Covid-19 Lies!

Closing Thought–30Mar20

There are lots of sites and sources for virus information but I feel we need to step up and point to blatant lies that we should all be aware of in these times of so much confusion….

Quick: A runny nose means you don’t have the coronavirus. True or false? If you said true because of something on Facebook, you were likely duped by the so-called “Uncle with master’s degree post”—one of several coronavirus canards circulating online. The BBC traced a version back to Feb. 7 that appeared on the group Happy People, which has 2,000 members: “My classmate’s uncle and nephew, graduated with a master’s degree, and work in Shenzhen Hospital,” it reads. “He is being transferred to study Wuhan pneumonia virus. He just called me and told me to tell my friends…” The text is anonymous and mixes fact with fiction, advising people to wash their hands with soap (useful!) while peddling myths about runny noses and liquids with ice.

FullFact and Snopes dismiss several claims in the post, like “Coronavirus pneumonia is a dry cough with no runny nose” (you can have a runny nose) and the coronavirus “will be killed by a temperature of just 26/27 degrees” (that’s not confirmed). Other head-scratchers include “try not to drink liquids with ice” and sneezed particles reach “about 10 feet” before hitting the ground (no one knows how far they go). The post has reached hundreds of thousands in slightly different forms, often copied and pasted by users who make it look original. Another popular fake post claims that Bill Gates has said the virus serves “a spiritual purpose,” the Independent reports. Facebook and Twitter say they’re trying to crack down on misinformation, but meanwhile, the CDC and WHO remain good sources on the coronavirus.

Now my attempt to help my readers find proper and good information on this killer circulating through our nation……

The Atlantic has put together a one stop shopping for Covid-19 information…..The Atlantic’s guide to understanding COVID-19

https://www.theatlantic.com/category/what-you-need-know-coronavirus/

Stay Calm……Avoid crowds……wash hands often…..and stay prepared.

Be well….Be Safe……

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

883 Page Later

By now the media has been running hour after hour of just how much the new stim plan is needed to protect the people of the US……..well that is bullshit.

Of course that is just my opinion.

But for full disclosure here is the monumental piece of work…all 883 pages of it.

Yikes, the text of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) has been released (full pdf below). The Senate took H.R.748 stripped it out, and replaced the text with this bill. The full 50 page senate record of the activity is available here.

Digging in now. However, at first blush the size of the spending seems to be a considerable state budget deficit bailout [similar to how Obamacare removed the healthcare pension liabilities from unions]. Here’s the BILL:

https://www.scribd.com/document/453273118/Cares-Act-Final-Text

It is a long read but well worth to see just what games were played…..

It points to the capitalism’s response to the pandemic…..

In fact, the paltry bill does nothing for 80 percent of workers, exempting both large employers and small companies that claim hardship. Members of Congress argued that allowing paid sick leave would encourage sick employees to stay home—which is precisely the purpose of the program. As a result, workers will be forced to choose between going to work sick and endangering their coworkers or forcing their families to go hungry.

Nothing will be done for workers threatened by the deadly pandemic. But when it comes to bailing out the banks and propping up share values, there is no limit to the resources the government is willing to mobilize.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/03/16/pers-m16.html

In case you still do not understand this thing…..maybe this will help…..

more than $2 trillion that has already been pledged to backstop the values of financial assets held by major banks, Congress is debating an additional $2 trillion bailout package.

The vast majority of that proposal consists in various handouts to business in the form of a payroll tax holiday and loans, including measures specifically targeting the airline and other industries. Less than $50 billion of the bill funds emergency measures to combat the pandemic. Just one company, Boeing, is demanding a bailout larger than every public health measure contained in the bill.

While the Republicans and Democrats haggle over details of the bailout, they agree that 1) massive sums of money must be funneled through the major corporations; 2) that no measures be taken that limit or threaten the wealth of the executives and large investors; and 3) that the interests of the capitalist profit system and private property will remain unmolested and unchallenged. The banks and large corporations will not only continue to rule. These institutions and their executives and large shareholders are to emerge from the crisis richer and more powerful than ever.

The New York Times declared in an editorial published yesterday, “The only practical way to limit mass unemployment, and to preserve previously viable companies, is for the government to pump money into the private sector.”

(wsws.org)

If you prefer a graph to make it simpler….

$2.3 trillion in total funding was allotted as follows:

54% to corporations and small businesses through loans, grants and tax cuts
26% to workers and families, including 2% to safety net services
8% to hospitals and other health-related spending
7% to state and local governments
1% to education services
4% to other services

(commondreams.org)

We still believe that corporations need all this cash…..and families deserve a pittance…..health related gets 8%………parties all around for Wall Street and funerals all around for the rest of us.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/03/27/bailouts-for-the-rich-the-virus-for-the-rest-of-us/

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I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Is This The Demise Of Trump?

Trump’s lack of action on this virus thing has done more damage than just health…..he has damaged his chances of being re-elected…….in the last month the markets has lost all the gains it made during the 3 years of a Trump presidency….and the economy was his bright spot to run on and maybe sway voters to give him another four years.

All that positive campaign fodder is gone baby gone.

To be sure, the president isn’t responsible for either the coronavirus or the disease it causes, COVID-19, and he couldn’t have stopped it from hitting our shores even if he had done everything right. Nor is it the case that the president hasn’t done anything right; in fact, his decision to implement a travel ban on China was prudent. And any narrative that attempts to pin all of the blame on Trump for the coronavirus is simply unfair. The temptation among the president’s critics to use the pandemic to get back at Trump for every bad thing he’s done should be resisted, and schadenfreude is never a good look.

That said, the president and his administration are responsible for grave, costly errors, most especially the epic manufacturing failures in diagnostic testing, the decision to test too few people, the delay in expanding testing to labs outside the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and problems in the supply chain. These mistakes have left us blind and badly behind the curve, and, for a few crucial weeks, they created a false sense of security. What we now know is that the coronavirus silently spread for several weeks, without us being aware of it and while we were doing nothing to stop it. Containment and mitigation efforts could have significantly slowed its spread at an early, critical point, but we frittered away that opportunity.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/peter-wehner-trump-presidency-over/607969/

Trump recently said……that he foresaw this virus coming…..

President Trump has stepped up the administration’s response to the coronavirus outbreak—and he is apparently trying to retroactively step up his level of concern. The president claimed Tuesday that he always knew that it was a pandemic, contradicting months of statements downplaying or even mocking the level of risk, reports the New York Times. “This is a pandemic,” Trump said Tuesday. “I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic.” The Times notes that on Jan. 22, when asked if he was worried about a pandemic, Trump said: “No, not at all. We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. It’s going to be just fine.”

In recent weeks, Trump has also attacked Democrats and the media over the outbreak, calling it the rival party’s “new hoax,” the Hill reports. On March 9, he tweeted: “The Fake News Media and their partner, the Democrat Party, is doing everything within its semi-considerable power (it used to be greater!) to inflame the CoronaVirus situation, far beyond what the facts would warrant” and quoted the surgeon general as saying “the risk is low to the average American.” When he spoke to reporters Tuesday, the president denied changing his mind about the outbreak. “No, I’ve always viewed it as very serious,” Trump said. “There was no difference yesterday from days before. I feel the tone is similar, but some people said it wasn’t.”

This pandemic and the response has shown the American people what a con man Trump truly is…..and they are starting to realize they have been conned…..and his stupid of idea of “reopen the country” is a perfect illustration of his silliness and making of confusion…..

President Trump is extending federal guidelines recommending people stay home and away from one another for another 30 days as the coronavirus continues to spread across the country, the AP reports. Trump made the announcement during a Rose Garden briefing. The guidelines, originally tagged as “15 days to slow the spread,” had been set to expire Monday. Trump had said last week he hoped to have the country “re-opened” by Easter.

But public health experts sounded the alarm, saying a rollback would speed transmission, making the situation worse. The federal guidelines recommend that older people and those with preexisting conditions stay home and away from other people, and also recommend that all Americans avoid social gatherings, work from home, and steer clear of bars and restaurants.

Knee jerk stupidity.

I believe that we Americans are watching the probable demise of the Trump presidency……a slow burn indeed……but I could be mistaken.

A demise but at what price?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo, scribo”

Abby Kelley–Radical Woman

More for the celebration of women’s history month…..if you would like more on this interesting lady …..https://www.womenofthehall.org/inductee/abby-kelley-foster/

Enjoy….be safe chuq

In Saner Thought

College of Political Knowledge

Subject: American History/Women’s History

I try to do my part to educate the people on things that they may not think about or realize…..it is March and Women’s History month…..I also try to find people that have contributed to the making of this country and have not been given the respect that they deserve……and Abby Kelley is such a person…….

Abigail (Abby) Kelley was born in 1811 into a strict Quaker family…..being a female her education was that in Quaker schools….after her education was complete, as much as any woman could hope to obtain, she taught school and her road to radical feminism….she lectured and wrote about temperance, pacifism and anti-slavery…..she became more and more progressive while involved with abolitionists, but she not only lectured about freedom for slaves but also a full civil equality…she not only opposed war but also all forms of government coercion…

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Venezuela–The Bounty

While you were watching the news and trying to decide what to do with all the pandemic stuff flying around in your head…..Trump has decided it is the time to retry for a change in Venezuela…..

Here we (the US) go again with that damn silly thing called “regime” change”….or the attempt at it……

The US has placed a bounty of $15 million on the leader of Venezuela….a leader that was elected by the people of Venezuela……but a bounty?

In a major escalation of US regime change efforts in Venezuela, the US Department of Justice announced Thursday that it is charging Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and other government officials with “narco-terrorism.” The DOJ placed a $15 million bounty on Maduro’s head, offering that money for any information that leads to his arrest, and the DEA put up a wanted poster on its website.

The allegation from the DOJ is that Maduro and his circle have worked with Colombia’s FARC group to traffic cocaine to the US, or use “cocaine as a weapon against America” as the indictment puts it. What this looks like is just another attempt at regime change in Venezuela while the world is dealing with a global pandemic.

US Puts $15 Million Bounty on Nicolas Maduro

Really? Trump and the Neocon stooges want that guy Guido (I know that is not his name) to be the leader that they can manipulate…..but what about the people of Venezuela?

The latest poll out of Venezuela, from early March, shows that US-backed Juan Guaido is not considered the nation’s present by hardly anybody in the country. With a 3% margin of error, only 3% identified Guaido as president.

After over a year of the US harping on about him being the legitimate president. 71% of Venezuelans identified President Maduro as the president. He’s the one who won the last election, and this comes despite the US having just put a $15 million bounty on him.

23.7 percent also said that no one was really president at this point, again well ahead of Guaido. Even people saying “I don’t know” were 2.2%, putting them neck and neck with Guaido. Clearly, he doesn’t have deep support in this poll.

A second question asked who they had more confidence in, and 60.7% declared they don’t have confidence in either. Maduro was just over 25% and Guaido was only 3.8%, suggesting even if given a choice very few have much faith in Guaido.

(antiwar.com)

Since the US with the help of the CIA could not stir them people up enough for them to lead the charge to change leaders…….we are resorting to monetary blackmail with a bounty…….hoping that people are struggling enough to want the cash instead of the their freedom.

But how well has other “bounties” worked out for the US?

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/05/the-economics-of-terrorist-bounties/393461/

The US always uses some vague concept to overthrow a legitimate world leader….a subject that I have covered before on IST……

https://lobotero.com/2019/02/13/regime-change-crappy-record/

https://lobotero.com/2020/02/26/its-that-regime-change-thing-again/

Assassin Of The 40 Foot Wood

A little diversion on the Sunday from all the news around the Covid-19…..

There is a patch of woods on my property, we have started calling it the 40 ft wood, and MoMo spends time back there doing what she does best….hunting. After all she is a Hound….her official AKC title is Redbone Coonhound…..her breed has been bred for hunting and MoMo takes it very seriously. An American original breed of dog, the Redbone Coonhound is a tenacious hunter used for hunting raccoon, deer, bear, boar, cougar, or any other large game. The breed originated in the Southern United States and is highlighted by their deep red coat.

The breed’s development was heavily influenced by George Birdsong, who began with a pack he obtained in the 1840s. As more people became interested in the breed, they set about to create a faster, hotter-nosed dog that was even quicker to locate scents. They mixed the existing dogs with later imports of hot, swift Red Irish Foxhounds. These early dogs were sometimes called Saddlebacks because they tended to be red with black saddles. However color was emphasized for several generations, resulting in the solid-colored red dogs. The breed became known as Redbone Coonhounds, either in recognition of its color or after Peter Redbone, a Tennessee promoter of the breed.

When we walk her nose is glued to the ground….she lives by the smells around her….plus her hearing is excellent…….watching her stare at the ground until she zeros in on the mole is just amazing to witness.

Now on to her successful scorecard……

She has caught and executed several different species….mostly varmints like mice, rats, squirrels and her favorite moles.

In her two years since she moved in with us her total keeps going up…..

4 field mice

5 wood rats

3 squirrels

9 moles…..5 of which she got just in one weekend…..apparently she found a new litter and wiped them out.

This is the first of 5 in one weekend….

That is her below the bag in the photo looking for her lost prize….

And this is how she got the litter out of the ground……it is just a bit of the digging she did to get her prey.

There were holes along a straight line for about 25 feet…..they started along the fence and under the Cypress tree and ended in the photo.

The good news is that flower bed I promised Sue will take less digging to complete.

Finally…..she nailed 1 dove….but Sue got there in time and told her to release and she let it go though she did pout for most of the afternoon at the loss of a hard win victory.

She now waits under the tangerine tree…..waiting to strike again………

By the way….in this photo a bug has her full attention…..not a mole….

A final thought…..I walk MoMo at 0430 hrs to avoid any other people….this morning it was 77 as a low temp….that is more in line with Summer not April…..we are in our Summer cycle…..high temps, little rain and high humidity……it does have its upside and I will write about that soon…….but according to some there is NOTHING to see with the climate…..

Have a good Sunday……be well…..be safe…..

“lego ergo scribo”

Women’s History #5–The Poetic Princess

A little more women’s history to help sooth the nerves in the time of sheltering in place…..

I first came across this woman when I was living in Spain…..she has a fascinating story……and since this is women’s history month what better time to introduce this poet to my readers?

Her name was Wallada bint al-Mastakfi…….

Wallada was born in 1001, the daughter of a noble in the Andalusian city of Córdoba. In 711 an army of Moors coming up from Africa had conquered the city for the Umayyad Caliphate, along with most of modern Spain. Córdoba became the capital of this province on the edge of their empire. Fifty years later, after the Umayyads had been deposed, a prince of their line named Abd al-Rahman fled to Córdoba. Several of the locals had taken advantage of the chaos to declare independence, and he conquered them and welded them together into the independent Emirate of Córdoba. By the time Wallada was born his descendents had declared themselves Caliphs, [1] and Córdoba was a city of half a million people – one of the most advanced cities in Europe.

Unfortunately for the Córdobans, however, by this time the Umayyads had definitely begun to lose their grip on their caliphate. In 976 a ten year old boy named Hisham had succeeded to the throne. In the grand tradition of child rulers throughout history, fierce competition immediately started over the regency (and thus effective control of the caliphate). The eventual winner in this was al-Mansur Ibn Abi Amir, a powerful leader whose victories against the Christian kingdoms clinging to the northern part of Spain earned him infamy as “Almanzor”. He died in 1002, with his son succeeding to the regency.

Wallada bint al-Mustakfi, Poetic Princess

More on her scandalous love affair with ibn Zaydun a prominent poet of Andalusia…..

Although ibn Zaydun was a leading figure in the courts of Cordoba and Seville, he was most famous among the people of his day because of his scandalous love affair with Princess Wallada. They did nothing to hide their passion, and at her literary circle, when the poets began improvising, as was their custom, they would allude to it quite openly. On one famous occasion, Wallada uttered this impromptu verse, as she gazed upon her lover’s face:

“I fear for you, my beloved so much, that even my own sight even the ground you tread even the hours that pass threaten to snatch you away from me. Even if I were able to conceal you within the pupils of my eyes and hide you there until the Day of Judgment my fear would still not be allayed.”

https://www.andalucia.com/history/people/ibn-wallada.htm

Fascinating love story…..

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I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”