Day: May 15, 2020

Closing Thought–15May20

By now every American has heard the tale the administration is telling these days on the origin of the Covid-19 virus…..according to the Trump minions it is China (or is it the Dems, or the media, or ……)

All the slugs within the Trump sphere of influence have stepped up to blame China……but was it China?

At the beginning of this disease our boy Trump was stating glowing reports from China and praising them for the fast action…..and now they are the bad guys…..

The Trump lot—Steve Bannon, Peter Navarro, Mike Pompeo—and their media cheerleaders are as fanatically anti-China as the Biden crew is anti-Russia. Just like George W. Bush’s WMD lies in the early-2000s, there is a developing timeline of Trumpian efforts to bend intelligence on COVID to the administration’s anti-China policy.

…

A now-deleted statement by the Wuhan Institute of Virology confirms that in early-2018, US officials visited the facility. “The Institute has established close cooperation with a number of well-known U.S. organizations including the National Science Foundation, the EcoHealth Alliance, University of Texas Medical Branch, and the Galveston National Laboratory, and has achieved a series of academic exchanges.” No US concerns about the safety of the lab were made public at the time, including in the press release. But, as we shall see, now we are being told that concerns were raised in private and that the virus escaped from the lab.

The Plot to Blame China for COVID-19

Not to worry…now that Donald the Orange has set the stage for the blaming of China it should continue until they need something to fixate on……

In a modern-day version of the “big lie,” the Trump administration is claiming that the COVID-19 pandemic is the product of the deliberate actions of the Chinese government.

On Sunday, President Donald Trump, in a “town hall” with Fox News, accused China of taking actions specifically intended to infect millions of Europeans and Americans.

After repeating the false claim that the novel coronavirus originated in a research laboratory in Wuhan, which he said China tried to cover up, Trump declared: “They didn’t stop people going into the USA and all over the world… They said, hey look, this is going to have a huge impact on China, and we might as well let the rest of the world” become infected.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/05/04/pers-m04.html

It is the “Big Lie”….that the rumor mill has latched onto…..and the conspiracies are flowing….

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Perryville

Most people know the major wars of the American Civil War…..battles like Vicksburg, Gettysburg, Bull Run, etc etc…..but how many have heard of the Battle of Perryville?

Plus I have a loyal reader that is interested in the American Civil War….https://beetleypete.com/  if you have not visited his site yet then I suggest you do so for you will not be disappointed.

It is 1862 in Kentucky…..this battle was claimed by both sides as a victory…..that tells me it was a draw and fell from the minds of historians for they like winners and losers…

Here is the people and tactics of a little known battle of the War Between The States…..

Confederate Brig. Gen. George Maney maintained tight control of the three regiments in his first line as he pressed his attack against a key position on the extreme left flank of the Union Army on the afternoon of October 8, 1862. The Battle of Perryville had begun less than an hour earlier, and Maney’s brigade was part of a sledgehammer attack by the reinforced Confederate right wing against Maj. Gen. Alexander McCook’s I Corps.

Maney’s immediate objective was to drive the Federals from an eminence known as Open Knob, one of the key positions on the north end of the battlefield. Situated atop the knob was Lieutenant Charles Parson’s eight-gun battery. It was supported by the 123rd Illinois of Brig. Gen. William Terrill’s brigade.

Maney’s Rebels, clad in faded gray uniforms that matched the flora so well that Federal staff officer Samuel Starling thought from a distance that they wore camouflage, had reached a split-rail fence overgrown with brush partway up the east slope of the knob. With his regiments suffering additional casualties from Federal fire with each passing minute, Maney gave the order to charge.

Battle of Perryville: Death in the Kentucky Hills

Class Dismissed!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

OOPS! Saudi Cat’s Out Of The Bag

It appears as if the FBI accidentally (wink wink) let the name of a top Saudi governmental official associated with the 9/11 conspirators…..I have always felt the Saudis knew more than they would admit…..

Ever hear of a Mussaed Ahmed al-Jarrah?

Probably not….he was a Saudi assigned to the embassy in DC in charge of mosques and such in the US….

The reference is to Mussaed Ahmed al-Jarrah, a mid-level Saudi Foreign Ministry official who was assigned to the Saudi Embassy in Washington, D.C., in 1999 and 2000. His duties apparently included overseeing the activities of Ministry of Islamic Affairs employees at Saudi-funded mosques and Islamic centers within the United States.

Relatively little is known about Jarrah, but according to former embassy employees, he reported to the Saudi ambassador in the United States (at the time Prince Bandar), and that he was later reassigned to the Saudi missions in Malaysia and Morocco, where he is believed to have served as recently as last year.

Jarrah has been on the radar screen of the lawyers for the 9/11 families for some time and is among nine current or former Saudi officials who they suspect have important information about the case and have sought to either question them or get access to FBI documents that mention them.

https://news.yahoo.com/in-court-filing-fbi-accidentally-reveals-name-of-saudi-official-suspected-of-directing-support-for-911-hijackers-224555851.html

This is the declaration to the SDNY on this subject…..

I do not subscribe to many conspiracies but I do think there is some validity in those ideas that the Saudis knew full well what these hijackers were doing and what their targets were…..

Please check out the full story……then tell me what you think…..

Learn Stuff!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Pandemic Playbook

I am weary of the total lies spread by that mental midget Donald the Orange about how this country was caught flat footed by the spread of this virus…..

If he would learn to read then he would have been able to handle this disease in an effective way instead of the slap shot crap we have had from the president.

I give my readers all the tools they need to make rational decisions….and yet few take them…..

Here are the two “playbooks” that were available to the idiot in the White House.

(I include them but I know that very few will take the time to read them and will continue to believe the manure spread by that person pretending to be the leader of the free world….and if so they are contributing to the deaths from this virus)

First the Pandemic Influenza Implementation Plan issued by Homeland Security in 2006.

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/pdf/pandemic-influenza-implementation.pdf
 
Then came the Trump presidency….and the idiocy of their pressers to try and explain then blame everyone and everything for their incompetence.

The Trump administration, state officials and even individual hospital workers are now racing against each other to get the necessary masks, gloves and other safety equipment to fight coronavirus — a scramble that hospitals and doctors say has come too late and left them at risk. But according to a previously unrevealed White House playbook, the government should’ve begun a federal-wide effort to procure that personal protective equipment at least two months ago.

“Is there sufficient personal protective equipment for healthcare workers who are providing medical care?” the playbook instructs its readers, as one early decision that officials should address when facing a potential pandemic. “If YES: What are the triggers to signal exhaustion of supplies? Are additional supplies available? If NO: Should the Strategic National Stockpile release PPE to states?”

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/25/trump-coronavirus-national-security-council-149285

Secondly, the playbook from the National Security Council……The Playbook For Early Response To High-Consequence Emerging Infectious Disease Threats…….

Did you read the title and the important part “early response”?

https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6819703/WH-Pandemic-Playbook.pdf
 
This was the book left by the Obama team for Trump to use….but he was too smart to take advice…..a moron.
 
There is NO excuse for the shoddy response other than an idiot is in control or a person with zero tolerance for poor people.  My money is on both reasons.
 
At least read some of the plans and see that there was ample information for Trump to act upon….if he would have just taken the time away from FUX News to decode on a plan of action for countering the disease in its early stage.
 
There was NO DAMN reason to be caught flat footed and yet Donald was totally caught with his pants down.  (A familiar position)
 
But that might have been too much to ask of a low intelligence individual.
 
Last word…….
 
Those deaths keep piling up….something needs to be done…..and the answer is to under-count the people that die…..

President Donald Trump and members of his coronavirus task force are pushing officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to change how the agency works with states to count coronavirus-related deaths. And they’re pushing for revisions that could lead to far fewer deaths being counted than originally reported, according to five administration officials working on the government’s response to the pandemic.

Though he has previously publicly attested to the accuracy of the COVID-19 death count, the president in recent weeks has privately raised suspicion about the number of fatalities in the United States, which recently eclipsed 80,000 recorded deaths. In talks with top officials, Trump has suggested that those numbers could have been incorrectly tallied or even inflated by current methodology, two individuals with knowledge of those private comments said. 

 
Learn Stuff!
 
I Read, I Write, You Know
 
“lego ergo scribo”

Progressive International

That is right….Progressives are banding together around the world for it is time for real ideas and policies to make their way to the forefront…..and solutions that we all need.

As of 11May20 there is a new organization that has been formed to push progressive policies…..issues that need attention and situations that need solutions.

A coalition of left-leaning thinkers, activists, organizations, and political leaders from around the world on Monday officially launched the Progressive International, a new global effort aimed to provide the world with an alternative to the ravages of neoliberal capitalism in a world gripped by the coronavirus pandemic, gross economic inequality, and corporate domination.

“The time has come for progressives everywhere to form a common front,” the group declared on Monday as it called on people around the world to sign on for the effort.

…

In an official statement announcing its formation on Monday, the Progressive International said it was now taking up that call and would act as an “institution for the world’s progressive forces, with a mission to make solidarity more than a slogan.”

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/05/11/progressive-international-launches-form-common-front-global-struggle-justice-and

Time is now…..the need is immediate……and radical renewal is much needed……

As opportunities for of radical renewal, however, moments like this are too short. Blink and it’s over, and someone else will have written the rulebook. The struggle over the social order in the world after coronavirus is already underway. In boardrooms beyond public scrutiny, those who have captured the lion’s share over the last decades are busy putting in place mechanisms to secure their privileges at the expense of everyone else. These plans will shape our lives for a generation — and lock us into an economic model that will determine the fate of our planet for centuries. We have only a narrow window in which to impact the political arena and shape the policymaking process.

https://progressive.international/blueprint/bed8719f-4c2d-4d19-850c-3f574e4c66c9-introducing-the-inaugural-blueprint-collection/en

Please check them out….and join the movement for a better world.

My thoughts are as an aging radical it is time for the people to stand up for themselves and this group will give them the clout to demand the change we all desire.

Learn Stuff!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”