:
brother 40 50 yo

Posted by: Dr Wellington Yueh | Apr 2 2020 18:45 utc | 14

Chinahand’s twitter feed has been covering the steady build-up of claims that CCP is entirely to blame for the pandemic, and an alleged failure on their behalf to be forthright with initial statistics is entirely to blame for the west’s delayed and/or inadequate response. This way of thinking is largely contained to persons already committed to an anti-China/CCP position, but is widespread in those circles and is promoted as established fact.
Whitney Webb has been documenting the surprising number of pandemic exercises (pandemic preparation conferences) held in recent years in now afflicted countries. In that context, the flat-footed response since mid-January is rather puzzling, as is the lack of coordination.

Posted by: jayc | Apr 2 2020 18:57 utc | 16

And the US comes out of it with a good chunk of the worlds oil.

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Apr 2 2020 19:23 utc | 18

@karlof1 re: testing
I told my mom, on her next visit she needs to calmly but persistently press to be tested, and to not accept ‘no’. I’ll be visiting again soon, and will hopefully get an answer.
BTW, I received a text this morning from LA County: ‘blah blah blah…check our testing website for ELIGIBILITY REQUIREMENTS…’ WTF?!?!?
@bevin re: Pepe – I’m sending the Pepe article to some folks I know will not knee-jerk discount it. Thanks!

Posted by: Dr Wellington Yueh | Apr 2 2020 19:37 utc | 20

Ecuadorean funerary system collapses, 150 bodies removed from homes:
Coronavírus: sistema funerário do Equador entra em colapso

Posted by: vk | Apr 2 2020 20:03 utc | 22

@vk 12
the period 2008-August 2019 is known as the Great Recession but was only an illusion of prosperity built on debt…..a bubble
2020 triggered, by the pin, COVID-19, ushers in the Greatest Depression. …bond market implodes.
======
Oil Market charts are painted green due Trump’s boasting he had brokered a deal between Saudi Arabia and Russia

Kremlin says no talks with Saudi Arabia happened, after Trump’s tweets claim Moscow and Riyadh will cut oil production

Posted by: Likklemore | Apr 2 2020 20:40 utc | 24

The only treatment given to hospitalised covid patients here in the U.K. is paracetamol ! ! !
Hydroxychorolrin is banned from use. Unless under trial test ‘ todate about 30.
I’m to disgusted to comment.
It’s deliberate. End of debate
U.K./ US BIO-WARFARE
Source- – – bbc radio 4 news at 10. About 15 – 10 mins in.

Posted by: Mark2 | Apr 2 2020 21:38 utc | 26

@ vk @ Patroklos
100%

Posted by: spudski | Apr 2 2020 22:13 utc | 28

vk 12
“An absolute, ruthless lockdown for at least two months (each wave) is needed.”
Our Little Hitlers really are in a state of ongoing public orgasm these days.

Posted by: Russ | Apr 2 2020 22:28 utc | 30

vk
Forced lock down does nothing on it’s own. Lockdown is only useful if there is an ongoing quarantine and eradication program.
Lockdown on its own, which is what most of the so called west is doing means lockdown without end.

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Apr 2 2020 23:15 utc | 32

Peter AU 1 @29–
I highly suggest watching the first half of this Keiser Report as it focuses on the “privatization” of the bond market, which Pepe noted is part of the “Plan.” Other aspects of the ongoing crisis are discussed. The 2nd half interview with Matt Taibbi doesn’t really add anything to our understanding, so IMO it can be omitted.

Posted by: karlof1 | Apr 3 2020 0:02 utc | 34

seems to me usa is headed for some type of civil war…. this shit is bizarre…
Ron DeSantis quietly signed second executive order targeting local coronavirus restrictions

Posted by: james | Apr 3 2020 2:47 utc | 36

I guess it’s amazing, the near-100% consensus the elites were able to muster for this quantum totalitarian leap.
I guess it’s surprising, how almost all the scum of the internet who have been so emphatic about how anti-authoritarian they were, how anti-imperial, how anti-corporate, what self-styled “rebels” they were, how almost all of them, the second things looked like they might get difficult, threw everything over and scuttled home to totalitarian mama.
I think that proves what frauds they all were. Almost anyone who ever talked big about human well-being, human freedom, science, reason, they all just threw it away in the stampede.
That is, of course, those who didn’t have a prior ulterior motive. Anyone at MoA knows the ulterior motives at every level of country governments.
Which renders it all the more inexplicable that most here are parroting the system line, which can be boiled down to:
“We have no idea what we’re doing, but we do know we must enforce obedience, and we expect the people at every point to join us in enforcing obedience.”
And sure enough, not just the MSM but almost the entirety of the fake “alternative” media have fallen in with the Party Line: You Must Obey.

Posted by: Russ | Apr 3 2020 5:38 utc | 38

john | Apr 3 2020 9:23 utc | 40
For sure. Those who already were Dembots have acted accordingly. And then most who “performed” even an anti-electoral role have run home to obedience to the system.
Zero thought, zero debate, zero public objection.

Posted by: Russ | Apr 3 2020 10:18 utc | 40

Theres being anti-authoritarian, and then theres being an idiot. I mean even the most anti-authoritarian person will get out if the way of a charging train even if they really want to stay in that spot to exercise their freedom. Arent they not?
Yes our freedoms are being taken. Yes governments will try to take advantage and not give some back. Its on us anti-authoritarians to make sure we get all of those back and then some. But when this passes. An yes, this too will pass.

Posted by: Comandante | Apr 3 2020 12:36 utc | 42

Theres being anti-authoritarian, and then theres being an idiot. I mean even the most anti-authoritarian person will get out if the way of a charging train even if they really want to stay in that spot to exercise their freedom.
Yes, you’re a case in point. No one said anything about standing on train tracks. We’re talking about the entirety of the living Earth itself. This crisis ought to bring a complete rejection of all notions of “property” in land. But I’m not holding my breath.
(But, I take it, you’re the typical totalitarian scum which views the entire globe as one big road. No doubt that’s what you are, and we have literally zero to say to one another.)
To repeat for anyone sentient who’s reading, there’s no evidence that indoor incarceration brings any benefit, and no evidence that outdoor activity poses any transmission threat, while there’s longstanding abundant evidence that outdoor recreation is important for physical and psychological health, including strengthening our immune systems which are so important now, while incarceration depresses immune function along with depressing physical and psychological health.
Almost no one is saying it, on account of mass sheep hysteria along with all the ulterior motives the system now is putting into motion, but the whole concept of “lockdown” isn’t just anti-democracy and anti-freedom, but is anti-science, anti-health, and pro-virus.

Posted by: Russ | Apr 3 2020 13:09 utc | 44

Some may recall the opening scene of “The Caine Mutiny when (if) they bother to lookit> twitter dot com/i/status/1246043872402313217 .
That’s the popular Navy Captain who stood for his crew being relied. Now they’ll get Queeg, and their operational capacity will approach zero as moral goes also to zero.
In microcosm? Yes, but this is a model for mutiny generally.
Recall the the Russian Soviet Revolution began in the Navy…the ship’s still afloat (both the ship of state and also the cruiser.)

Posted by: Walter | Apr 3 2020 13:24 utc | 46

Unnerved by Market Mayhem, US Shale Drillers Lobby Trump for Foreign Sanctions, Import Ban – Report

American shale drillers are lobbying the Trump administration to enforce protectionist measures, including sanctions on Russia and Saudi Arabia, in a bid to shield themselves from the oil market crash, the Financial Times reports.

Minerva’s Owl is always late.
But it always come.
–//–
@ Russ
I don’t think this pandemic will create any new fact on the field. The West was already degenerating (what you call “getting more totalitarian”). China already was ascending. The pandemic may be accelerating this process, but it didn’t originate it.
You also must understand that the concept of totalitarianism is purely propagandistic in nature. It was popularized by Menshevik refugees in NY in the 1920s-30s (at the time, to explicitly designate the USSR). Then, in the 1940s, it was refurbished by the western center-left into a pseudo-scientific sociological theory that could unite both the Third Reich and the USSR.
What’s the most interesting about the second definition of totalitarianism is that it paints a more vivid picture of post-war liberalism than of the alleged totalitarian societies they claim to accurately describe. Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., in his 1949 “The Vital Center: the politics of freedom”, says that what differentiates liberal society from the “other” is that it had a heterogenous center of power, where a confederation of ideologies, distributed across a political spectrum (left to right), disputed power peacefully and according to natural selection like principles. It was an a-historical society, in perpetual equilibrium. Hannah Arendt, in her famous book, claimed that her “main findings” of her “reasearch on totalitarianism”, was that both the USSR and the Third Reich relied on an absolute narrative (the first, in the history of class struggle, the second, on the quest of the superior race for world domination), while the liberal societies had a freedom of thinking.
You don’t have to be a genius to find out that those authors (and many other of the immediate post-war) are the founding fathers of our contemporary “woke left” (postmodern pluralism). Indeed, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. lived a long life (typical of a member of the northeastern elite), and he lived enough to see his “vital center” to crumble: in 1991, he published The Disuniting of America: Reflections on a Multicultural Society.
There are other problems with their concept of totalitarianism. To begin with, they are definitely not applicable to the USSR: as soon as Stalin died (March 1953), an intestine struggle for power between his successors (whose heir apparent was Lauvrenty Beria) and the young officers veterans of the WWII (led by Zhukov and Krushchev) begun. Beria was executed and Krushchev took power, and immediately begun the process of “destalinization”. The struggle didn’t end there, because Krushchev’s failed domestic economic policies led to a return of the “conservatives” (i.e. stalinists): a military junta led by Leonid Brezhnev toppled him in 1964 and governed the USSR until the beginning of the 1980s (Brezhnev’s death). Then another “reformist” took power (Yuri Andropov). Andropov already was in terminal stage, and governed from the ICU. After his death, there was a late and desperate attempt of the conservatives to come back, and another man in terminal stage (Konstantin Chernenko) took power. His death finally led to the definitive return of the reformists with the rise of Andropov’s protege Mikhail Gorbachev. Another failed coup of the conservatives happened in August 1991, and in December the USSR was dissolved by another coup (of the neoliberals).
As you can see, the USSR was far from a “single thinking” society, as Hannah Arendt thought. It definitely had a “vital center”. The USSR ended up falling over its own weight, on its own inner contradictions – and not because of the CIA’s propaganda warfare or because of Reagan’s alleged genius.
What the intellectuals of totalitarianism reveal are their own condition in the post-war: all of their debate was confined. They were the circle of the so-called “center-left”. They were speaking for a fraction of the American and Western European population. Yes, at the time their world-vision was dominant in their governments – but not because of them. On the “other side of the political spectrum”, there were the rising stars of neoconservatism, who were not talking about totalitarianism at all: to them it was the epic fight between socialism and capitalism and period. They treated even the center-left as full-fledged communists.
That means the center-left lived in a world where they couldn’t claim supremacy, in a fragmented society that was post-war capitalism. But they feared the USSR more, so they chose to create an imaginary world where nobody was (and could never be) right, a world where everything was relative. An anti-scientific world, where the necessary science was confined in islands of excellence full of “nerds”, while the rest keeps engaged in endless political-ideological catfights for power.

Posted by: vk | Apr 3 2020 14:29 utc | 48

@ David F, and all
The Barfly Tools script to filter out user comments is unchanged from the one posted on the Open Thread 2020-03 and can be downloaded from this Pastebin link.
On Chrome, Firefox and Opera, you will need to install an extension that allows you to use userscripts. Depending on your browser it should either be Greasemonkey, Violentmonkey or Tampermonkey. Once it is installed, create a new script from the extension options/menus and copy-paste the contents of the link above into it, or click the “Use clipboard” button.
The block list is stored as a cookie on your browser. If you flush this out often, remember to copy the contents of the text box added to the bottom of the page.

Posted by: Drive-by Commenting | Apr 3 2020 15:04 utc | 50

Finally the first official report came out. It is as I feared: Japan has 13 clusters – almost all of them in the Tokyo-Osaka magalopolis:
Updated Japan COVID-19 map shows 13 new clusters, doubling last count
There’s the pdf linked in the article, if you want to download the clusters map.

Posted by: vk | Apr 3 2020 15:12 utc | 52

Drive-by Commenting 49
Thank you, this is going to make reading the comment sections much more pleasant.

Posted by: David F | Apr 3 2020 15:36 utc | 54

Thanks to a bunch of evangelical biggots, the mortality excess for March in the department of Bas Rhin (Mulhouse area) is 84% more than last year.
https://www.ouest-france.fr/sante/virus/coronavirus/mortalite-39-707-deces-en-france-entre-le-1er-et-23-mars-c-est-1-4-de-plus-qu-en-2019-6799469

Posted by: Mina | Apr 3 2020 16:00 utc | 56

me @ 56
Who knew MbS of KSA may have a veto here:
Unnerved by Market Mayhem, US Shale Drillers Lobby Trump for Foreign Sanctions, Import Ban – Report

Falling demand for oil and a growing oversupply caused a collapse in oil prices last month, threatening US shale oil companies, which operate at higher costs. Industry representatives have been seeking to limit the output to prop up prices, in addition to requesting a string of protective measures, but large oil companies do not support the move.
American shale drillers are lobbying the Trump administration to enforce protectionist measures, including sanctions on Russia and Saudi Arabia, in a bid to shield themselves from the oil market crash, the Financial Times reports.
Shale industry proposals
It is understood that one of the most popular shale industry proposals is a block on Saudi crude shipments to Motiva, the largest oil refinery in North America, which is located in Texas and owned by Saudi Aramco.[.] (highlight added)

Standby: for the bankruptcies.

Posted by: Likklemore | Apr 3 2020 16:14 utc | 58

Check this map! Just a fast look…
https://asiatimes.com/2020/04/map-suggests-tb-vaccine-may-help-prevent-covid-19/

Posted by: Zico the Musketeer | Apr 3 2020 16:17 utc | 60

John Smith has an interesting article at OpenDemocracy.
It is a timely antidote to the nonsense that this unprecedented situation is one brought upon us by the ‘all powerful” vaguely defined-shape shifting- powers that be. He makes it clear that in fact this crisis creates the conditions which could bring imperialism to its long deserved demise.
In the meantime there are those, refugees from liberalism and fascism, who insist that we should concentrate our energies on whining over the affront to freedom that not coughing over others (or ingesting their effluence) constitutes.
“…..they believe in one or other version of the ‘magic money tree’, in other words, they see the decline of interest rates into negative territory not as a flashing red light showing the extremity of the crisis, i.e. not as the implosion phase of a supernova, but as a green light to borrow money to finance increased state investment, social spending, a Green New Deal, and even a bit more foreign aid. In fact, there is no magic money tree. Capitalism cannot escape from this crisis, no matter how many trillions of dollars governments borrow or central banks print. The neoliberals rejected magical thinking, now they embrace it – this shows the extent of their panic, but it does not make magical thinking any less fantastical. The trillions they spent after 2007-8 bought another decade of zombie-like life for their vile system. This time they will be lucky to get 10 months, or even 10 weeks, before the explosion phase of the supernova begins…..
“The coronavirus pandemic occurred at the worst possible time: growth in the eurozone had shrunk to zero; much of Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa were already in recession; the sugar-high from Trump’s huge tax-giveaways to US corporations was fading; the US-China trade war was causing serious disruption to supply chains and was threatening to entangle the EU; and tens of millions of people joined mass protests in dozens of countries across the world.
“… corporate interest rates have gone through the roof; in fact few corporations can borrow money at any price. Investors are refusing to lend to them. Corporations are now facing a credit crunch – in the midst of global negative interest rates! That’s why the ECB decided to borrow €750 billion from these same investors, and use it to buy the corporate bonds which these same investors now refuse to purchase, and why the USA’s Federal Reserve is doing the same on an even bigger scale. Italy’s (and the EU’s) fate now depends on the willingness of the Bundesbank to replace its private creditors. Their refusal to do this would be the final stage of the EU’s death agony….
“..The coronavirus pandemic is just the latest proof that we need not so much an NHS, but a GHS – a Global Health Service. The only country that is acting on this imperative is revolutionary Cuba. They already have more than 28,000 doctors providing free health care in 61 poor countries – more than the G7 nations combined – and 52 in Italy, 120 more to Jamaica, and are helping scores of other countries to prepare for the pandemic. Even the far-right Bolsonaro government in Brazil, which last year expelled 10000 Cuban doctors, branding them terrorists, is now begging them to return.
“….To defeat coronavirus we must emulate Cuba’s medical internationalism. If we are to defeat this pandemic we must join with its revolutionary doctors and revolutionary people, and we must prepare do what Cuba did to make this internationalism possible – in other words, we must replace the dictatorship of capital with the power of working people. The coronavirus supernova makes socialist revolution – in imperialist countries and across the world – into a necessity, an urgent practical task, a life and death question if human civilisation is to survive and if the capitalist destruction of nature, of which the coronavirus epidemic is merely the latest symptom, is to be ended.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/oureconomy/why-coronavirus-could-spark-capitalist-supernova/

Posted by: bevin | Apr 3 2020 16:40 utc | 62

Posted by: Realist | Apr 3 2020 16:19 utc | 60
still here dude?you re losing time..the epoch of trolls has bored enough..maybe you notice no one gives you attention and you still vomiting shit..you are just like the american dream..empty.

Posted by: LuBa | Apr 3 2020 16:55 utc | 64

vk @52 re: “Marshall Plan”
But the United States already owns the EU. Why would they want to pay for it a second time?

Posted by: William Gruff | Apr 3 2020 17:22 utc | 66

@Realist #60
Except the ones dying from nCOV.
And the entire US health care industry faced with a exposure as nCOV response in the US bankrupts/kills many more people than normal.
Nah, your analysis is just plain bad.

Posted by: c1ue | Apr 3 2020 17:49 utc | 68

On his Facebook, Pepe Escobar wrote several comments entitled Perspectives to provide info related to his recent essays for which he was attacked by what I’ll describe as a “clueless” troll army. I’m lifting those entries and posting them here so barflies can get an idea of what’s driving Pepe’s thinking:
“THE START OF THE RAGING TWENTIES IN PERSPECTIVE
December 30: China reports a new type of pneumonia to the CDC and the WHO. Alerts the world about a new, dangerous disease.
January 3: China updates the US government.
January 3: the US government kills Soleimani.
January 8: after sequencing the virus, China determines it is Sars-Cov-2.
“Too many “coincidences”. Event 201, ID2020, and THIS–“The Naval War College Ran a Pandemic War Game in 2019. The Conclusions Were Eerie.”
“PERSPECTIVE
March 16, 2018: Trump fires the ENTIRE US Pandemic Response Team.
“PERSPECTIVE
June 30, 2019: some sort of powerful pneumonia identified in a Springfield, Virginia nursing home near the Fr. Detrick mega bio lab, and only 15 minutes away from Fort Belvoir, where the 325 US military trained for the Wuhan Military Games.
“PERSPECTIVE
July 12 and July 17, 2019: unidentified respiratory diseases first at an assisted care facility near Fort Derrick (3 dead, 54 ill) and then in the form of an unexplained pneumonia epidemic at a nursing home in Burke, 56 minutes from Fort Derrick.
“PERSPECTIVE
August 6, 2019: the CDC closes the Fort Detrick bioweapon lab – the number one in the US – for reasons of “national security”. CDC offers no details.
“PERSPECTIVE
September 2019: vaping-associated lung disease, a “mysterious” pneumonia, reported in a many parts of the US. Same symptoms of Covid-19.
“PERSPECTIVE
September 14 – October 10, 2019: US military team trains for the Wuhan Military Games in Fort Belvoir, 15 minutes away from “shut down for reasons of national security” Fort Derrick.
“PERSPECTIVE – EXACT DATES
December 30: Wuhan announces a
“unknown viral illness”.
December 31: Beijing receives virus genome results and then alert WHO about an “unknown” pneumonia. Wuhan announces the unknown virus on CCTV and CGTN.”
This is what I wrote to Pepe as an explanation to the serious lack of critical thinking aside from the trolls:
“Thanks for your “Perspectives” Pepe. IMO, the problem resides in the fact that so few know that the #1 policy of the Outlaw US Empire is to achieve Full Spectrum Domination, and that there’s absolutely no compromising the effort to attain that goal. Few know that the first casualties of the A-Bomb were US troops and scientists–they just didn’t die immediately–and the Empire had no problems with that or with killing more of its own during later tests. Look at how many are sacrificed annually via dystopian domestic policies–The Oligarchy doesn’t give a damn and never has: EVER!”
Barflies wanting to read the comments to Pepe’s postings will need to go here. And you need to be a FB member to read them, but not Pepe’s postings.

Posted by: karlof1 | Apr 3 2020 17:53 utc | 70

Walter @46–
Yes, Queeg and the USS Caine, indeed! The USN has the worst readiness of all the service branches and a correspondingly low morale level. This incident will greatly worsen the situation and spread to the other branches–provided they find out. If the initial COVID ground zero was in Maryland as many will begin to suspect, chances are very good that the contagion’s spread widely within the Outlaw US Empire’s military, but that fact’s being covered up for reasons of national security. If correct and handled in the ham-handed manner of Pentagon apes, the military could become very dysfunctional. Either the military gets social distanced or that sort of outcome will be inevitable.

Posted by: karlof1 | Apr 3 2020 18:07 utc | 72

The French know better: Didier Lallement, chief of the police for Paris (and a specialists of yellow-jacket shooting) cracked a joke today, explaining to people who would like to travel for the Easter holidays outside of the authorized perimeter of 1 km that those who are today in intensive care were the same who did not obey the lockdown measures 17 days ago. Lovely.

Posted by: Mina | Apr 3 2020 18:18 utc | 74

If correct and handled in the ham-handed manner of Pentagon apes, the military could become very dysfunctional. Either the military gets social distanced or that sort of outcome will be inevitable.
Posted by: karlof1 | Apr 3 2020 18:07 utc | 71
+++
With the vast improvements in robotics and AI sectors which they have achieved over the last 10 years the 1% need less and less meat-sacrifices for the Gods of War

Posted by: Realist | Apr 3 2020 18:25 utc | 76

Posted by: King Lear | Apr 3 2020 17:33 utc | 66
I don’t think anyone with a little salt in the head cuold tag China as communist..but if it did..wrong for sure.Alibaba Suning Evergrande…WTO..all this is really far from real socialism..indeed is a borghesy what they call communist party..but to be the second(and soon the first I think) economy of the world they choose the road of capitalism..they call it chinese socialism but it is simply a succesful state capitalism..and his force stands in the fact that the state has strict control of internal economy..when you control soil,work and capital you have China..like or hate it..but defenetively not marxist leninist.

Posted by: LuBa | Apr 3 2020 18:32 utc | 78

james @ 65 says:
i didn’t know anyone listened to jazz rock anymore…
yeah, well, not only do some of us still listen to it, some of us still play it.

Posted by: john | Apr 3 2020 19:59 utc | 80

“Bernie Sanders Calls for ‘Boldest Legislation in History’ to Halt Spiraling Covid-19 Catastrophe:
“In this unprecedented moment in modern American history, it is imperative that we respond in an unprecedented way.”
“Sanders wants the next bill to include six provisions that are aimed at helping working people in the U.S. weather the crisis:
Addressing the employment crisis by ensuring workers remain employed and paid as well as providing social services for everyone in the country, regardless of citizenship or immigration status;
Guaranteeing a free at point of service Medicare for All single payer healthcaer system for everyone in the country;
Immediately using the Defense Production Act to manufacture personal protective equipment (PPE), ventilators, and other needed healthcare equipment for frontline workers dealing with the pandemic;
Providing food for everyone in the country for the duration of the crisis;
$600 billion in aid to states and cities;
An immediate suspension of collections of rent, mortgage payments, medical debt, and consumer debt for four months and a suspension of student loan payments through the duration of the pandemic.”
This observation of Sanders’s proposals I agree with:
“What’s striking about this Bernie Sanders proposal for the next thing that Congress should pass is how un-radical any of it sounds. Every one of these things is just very straightforwardly obviously on par with the scale of this crisis.”
Later in the article we discover/have confirmed what sort of person Senator Warren is:
“In an interview Friday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a former candidate for president whose run was seen as ideologically similar to Sanders’, praised Biden as analogous to former President Barack Obama, who ‘saw us through a crisis starting back in 2009 with steady, thoughtful, smart leadership.'”
Right, Obama broke the law by not prosecuting the fraudster bankers and robbed the public of Trillions to bail them out while throwing several millions out of their homes and into the streets, and it’s that sort of “leadership” Warren expects to see from Biden.
The Pandemic is redefining what qualifies as a Zombie–an average broke & homeless person scouring the landscape for food, shelter and money–instead of the mindless “Walkers” seeking live flesh of any sort of TV and comic book fame.
The maxim Truth is Stranger Than Fiction is playing out live and in living color.

Posted by: karlof1 | Apr 3 2020 22:12 utc | 82

Pavlina R Tcherneva
@ptcherneva
Like the virus, unemployment is barreling through the globe.
Failure to start planning for this 2nd epidemic of mass unemployment now, will be yet another global catastrophe.
#joblessclaims
The #JobGuarantee needs to be part of the solution:

Posted by: financial matters | Apr 4 2020 1:40 utc | 84

I’ve encountered arguments that COVID-19 is manmade because the relevant genetic changes ‘stood out’ in a conspicuous manner which cannot come about in natural evolution. To be dismissed. Random mutations are a very weak source of order. They are mostly a good source for near-neutral variants(Kimura). A good source of order is getting parts which work from elsewhere , so cases of recombination in viruses are very important, even at very low frequency. So I would just google for the genetic analysis of SARS, MERS, COVID-19 and recombination.
First hit about SARS: https://jvi.asm.org/content/84/7/3134 .

Posted by: Tuyzentfloot | Apr 4 2020 11:10 utc | 86

all + karlof1 | Apr 3 2020 17:53 utc | 71 In re: US Citizen Deaths from first test Trinity.
(K, waiting to see if Pepe replies..he may see the continuity of Policy and, gasp!, perhaps write it.)
see> thebulletin dot org “trinity the most significant hazard of the entire manhattan project ‘
search term> “downwind death after trinity test” (duckduckgo). A little sleuthin’ ’round and the facts say the Policy.
“In October 1947, a local health care provider raised an alarm about infant deaths downwind of the Trinity test, bringing it to the attention of radiation safety experts working for the US nuclear weapons program. Their response misrepresented New Mexico’s then-unpublished data on health effects. Federal and New Mexico data indicate that between 1940 and 1960, infant death rates in the area downwind of the test site steadily declined—except for 1945, when the rate sharply increased, especially in the three months following the Trinity blast. The 21 kiloton explosion occurred on a tower 100 feet from the ground and has been likened to a “dirty bomb” that cast large amounts of heavily contaminated soil and debris—containing 80 percent of the bomb’s plutonium—over thousands of square-miles. (See Figure 1.)”

Posted by: Walter | Apr 4 2020 14:22 utc | 88

Softbank backs out of WeWork stock purchase plan. nCOV.
WeWork likely done. Softbank had put in over $4.5B into WeWork since October 2019 (after IPO fail).
Softbank selling assets to reduce debt load.
source

Posted by: c1ue | Apr 4 2020 15:13 utc | 90

james
very cool. nice interpretation.
yeah, Scott’s essentially a blues/rock guy, but he got into that fusion thing. he played a lot with Joe Zawinul.
cheers

Posted by: john | Apr 4 2020 16:58 utc | 92

@ 94 john… thanks! i sent it to another friend.. he has known about scott for the past 30 years! he’s a really nice player.. i like the trio.. cheers!

Posted by: james | Apr 4 2020 19:02 utc | 94

Walter @90 & 95–
Long ago I bought a copy of Killing Our Own: The Disaster of America’s Experience With Atomic Radiation (1982) by Wasserman and Solomon and learned about the Downwinders and other unfortunates, the eventual pollution of the Colombia and Snake Rivers, and oh so much more–stuff that ought to be at the top of citizen political chatter but doesn’t even exist thanks to the lies and cover ups. Then of course we have the many–who really knows the actual number–CIA assaults using all sorts of agents on the citizenry, secret testing on prisoners, and so forth; stuff you and I know but several hundred million are clueless about. Not long after obtaining it, I was introduced to another work, Ecocide in the USSR (1993), which described somewhat similar behavior by that nation’s government which was of course heavily denounced by Clinton in an effort to deflect increasingly bad press over Gulf War Syndrome. IMO, Russia’s government under Putin has exerted itself to clean up its numerous messes, while the Outlaw US Empire continues to sweep them under the rug–Externalities never to be dealt with aside from aiding Big Pharma.
If the citizenry of the Outlaw US Empire valued their health and that of their offspring, they’d revolt, take control and hang all the polluters and their toadies. Isn’t the bolded portion above a rather conservative expectation, not in anyway radical? Or does the public want to be adulterated by umpteen numbers of chemicals? By their behavior, the latter would seem to be their desire. So, the government obliges and continues to pollute them further. Such thinking ought to see the public welcoming COVID-19: Please, kill more of us off is the cry heard throughout the land. We don’t need jobs or want any government bailouts; just give it all to Wall Street is the Mantra from Republicans and their allies in government. Gee, what was that in which founding document saying we ought to make the Union more Perfect?

Posted by: karlof1 | Apr 4 2020 20:23 utc | 96

karlof1 | Apr 4 2020 20:23 utc | 98 Was aware of KOO book, but have not read it.
The meeting with the geologist was a hoot…Wally, who had driven round from the Alien Inn to ToC NM by 100 + miles dirt road past the test range (that test range) was by the Rio drinking a few cool ones and smelled the killer weed. With characteristic boy-scout situational awareness he zeroed in of the scofflaw…the intrepid geologist dude, and we got acquainted. Under such informal pre-tit-phone gogo gadget microphones, people were absolutely honest.
Essentially nothing grows more than a fraction of its normal size out near the drop zone…and the Silence is terrible. They do graze near the fence though…on tiny short grasses.
Two related thoughts about your post>
1) Laura Bush’s “favorite” is “The Grand Inquisitor” especially his explanation that the people don’t want to know… ” He says: “We are not with Thee, but with him, and that is our secret! For centuries have we abandoned Thee to follow him.” For he, through compulsion, provided the tools to end all human suffering and for humanity to unite under the banner of the Church. The multitude then is guided through the Church by the few who are strong enough to take on the burden of freedom. The Inquisitor says that under him, all mankind will live and die happily in ignorance. Though he leads them only to “death and destruction”, they will be happy along the way. The Inquisitor will be a self-martyr, spending his life to keep choice from humanity. He states that “anyone who can appease a man’s conscience can take his freedom away from him”. ”
Birds of a Feather? Well, perhaps a mockingbird of a feather.
And 2>
El Commandante > “…One of the key lines within Fidel’s concept of Revolution reads “It is never lying or violating ethical principles; it is a profound conviction that there is no power on earth that can crush the truth…”
see for # 1 wiki or really any college English handbook or encyclopedia
see for #2 @ granma cu “FIDEL’S CONCEPT OF REVOLUTION
With the truth as a weapon and a shield”
Some may note the juxtaposition of ideals…ahemmm.
Wally notes that the resale value of boats may be less than their intrinsic value as methods of food-gathering, amigo.

Posted by: Walter | Apr 4 2020 21:50 utc | 98

Kushner Gives COVID-19 Medical Supplies to Private Companies

A US commander criticizes US President Jared Kushner’s son-in-law for his comments on the national stock of medical equipment.
Kushner, head of the committee appointed to fight coronavirus in the United States, stated Thursday that “the federal reserve (for medical equipment) is supposed to be our reserve, it is not supposed to be a reserve for states to use”…
Kushner, instead of delivering the supplies to the hospitals, delivered them to private companies, even though several US hospitals have in recent days. have reported a serious shortage of medical and protective equipment to combat the coronavirus.

Posted by: H.Schmatz | Apr 4 2020 23:28 utc | 100