The Great Revenge - How Tony Fauci F*cked Donald Trump
In January 2017 the CIA claimed that Russia had kompromat on Trump. Trump shot back at the CIA. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer then warned the incoming president:
"You take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday to get back at you," Schumer, a New York Democrat, told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow. "So even for a practical, supposedly hard-nosed businessman, he's being really dumb to do this."
As the years after the warning passed by it proved to have been valid. The CIA 'whistle blowers' put a great effort into sabotaging Trump's presidency. But they were largely unsuccessful.
The CIA failed to sabotaged Trump's reelection. It was the health community, including parts of Trump's administration, which did that.
Trump had especially angered Dr. Fauci, the well known infectious-disease expert and member of the government's coronavirus taskforce. Fauci's advise had been ignored and efforts were made to hold him back from making public pronouncements.
On November 1, two days before the election, Fauci gave a widely distributed interview to the Washington Post:
President Trump’s repeated assertions the United States is “rounding the turn” on the novel coronavirus have increasingly alarmed the government's top health experts, who say the country is heading into a long and potentially deadly winter with an unprepared government unwilling to make tough choices.“We’re in for a whole lot of hurt. It’s not a good situation,” Anthony S. Fauci, the country’s leading infectious-disease expert, said in a wide-ranging interview late Friday. “All the stars are aligned in the wrong place as you go into the fall and winter season, with people congregating at home indoors. You could not possibly be positioned more poorly.”
Fauci's interview was not the first intervention he made. In October two leading vaccine companies were ready to announce the success of their vaccine trials. But with at least the knowledge of Fauci and the Federal Drug Administration both companies deviated from their clinical protocols to intentionally move their success announcement to a date after the election.
During the summer Trump had been hopeful that a vaccine against the Covid-19 disease could be announced before the election. It would have been proof that his strategy to (not) fight the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic had at least one success. The announcement of a vaccine was part of President Trump's planned 'October surprises' to win the election.
Trump's summer hope that a vaccine success could be announced during October was not unreasonable. Two important vaccines candidate, one from Pfizer with BioNTech and one from Moderna, had been successfully tested in their first phases and were ready launch their large phase 3 trials.
In a phase 3 vaccine trial several ten thousand people are put into two groups. The people in one group receive the vaccine, the people in the other one a placebo. One then has to wait and see how many people will get the disease. At certain points a statistical team will look at those cases and check how many occurred in each group. The differences of the number of people in each group who catch the disease is a scale for the vaccines efficacy. For a known group size one can estimate in advance after how many disease cases determinations should be made to show statistical significance.
Pfizer had published its clinical protocol for the phase 3 trial which foresaw four points of interim analyses (IA) during which it would become clear how well the vaccine was working:
During Phase 2/3, 4 IAs are planned and will be performed by an unblinded statistical team after accrual of 32, 62, 92, and 120 cases. At each IA:
- [Vaccine efficacy] for the first primary objective will be evaluated. Overwhelming efficacy will be declared if the first primary study objective is met. The criteria for success at an interim analysis are based on the posterior probability (ie,P[VE >30%|data]) at the current number of cases. Overwhelming efficacy will be declared if the posterior probability is higher than the success threshold. The success threshold for each interim analysis will be calibrated to protect overall type I error at 2.5%. Additional details about the success threshold or boundary calculation at each interim analysis will be provided in the SAP.
The time plan, on which Trump was certainly briefed, foresaw that the first interim analysis would likely occur in late September or early October.
However Pfizer did not publish any results when the first two interim analysis points were met. On November 9, after the election, Pfizer announced very positive results at the third interim analysis point:
Pfizer and partner BioNTech said Monday that their vaccine against Covid-19 was strongly effective, exceeding expectations with results that are likely to be met with cautious excitement — and relief — in the face of the global pandemic.The vaccine is the first to be tested in the United States to generate late-stage data. The companies said an early analysis of the results showed that individuals who received two injections of the vaccine three weeks apart experienced more than 90% fewer cases of symptomatic Covid-19 than those who received a placebo.
...
The story of how the data have been analyzed seems to include no small amount of drama.
...
The first analysis was to occur after 32 volunteers — both those who received the vaccine and those on placebo — had contracted Covid-19. If fewer than six volunteers in the group who received the vaccine had developed Covid-19, the companies would make an announcement that the vaccine appeared to be effective. The study would continue until at least 164 cases of Covid-19 — individuals with at least one symptom and a positive test result — had been reported.
However, the announcement at the two first interim analysis points was never made.
[William Gruber, Pfizer’s senior vice president of vaccine clinical research and development,] said that Pfizer and BioNTech had decided in late October that they wanted to drop the 32-case interim analysis. At that time, the companies decided to stop having their lab confirm cases of Covid-19 in the study, instead leaving samples in storage. The FDA was aware of this decision. Discussions between the agency and the companies concluded, and testing began this past Wednesday. When the samples were tested, there were 94 cases of Covid in the trial.This means that the statistical strength of the result is likely far stronger than was initially expected. It also means that if Pfizer had held to the original plan, the data would likely have been available in October, as its CEO, Albert Bourla, had initially predicted.
In October Pfizer already knew from its first interim analysis that its vaccine was successful. But it intentionally held back on the announcement of its success. The FDA knew of this!
Today Moderna announced the success of its Covid-19 vaccine. This is a vaccine in which Dr. Fauci's organization is directly involved in. It seems that Moderna had, like Pfizer, held back its very positive results until after the election:
The drugmaker Moderna announced on Monday that its coronavirus vaccine was 94.5 percent effective, based on an early look at the results from its large, continuing study.Researchers said the results were better than they had dared to imagine.
...
Moderna, based in Cambridge, Mass., developed its vaccine in collaboration with researchers from the Vaccine Research Center, part of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the institute, said in an interview: ...
...
Moderna had planned a first interim analysis of its trial data when the number of Covid-19 cases among participants reached 53. But the recent surge in cases drove the number to 95, and it is likely to speed completion of the study.
Moderna, like Pfizer, skipped the announcement of the results at the first interim analysis point in its clinical protocol.
The FDA and Dr. Fauci were involved in Pfizer's as well as the Moderna's decision to deviate from their clinical protocols. Any change in these protocols must get the FDA's approval. If the companies had not changed their plans the announcement of the good efficacy of both vaccines' would have come before the election.
Trump's well planed vaccine 'October surprise' was sabotaged by two pharmaceutical companies with at least the approval of Dr. Fauci and the FDA.
This might well have cost him his reelection.
It was the health community that really had 'six ways from Sunday' to get back at Trump.
Posted by b on November 16, 2020 at 19:54 UTC | Permalink
next page »How many ways did the vultures steal the US election?
The Big Guy will ensure Americans continue to pay twice as much for pharmaceuticals. His 10% is doubled too, after all.
Posted by: Liberty Blogger | Nov 16 2020 20:12 utc | 2
The Corporate State envelopes the administrators of the MSM, Medical and Academic Institutions, and State and Local Governments, in order to create and enforce a largely fictitious health emergency — the latest in a series of Disaster Capitalist scenarios designed to rob us blind.
Posted by: norecovery | Nov 16 2020 20:16 utc | 3
Hadn't Trump talked about limiting the prices that pharma companies can charge?
Posted by: lysias | Nov 16 2020 20:20 utc | 4
Capitalist Swine Flu aka(SARS/CoV-2)is a bigger hoax than Weapons of Mass Destruction. The Great Reset is coming your way. Brought to you by the biggest swindlers EVER!
Posted by: par4 | Nov 16 2020 20:30 utc | 5
I don’t think this is what cost him. His handling of the virus from
Day 1 was shaky. Daily press briefings that were mostly BS and fighting with the press during them nonstop. Constant media propaganda trying to pin him as a Nazi, a spy, a racist you name it. He lost a good amount of the suburban white voter. Made some gains with the Latino and minority voter but not enough to offset the amount of young low information voters that think a corrupt and senile Biden would have done better. I think it’s his personality that caused him issues with the voters, not Dr Doom
Posted by: Danny | Nov 16 2020 20:44 utc | 6
I don’t think this is what cost him. His handling of the virus from
Day 1 was shaky. Daily press briefings that were mostly BS and fighting with the press during them nonstop. Constant media propaganda trying to pin him as a Nazi, a spy, a racist you name it. He lost a good amount of the suburban white voter. Made some gains with the Latino and minority voter but not enough to offset the amount of young low information voters that think a corrupt and senile Biden would have done better. I think it’s his personality that caused him issues with the voters, not Dr Doom
Posted by: Danny | Nov 16 2020 20:44 utc | 7
thanks b... interesting speculation, but i am not sure it can be backed up... b quote "In October Pfizer already knew from its first interim analysis that its vaccine was successful. But it intentionally held back on the announcement of its success. The FDA knew of this!" is there a law against them doing this? if so, maybe there are grounds for something here, but my impression is the FDA and pfizer play politics as well all the time! in fact the FDA has been corrupted by corporations is my impression... they don't operate in the publics interest so much as in the corporations best interests...
@ Lex | Nov 16 2020 20:12 utc | 1 quote " Pfizer didn’t even take government money." they write the laws and influence pedal up the yin yang, so they don't have to.. they get it straight.. they are like the fox guarding the chicken coup.. corporate america rules... the idea of an independent body removed from their influence is a bad joke...
Posted by: james | Nov 16 2020 20:45 utc | 8
After some days of breathing I am quit happy that trump didn't got the chance to destroy world peace by accident, without the limitation of a re-election cycle.
brilliant analysis. Actually it gets now also a German topic. The stuff is produced and distributed by Pfizer, but developed by a company named biontech wich ist I think owned by a third from German state. They have to be involved.
Posted by: rico rose | Nov 16 2020 20:57 utc | 9
Pfizer's "placebo" was a meningitis vaccine that killed one of the test subjects. In what bizarro universe is that a proper control or placebo? What nasty side effects do you think that "placebo" is hiding? In no sane universe is that safety testing. Another fun fact, not 1 vaccine gets tested against a real placebo. Would you drive a car, eat food, fly in a plane, etc. if no safety testing & no liability? And you trust big pharm? Good luck w/that.
Posted by: BDrizzle | Nov 16 2020 21:02 utc | 10
@All
What please means "success" in this case exactly?
Posted by: Hausmeister | Nov 16 2020 21:11 utc | 11
BDrizzle | Nov 16 2020 21:02 utc | 10
What is a „real placebo“ or what should it be? In my understanding to use another vaccine as a placebo equals to science fraud.
Posted by: Hausmeister | Nov 16 2020 21:13 utc | 12
To hear this argumentation from someone who has been committed to preventive measures against C-19 seems bizarre to me. If Tronald had listened to Fauci, who has never said anything unreasonable, the disagreement would not have arisen. But Tronald was desperate to save 'his' economical situation, causing a record number of deaths and also damaging the economy. If it is true, and if Fauci did in fact sabotage Tronald, that was more than deserved.
Posted by: pnyx | Nov 16 2020 21:14 utc | 13
thanks for the information B, but
I don't think trump knew enough about the science involved in Vaccine to be a player but I would not believe a government employee or an industry scientist about a vaccine if it was raining, when the government or industry yes person told me it was raining.
I can't disagree with BDrizzle @ 10 take a vaccine at your own risk..
Posted by: snake | Nov 16 2020 21:18 utc | 14
Placebo should be saline. Something matching biochem that is inert. Other vaccines or placebos full of adjuvants are not inert & are in no way a proper placebo. In Pfizer's case, certainly not a placebo that kills. If the vaccine kills same #, it will be considered "safe" vs placebo.
Posted by: BDrizzle | Nov 16 2020 21:20 utc | 15
@Lex You are exaggerating, obviously, since everyone believes there is a SARS-Cov2 virus. The debate is the danger of the virus. The danger depends on your perspective:
--An elderly person: dangerous
--young person: not dangerous
--stubborn elderly person: knows it dangerous but doesn't care
--young liberal: thinks it's extremely dangerous and wears a mask the wrong way while by themselves in the basement
Here's the study from the end of July
@rico rose I'm not sure he would have destroyed world peace, considering the peace agreements in the middle east that he has overseen this past year.
Posted by: Philbert | Nov 16 2020 21:20 utc | 16
If this article's thesis is true, I wouldn't be surprised, but it's small potatoes compared to plenty of other actions to 'shape the narrative' etc.
Firstly, it would be a modest act of political influence compared to 4 years of headlines announcing certain proof of 'treason' being imminent. Also consider that despite turning the hysteria up to 10 on Russiagate, it actually had little long term effect on Trump's approval ratings. What it did is scare nearly all competent administrators away from the Trump administration, creating a paralyzed government devoid incapable of doing anything right, including disaster response, but whatever.
Next, its not like Trump's allies don't play this game. The only difference is that most US media leans Democrat, but people need to learn to read between the lines.
Next, on the vaccine news itself. What we're looking at is essentially a trial with a sample size that we *think* is (90 x placebo infection rate) ... that would be assuming the same amount of vaccinated subjects were exposed to the disease as the number of placebo subjects. So a relatively small sample in terms of the main function of the drug. Also, consider that there are both short-term and long-term immunity mechanisms. Due to the short time, these trials would prove the short-term immunity much more than long-term. This is true for all vaccines everywhere around the world. Finally, vaccines won't actually be available anywhere nearly soon enough to justify changing behavior in time for the election.
It is still good news however - at current rates it would take 4-6 years to infect enough people for so called herd immunity, so shave that down to a year or two to get the vaccine delivered. Now if we had a sane world, in the first year while supply is limited, vaccine priority could be given to the elderly (assuming they want it) rather than the rich, but that will be a story for another day.
As for Trump... he's out of here. Get over it. He actually did make a pretty big impact on US politics, ran some policies that are unusual for Republicans (pro-govt-debt, reduced immigration, in contrast to the earlier balanced-budget-austerity, de-facto support of whatever one needs to minimize-wages policies of the GOP), KO'd Clintonist triangulated centrism, and taught a generation of independent voters that the msm is scripted. But he's out and the world is better off for it. Hopefully Biden will follow into retirement soon.
Posted by: ptb | Nov 16 2020 21:20 utc | 17
Lex @1--
Pfizer is NOT a "private company." It's a publicly traded corporation, now known as Amgen And I'd bet it takes as much government money as it can get.
Pfizer were insider trading leading up to this anoucment.
The whole thing is a can of worms, welcome to the Rotten USA where money is king, human life just a resource or libilty.
It’s a small club and we’re not in it, Trump is though.
Posted by: Mark2 | Nov 16 2020 21:29 utc | 19
There's so much f*cking going on, it's hard to keep it all straight.
Ultimately, its the American people that get it good and hard.
<> <> <> <>
Trump dug his own grave with his lying ("its just a flu"), his pig-headed attempts to distort reality ("If we test more, we'll just find more virus"), his racial dog whistles ("China Virus"), etc.
What b is really claiming is that the drug companies didn't help him out of the hole.
<> <> <> <>
As many at moa might already suspect, I disagree with b's POV:
- Trump had other "October surprises" that were effective, including his supposed bout with Covid-19 and his supposed miraculous cure via Regeneron - a "cure" that he offered free to all Americans that needed it. This was little more than a 'Captain America' stunt with Walter Reed Hospital as a prop.
- Schumer's "six ways from Sunday" quote was just introducing the kayfabe to come. Trump would not be President if he wasn't supported by the Deep State. No true "populist outsider" will ever occupy the Office of the President until/unless there's regime-change in USA (a revolution). The Presidency is the lynch-pin of the Empire.
"Six ways from Sunday" is just a cute way of saying the same thing: Deep State Empire managers run the Duopoly and select the President. One crosses them at their peril. And Trump has proven the truth of this: he did everything they wanted. And like Presidential team-players before him, he cut taxes, increased military spending, and bailed out Wall Street (and Boeing).
- b's post is a pre-mature as we have yet to see how Sydney Powell's claims of voting machine fraud work out. She says Trump won by a landslide. If the HAND RECOUNT in Georgia shows a dramatic change in the tally, we could see Trump actually win the election.
If we do see such a reversal, it may well have been planned - just like other fake #winning we've seen from the Trump-Deep State tag team. Trump's tenacity will win him praise and the devotion of this fans. A devotion that will provide Trump with the power to take the country to war. Anyone that is opposed to Trump's leadership will be attacked as having TDS. All media, including social media, will be humbled and will toe the line.
The country will unite over hate for China (or some other external enemy). The people, self-deluded and self-censoring, will welcome - nay DEMAND - war. MAGA!
!!
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Nov 16 2020 21:30 utc | 20
Fauci knew Trump was lying when he said that the US had "Turned the corner." He also knew that Trump lied throughout his criminally negligent response to the Covid-19 crisis. Trump has effectively admitted that he lied when he said he deliberately "understated" the seriousness of the disease. There is audio tape proving that Trump lied. There is nothing that can be described as proof to support b's theory that Fauci withheld information in the service of an effort to defeat Trump but if he had, doing so would have been justifiable. Fauci's job is to protect public health. Saving lives should be his first priority. There was no better way to do that than to do everything possible to see that Trump is removed from office.
Posted by: David | Nov 16 2020 21:42 utc | 21
Pfizer, if I'm not mistaken, already has admitted it postponed the announcement because it didn't want to influence the elections.
Those kinds of court conspiracy are common in the USA. Bill Clinton had the Monica Lewinsky scandal, which was only possible with Mossad's direct help. More common, though are intra-party and intra-faction struggle: Clement Attlee's social-democratic government was sabotaged by his own peers and he narrowly lost his reelection in 1950 (by 17 seats). I'm sure every Western Democracy has a plethora of similar events practically every election cycle.
Trump already had very low approval ratings well before the vaccine saga (August 2020). It wasn't because of that that he lost (in a country where 30-50% of the population has already stated won't take any vaccine). The economy was the main factor.
--
Either way, both vaccines - Pfizer's and Moderna's - are useless. They're both mRNA - an untested and very dangerous technology. This means they not only are very difficult to transport and storage (minimum -70ºC), but they're also carcinogenic (as Gamaleya fund head has already stated in his open letter).
I don't recommend any American or British (I've read today Boris Johnson is fast tracking Pfizer's vaccine to be mass distributed in the UK) to take any of those vaccines. I also don't recommend any British to take the "Oxford" (AstraZeneca) vaccine, as it all points to the direction it causes grave neurological damage to a non-negligible number of patients.
If you can, import the Russian vaccine or, worse but still better than nothing, the Chinese one. Both are based on tried and tested technology of human adenoviruses (AstraZeneca's uses chimpanzee adenovirus). If you can't take any of those, keep calm and prevent yourself with cheap and safe ways: 70% alcohol, wear mask, avoid contact with other human beings, get out of packed public spaces the most you can. Remember, the immunity of the survivors is short-lived (three months tops) and the SARS-CoV-2 is rapidly mutating to even deadlier forms (see Denmark's culling of 15 million minks). This is not a game or a simulation - it has the potential to initiate a capitalist Dark Ages if it becomes more lethal.
This may or not be a safe vaccine, come back to me in 5 years on that one.
Point is ——- do I trust ‘them’ Ummm no !
Would I buy a used car from any of them, no.
Credabilty / intergrity / belevabilty generally speaking don’t seem to be an American or British ‘thing’
Posted by: Mark2 | Nov 16 2020 21:45 utc | 23
Interesting angle. Not wrong. One of the straws on the camel's back.
Posted by: gottlieb | Nov 16 2020 21:46 utc | 24
Seems more and more like ZeroHedge when I visit here. Looking forward to full QAnon.
Posted by: Roy G | Nov 16 2020 21:51 utc | 25
I do not think that the election is lost. If Powell does a good job, the
supreme court will deal a death blow to the coup. If Powell is unsuccessful, then the 72 million plus deplorables will become ungovernable because they realize that the nation is lost. Where it goes from there will be a nightmare for the Dems.
Posted by: Nev | Nov 16 2020 21:57 utc | 26
People will rally around a President during a crisis if he is providing sound and resolute leadership. Even if the economy is suffering, a President can rally support to fight a common crisis together, and gain in popularity.
Trump totally lacked the character, the resources and the people to provide that kind of leadership.
His fixation on saving the economy first lead to disastrous policies and decisions.
It was not Covid that cost him the Presidency. He could have won despite the disease. It was his (mis-)handling of it that drove support away from him. From him personally, the GOP made overall gains in the House and is likely going to keep the Senate unless Trump manages to really piss off GOP voters in Georgia.
Posted by: Malchik Ralf | Nov 16 2020 21:57 utc | 27
It's not clear to me to what extent the CIA after Brennan conspired against Trump. I got the impression they were more neutral under Haspel.
Posted by: Tuyzentfloot | Nov 16 2020 22:12 utc | 28
These studies leave me quite unimpressed. In effect, they tested 30,000 people. Out of those, 90 developped symptoms without vaccine, and 5 with it. That means that, by chance or not, 29,905 people did not get Covid19, no matter whether vaccinated or not. If that is a stable result, and only 0.028% of the populace are likely to be infected, why all the fuss? If this is just by chance that the 30k ppl did not get anything, the test is crap. It is not a "90% success".
Posted by: aquadraht | Nov 16 2020 22:27 utc | 29
There is likely to be considerable blow back from these vaccine 'success stories' which appear to have been driven by share market manipulation more than anything else eg according to Investor Observer "Moderna Inc (MRNA) stock has risen 390.90% over the last 12 months". Hmm 12 months, that is about as long as Covid has been around isn't it?
The blow back when it happens will be severe. For example there is much confusion about what these mRNA vaccines actually achieve. They do not prevent infection by SARS-CoV-2 virus, what they do is prevent people who are infected by this virus from developing Covid-19 disease. A vaccinated person who becomes infected with SARS-CoV-2 virus will not get ill but they will still spread this highly infectious virus, therefore no 'herd immunity' can be obtained from widespread vaccination, making these vaccines a very short term measure - stop gap as it is inevitable the virus will mutate as it continues to spread and who knows what godawful disease it will engender then.
IMO there highway robbers in charge of the pharma combines likely made a business decision that if they delayed announcement until after the election the rabidly pro biden media will be a lot slower to tear their false front 'wins' down, ergo the gang gets to make their killing.
Posted by: Debsisdead | Nov 16 2020 22:31 utc | 30
VK @ 22:
"... the SARS-CoV-2 is rapidly mutating to even deadlier forms (see Denmark's culling of 15 million minks) ..."
From Nature.com: "The coronavirus is mutating — does it matter?"
"... Soon after SARS-CoV-2 was detected in China, researchers began analysing viral samples and posting the genetic codes online. Mutations — most of them single-letter alterations between viruses from different people — allowed researchers to track the spread by linking closely related viruses, and to estimate when SARS-CoV-2 started infecting humans.Viruses that encode their genome in RNA, such as SARS-CoV-2, HIV and influenza, tend to pick up mutations quickly as they are copied inside their hosts, because enzymes that copy RNA are prone to making errors. After the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) virus began circulating in humans, for instance, it developed a kind of mutation called a deletion that might have slowed its spread4.
But sequencing data suggest that coronaviruses change more slowly than most other RNA viruses, probably because of a ‘proofreading’ enzyme that corrects potentially fatal copying mistakes. A typical SARS-CoV-2 virus accumulates only two single-letter mutations per month in its genome — a rate of change about half that of influenza and one-quarter that of HIV, says Emma Hodcroft, a molecular epidemiologist at the University of Basel, Switzerland.
Other genome data have emphasized this stability — more than 90,000 isolates have been sequenced and made public (see www.gisaid.org). Two SARS-CoV-2 viruses collected from anywhere in the world differ by an average of just 10 RNA letters out of 29,903, says Lucy Van Dorp, a computational geneticist at University College London, who is tracking the differences for signs that they confer an evolutionary advantage ..."
From ScienceMag.org: Kai Kupferschmidt, "Mutations can reveal how the coronavirus moves—but they’re easy to overinterpret" (March 2020)
"... Like all viruses, SARS-CoV-2 evolves over time through random mutations, only some of which are caught and corrected by the virus’s error correction machinery. Over the length of its 30,000-base-pair genome, SARS-CoV-2 accumulates an average of about one to two mutations per month, [Andrew Rambaut, a molecular evolutionary biologist at the University of Edinburgh] says. “It’s about two to four times slower than the flu,” he says. Using these little changes, researchers can draw up phylogenetic trees, much like family trees. They can also make connections between different cases of COVID-19 and gauge whether there might be undetected spread of the virus ..."
Presumably the rapid mutation of SARS-COV-2 results in a form so deadly that people in Denmark at least, if not the rest of the world, must beware in case they are suddenly arrested by the police and transported to a secret military lab to be put down before the virus kills them.
Posted by: Jen | Nov 16 2020 22:43 utc | 31
The evidence is not at all supportive of B's strong claims about Fauci.
Regardless, if true, the only response is, good job Fauci!
This blog has been good at taking Covid seriously, and at recommending the correct public health measures.
Now this blogger is all pissy because Trump, the asshole who already let 200,000+ people die from Covid, lost!
Someone explain that...
Posted by: Prof K | Nov 16 2020 22:44 utc | 32
Well, we ought to add to b's piece the latest by Alastair Crooke which seeks to take the election divide and predict where it might lead. Much of what we see and experience has to do with the demise of Liberalism, particularly its acceptance/tolerance, of its embrace of differences--the notion that out of many can come one yet retain individuality. Then there's the complete abandonment of the notion of Community, of a shared responsibility for each other which was almost killed by the Anti-Communist Crusade; failure of religious institutions to promote community and inter-community solidarity; and the atomization of society as demanded by Neoliberal Parasitism via identity politics. Compare in contrast the great efforts put forth by Xi and Putin to keep their multi-ethnic and multi-cultural nations fused together in their efforts to work together to better everyone. The polarized division of the USA is exactly what its Imperial planners wanted to do to Russia and China. But there is one area I'm in deep disagreemnet with Crooke:
"Red America – to survive – will reach back to old values (as every society in crisis does), and try to draw out, from the tale of their erosion and neglect, an explication – a story – for their present distress. They can observe that ‘other’ values, opposed to collectivism, always have arisen from within the deep layers of human experience and history."
Just what in the hell does Crooke think Community, or a Labor Union, or a pack of Red voters happen to be if not a collective?! What is a Church's Congregation? A Collective. The Rancher's Co-op? A Collective. An agricultural Grange? A Collective. All those "old values" that will be reached back "to draw out" are all familial, community, collective values, not the atomization identity politics aims at achieving.
So, what do we really have situationally here within the Outlaw US Empire? Half the nation voted for Trump again, only this time the result was flipped for the time being. Reds and Blues common points of convergence are their very large distrust of the federal government and large financial institutions, and their desire for a government run healthcare system. And they love their children and want the best for them. What divides most US citizens remains deeply rooted in the past instead of having been exorcised because of the great unwillingness to confront it, acknowledge it, use both as tools to heal, and move on to confront the real existential challenges we're kept from dealing with because the past acts like a massive ball and chain--Confession is called for on a Continental scale, particularly by the millions of genuine Haters, epitomized by Marco Rubio. And I'm certain Showtime's mini-series about John Brown, The Good Lord Bird will add future fuel to the fire.
The science of interim analyses is not that straightforward as you say in your article, b. It depends on alpha-spending and the boundaries that you use, for example Pocock versus O'Brien-Fleming. For example, see this article for a deeper discussion:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5052936/
A quick search of boundaries and alpha-spending would also be helpful if you wish to delve deeper into the decisions that a DSMB or a data monitoring committee (DMC) has to make.
Posted by: Tiger | Nov 16 2020 22:51 utc | 34
BDrizzle | Nov 16 2020 21:02 utc | 10
Please let me repeat my question. From where did you get this?
"Pfizer's "placebo" was a meningitis vaccine that killed one of the test subjects. In what bizarro universe is that a proper control or placebo? What nasty side effects do you think that "placebo" is hiding? In no sane universe is that safety testing. Another fun fact, not 1 vaccine gets tested against a real placebo."
Posted by: Hausmeister | Nov 16 2020 22:54 utc | 35
I would guess that a vaccine is a proper placebo for vaccine. Placebo measures "the power of belief" which DOES exists for many conditions, although psychiatric conditions are most notable case, but immune system can have some impact too. Perhaps a national leader should apply placebo himself:
Dear Citizens,
right now, we have no idea how to treat or prevent the current epidemic, but a panel of best doctors in the nation recommended to stay optimistic. Be happy, my folks! Listen to favorite tunes, some are available if you call White House on the following 800 hundred lines: last digit 00 for country, ...., 99 for Soviet war songs
Posted by: Piotr Berman | Nov 16 2020 22:59 utc | 36
No, Trump's criminally deceptive, callous and incompetent handling of the pandemic from day one cost him the election. If he hadn't screwed it up every day and turned the USA into the Sick Man of Earth he wouldn't have been vulnerable to anything you allege in this article. Blaming Fauci for Trump's 2020 loss is as desperate as the Democrats blaming Russian trolls for Trump's 2020 victory. Any serious analysis of 2016 would focus on why the race was so close in the first place, and treat things like this as noise. Besides, the announcement of a 90% successful vaccine shouldn't have been a game changer; it would have simply been a talking point. Even if it works well, it will take a very long time to alleviate the catastrophe which is getting worse every day thanks to Trump.
Posted by: Sigil | Nov 16 2020 23:09 utc | 38
To all the people who believe that the Covid-19 pandemic is a capitalist or deep state hoax, I suggest you take a long walk until you fall off the edge of the flat earth.
Posted by: Rob | Nov 16 2020 23:11 utc | 39
The only “October Surprise” that could have saved Trump’s election chances is if he could raise the 230,000 or so Covid victims he let die from the dead. A vaccine announcement wouldn’t have done it.
Posted by: TimmyB | Nov 16 2020 23:12 utc | 40
Prof K @34--
I don't see b being "pissy;" rather, I see him reporting on an important aspect at the end of Trump's first term that might have affected his reelection chances. Clearly the situation is dynamic and the populace polarized, but little's being done to dig into the very important question, Why? One big factor I've heard nobody mention is the utter failure of Reconstruction and inability of white Americans to kill racism prior to the 20th Century. Time can't heal wounds that are swept under the rug. The USA I was born into in 1955 was a divided, polarized nation filled with hatred and yearning for justice, with that entire clause still very much alive and well today. And the hatred's kept alive through the demonizing of all nations and peoples that don't salute the Outlaw US Empire and agree to become its vassal--Currently the USA's demonizing Russians, Chinese, Iranians, Iraqis, Syrians, North Koreans, Venezuelans, Belarusans, Ukrainians, Haitians, Cubans, Lebanese, Muslims generally, and anyone trying to immigrate into the USA. That's a very big list that educates/indoctrinates/reinforces Americans that hating others is normal, not immoral and dysfunctional.
Biases--being pro Georgia, Auburn or Alabama--and rooting for home teams is an acceptable human behavior, while remembering that ultimately we're all on the same team--the Imperial crimes committed by the Outlaw US Empire has killed most instinctive nationalism. Many either understand or greatly fear 911 was done by the CIA to further project Empire; and although it's not in the 24/7/365 news cycle anymore, Gitmo is still there holding innocent people. And we have Forever Wars. So, WTF is there to be proud of in a nationalistic sense when guilt is the biggest emotion?
Yes, the USA's polity needs an analyst every bit as much as it need honest government that provides Good Governance.
Piotr Berman | Nov 16 2020 22:59 utc | 38
"I would guess that a vaccine is a proper placebo for vaccine. Placebo measures "the power of belief" which DOES exists for many conditions,..."
No,this is one important part of it, yes. But a new vaccine the more important aspect is to test unwanted collateral damages that it might
evoke. If the placebo is isotonic sodium chloride one could measure it as this has no side effects. To use something else can be a clever effort to hide dangerous substances that are in the real vaccine mixture. This I guesss would be scientifical fraud. So I think it is essential that the whole process of testing the vaccines must be public. Personally I am no anti-vaxxer but before the swine flu vaccines problems are not cleared and compensated I would not accept any of those new vaccines.
Posted by: Hausmeister | Nov 16 2020 23:27 utc | 42
TimmyB: Actually, I always assumed Trump was hoping Biden wouldn't make it to November.
But still, I think Big Pharma was more important in the decision than Fauci.
Then of course there was the stupid decision from Trump to assume that all this was a plot to see him fail - instead of trying to be a bit serious about the pandemic, like Johnson eventually did, or be really serious like Netanyahu. That some of his few real international pals took this seriously should've been a hint - that Putin and Xi Jinping did as well should've been the last warning he had to act and not screw up on this. Someone like him should've known better and acted like a genuine showman, taking the mantle of "crisis president" with the added bonus that crisis wasn't a major war, nor a war he had started, but a crisis he could have had no part in creating (say, unlike your usual economic bubble / Wall Street crash); from GOP/Trump camp's point of view, that really was a missed opportunity to play it like a new Roosevelt with the world on the brink of collapse (yes I know it's a massive exaggeration, but if there's one thing Trump can do, it's outrageous exaggeration).
Posted by: Clueless Joe | Nov 16 2020 23:32 utc | 43
Correction, it was AstraZenica who killed control patient w/Meningitis vaccine, not Pfizer. Point stands though, what is considered a normal Big Pharm control killed someone. Repeat, in what bizzaro universe is something that can kill considered a control? Going farther, what definition of science calls anything but saline a control? Junk science. No vaccine gets proper safety testing vs a saline control-fact. I had all my vacc's & did so for my kids, but what passes for
vaccine safety testing is a joke. Rush right out to be a gmo human, I want to watch results before I decide how far to take resistance to mandates.
Posted by: BDrizzle | Nov 16 2020 23:36 utc | 44
@31 aquadraht
With 50% of study participants were placebo [study protocol p.16], best guess is 90 out of ~15000 or 0.6% ... which is actually not entirely surprising - if extrapolated to US population, it would be 1.8 million, in however many of the summer or fall months the phase 3 of the study was conducted.
@22 vk / re: vaccine
Completely agree regarding Russian or Chinese vaccine method. Little chance of having access to either of these in the US. In the case of the Russian one, production is unfortunately severely delayed too, presumably because of worldwide shortage of all kinds of manufacturing equipment that drug/diagnostic-device manufacturers have to use, to get regulatory approval. Plus the sanctions besides that. So the world suffers for it some more.
Much of the equipment that is sold out is fairly simple parts or machinery. Even stupid stuff like disposable plastic containers that have become standardized and can't easily be changed. Most of this can be replaced in months if one really needs to have it, if some regulatory rules can be avoided by emergency waiver, and one willing to burn some cash, and isn't fighting their own business structure too much (and for the latter those stories will come out in a year or so I'd guess).
However, the process equipment for doing the microbiology and the science equipment for verifying the results on a very large scale, I'm not sure. Mostly US-EU suppliers, some JP, some ROK. Without a domestic industry that already builds these tools, it would really be problematic. Nevertheless, I would say the Chinese have far and away the best chance in winning a race to quickly mass-produce a vaccine. The US side is making up for it with astronomical subsidies. Wouldn't be surprised if US pharma's make more money than ever in history. A final twist is that the incoming Biden administration may have a slightly different set of crony vendors than Trump did, although I have to guess they're not that different.
Posted by: ptb | Nov 16 2020 23:36 utc | 45
Perhaps. Or perhaps Trump was just one COVID stimulus check away from victory? Biden has been silent on the subject. I think would he have been a shoo in had he done that one thing.
Posted by: Carol Davidek Waller | Nov 16 2020 23:38 utc | 46
Pfizer and Moderna are both touting mRNA vaccines. There has never been an mRNA vaccine. Has there been any mRNA product of any type? Even for lab use? Anyone? Sticking my neck out here, feel free with the axe. Moderna has been around forty years now and has never had a product. Government money and dark government money.
The idea that an entirely new class and category of product is going to be injected into entire populations is insane. No one in their right mind would do such a thing. My bet is they won’t. Placebos more likely. But who knows. Crazy people in charge.
Posted by: oldhippie | Nov 16 2020 23:39 utc | 47
I've said my own version of this:
"'A patriot,' Nessel added, 'is one who protects America from its enemies, both foreign and domestic. Covid-19 is the enemy, not each other. Stop pitting Americans against each other and start supporting policies proven to effectively fight the virus.'"
That was reported here as several governors announced new attempts to get the latest COVID surge under control, my Governor included and with whom we agree. IMO, it's the disgustingly Bad Governance that's described in the article that's far more responsible for Trump's loss.
I don't understand why all the fuss over big pharma directly affecting the elections.
The USA is a capitalist nation, which, on the superstructural level, means the primacy of the private sector. Big business has all the right to decide who rules the country and, more importantly, who doesn't. The system worked as intended.
You live by the sword, you die by the sword. You can't ask for the best of the two worlds just because you're American.
[email protected] and [email protected]
I don't know which of you forgot the /s tag regarding the minks but:
1) 2.5 million minks were actually culled while illegally
Danish PM apologizes after illegal cull order of entire mink population over Covid outbreaks
The government’s call for all mink to be slaughtered came on November 4, but was made without the required legislation, local media reported. According to Danish law, disease must be found in animals, or they must be found in an infected area, before the government can order a blanket cull.Some 2.5 million mink have already been killed, according to official counts, although a spokesperson for the Danish police said the number was likely to be higher.
2) The mink related mutation is worrying not because of lethality or infectionsity but because it may interfere with immunization efforts
Factbox: What we know about Denmark's mink coronavirus strain
What are the mink strains and why do they matter?Denmark has identified five variants of the virus stemming from mink, but only one – known as Cluster 5 – showed "reduced sensitivity" towards antibodies, according to Denmark's State Serum Institute (SSI), which deals with infectious diseases.
State epidemiologist Kare Molbak said cluster 5 was not more dangerous than other strains or more infectious.
Clusters 2, 3 and 4 are still being studied for reduced sensitivity, which has already been ruled out in the cluster 1 variant.
Can we switch the panic mode off please?
Posted by: Vasco da Gama | Nov 16 2020 23:48 utc | 50
I wouldn't trust the vaccine announcements. The drug companies have extreme leeway in selecting candidates for the trial since the drugs and the virus are classified as novel. They pick the healthiest patients to avoid reactions to the drug and side effects. Very few on placebo are testing positive for the virus. It reduces your odds of getting infected from 0.4 percent to 0.1 percent. I think much longer study is needed before they make any announcements at all. These announcements are as phony as the Trump announcements on imminent North Korea deals, China deals, FTAs, bioweapon, whatever.
Posted by: Les | Nov 16 2020 23:51 utc | 51
Vasco da Gama | Nov 16 2020 23:48 utc | 54
"Can we switch the panic mode off please?"
Difficult these days. You build trust by credibility. And you build credibility by transparency. In my country Germany the government institution Robert-Koch-Institute sells lies each day. They speak of „infections“ whereas they have only positive PCR-test results. And their stuff knows it is a lie. They could sell straight true information:
which test kit was used? How many cycles? - This is the minimum one needs to know to judge the result.
But this information is unavailable. So you have 18000 "cases" but after 7 days there are only 5000 people infected, a fraction of them „ill“, but not infectious, a smaller fraction ill but infectious, etc. If this is told in a way that is apparently aiming at panic mongering what can one do? If people are cool and look to the facts first then Sweden is the country with the most successful approach to the CoV-2 problem. But this simple fact you may mention only within a trustful private frame, off the records.
Posted by: Hausmeister | Nov 16 2020 23:59 utc | 52
Fauci is the maestro of COVID-19. Trump should have revealed Fauci's gain of function work with the Chinese from the beginning ... and then dismissed him. Newsweek covered this but not much else in the MSM.
I found this about a month ago. It puts a lot of the story together.
Treachery With Anthony Fauci
Posted by: Curtis | Nov 17 2020 0:04 utc | 53
Posted by: Hausmeister | Nov 16 2020 23:27 utc | 45
For testing "power of belief", placebo should give symptoms expected by the subject in case of getting the real thing. In the case of vaccine, it is some temporary inflammation etc. In other words, a totally harmless injection like saline solution would not be proper. Any fatality during tests is lamentable, perhaps they should exclude people with known risks for the "placebo vaccine", but with a degree in an irrelevant science I would defer to experts on that.
The need to accelerate testing has to involve some risks, otherwise people would not use slower testing schedule in ordinary times.
Concerning the timing of announcements, the rules are arcane and it is for FCC and FDA to judge. One problem is excessive profits of pharmaceutical companies that drive stock market players crazy etc., creates temptations to be "strategic" with disclosure etc. But I do not see an "October surprise" game here, I agree with Lex | Nov 16 2020 20:12 utc | 1.
Posted by: Piotr Berman | Nov 17 2020 0:09 utc | 54
hilarious whether or not it was intentional (private sector fascist) meddling but still seems like a massive stretch. also, your link is broken.
someone "hate voting" against trump and ergo for biden is not going to switch based on the minutiae of a vaccine trial. black communities have been hit hard but trump got more of that collective vote than last time.
again, biden gained with white guys who are - let's face it - the primary drivers of covidiocy. if someone considers themselves a "one issue" voter and said issue is covid, their view of trump mishandling the crisis isn't going to be swayed by a private company's announcement that they "might maybe be kinda sorta close to a vaccine that didn't kill or fail half of a tiny test group if the stars are aligned right and we have olympic swimming pools full of liquid nitrogen" and they certainly won't twist their brains to think trump had any hand in the success at all.
which brings me to the last point: even if they'd kept to the date, would the entire sprawling corporate media aligned against trump suddenly be bestowing greatness upon him? and if they did would his MAGAtard followers in the KFC states who think it's a chinese hoax give a damn? would the pussy hats? not buying it. there were few if any voters who hadn't made a firm decision months ago and the early voting - from up to 46 days before the election due to that firmness and covid - was tilted heavily toward biden.
Posted by: the pair | Nov 17 2020 0:19 utc | 55
The Great Revenge - How Tony Fauci F*cked Donald Trump,
Isn't that dude like literally a Pfizer salesman, or some shit?
"which test kit was used? How many cycles? - This is the minimum one needs to know to judge the result."
Agreed. General tracking won't provide that detail, neither will Labs bother to provide that information to those that information would be key, namely an individual's physician (even when explicitly asked for). Generally neither does a physician seam to care, they are merely following a (screen level) protocol and while when mentioned some appear to recall something regarding Ct values they send you into isolation independently of actual clinical symptoms, the "test" is the only thing that matters. This is absurd!
Posted by: Vasco da Gama | Nov 17 2020 0:34 utc | 57
oldhippie @Nov16 23:39 #51
Pfizer and Moderna are both touting mRNA vaccines. There has never been an mRNA vaccine. Has there been any mRNA product of any type? Even for lab use? Anyone?
AFAIK there's a mRNA vaccine for rabies. Not that I would take it.
!!
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Nov 17 2020 0:45 utc | 58
If Pfizer and Moderna sat on such good results for a while, and Fauci and the FDA knew about it too, then that increases the likelihood of someone falling for the temptation of profiting by insider trading during that interval. Trump/Barr/Giuliani might want to have someone at the SEC look into that before January, if they can spare any investigative/legal attention from their election lawsuits. Just a completely speculative thought of course.
Posted by: Canadian Cents | Nov 17 2020 0:49 utc | 59
Commentator 'Kay Fabe' provided additional info regarding the mRNA rabies vaccine, quoting in full:
That rabies vaccine has only undergone Phase 1 study as of JanuaryModernas vaccine also has Polyethylene Glycol PEG). Up to 70%of the population has antibodies to PED which could cause a bad-reaction, which may be why over 20%of patients in Phase I had serious side effects, unlike COVID where only 10% get infected and 80% of them have no symptoms or minor symptoms.
Rushed to market vaccines like 1976, 2009 flu vaccines don't have a good track record. No liability here either and rampant financial/Political conflict of interests by those who will approve it is worrisome
!!
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Nov 17 2020 0:50 utc | 60
I agree with Lex in comment # 1 also but let me tell my Big Pharma story
I have healed from a traumatic brain injury using neuromodulation techniques, mostly QEEG and associated "training". And this is non-drug related technology that you can find out more about at my web site under neuromodulation....but that is not what I can to write about.
The Big Pharma story I want to tell is the disservice to humanity that Big Pharma and the associated, for profit, medical professionals are extending. I say extending because the science stake-in-the-ground that Big Pharma is mostly based on has been proven to be only part of the story, and not the controlling part.
The stake-in-the-ground is the science done in 1951 by a science guy on the Sparks side of the Soups/Sparks controversy about whether the human neuronal event was bio-chemical or bio-electric. He proved, given technology of the day, that the synaptic event was bio-chemical......and Big Pharma was born.
Since then science has discovered that there is a type of glia called an astrocyte that sets up the synaptic cleft before the bio-chemical event can take place and clears out the junction after the bio-chemical part takes place. All the while that the astrocytes are doing this synaptic management, (the bio-chemical event does not take place if the astrocyte does not set up the junction), they are making bio-electric wave forms that science knows exist but are still having trouble reading because the wave form is too slow for current technology. While the wave forms created by astrocytes may be thought of as slow, cumulatively, they represent our reptilian/mammalian/human trauma/emotional processing abilities that occur before our brain ever gets involved.
The point I am making is that the bio-chemical mental health paradigm is wrong in the sense that it does not incorporate the bio-electric facets of our bodies operation...and, given my experience, is quite dysfunctional for many mental health issues.
I spent a lot of time and out-of-pocket funding for my neuromodulation healing and much more research needs to be done to flush out our bio-electric workings but the new mental health paradigm of dysregulation of neural networks has a lot more current science going for it than the out of date bio-chemical one that has folks throwing drugs at everything.
If humanity is to prosper, we need to get the concept of profit out of any provision of health care. Current Western health care based on the profit motive is a crime against humanity and an impediment to our evolving as a species.
Posted by: psychohistorian | Nov 17 2020 1:01 utc | 61
Prof K @Nov16 22:44 #34
Now this blogger is all pissy because Trump, the asshole who already let 200,000+ people die from Covid, lost!Someone explain that...
b wrote in a July post ("Is Trump Finally Getting It?") that the failed/inept response from Trump was an innocent mistake:
A small early outbreak in Washington state was soon brought under control. Trump thought that the pandemic was not going to touch him. It was - in his view - like Russiagate and Ukrainegate just another fake scare that the Democrats were using against him.Then Italy was hit as well as other European countries. That was a bit of a warning but still not serious enough to take countermeasures. Then came New York and finally it dawned on everyone that the U.S. was unprepared.
To which I responded (comment #14):
This is demonstrably false.Congressmen and other officials were warned that a pandemic in USA was likely. One Senator passed on this warning to his favored constituents. And NYTimes described how US health officials refused to allow testing for community spread in Washington State. And when it was found, demanded that testing be halted.
Trump down-played the virus spread and the virus effects for as long as he could. It's very difficult to not see that as deliberately allowing the pandemic to gain a foothold and cause a CRISIS! that Trump/Deep State could use to further their agenda. Trump used the CRISIS! to bailout Wall Street and then Boeing. And his Administration's seemingly inept actions have been a boondoogle for Big Pharma.
Trump has deflected blame for his seemingly inept handling of the virus to China. This has furthered the Deep State's anti-China agenda and largely given Trump a 'pass'. Biden and the Democrats have little to say about this maneuver because the Empire is a bi-partisan affair.
<> <> <> <>
AFAIK b has never corrected his view that Trump made an innocent/honest mistake - even after I called b's view unforgivable a few days later (comment #182 in that thread) and even after Bob Woodward reported that Trump was knowingly lying to the American people.
!!
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Nov 17 2020 1:16 utc | 62
Trumph has at least two ways to get back at Fauci. Fauci should be pilloried for his proclamations that Hydroxychloroquinine doesn't work against covid 19. It is proven to work by the French doctor Raul Didier provided it is used before symptons are severe and in combination with Zinc and Azithromycin antibiotic. In fact this is how many third world countries have kept the levels of Covid 19 down. Trump should be letting the public know about this deliberate deception by Fauci, in cahoots with the drug manufacturers. Also there is the deliberate postponement of a vaccine release.
p.s. Ivermectin used in combination with zinc and an antibiotic has even greater efficacy than Hydroxychloroquinine but this too has been suppressed by Fauci and friends.
Posted by: Ike | Nov 17 2020 1:47 utc | 63
Since I had the Rona in January, I'll wait to see how many guinea pigs die first. I wouldn't trust Fauci or pharma as far as I could piss. Do any of you trust these people enough to let them babysit your children?
Posted by: Shadow | Nov 17 2020 1:47 utc | 64
The death of a quarter of a million Americans is not nothing. Dr. Anthony Fauci has been a master corporate/government bureaucrat superb at increasing profits but unable to control HIV or COVID-19 outbreaks. His bad science is as responsible for the deaths as White House magical thinking.
Only nations with a functional government have been able to control coronavirus. The West is unable to do anything since democratic governments have been dismantled to increase profits, privatize public functions, and to cut taxes on the wealthy. This is the ultimate cause. We are all “whistling in the dark” until functional public health systems are restored. The vaccines may or may not control the virus, but all the collateral damage to date and to come are due to the ruling classes assuring that the pharmaceutical industry makes a profit.
Posted by: VietnamVet | Nov 17 2020 1:47 utc | 65
Rainer Zitelman has this interesting comment on the failure of the "west" to control a pandemic that Asians, and it is said Australasians, have had under control for months.
http://www.defenddemocracy.press/why-the-west-failed-to-learn-how-to-combat-the-coronavirus-from-east-asia/
There is a report, unconfirmed, that in Kerala the virus has turned out to have a very low mortality rate (1:1000) when treated properly.
It is increasingly clear that the failures of "western" governments to control the spread of Covid is all about class relations. And nowhere more than in the USA where minimal health care remains a luxury and a source of enormous profit for capitalists. And quarantines are at the mercy of every employer's whims.
An article in the Tyee today contrasts the failure of most provinces to control the virus with the success of the maritime provinces
https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2020/11/16/Some-Places-Beating-COVID-Can-Canada/?utm_source=daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=161120
Posted by: bevin | Nov 17 2020 2:17 utc | 66
Trump screwed Trump of an easy reelection. His stupidity during Covid briefings was in full display. He was the one who said Covid was going to dissapear like magic. He was the onw who infected half the white house and most of the secret service with the virus. He didnt wear a mask and made fun of people wearing them. Blaming his utter failure on pharma corps or Dr Fauci is plain sill at this point.
Posted by: comandante | Nov 17 2020 2:26 utc | 67
So Fauci and the VIPs of the FDA, Modena and Pfizer are part of Deep Gov. and Sabotaged Trump ??? Excellent Mr Reinhard, Excellent !! May the Force be with You and GOOD HUNTING !!
Posted by: opereta | Nov 17 2020 2:44 utc | 68
is Roy G @ 25, the same as Ric G who has posted at least 7 times here today?? i am curious based on what was said @ 25...
@ Prof K | Nov 16 2020 22:44 utc | 34 quote - "This blog has been good at taking Covid seriously, and at recommending the correct public health measures.
Now this blogger is all pissy because Trump, the asshole who already let 200,000+ people die from Covid, lost! Someone explain that..."
well karlof1 gave you a response and i am going to give one too... pointing out bullshit and manipulation is something b seems to excel at... i don't sense a particular partisanship in b, but i do sense a desire to point out what appear as manipulation.... i think this is a good enough reason for him to cover this as he is doing.. maybe you see it differently...
@ Ric G... here are the stats for 2018 n the usa deaths based on type of death..
Heart disease: 655,381
Cancer: 599,274
Accidents (unintentional injuries): 167,127
Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 159,486
Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 147,810
Alzheimer’s disease: 122,019
Diabetes: 84,946
Influenza and Pneumonia: 59,120
Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome and nephrosis: 51,386
Intentional self-harm (suicide): 48,344
now we know that covid will tip the scale if a person has pre existing health conditions - heart disease and etc. but one can't get around the fact that so far this year, and it really only started beginning in march - the death rate for the usa based just based on on covid stands at 252,651 for 2020.... that is significantly higher then the data from 2018 of 59,120 deaths... maybe you can have a conversation wtih @ 25 Roy G who compares moa to zerohedge which you are sharing links to, lol..
Posted by: james | Nov 17 2020 3:03 utc | 69
Ric G @72, without knowing the figures for flu, pneumonia, etc. I would think that if people are wearing masks, practicising social distancing, disinfecting/washing their hands more, avoiding travel/resorts/movies/concerts, working/studying from home, etc. to help stop the spread of COVID-19, then that should naturally also help to reduce the spread of the flu, the common cold, and other transmissible infections as a side effect.
Regarding Asia, they probably benefited from having experience with SARS, wearing masks seems to have been more commonplace and less controversial there, perhaps culturally they're more inclined to work together to stop the spread of the virus, perhaps they have fewer large groups of elderly in long term care homes, perhaps their healthcare system is less expensive and more accessible than that of the US, perhaps they do more contact tracing, perhaps the corona virus strains there are different, etc. There are so many different factors involved ... I'm sure there are lots of articles and discussions out there exploring those differences, and eventually studies and books to try to answer those questions.
Posted by: Canadian Cents | Nov 17 2020 3:04 utc | 70
Oh for God's sake! Quit this Trump is the eternal victim hogwash!
There's news breaking that Trump wanted to launch a military strike on Iran's Natanz nuclear facility last week and Pence, Milley, Pompeo and the new acting Secy of Defense talked him down from it.
The man wants to start a f**king war, kill efforts to reinstate the JCPOA and saddle Biden with war from the getgo! He's that vindictive!
He's out of his damn mind, tweeting bullshit every day and playing golf while people are dying by the thousands and others lining up for miles to get food and your still pretending he's innocent and Fauci's out to get him?!
Stop jerking us around, already!
Posted by: Circe | Nov 17 2020 3:12 utc | 71
OR as Lieutenant General Thomas McInerney said live it were Hammer and Scorecard that flipped the vote tallies. These NSA/CIA toys were made to modify foreign elections, only now Brennan, Clapper and Mueller had turned them 180 degrees onto the US. Clever, modifying local vote tally files send upstream over Internet on the fly. A few percent from A to B usually does it as it doubles up.
https://rumble.com/vaz2ih-hammer-and-scorecard-from-the-censored-youtube-warroom-episode-470.html
That same trio was quite busy collecting leverage / compromat on the domestic who-is-who, including bankers, anchors etc. https://www.blxware.org/
Posted by: Antonym | Nov 17 2020 3:23 utc | 72
@70 Vietnam Vet
And of course that pharma industry includes all relevant politicians and people like Fauci who are so deeply compromised with insider trading and on the hook for baksheesh that governance simply cannot work in a crisis.
bevin's links @71 are worth reading for those who don't already know, but what the US failed to do was copy China. The US saw a successful containment and treatment operation made up of of several parts and concluded, well we have one of those parts, and none of the others, so we'll lie about the importance of the others, and we'll do the one thing we can, which is lock down. The people of the US were the ones who decided for themselves that masking would help, long before their government grudgingly admitted it. Fauci too was one of the liars there.
In sum, it was truly a case of savages and barbarians attempting to emulate the example of civilized people, and it failed utterly, and still does fail, because the barbarians still haven't learned.
The recipe is clear. How to be like China: first throw a very wide cordon around the infection area because making sure no infected people escape detection is like herding cats - so throw a wide net. Then test everyone inside the net and move the positive tests into confinement and treatment. Contact-trace for all you're worth to find more likely subjects to test. Rinse and repeat as if life depended on it. Make sure the priority is the safety of the population. Compensate wholesale across the board for economic harm so the entire population knows it's a true society-wide crisis, and that the government is telling the truth, and thereby can join in with the effort as volunteers.
Eventually, when you think you've contained all the cats you were herding, let the negative tests get on with their life. Eventually, if the virus has too few hosts, it can't replicate enough to gain over the ongoing vigilance and remedial efforts. This was what we first saw in Wuhan, and China has demonstrated the same recipe elsewhere as isolated events have erupted.
The secret was always testing. This was one of the missing ingredients in the US, and the greatest missing ingredient was the capacity for government to act with honest diligence.
The US, as we knew and said from the beginning, is a broken nation. It was incapable of copying China. As Putin remarked, it takes a viable state to defeat the virus.
~~
As an aside: to this day I thank fate that China showed the first explosion of this virus, because if it had boomed in the US first, I wouldn't know what to believe. Only watching China act has anchored my personal certainty about the reality of this virus. It's a pitiful state of bewilderment to experience, and it serves as a benchmark for the lack of information available in this benighted society.
~~
@72 Ric G - I hope some of the above helps explain how Asia seems free of the virus. It's because they're dealing with it correctly. It's absolutely, truly that simple.
Posted by: Grieved | Nov 17 2020 3:28 utc | 73
Excuse me...EXCUSE ME...
I would shed no tears if Trump in his final days used the powers granted him and declared totally 100% legal and constitutional,
to drone bomb and kill Joseph Biden, kill Barack Obama, kill Hillary Clinton, kill John Roberts and kill the members of the Supreme Court as well as kill all the members of the United States Congress and Senate, and especially kill the CIA and kill FBI and kill Google and kill FakeBook.
That would make me a proud American.
Posted by: timbers | Nov 17 2020 3:42 utc | 74
@ Grieved 80
Suggesting that Americans need to act like Chinese is like asking Chinese to act like Westerners, never happen. Chinese believe in collectivity and unity for the common good, whereas Americans believe in independence, every man for himself, and only the strong survive.
It's a sort of payback for the hundred years of China humility imposed by westerners, one might say.
Posted by: Don Bacon | Nov 17 2020 3:52 utc | 75
@82 Don Bacon
I'll take that as a sardonic observation, but we both know we're talking about systems of governance rather than cultures.
The US has plenty of examples of collective action. Simply going out onto the street and meeting people will confirm the natural camaraderie of folks. But the US is in dire straits. Good behavior is stressed by bad government.
It was not the American people who failed in the age of plague, it was American governance. It was not the Chinese people who succeeded in the age of plague, it was Chinese governance.
I enjoyed your comment as humor, and I always savor your comments, but in this matter my sense of humor seems missing - sorry. I feel a life-or-death need to keep the focus where it belongs - on governance, one hundred percent.
Posted by: Grieved | Nov 17 2020 4:38 utc | 76
Lol, good. "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law, but remember, nobody likes an asshole." This is the kind of court intrigue that makes our society of the spectacle at least fun to spectate.
Posted by: fnord | Nov 17 2020 4:47 utc | 77
@ Grieved 83
we both know we're talking about systems of governance rather than cultures.
I'm not, I'm talking about a difference in culture, as I explained at #82.
That's why the Asians are whupping the West, no matter what government they have.
For example, a large number of Americans (including governors) are still anti-mask!...Go figure. Governments can't force people to do what they refuse to do.
Blaming everything on the government is a cop-out, when the people have different ideas.
Posted by: Don Bacon | Nov 17 2020 4:55 utc | 78
CDW @ 50:
"...Perhaps. Or perhaps Trump was just one COVID stimulus check away from victory? Biden has been silent on the subject. I think would he have been a shoo in had he done that one thing."
I agree.
Posted by: juliania | Nov 17 2020 5:02 utc | 79
@ juliania #86
. . .perhaps Trump was just one COVID stimulus check away from victory?
The president has no such authority. The money has to be appropriated by the House. A Dem House.
Posted by: Don Bacon | Nov 17 2020 5:12 utc | 80
This reads like a Daily Mail article. Article quality tends downward.
Posted by: BM | Nov 17 2020 5:21 utc | 81
@BM 89
Article quality tends downward.
Thanks for providing a good example.
Posted by: Don Bacon | Nov 17 2020 5:28 utc | 82
@85 Don Bacon
I'd have to agree with you and go a step further...Chinese government is a product of their culture...as is our government. Social cultures tend to produce social governments...on the flip-side individualistic cultures tend to produces individualistic governments.
I would even go further and say different cultures arise out of racial differences, but in this day and age that isn't an allowable opinion in some circles.
Posted by: Jason | Nov 17 2020 6:23 utc | 83
no idea how to treat or prevent the covid 19 hoax by: Piotr Berman 38 <=Mudaro says the ursolic acid derivative invented by the IVIC is 100% effective at stopping corona viral replication <=meaning TR 10 is likely a good preventive. Ask WHO, they are working with it, and many around the globe are already producing this apple peal extract.. I see it now <=sprinkle this simple, everyday photochemical around and snuff out the virus in your area. room, bed, car or place of work. Don't kiss anyone until they bite the apple.
Dr. Anthony Fauci has been a master corporate/government bureaucrat superb at increasing profits but unable to control HIV or COVID-19 outbreaks. His bad science is as responsible for the deaths as White House magical thinking. by VietnamVet @ 70 <=mis-application of science to giant problems is a characteristic of physicians; generally, they just don't understand science.
I respond to psychohistorian @ 66 <=I agree the human astrocyte, is a type of glia cell, involved in synaptic cleft structure and function which is part of the biologicial information transport network. I also agree astrocytes are specialized cells known to be capable to sequence, time, schedule and direct parts of the construction of synaptic cleft structures. I also agree the cell to cell communications can be tracked by dynamically measuring the electromagnetic signals these active biological process produce and use. I also agree several very long wavelength, low power signals are associated to mental function and mood adjusted environments, but i do not agree astrocytes tell the whole story about reptilian/mammalian/emotion or cognitive intelligence associated processing.
I might also agree science has made it possible for mental health professionals to explain some cognitive function and some mood induced behaviors, just as science has made it possible for physicians to practice modern medicine. The results produced by sets of chemical, genetic, molecular, electrical and magnetic phenomena dynamically interacting with each other constitutes life and the behaviors life expresses. Investigating these variables is the heart and soul of science.
Science has discovered each of these phenomena, studied them, and found ways to make them useful so every day professionals and commercial interest can use the findings of science.
Understanding how involved signaling is with life, suggest that 5g (which is a high energy waveform) should be treated as a drug and its promoters should be made to conduct clinical trials before humans are exposure d to each frequency in the electro magnetic spectrum. Just like a powerful drug, these signals influence metabolism and could kill entire populations or cure them of their illnesses; just like a pill does.
Posted by: snake | Nov 17 2020 6:27 utc | 84
@90 Don Bacon
And that's your best argument...a type?
@87 Same
That's one way to pass the buck.
@86 juliania and CDW
You really think that's the singular reason 78,600,000 voted to kick Trump out of office? How about he's a lying sack of shit and it's always all about him all the time? Oh and tomorrow or Wednesday the Covid death total will reach a quarter of a million but golf's more important than the mourning of a million people or more who have suffered this loss. I'm just getting started...
Posted by: Circe | Nov 17 2020 6:35 utc | 85
more time wasting BS fantasy articles while Trump might be preparing to attack Iran's nuclear facilities.
Meanwhile, Israel might be buying Russia's vaccine.
Posted by: Hoyeru | Nov 17 2020 6:40 utc | 86
In fact, Fauchy knew he was in trouble with Trump and was licking Trump's ass, repeating the same BS trump was saying for the last 2 months. Fauchy capitulated. B is talking out of his ass.
Posted by: Hoyeru | Nov 17 2020 6:44 utc | 87
Posted by: karlof1 | Nov 16 2020 21:27 utc | 18
I think Lex was suggesting that it is a private sector company, not public sector. Publicly traded companies, means their shares are traded publicly on the stock market, not that they are owned outeight by any state or gov't (or the public). Any private sector corp, whether private or publicly traded can get governemnt funny money should the Gov't wish to "give" it.
Posted by: Blue Dotterel | Nov 17 2020 7:04 utc | 88
First off, my lead up. I spent the past 3 1/2 days isolated with a good friend who is dying of cancer, in a cabin in the woods, on a lake/river. This little holiday began on Friday the 13th on purpose. I figured if there was ever a year in which my superstitions and the fact that horror is my favorite movie genre (for entertainment, not critical thinking - usually) might manifest in some real action, be it raging zombie mobs (covidiots?) attempting to loot vacation homes, Jason Voorhees or Michael Myers, 2020 had to be the year. I'm almost sad to say that all that really went down was some good quasi-political banter, the use of psilocybin and show and tell with each of our caches of illicit firearms, bows and crazy machete blades. Tuned out of all news and Internet, social media, and the only phone call was from a long-ago ex fiancee who I happened to be with during the time in which this particular friend and I became close. Anyway the only reason I wasted anyone's time with that lead-up is that I've been looking at this 2020 Presidential election from more of a human interest angle and Joe Schmoe in my various circle of human beings, and NOT from the grand conspiratorial deep state-Democrat-MSM collusion. Especially not the nonsense now floating about regarding Dominion voting systems (which BTW has acquired whatever Diebold was renamed to and has a history of questionable security and conflicts of interest in favor of Republicans - and yawn, yes I know, to the hard core Trump and Qanon fans, even ALL Republicans are ultimately part of the far reaching conspiracy to keep Trump from exposing the satanic, child sex trafficking Democrats and ivory tower elites).
But b seems to have missed out on the real reason - assuming the vote counts are valid, and I have seen zero reason to believe that they aren't, especially in a manner so as to flip a landslide Trump victory to Joe Biden in a systemic and coordinated manner - that Trump lost. The short answer is: "white guys like me and the people who tried to convince me to vote for Biden." The other short answer is that they were sick to death of Trumpism and what it inspired in his fanatical supporters, including the further poisoning of the already toxic political dialogue in the USA. Turns out that even my friends, family and acquaintances who ended up being this election's "silent majority" weren't convinced that Antifa and BLM were actual terrorist groups that would decide, proactively, to attack and burn every city they could until they got their way. Nope. They realized that Antifa is a fringe movement that constitutes a tiny minority of whatever it is that what's 'left of the left' in the USA is made up of. They certainly weren't convinced of this by the corporate media, who did their best to keep the protests and violence going (all of which would seem to help Trump get re-elected), and who didn't exactly go out of their way to explain that Biden/Harris were far from "leftist" or "ultra-liberal" politicians, not to mention the Marxists they were widely portrayed as by right leaning media and cyberspace. They just enjoyed the ratings.
They know that the left has long ago been crushed by the private finance, rentier right-wing power structure for more than a hundred years. These maniacs in the streets - the ones actually committing violence - are mostly nutcase anarchists, outside agitators (including plenty of right-wing operatives), and a small minority of desperate, penniless, jobless and hopeless angry people. And that Trump wasn't doing anything to alleviate the conditions that they faced in their daily lives. Of course the media - both sides - loved to show the videos of crazy black people driving VERY expensive SUV's driving up and looting VERY high end boutique storefronts, but there was never a real, honest accounting of the real impact of the protests/"riots" and police response when compared to the already dire financial situation that existed BEFORE COVID-19 hit. But again. Great ratings! Great way for the oligarch owned media in the inverted totalitarian (corporate controlled) USA to keep people divided, angry and tuned in! But other than a few isolated stories of a shop owner losing everything JUST because of riots and looting, the real damage to the economy and social fabric was long brewing and long stoked by guys like Trump - and long brushed under the rug and glad handed by guys like Obama.
So long story short, in addition to the good points made by others before me in this thread about how it's absolutely ridiculous and, in fact, the complete reverse of the truth to claim that vaccine trial announcements were somehow coordinated and delayed to hand Joe Biden the election, the real reason Trump lost is that he is an asshole, but more importantly, a LOT of his American citizen fans are even bigger persecution complex having privileged assholes who have no qualms about shoving it in 'your' face as though screaming "TRUMP!" completely unprovoked in some black woman's face trying to do her minimum wage service industry job (or flight attendants, whatever) was some kind of real political statement rather than just a manifestation of being an asshole.
Like I've said, I didn't vote from here in Europe. I'm still registered in Texas to do so, but even if I had, I would have cast my vote for Howie Hawkins, a REAL outsider who would NEVER be allowed to ascend to the same level as Nancy Peloser, Mitch McConnel, Mike Pimpeous or least of all Trump's level. THAT is an outsider who understands how the economy works and is humble, worldly and intelligent enough to try to seek out the best minds for whatever task his administration would have needed to accomplish. Of course, he knows this too. While there is no way that the vote count was a fraud, the entire system is one - rotted to the core and set up to siphon taxpayer money into the off-shore bank accounts (and rentier class property and majority share holdings) of the oligarchy. The fact that Trump was allowed to reach the point he achieved speaks more loudly to this than anything else. He was the APPROVED "outsider" who - if he had been serious at all about or intelligent enough to go about helping the "deplorable" flyover country living MAGAtards, would have been far more effective at turning the MSM's Russiagate/Ukrainegate farces back against them to people like me who saw them for what they were immediately: a kayfabe kabuki theater distraction from the continued pillage of the national treasure by the oligarch class, of which Trump - despite whatever debts he may have coming due - is a privileged member. No new wars? LOL, my ass - Just today it came out that he had to be talked down from bombing Naantz (and possibly other places in Iran) and I believe those reports to be credible, since they match exactly the way he has conducted his foreign policy and nearly to the letter of what I have long predicted - a second term greater war in the Middle East, concentrated on Iran.
Regarding the way I tend to read b's thought process: I think that when he's not doing sitreps and solid analysis of geostrategic and regional conflicts, he tends to take the Glenn Greenwald approach to Western media criticism. I.e., flipping the headlines around to show exactly how they distort or reverse the truth of what is really going on and making fun of the MSM and DNC - the same people who character assassinated Al Gore and gave us George Bush and the Iraq war - for the way they've spent 4 years trying to paint Trump's legitimate electoral win as illegitimate. What I hope is that he and his readers can apply the same critical eye to what's already happening and will continue for as long as a person who is approved by Trump's fans isn't in the Oval Office - namely the false painting of the candidate himself, rather than the entire inverted totalitarian faux-democratic system - as illegitimate and turning it into more than just a cottage industry. Because I already know most Trump supporters/voters won't do that, but they won't have the self-awareness or concern for the national discourse (disregarding the MSM's bullshit narratives) to be "the better person" and take every opportunity to point out - yeah Joe Biden most likely really did win the election and for sure he won the popular vote without fraud, but look at us here not spending 4 years hysterically trying to come up with any lie possible to de-legitimize his presidency when, like Trump, he'll INVARIABLY doing enough real things and hurting real people to make it obvious that his and ANY OTHER person allowed to reach that office are illegitimate by the very definition of the system that is in place to put them in office and to keep out people like Howie Hawkins or Ron Paul.
Posted by: _K_C_ | Nov 17 2020 7:06 utc | 89
@ snake | Nov 17 2020 6:27 utc | 92 who questions the role of astrocytes
It is my understanding that astrocytes are the controlling agents of the salient network that further controls the anti-corelated task positive/resting networks
Those networks control the 246 (and counting) regions of the brain....see the great work China is doing at the link below and go to the Atlas page but don't get lost....grin
Posted by: psychohistorian | Nov 17 2020 7:12 utc | 90
I miss Richard. Please don’t kill anybody Bro (yet) !
Posted by: Featherless | Nov 17 2020 7:44 utc | 91
To put an even finer (or perhaps duller?) point on what I was trying to say is the following:
I think b is playing an irresponsible version of the game of US media and Democrat Party criticism because it plays into, rather than highlights the ridiculousness of the present situation; the zeitgeist even. There is a significant portion of Trump voters/supporters/fanatics who legitimately believe that everything - literally everything - written that is negative or critical of Trump is completely false on its face, from the get go. The converse holds - and I am basing this on people I know - that anything good Trump has done (which is really very little other than take the pretty mask off the Empires premiere lead actor role and to the more informed, the empire itself) is systematically ignored in a collusive and coordinated fashion in order to destroy Trump, the one true outsider who was capable of righting wrongs and exposing the deeply ingrained corruption of Washington DC and the Democrat (and initially Republican) party(ies).
Clearly we have now had 4 years of accusations and innuendo and promises of the imminent downfall of Trump for his corrupt, collusive ties to Russia and Vladimir Putin (99.9999999% of which were absolutely false) and near constant breathless 24/7 smear campaigning that, to any intelligent or wise observer, is obvious punch pulling, but to Trump's supporters is legitimate attacking and criticism intended to do real harm to him and his presidency. So like I said before, the DNC and corporate MSM spent 4 years trying to de-legitimize Trump's presidency and - depending on how you look at it - attempted a soft coup by way of impeachment for absolute bullshit charges that he violated some supposedly sacrosanct and pure principles when acting as the head of the Evil Empire and dealing with our would-be vassal state lap dogs. The COVID thing is slightly different, even though they used the same style of caveman level intellect "reportage": TRUMP BAD, TRUMP ONLY REASON TRUMP SUPPORTER DEPLORABLES REFUSE MASKS, TRUMP RUSSIA ASSET (like how would that fucking matter anyway?), TRUMP LIE EVERY TIME HE OPEN MOUTH. Other than the obvious to anyone with a brain fact that the MSM, by their implicit mission statements, lie about EVERYTHING THAT MATTERS, it shouldn't be all that surprising to any rational supporter of a politician like Trump that, yes in fact, he does lie quite often. Lying is the official form of communication in post-capitalist Western countries that have been nearly fully raped. So yeah, Trump DID lie about COVID - we have tape recorded proof of it. Trump DID lie about Obama's place of birth. Trump DID lie and say he'd bring back jobs especially in areas where a large portion of the population was disenfranchised feeling whites who either had great careers when we had a manufacturing sector or whose parents told them about how "great" America used to be. All of those things and many others were lies.
So the MSM and DNC managed to completely discredit themselves again, they destroyed Al Gore and gave us George W. Bush and THEN Iraq - AND Trump (read Matt Taibbi or FAIR.org's 'analysis' of the facts). The media didn't collude at all to hide the announcements about Killary's emails, but the only real "attack" pieces they used against Trump were simply ratings generating "grab 'em by the pussy" pseudo-bombshells that anyone who had even a slight modicum of familiarity with Trump, the brand and Trump, the personality wouldn't have been surprised by in the least. It's the more simplistic of Trump's supporters who assume that these were legitimate attacks carefully designed to deep-six his candidacy and give us the DNC anointed Killary who disappoint me the most. There is very little critical thinking going on with some of these people who I know personally, and whose comments I read online - including occasionally at MoA. CNN's CEO (or President, I forget what Zucker is) specifically said how much he loved Trump and intentionally kept all of his personal communications with Trump the candidate off-the-record, despite NON-STOP coverage (most of it "negative" if you look at this kind of thing from a very shallow position) and air time gifts (see: SNL - the ONLY candidate who HOSTED a taping that election cycle, IIRC).
But yes, the MSM did spend his whole first term pretending that they were going about the, ahem, legitimate de-legitimizing of the guy that they - AND Hillary - had, for not all that conflicting reasons, elevated to the status where he had a real chance of winning on the basis of Americans' disgust with the status quo. Even if it was believed as gospel by the reporter, anchor and analyst class (with numerous freshly laundered neocon/neolib war criminals or war criminal enablers) of the corporate media, the owner class didn't GAF as they knew that a Trump presidency would be as much or more beneficial to the majority shareholder bottom line than a boring ole Clinton presidency (minus a new Whitewater predicated on the emails and all of that, which - likely to the chagrin and disbelief of Trump supporters - would have been harped on in different but equal ways throughout her presidency like Russia/Ukrainegate were during Trump's). It's all bullshit all the way down. Some of the worker bees legitimately had TDS, but just as many Trump supporters had and have the other version of TDS.
But back to b and my whole reason for dropping this wannabe manifesto on MoA. I think he doesn't quite understand that his writings on this of late are giving fuel to the completely illegitimate claims of election/voting fraud, and to make matters worse, he's branching out into COVID related excuses for how the vast blob (the Borg) came together to convince enough gullible Americans to vote.....not in favor of Joe Biden.....but against Trump (again, Trump is deeply polarizing - which means large rallies, but also a lot of silent haters). This is problematic because the majority of Trump supporting friends and family in my own circle indeed believe EVERY conspiracy AGAINST #MAGA and FOR the totally lack of passion evoking Biden/Harris ticket, but also refuse to believe ANY negative news item or conspiracy engaged in by Trump the businessman, politician or person and EVERY negative news item against not just Joe Biden, but ANY Democrat - not just the infamous ones like Peloser and Schumer (not even sure he's still around, been a while since I heard much from him).
Yeah, Adam Schiff is the world's biggest liar and attention whore. But Trump is right there with him. Yes the Dimmocrats spent 4 years "resisting" on completely specious grounds when there was plenty to actually resist with Trump (and resist by effective, rather than intentionally defective means). But we're at a point where - at least in my circle of American friends - the majority of Trump supporters really believe that Qanon is real, that Trump was working on exposing a huge secret cabal of Democrat-ONLY Satanist sex-trafficking criminals, that Trump was really trying to make America great again through policy (I'd concede on wage depression via "the wall" and ICE enforcement if I knew more about the situation - but regardless even pre-COVID the mfg. jobs were declining rather than increasing and the gig economy made up for most of the "historical" job gains, including among blacks and Latinos) and that Trump gave a flying fuck about them or their lives other than getting their votes by convincing them he was some kind of populist and outsider willing to risk his (not just political) life to see to it that white America saw a return to what is considered historical normalcy, i.e., Great Again.
I am ranting here, I know. But b has lost the script with regard to how subtle and satirical/facetious one can be if one is really trying to make a legitimate point. It's gotten to where I think it's either the "get out ya popcorn" Terrell Owens mentality or that b's really trying to make the case that a serious, provable, mostly secret (in terms of planning and preparation) and deeply coordinated campaign was actually implemented successfully to "git rid of reformer outsider Drumpf" and place another neoliberal shill back in the White House. I don't buy it, and I think that entertaining the most insane of insane theories regarding interlocking voter fraud, corporate-deep state collusion, and worst of all (IMO) U.S. corporate media effectiveness in relatively short-term psy-op and propaganda campaigns to destroy this one guy who was the only person that posed any real danger of exposing and bringing down their well hidden, but fragile house of cards, is pretty irresponsible, but mostly just disappointing given what I'd come to expect from this blog.
Posted by: _K_C_ | Nov 17 2020 7:59 utc | 92
It is not hard to see why Big Pharma screwed him over. He campaigned on reversing Obamacare which as this article from Politico shows just how profitable it had been for the medical industry.
How hospitals got richer off Obamacare
Biden was VP when Obamacare was passed so it makes sense for them to choose Biden, The other policy Trump was trying pass that would hurt Big Pharma profits was standardising the price of medicine. If Big Pharma can sell it for $1 in Mexico but $10 in the US with that policy Big Pharma would’ve been forced to sell it for $1 in the US.
With Biden Big Pharma profits will keep on rolling in.
As to the vaccine itself, the fact that the CEO sold the bulk of his shares at the announcement of the vaccine tells you all you need to know about it’s efficacy. Why sell you shares before the profits start rolling in ??? From an investment viewpoint it makes no sense. Unless the CEO knows something the rest of us don’t. Best of luck to whoever takes it!
You guys first! No I insist, you first! lol.
Posted by: Down South | Nov 17 2020 8:27 utc | 93
Posted by: Down South | Nov 17 2020 8:27 utc | 101
So it's the perfect trifecta. Big Pharma, Deep State/MIC and MSM (all of whom share board members in one way or another) that brought down Trump. Oh wait, I forgot - outright, but still totally unproven voter fraud. But ONLY against Trump.
Obamacare was a total giveaway to the insurance and big hospital companies. The "left" hated it as much as the right and Trump. But, then, has Trump ever produced a viable alternative or is it just destroying what little Obamacare DID do for SOME people in the name of undoing anything that the previous guy (who Trump has made no secret of having ODS) ever did? I mean, where is Trump's grand fix for the rapacious, corporate dominated American healthcare system? Do you have anything in favor of it or just innuendo and obvious examples of how Obamacare, like ANY non-single-payer alternative, is just another in a long series of lobbyist written legislation that comes to pass whether it's a Democrat or Republican (including Trump) in office. I mean, he DID choose to run as a Republican right? What has he done that demonstrates he's anything like a Lincoln (or any other historically significant Republican)? Run huge deficits? Bloat the military even more? Send more jobs overseas while pretending to be on the American worker's side? Oh yeah - AND healthcare. What has Trump done?
And don't give me any excuses like Obama and his supporters did when asked why he didn't close Gitmo - REPUBLICAN OBSTRUCTION. Yeah right. What has Trump even put on the table to help average, under- or unemployed Americans with their healthcare?
Posted by: _K_C_ | Nov 17 2020 8:37 utc | 94
If above is true, a big if, then why? Because Trump handled this so badly not because those involved in healthcare were shills for Democrats. So let us focus on Trump’s inadequacies and not their reactions to it.
Posted by: Orage | Nov 17 2020 8:48 utc | 95
89 BM
sadly true. there is a cozy bar with rabbits all over but it has too many pictures and its loading very slowly. just sayin'
Posted by: Mina | Nov 17 2020 8:56 utc | 96
Excellent article by Edward Curtain of the Off-Guardian that most of us at MOA could appreciate.
https://off-guardian.org/2020/11/15/everybody-knows-the-fight-was-fixed/
A quote from the piece:
"Be grateful, give thanks that you live in a democracy where voting is allowed and your choice is as important as a billionaire’s such as Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, or Charles Koch. In the voting booth we are all equal.
Myths die hard. This one never does:
Your voice, your hopes, and your dreams, will define our American destiny. And your courage and goodness and love will forever guide us along the way.”
Donald Trump, January 20, 2017
With the campaign over, it’s time to put the anger and the harsh rhetoric behind us and come together as a nation. It’s time for America to unite. And to heal.”
Joe Biden, November 7, 2020
Above all else, the time has come for us to renew our faith in ourselves and in America. In recent years, that faith has been challenged.”
Richard Nixon, January 20, 1973
Your voice – our faith – it’s time to unite and heal."
Posted by: Blue Dotterel | Nov 17 2020 8:58 utc | 97
KC @ 102
So it's the perfect trifecta. Big Pharma, Deep State/MIC and MSM (all of whom share board members in one way or another) that brought down Trump
You forgot Big Tech who went so far as to censor POTUS. If they can censor him they can censor anyone. That itself was a shameless display of how much power the Deep State wields.
Oh wait, I forgot - outright, but still totally unproven voter fraud
Yes, dead people voting in record numbers and ONLY for Biden is totally legitimate. Fraud, what fraud? Trump’s lawyers are filing lawsuits and as I’ve said before as a result of these challenges SCOTUS will decide the election, Gore’s legal challenge to the 2000 election lasted 37 days.
As to the rest of your rant, and that is what it is, I’ll refer you to an interview PBS had with Steve Bannon (2:26:25) that shows the deep divide between Trump and the Establishment Republicans and how Fox and Murdoch tried to sabotage his campaign before it even got off the ground. Pay particular attention where he talks about the managed decline of the US which mirrors Volcker talking about the controlled disintegration of the US.
What’s with the unseemly rush ?If the election was free and fair then no-one should have any qualms about legal challenges to the election.
Posted by: Down South | Nov 17 2020 9:32 utc | 98
Very poor analysis. Fauci was not ignored. Fauci convinced Trump not to close borders early, which would have been the only effective measure against the pandemic (see Taiwan and others). And it was Fauci who advised against masks in spring.
Also, vaccine trials were not conclusive initially. Their results became only conclusive towards the end of October. If they had published their results a few days before the election, this would have been obvious interference. It was a wise move to stay out of politics and publish only afterwards.
Besides, a press release by Pfizer would certainly not have changed the election outcome. Many are skeptical of vaccines anyway.
Posted by: Rob K. | Nov 17 2020 10:23 utc | 99
Fauci is a pompous little dic--err... 80 yr old small person, who is clinging to his position at NIH now for *40 yrs*, because he is the absolute poodle (albeit one with a napoleonic coplex) of his true (not Trump) masters.
You can easily see this from his hissy reactions when Rand Paul (R. KY Sen, and Covid survivor) questioning Grand High Priest Fauci's holy revelations of Big Pharma Shilled Medicine:
Sept 2020: https://youtu.be/sFUyKYxZ2Vk?t=171
Contrast this with the 'Obtuse One' Fauci playing stupid when Jim Jordan R. OH) is pinning him down on whether the deep state democrat organized protest demonstration/riots during July 2020 were unhealthy due to risk of spreading covid:
Posted by: gm | Nov 17 2020 11:04 utc | 100
The comments to this entry are closed.
Um, half this fucking country doesn’t believe in the virus, and a good number of them don’t believe in vaccines. So it doesn’t matter. Now maybe if your new hero had bothered to attend any coronavirus meetings, read the briefings prepped for him or any of the other outlets available to the most powerful man in the world, he could have announced potentially good news on a vaccine. But since his supporters don’t believe in Covid, they would have voted for him anyhow. It’s highly unlikely that enough votes would have been flipped by a vaccine announcement. But one more time, if Trump wanted to know, he could have known. Do you think the task force made sure not to discuss the vaccine trials as part of this conspiracy? Do you think that if the POTUS asked an off-handed question about vaccines that a competent staffer wouldn’t have had an answer from Pfizer or Moderna in less than 1/2 hr? Trump fucked trump in this election. He could have not pretended it doesn’t exist/is no big deal. He could have used the moment to do economic good for a large number of people and won a lot of votes with that. Lots of corona virus things trump could have done that would have helped with the election but he didn’t.
And hey, those are private companies. Pfizer didn’t even take government money. In what way do they owe trump anything? Maybe they wanted to wait until after the election so they could get more news coverage and better investor response?
Posted by: Lex | Nov 16 2020 20:12 utc | 1