The horizon is not so far as we can see, but as far as we can imagine

The Real Republican Platform

I don’t much like Frum, but he’s 100 percent right on this and it’s worth reading. Nor is it all “Republican,” some of this is shared by a lot of Democrats. I’m going to summarize, since the Atlantic has a very limited amount of free views.

1) Lower taxation is the most important economic policy.

2) Covid is no big deal. Reopen, let people die, the numbers aren’t that big.

3) Climate change is either no big deal or can be dealt with with technology, it’s not worth spending money on.

4) China is the US’s enemy, and when China loses, the US wins, and vice-versa.

5) The post-war order is dead — NATO and the WTO. The EU is a rival, Britain and Japan are subordinates; Canada, Australia and Mexico are satraps (he says dependencies).

6) You deserve as much health care as you can afford.

7) Voting is a privilege, not a right, and can be restricted.

8) Anti-black racism is BS, it’s whites and Christians and so on who are discriminated against now.

9) Abortion rights need to go. (Interestingly, he dances around this one a bit, while stating the other mostly clearly.)

10) Secret money and conflicts of interest are no big deal.

11) The border wall is good, and a long delay in granting illegal immigrants rights is good.

12) The protests should be crushed by granting police more powers. (Dances around this a bit too.)

13) Trump and his surrogates acting up on Twitter and so is just a reaction to worse excesses of his critics.

If you have free articles left at the Atlantic, this is worth reading in full. My take is that it’s accurate; this is the real Republican platform. Frum says it is kept secret because while Republicans agree, most non-Republicans don’t. Remember that there are a lot of independents and non-voters.

All of these points are more or less known, and each point has been discussed by various people in detail, but what Frum has done is put them clearly and in one place. He’s a little obscure on abortion rights, BLM, and that the US has subjects, not dependencies.

The attitude to China is shared by Democratic elites. The attitude to the EU isn’t, though the UK is understood to be a lackey and Japan is the most important US ally after the UK. Until they get serious and get their own nukes and figure out a way to deal with their oil dependency issues, they can be considered subordinates.

Canada is scared of the US, the relationship isn’t of a child to a parent (well, not a non-abusive one), it is of a servant to a master. My fellow Canadians won’t like that, but it’s true. Mexico has an even worse relationship with its “master.” As for Australia, they’ve decided the master they have is better than the other possible master, which would be China, and they’re probably right.

It is also true that Democrats generally believe in low taxes as well. They don’t believe in them quite as much, but they do believe. They aren’t taking Covid that seriously, and while they mouth off about Climate Change, they have never done anything but accelerate it. Remember that Obama/Biden vastly increased fracking and bragged about it, and that Biden’s policy platform removed the pledge to end subsidies to oil companies.

As for health care, Democrats and Republicans aren’t that far apart. Democrats want to subsidize some for the poor and middle class, but they don’t want to end the fact that the quality and amount of care one receives is primarily based on the ability to pay, and that it is a market purchase.

With respect to BLM, Biden has promised to give police more money, saying it will be spent on anti-racism training, and so on. (That’s been done before, and you see the results.) Both parties want the police to have more money, not less.

Finally, while Democrats are nowhere near as bad as Trump on corruption and secret conflicts of interest, they are bad, very bad.

Frum’s done a real service here by spelling out Republican beliefs carefully.

What’s interesting, however, is the extent to which Democrats (the ones who run the party), agree. Democratic voters sometimes don’t (they want Medicare for all — at about 80 percent now), but what they say they want really isn’t relevant when they won’t vote for it in the primaries.


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83 Comments

  1. Plague Species

    Trump is a horse that various wealthy transnational oligarchic factions believe they are riding. They manipulate him to get their agenda enacted, much of that agenda being what Ian has posited. The question is, like Hitler, will Trump end up riding them instead just as Hitler turned the table on the Prussian nobles who supported him and enabled his ascension? There is overlap between Trump and Hitler, but there are also substantial differences. It’s an apples and oranges comparison. Both are fruits but they’re as different as they are alike.

    In regard to QAnon, it does seem to have a David Dennison quality to it. For certain, it’s more sophisticated than that one man operation, but it is as equally crude and the cui bono is the same. What if it’s ultimately revealed it is a Trump operation? Barr’s FBI has labeled QAnon a domestic terrorist organization. Surely the intelligence services, if it’s not them, know who and what is behind it. If it is Trump and his creepy peeps, the intelligence services are complicit via their silence and their standing down just as they did on 9/11. I fully expect that if Biden/Harris win the election and Trump goes calmly and nicely, if this came to light, Biden/Harris would not hold Trump’s feet to the fire on it and instead move forward rather than looking back per Obama’s precedence.

    As far as the latest shooting and protests in Wisconsin and the liberal faction of the media making a spectacle of it for political purposes? Cry me a river black folk. You had an opportunity to meaningfully address the issue with a Bernie Sanders presidency and instead, like the sheep you are, you faithfully obeyed Judenrat black so-called “leaders” like Jim Clyburn of South Carolina and came out in droves to support Biden and now Harris. Harris built her career on throwing shitloads of blacks in jail. That is her answer to the latest shooting and all shootings of blacks or shootings of anyone by the police. Throw the blacks, as many people whatever color, in jail. If they’re in jail, they can’t get shot and they can’t shoot anyone. And, private prison stock prices fly high like Donald Trump Jr. during his speech the other night.

  2. GlassHammer

    It’s secret in the sense that we (“We” is appropriate since a good portion of it is shared by most Americans regardless of party affiliation) wont allow ourselves to show it in the open (like a sin kept hidden) but since it shows itself through actions its easily mapped/identified.

    Christianity (especially our Messiah complex) should have made a stronger showing on the list.

    Other than that it’s pretty accurate. (It would have been nice to see an admission that the Democratic Party also believes much of this but I understand why it wasn’t in there.)

  3. bruce wilder

    both parties are being run by and for classes of people who are aware of themselves as predators / parasites — that they are predators or parasites in their economic relationship to the majority and that their economic interest is in sharpening and extending the predatory and / or parasitic feeding on the whole.

    there are subtle differences, based on how clearly they feel and embrace their domination of the others and what they imagine redeems them as good or virtuous. seeing the vice in the other Party clearly plays a part in self-deception. look at them, we are not like that — even when to an almost comical extent “we” are very much like “them” in every respect except the detailed styling of our respective hypocrisies.

    what is almost completely missing is realistic, enlightened self interest: some awareness that the greed and selfishness inherent in the parasitic feeding is weakening the whole: the whole country or the whole world. there are glimmers in Republican fear of China and Democratic concern for polite language, but investment in personal status and privilege win out against any thought of strengthening the whole community.

    it is a deep sickness of the body politic and the political economy and one that does not seem amenable to measures of gradual reform.

    the spectacle of the execrable Frum using his considerable rhetorical gifts at Mrs Steve Jobs’ Atlantic gives me no hope. where are you hiding your stinger this time scorpion?

  4. Not a word about how Democrats have encouraged the riots, even when they don’t mouth the words “we encourage the riots, boys and girls!”

    Not a word about how “misgendering” someone is a fineable offense in a Democratic run city like NYC. (Oh, but not if it’s accidental, the apologists remind us!) How long until we see prison sentences, also?

    Not a word about how prolonging lockdowns beyond the point of rationality is more a Democratic thing than a Republican thing. (As far as I know, neither Democrats nor Republicans are being completely transparent in their decision making; so in this regard, it’s kind of a draw on authoritarianism.) See Chris Martenson’s youtube video “Covid-19 Lockdowns Doing Much More Harm Than Good?” for more info. Also on youtube: “The Fact-Free Lockdown Hysteria | Thomas E. Woods, Jr.”

    As for climate science, even if we agree to pretend that the most accurate of the IPCC models is NOT the Russian one showing the LEAST predicted warming, no Democrat dares to show us any serious cost/benefit analysis that would justify their Green New Deal fantasies. Where is their Lomborg, who would show us where the real Lomborg is wrong?

    We heard Democratic Vice Presidential nominee Harris mock Trump for his embrace of “miracle cures”, but not a word about how HCQ actually works, even if it’s not a “miracle”, or of much value late in the disease process. Suppressing HCQ is much more a Democratic thing, though it must be noted that Trump never FOUGHT for HCQ in the public square, so has proven to be as good as useless in HCQ advocacy. And, indeed, a pig, as he got some for himself. Also, it would have been suppressed even with a Democratic President who was for it, as the main impetus for its suppression comes from the Medical Mafia, not the Democrats. They merely jumped on the bus, looking for any angle to smear Trump, as is their usual practice.

    The Republican Party is rotten, at the top, but at this point in our history, I’d rather take my chances with them. They are happy to continue redistributing wealth upwards, when the opposite is clearly called for. But, so are the Democrats. And the Democrats want me to live in fear, and are more ruthless in their quest for more power, and more fear amongst their opponents.

    In any case, the American public is collectively a group of fools, if they think trusting politics to the usual politicians isn’t a road to hell. The Democratic and Republican parties need to be taken over by the citizens, otherwise they remain tools of the plutocrats. Which is nothing new…. Since Americans generally don’t organize to claw power away from the plutocrats, we are getting, in a sense, what we are asking for, with our non-actions.

  5. Stirling S Newberry

    Wild orchids and Trotsky

    Can we begin
    even unto beginnings?
    The book of biographical route
    1967 watershed Columbia comparative literature
    Middle East

    The war
    any color that you like.
    Everyone in the community
    news which the war the war meant.

    Since a vending situational thing
    Universal artist material
    ending was the most important
    Daniel Defoe, and some Caruso Gary.and Foucault
    center for advanced studies
    Ne pas New York
    though the ne is never spoken except in
    English and hyper televised Francais.

    Sabbatical leave a root American university of same
    Orientalism near not far to go temperamental difference
    humanistic tradition Arnold and chilling worldliness security for
    he is an old man
    and I said
    And he said
    and I said
    and I realized
    the popular front
    new criticisms polemic limits international
    wild orchids Trotsky

  6. GlassHammer

    Metamars,

    First, it’s a Republic list not a Democratic one, what did you expect to see? (I get your point but the writer only had one subject in mind.)

    Second, our citizens are at the helms of our parties, we are the good and the bad that is in them. The systems and ideologies weighing on us are a problem but people do have agency. We need a good mirror for the citizens not another boogeyman.

  7. Dan Lynch

    Ian said ” what they [Democratic voters] say they want really isn’t relevant when they won’t vote for it in primaries.”

    Right. Most voters, particular partisan voters, vote on identity politics whether they admit it or not. Both parties use identity politics to manipulate their voter base, to make voters believe that every election is the most important election in their lifetime when in fact not much changes no matter which corporate warmonger wins. I lecture my friends about the evils of identity politics but it falls on deaf ears.

    So there is no light at the end of America’s tunnels. Things will continue to suck no matter which party is in power and in fact, things will probably get worse no matter which party is in power. As long as the 99% can be manipulated using identity issues, the 1% have nothing to fear.

  8. bruce wilder

    Frum does not say, “a plague on both your houses”, as a matter of rhetorical design and to further his purposes, which in Frum’s case almost certainly include a large measure of deception.

    i welcome metamars pointing out the Democratic style of projection and misdirection. it is an inherent part of the design by which the elites of each Party manage their respective allotments of angry sheep (and demoralize most of everyone not playing the stupid game). of course, you should hear about how ridiculous you look when you play your part in the madness

  9. Chiron

    Frum can go to hell, there isn’t anything new about any of this observations. My impression of Japan is they’re getting the most of what they can get from the US but know that China is their future.

  10. Watt4Bob

    Hysterical Blindness; or a new ending for The Emperor’s New Clothes;

    The little kid (Bernie Sanders) steps from the crowd and loudly points out that the Emperor is naked, whereupon the crowd throws the kid to ground and stomps him.

  11. GlassHammer

    “As long as the 99% can be manipulated using identity issues, the 1% have nothing to fear.”
    – Dan Lynch

    Identity politics is a substitute for morality which was defined by U.S. churches but we are in a post-church America now.

    The desire/need underpinning both identity politics and morality will never go away, it’s just takes a different form. (One thing is for sure, you can’t love your neighbor under the current form.)

  12. @Glass Hammer

    “First, it’s a Republic list not a Democratic one, what did you expect to see?”

    Fair enough.

    “Second, our citizens are at the helms of our parties, we are the good and the bad that is in them. The systems and ideologies weighing on us are a problem but people do have agency.”

    People have agency, but the systemic corruption filters out people for positions of power who would use their agency for ending that corruption. By the time a general election rolls around, one’s agency, as a voter, is to vote for a sold-out Republican, or sold-out Democrat. (Yeah, there are exceptions.) David Sirota has written about how newish candidates are told, straight out, how much money they need to raise to be taken seriously.

    I’m not against voting, but the sort of intervention in the political process that we sorely need involves forcing better candidates into the forefront, during the primary process. And, I would argue, long before then; we should be vetting people through a pipeline process that starts long before even a primary election. From the candidates’ point of view, they should have acquired vast stores of social capital, thus negating the need to outspend corporate candidates, by the time they throw their hat into the ring for election as President or Congress critter.

    There’s sort of a vetting process in place for mainstream candidates, at least at the Presidential level. Black Agenda Report had a fascinating post about how a young Obama attended a one or a number of events constituting a de facto vetting, by big money donors. Long before his Presidential run. The fatcats knew what they were getting!* I think we should be telling high school kids, who are serious about getting elected, to start becoming familiar with, and familiar to, the citizens they hope to represent, some day.

    * well, ignoring his CIA connections

  13. Dan H

    GH said

    “Identity politics is a substitute for morality which was defined by U.S. churches but we are in a post-church America now.

    The desire/need underpinning both identity politics and morality will never go away, it’s just takes a different form. (One thing is for sure, you can’t love your neighbor under the current form.)”

    👍👍 Religion reflects an innate human cognitive yearning for meaning in order to reconcile the now with tomorrow. Choose your Church or one will choose you

  14. Charles

    The weasel dance around abortion has been ongoing. As much as Roe v Wade is used as a cudgel for liberals to shame & scare progressives into voting Democrat, it should be clear by now that Republicans have no intention of overturning it. They’ll attack abortion at the state level and will attack Planned Parenthood, but RvW is safe as houses. The SC stuff is pure scare.

    Reasons:
    1. That cudgel serves a purpose for both parties, and we should all be aware of how antiabortion talk and outrage vanishes during Republican control; similar to deficit talk.

    2. The evangelical base is shrinking, but more importantly, some huge number of conservatives are quietly fine with abortion and have benefited from it in their personal lives. IOW, conservative women get abortions (gasp! No way!) and conservative men create whoops zygotes just like anyone else.

  15. Hugh

    It’s a mishmash based on different parts of the Republican base: most notably the rich, the wannabe rich, and white evangelicals.

    So they want lower taxes because these disproportionately favor the rich, and increase the already extreme wealth inequality. They’re pissed about China now but weren’t when they were making buckets of money sending millions of jobs there. They’re racist, want to stay racist, but still don’t want to be called racist. Abortion is a great way to keep women in their place while acting like they are standing for something. But the interest in “life” only extends to birth. Once that happens it is go die in a ditch, loser, unless your parents can afford to keep you out of it.

    The coronavirus, climate change, and I would add overpopulation are inconvenient realities that don’t fit into their Let’s Return to Jim Crow and the White 1950s. So they are ignored and will be ignored for as long as possible, and their effects will be dumped as much as possible on the undeserving many. Essential workers are mostly low wage and expendable while their betters can work from the greater safety of their homes.

    What I missed was the absolute right of Americans to die in their ditch hugging their beloved AR 15s. And as always finish off by throwing in some BS reason for whatever Trump does is OK or no big deal because because.

  16. Frum is at least honest… The 2016 RNC platform was adopted again by resolution as they couldn\’t
    get it right the first time.

    So those that can see but care not to and those blind that are believing.

    Correct the RNC is corrupt and the loyal have no choice as if you go against them you
    will go down and if your with them and your wallet is small, oh well you get left with
    the poors. You can buy in, but then you can\’t buy out. it will be too late then.

    If your the poors will a friends yacht be your holding cell?

    Eck!

  17. GlassHammer

    “As much as Roe v Wade is used as a cudgel for liberals to shame & scare progressives into voting Democrat, it should be clear by now that Republicans have no intention of overturning it.” – Charles

    There will always be a cudgel (a wedge issue) which acts like an unavoidable sorting mechanism.

    But if there is going to be a cudgel it better be worth the neighbor vs. neighbor fighting and the lack of progress on any other issue.

    Frankly we need smaller cudgels that you can bribe people to put down.
    We are too fractured to even begin to deal with the big cudgels.

  18. S Brennan

    Q: Does the DNC represent the interests of Ordinary Democratic Voters [ODV]?

    A: No.

    Q: Does the RNC represent the interests of Ordinary Republican Voters [ORV]?

    A: No.

    Q: Does Frum spare a sentence to describe how irrelevant his article is given these two indisputable facts?

    A: No.

    I too, “welcome metamars pointing out the Democratic style of projection and misdirection. it is an inherent part of the design by which the elites of each Party manage their respective allotments of angry sheep”

    ============================

    In other news; over the past few weeks I have had former-friends who had exiled me because I ridiculed their “Trump is a Russian Spy/Asset” assertion* email/call me about purchasing guns and ammo. Trying to remember these former-friends before they came down with Trump Derangement Syndrome and…trying very hard to remain faithful to my Christian ethics and…trying very hard to not bring up all their pedantic lectures on how ordinary citizens should not have guns and…trying very hard not to point out to them that the day that I predicted has finally come, they are no longer young enough to either fight or run.

    Now they need a weapon to raise the pain threshold of a home invasion. In widespread civil disorder, just like living in rural America, the cops ain’t coming, or won’t get there in time if you are in the wrong zip code or they’re on the other side of the county handling another call.

    I help them the best I can but, because they, like millions of other “liberals” who have found faith in a foxhole, the demand has skyrocketed beyond production limits. Many small gun makers are out business or much smaller operations due to state laws making production impossible/limited. And ammo…is very, very, very, very hard to find. The NRA should pay Kamala Harris for all the business she is drumming up. My neighbor runs a gun shop, background checks, normally a few hours for those who have prior check, are taking several weeks, new purchasers are taking months.

    The number of new gun owners are skyrocketing and these people have never trained themselves to handle weapons. These new owners are scared of weapons, don’t understand that they need to spend time “dry training” to become effective shooters and can’t afford the ammo, in today’s environment, to sight their newly purchased weapon[s] in. The hypocrisy of the anti-gun “left/liberals” is now on full display.

    Hopefully, things will calm down after the election, regardless of who wins. After the election, the DNC may stop blocking drugs that treat Covid-19 before hospitalization and the riots will be called off until the next election cycle. The damage the “take no prisoner” approach of the Hillaryites/DNC has done has inflicted incalculable damage upon this country. The fact that the “left/liberals” can not call this out, except for a tiny, tiny minority, tells me that most on the left are bereft of any leadership qualities. Hopefully Tulsi Gabbard switches parties, at least she will be allowed to speak.

    ====================

    *Yeah..Yeah..DNC puppets wannabees, I am always backing Trump, well not really, I backed Tulsi but that doesn’t count ’cause Hillary called Gabbard a Russian spy too…and whatever Hillary says…every good lick-spittle D must believe…no..yes?

  19. StewartM

    Hugh

    My compliments on a very good summary.

    And as always finish off by throwing in some BS reason for whatever Trump does is OK or no big deal because because.

    Here, you are just so nailed the summaries of the commentariat here.

  20. GlassHammer

    “ammo…is very, very, very, very hard to find” – S Brennan

    Been that way for a few years now. (Of course my purchase timing has never been very good) Until recently I had a decent stock of shotgun rounds (That’s all I could get at the time.) but I split it in half with my brother in law who I hope appreciated it. I bet since he never preps food, water, medicine, etc… that I will share them as well sooner or later.

    So I sympathize with running short due to helping others.

  21. Plague Species

    The next 30 years will be known as The Great Migrations. Before The Great Die-off. It’s already been happening for the past decade in other parts of the world, but now it’s coming home to roost in 1st world countries like America.

    First up appears to be California. I wish we all could be California… Not. In 30 years it will be largely unlivable and during the next three decades, migrations from California will be massive and they will overwhelm the states to where Californians are migrating.

    Soon up and not far behind will be Florida and Arizona and then Texas after that. Within 10 years, both states will experience substantial migrations as their locales become largely uninhabitable.

    Environmental degradation to include climate chaos ensures there will no return to normal as if what once was was normal in any respect. Neither convention, for all the obvious reasons, touched on this existential crisis, or at least not the severity of it. In thirty years, maybe and probably sooner, all this bickering over politics and political parties will look like so much wasteful nonsense. Hell, it’s not even politics any more. It’s some kind of bizarre Kabuki-like ritual that serves to paralyze progress and evolution.

  22. bruce wilder

    Identity politics is a substitute for morality . . .

    !

  23. GlassHammer

    Plague Species

    I still think the first will be one of the these:
    1. Coastal cities where sea water gets into the aquifers.
    2. Drought stricken areas with already depleted aquifers.
    3. Cities with dilapidated water, sewer, and power systems.

  24. NR

    “Not a word about how prolonging lockdowns beyond the point of rationality is more a Democratic thing than a Republican thing.”

    New COVID-19 deaths, yesterday:

    Spain: 52
    France: 16
    Japan: 15
    Canada: 7
    UK: 16
    Germany: 9

    United States: 1,290

    Population of countries above: 426 million
    Population of United States: 328 million

  25. S Brennan

    GlassHammer;

    I bought a fair amount of ammo about a 18 months ago with no problem, .223 SP & 6.8 HPBT, both are unattainable today. But there was a glut of ar’s on the market as recently as Dec 2019, decent lower kits going for under 100.00…them days are long gone. One former-friend, [who-exiled-me-for-laughing-at-Trump-Russia-spy-story], paid 3 times what I paid [and that’s with a lot of help on my part]. BTW, that former friend doesn’t want it being known that he’s purchased a gun, he realizes that the purchase makes him look like a hypocrite, it’s kinda irritating but my hope is once he learns how to use it safely he’ll be able to admit it and that his fear of firearms is based on ridiculous media images.

    I buy parts/ammo when they/it are cheap but, with Kamala urging people to continue to stock-up it could be a long dry spell. I rearranged my sights/stocks recently and consequently need to re-zero my sights, normally, I have a little fun shooting afterwards, but not now, it’s all business ’till all the anti-gun-purchasers are stocked-up…

    Yes to all you virtue signalers out there, firearms kill people, not as often as cars but they do kill, what’s not understood by “liberals” is that most firearm crimes, 98%, involve pistols, almost all, 93%, of those weapons are not legally registered. A legally obtained rifle is a great rarity at at murder crime scene, a big city homicide detective I know has never seen a rifle legal/illegal used in the hundreds of cases he’s been involved in. Another tidbit, most homicide victims are felons and close to 80% of gun homicides involve gangs. And just a reminder, cops know that criminals don’t use rifles. When I was stopped for failure to signal to change lanes and declared that there was a firearm in the vehicle, when the cop knew it was a rifle he visibly relaxed, as soon as he saw it was in a carry bag he didn’t even bother to look at it, he just ran my plates and let me go.

  26. Willy

    As a kid imagining 2020, I fully anticipated moon bases and jetpacks and keeping robots as pets. Because anybody who wanted to work for nice things could have nice things. There were all kinds of movements and books and movies warning about dystopian futures which many Americans, even presidents, actually took seriously.

    How was I supposed to know that all the cool stuff would be getting built in communist China, most Americans would be struggling (in most ways that “struggling” can be defined), and that good ole Christian evangelism would be a political cult for a president with obvious mental problems. And that climate catastrophe would be ignored by every PTB. And that speaking of such would get you declared an America-hating Marxist.

    But at least having your AR15 pried from your cold dead fingers is still considered socially acceptable. And that something like 75% of all politicians dying from Covid are conservatives, though it wouldn’t matter much if liberals were dying at that rate. And of course angsty protests are always springing up all over the place. Be nice if they were more geared towards returning some fertile economic ground to taxpayers, like back in the day.

    But it’s a start. So at least there’s that.

  27. @ S Brennan
    “After the election, the DNC may stop blocking drugs that treat Covid-19 before hospitalization ”

    I can easily believe in some DNC coordinated suppression and demonization of HCQ, but it goes against the grain of what I’ve been hearing of for 40 years to put most of the blame on the DNC. It would also contradict what I understood from 2 former military guys to assume that the Democrats could all of a sudden allow HCQ, under a Biden Presidency. If Trump can’t just authorize HCQ, or at least force it’s distribution via military bases (as I had mistakenly assumed was permissible), then neither can Biden.

    The suppression of HCQ is multi-faceted, but would almost certainly have been occurring if Hilary Clinton was President, and somehow wanted HCQ. Recall that Obama was somewhat scared of Big Pharma, and cut a secret deal with Billy Tauzin early on, which involved Big Pharma not attacking the ACA. That was how the public option got tossed.

    The suppression touches FDA, state governors, state regulatory agencies, state medical boards, and hospitals (who can easily threaten physicians with withdrawing their hospital privileges). There’s no monolithic control. A good illustration of non-monolithic control suppressing potential therapies is that of Burzynski, who had FDA approval for his clinical work, but was repeatedly attacked by the Texas State Medical Board – tearfully grateful parents, notwithstanding.

    And yes, it also touches Democratic lawmakers. But what Republican lawmakers have so much as held hearings on the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine? Googling, I saw only Fauci spending all of 2 1/2 minutes addressing the lack of “gold standard” evidence for HCQ, in a House hearing on coronavirus. Whether Fauci and his co-religionists had suppressed the gathering of such evidence, e.g., was not addressed.

    It doesn’t make much sense to me to trust either Democrats or Republicans with a competent, ethical, and maximally cost-effective response to covid-19. I have ‘documented’ the complete failure of ALL states – Democrat and Republican dominated – in even getting Vitamin D sufficiency addressed, noted in my GovernmentIncompetence.org. When 80% of African Americans are deficient!

    This is much bigger than the DNC. They just hopped on board so they could smear Trump some more. Note that it’s also being suppressed in other countries, like France. This was after Macron had spent something like 2 1/2 hours with Didier Raoult. No DNC in France….

    If the Republicans sweep the next election, and win the Presidency, House and Senate, do you think they’ll start showing enough competency to OPEN THEIR MOUTHS and at least try to shame the FDA into advocating for Vitamin D sufficiency (even by the very low bar/Vit D blood level, that is currently ‘accepted’?) Will they fund free Vitamin D blood level tests? At least for poor people? At least for poor black and brown people? How about for poor, old black people, who are most at risk? Pay for massive advertising to promote their adoption?

    ABSENT PUBLIC PRESSURE, I’d be shocked if they do any of these things. They are part of the problem. Same with HCQ.

  28. nihil obstet

    Over and over again, people with rational things to say about the coming disruptions tell us to find allies. Prime example: The Secret Determinants of Your Survival in Catastrophes”. That does seem to tie in to a basic part of human make-up — what we now call tribalism.

    The tribalism that empowers very bad things like fascism, wars, and the Democratic and Republican parties, can’t be done away with. We survived and evolved because of our identification with others. Instead, we have to divert it into tribes that empower good things. Most people who vote are low information voters. They read the New York Times and watch Fox News, if that. We’ve evolved to find comfort and safety in groups, usually defined groups. And this is a time and place where we feel we need comfort and safety.

  29. S Brennan

    Willy,

    A lot of us hoped for those things. and Willy, some of us worked for those things, you know, going into the Service so we could put ourselves through school to get an engineering degree…stuff like that. Then some of us took lower paying jobs to work on national problems even though we knew we could make a lot more money going into management or, working in IP law or, working on stock algorithms or, going to DC and writing reports that justify the unjustifiable. Some of us did more than just daydream.

    So yeah Willy, you say lot of things I agree with but, when comes to firearms no.

    Unlike you, I know that the vast majority of the left tosses away the majority of rural support. Every time they open mouths on the subject of firearms. If lefty D’s wanted universal healthcare, a better social safety net, better regulation of Wall Street, fewer wars el al, [and they really don’t…they just like to virtue signal], they’d need to revert back to their previously held positions on having tightly controlled immigration and gun laws that differentiated honest citizens from criminals. Between those two issues lefty D’s gift R’s 20-30% at the polls every single year. That’s quite a gift that lefty D’s insist on giving.

    It’s all about priorities…and for lefty D’s, having policies that:

    1] Support massive immigration that suppresses wages, boast workers housing costs and prevents the construction of a better social safety net takes priority.

    2] Disarm law abiding citizens in order to create safe environment for armed gangs takes priority…Mexico’s gun laws and the unequal society it engenders take priority.

    To lefty D’s, these two policy points are more important than ALL the other issues on the table. We know this, because every year D’s get beaten because of these two issues and when they do win they have numbers that do not give the the power to address other issues.

  30. S Brennan

    Metamars; I put this up last week alongside :

    “MN Governor Quietly Reverses Course on Hydroxychloroquin…The decision is the latest development in the weird saga of arguably the most divisive drug in modern history. The acrimony began in March after President Trump tweeted that hydroxychloroquine had the potential…

    …Though his critics are likely loath to admit it, there’s reason to believe the president may have been on to something. In recent weeks a chorus of voices in the medical community has emerged to challenge the view that hydroxychloroquine is ineffective as a COVID treatment. Dr. Harvey A. Risch, a professor of epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health, said a full analysis of the literature suggests hydroxychloroquine may be the key to defeating the coronavirus.

    …Prescribing hydroxychloroquine in the early stages of the virus is key, Risch said, and others agree. Steven Hatfill, a veteran virologist and adjunct assistant professor at the George Washington University Medical Center, says the literature supporting hydroxychloroquine is overwhelming.”

    https://www.ktbs.com/news/national/mn-governor-quietly-reverses-course-on-hydroxychloroquine/article_cf04900b-ce35-557c-a194-c7e2f034c27f.html
    ====================

    Ohio pharmacy board backtracks, withdraws rule barring use of hydroxychloroquine to treat coronavirus

    ====================

    The Key to Defeating COVID-19 Already Exists. We Need to Start Using It
    by Dr. Harvey A. Risch, a professor of epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health

    “I am usually accustomed to advocating for positions within the mainstream of medicine, so have been flummoxed to find that, in the midst of a crisis, I am fighting for a treatment that the data fully support but which, for reasons having nothing to do with a correct understanding of the science, has been pushed to the sidelines. As a result, tens of thousands of patients with COVID-19 are dying unnecessarily. Fortunately, the situation can be reversed easily and quickly…When this [hydroxychloroquine] inexpensive oral medication is given very early in the course of illness, before the virus has had time to multiply beyond control, it has shown to be highly effective, especially when given in combination with the antibiotics azithromycin or doxycycline and the nutritional supplement zinc.”

    https://www.newsweek.com/key-defeating-covid-19-already-exists-we-need-start-using-it-opinion-1519535

    ====================

    Metamars; what the DNC did, what Kamala Harris is doing this week, politicizing Hydroxycloriquine, fully supported by most D’s, who see it as a “necessary evil” to gain the White House, is a criminally inflicted wound upon the body of this nation from which we may never heal. Vile and disgusting.

    Kamala Harris Calls Trump a ‘Drug-Pusher’ for Touting Hydroxychloroquine [even though her sister takes Hydroxychlorquine for Lupus]

    https://blackchronicle.com/kamala-harris-calls-trump-a-drug-pusher-for-touting-hydroxychloroquine/

  31. @S Brennan
    “Metamars; what the DNC did, what Kamala Harris is doing this week, politicizing Hydroxycloriquine, fully supported by most D’s, who see it as a “necessary evil” to gain the White House, is a criminally inflicted wound upon the body of this nation from which we may never heal. Vile and disgusting.”

    Even if “vile and disgusting”, we can dispassionately ask ourselves, “who has more power, more potential, to move the needle on hydroxychloroquine? Kamala Harris, to suppress it’s use? Or Donald Trump, to increase it’s use?”

    Of course, the answer is Donald Trump. He is President, she is not. In fact, just the fact that MSM, including Fox did Neil Cavuto, will likely go bonkers if Trump used his 1st Amendment right of free speech, coupled with the bully pulpit that’s a perk of his job, to STRONGLY advocate for hydroxychloroquine, and to STRONGLY emphasize the clinical science underpinning the justification for such advocacy, will guarantee a wider audience.

    So, if we don’t look at Trump tribalistically, but instead pragmatically and dispassionately, who should we be more upset with, in this narrow regard?

    I caught some bits and snatches of the Republican convention, tonight, and Pence criticized Harris’ mocking about “miracle cures”, make the cheap rhetorical claim about “America is a country of miracles” I suppose it was God who miraculously guided NASA engineers and scientists, through the lunar landing. Why He didn’t miraculously move the spacecraft to the moon and back, thus saving fuel, is anybody’s guess.

    Pence didn’t bother mustering credible scientific arguments to show how “vile and disgusting” Harris’ smear was. He mirrors Trump in his more or less COMPLETE FAILURE to make rational arguments, based on science, supporting HCQ. Not a word about Vitamin D sufficiency, either.

    There are substantial differences between Republicans and Democrats, that should be dispassionately, thought through, and used to guide voting and other political behavior. You, however, appear to forgo a more rational and even-handed assessment.

    I ask, again:
    “If the Republicans sweep the next election, and win the Presidency, House and Senate, do you think they’ll start showing enough competency to OPEN THEIR MOUTHS and at least try to shame the FDA into advocating for Vitamin D sufficiency (even by the very low bar/Vit D blood level, that is currently ‘accepted’?) Will they fund free Vitamin D blood level tests? At least for poor people? At least for poor black and brown people? How about for poor, old black people, who are most at risk? Pay for massive advertising to promote their adoption?”

    Those of us who can’t or won’t give an accurate answer to these questions are most unlikely to help us reform the government.

  32. different clue

    I haven’t read this Frum article but I very well may. The tone of the article itself and the language used would give a clue as to whether Frum approves or disapproves of one or another or several of the parts of the platform.

    Before reading it I will just vaguely guess that Frum must oppose some of it at some level or he wouldn’t write about it in the open where shockable people could read it and be warned. But that is just a guess.

    Metamars’s question above as to why various disparate levels of the medical advice establishment are all against people reaching at-or-over a certain level of in-Body vitamin D raises a counter-question: if the Global Overclass wanted to kill 6 or 7 billion people over the coming century and make it look like an accident,how would they do it? Would part of their method be the undermining of physiological and metabolic health of entire population-loads of people so as to down-regulate the immune function of these people so as to render some of these people more vulnerable to various “Darwin filter” diseases? Could that be part of the reason the “medical advice establishment” keeps working to keep the “necessary recommended levels” of vitamin D so low? For example?

  33. S Brennan

    Metamars;

    You are working mightily to justify a Biden/Harris victory and I, a DNC defeat. As I have often transparently stated here, I want to crush the Al From* D’s and restore FDRism to both parties.

    Your rhetorical questioning is intended to support keeping things as they are, or worse, creating an opportunity for, as Ian says, a man on a horse…fine, go for it. I’ll agree with you when I think you are right, otherwise? No. Your attempts to use such flimsy rationalizations [see your remarks above] leave me quite unimpressed.

    Gute nacht.

    *https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_From

  34. Stirling S Newberry

    Lower taxation – for rich poeple. Anything the real needs to be paid for comes out of SS money.

  35. GM

    @metamars

    “Not a word about how prolonging lockdowns beyond the point of rationality is more a Democratic thing than a Republican thing.”

    The stupefying fundamentally suicidal lunacy of the anti-lockdown crowd never ceases to amaze me. You have people who have fully swallowed the propaganda of the very oligarchy that has decided that their lives are entirely disposable while not realizing that even the superficial economic arguments do not apply at all.

    The only possible “point of rationality” for the duration of the lockdowns was the point at which the virus is eliminated from the population.

    Which, given how far it was allowed to spread, would have meant something like 6-9 months in the US.

    That is what had to be done. And it had to be a hard China-style lockdown enforced with the full brutality of the repressive apparatus of the US state, which, even though the US is a failing state, does exist and is much more powerful than some people appreciate, though it is also true that is a lot less powerful that some other people imagine it is.

    The problem? If you are to do a 6-9 month lockdown and if you are to properly deal with the virus, you have to do redistribution of wealth from the oligarchy towards the masses, you have to do cancellation of debts, you have to nationalize the whole healthcare system and run it on a not-for-profit basis for the duration of the epidemic.

    None of that is allowed to be even contemplated, not so much because of what it would cost for the time these things are implemented as measures on its own (after all, many trillions were already printed to prop up the stock market, and it is not as if anyone will ever be able to collect on the US debt), but because of the precedent it would set.

    Wealth is supposed to flow from the masses towards the oligarchy, debt, which is the key mechanism through which that wealth transfer is accomplished, is supposed to be forever sacrosanct and repaid in full no matter the circumstances, healthcare has to be a for-profit rent extraction mechanism that doesn’t give a damn about the health of the population. Any softening of these mandates that existed in the middle of the 20th century was completely done away with once neoliberalism conquered the world, and so it should remain for eternity.

    And nobody should ever get the idea that it could be otherwise.

    Millions dead and many trillions in economic damage is a small price to pay for that.

    And speaking of economic damage, why the f*** are we only ever talking about how much GDP will go down and how the airline and tourism industries will go down the drain but not about the costs of not doing a lockdown?

    Who is going to pay for the treatment of tens of millions? At a 15% hospitalization rate and, let’s say, 70% infection in the US, you are looking at 30 million hospitalizations, of them some 5-10 million will be in the ICU. This will cost many trillions in healthcare costs. Yeah, it may actually show up as a boost to GDP because it will be credited on the balance sheets of hospitals, but that only underlines the fundamental insanity of GDP as a metric for societal well-being, and it does not change the fact that it is all a very real drain on actual productive resources. You want to invest your resources in building productive assets, such as infrastructure and productive capacity, not to just burn them in hospital incinerators.

    COVID will leave tens of millions permanently disabled in the US alone. How many trillions is that going to cost over the coming decades? Or we will resolve that problem by just cutting disability benefits and letting them die homeless on the street?

    And all of this assumes that reinfection with serious symptoms is not going to happen and that vaccines will be very effective, none of which are warranted assumptions at all given what we know about coronaviruses.

    Only a complete fool would think that the economic cost of elimination would have been smaller than the economic cost of letting the virus rip through the population and then become endemic.

    And then there is the minor problem that some 1-2% of the population was just sentenced to death. For what? So that 0.1% of the population can keep parasitizing on the rest of society unimpeded without any potential threats to its status.

    These are monstrous crimes against humanity for which the responsible people should be tried and sentenced to death if established historic precedent is to be followed. Yes, that means the president, much of the leadership of both parties, a lot of the governors, as well as, and most importantly, the various billionaires that ordered them what to do.

    And yet instead of calling for justice and proper punishments, so many regular people are instead supporting them by being against lockdowns…

  36. someofparts

    I know Frum’s list is the consensus view among our lizard rulers. That is probably why I threw in the towel when they nominated Biden. Going forward if I ever vote again it will be the Greens.

    Speaking of which, I don’t understand why all of Bernie’s disappointed supporters haven’t joined the Green party in droves. What am I missing?

  37. krake

    The Greens can’t deliver. I think people understand that, fundamentally.

    It’s post-politics, now.

    Like it or not, 70% – 80% of you live in triage zones.

    What are the Greens, the Justice Democrats or the progressive ngos offering that can *credibly* curtail the oligarchy’s unconcealed efforts to emiserate everyone not in their supply or support chains?

  38. Ché Pasa

    The ruling class has its operating principles, and they’re pretty much the same across political parties. We the rabble primarily exist to serve the interests of the overclass, and when we don’t — for whatever reason — we are expendable. Period. Slowly or quickly, the excess rabble will be disposed of, too. Neither Rs nor Ds are prepared to deviate from these overarching principles, but they will contend to the death (ha!) over who is rightfully part of the overclass and thus should profit.

    Whatever the outcome of that contest, it isn’t you and me.

    Too many of the expendables support these ruling principles because they don’t know any other are possible. No alternative has been articulated for the masses, nor will one be any time soon. Instead, there will be constant conflict among the rabble — the crabs-in-a-bucket metaphor — much of it generated by the very overclass that exploits division among the lower orders. It is how they maintain their rule.

    Our age has no Marx, no Kropotkin. And no one at all in the overclass has more than a peripheral and superficial concern for the well-being of the earth and its people. They don’t care — and perhaps they dare not. For were they to face reality, their position and privilege would be extinguished.

    “We’ve got the guillotine,” but we don’t know how it works or what to do with it. They do.

    The uprising in the streets continues, but it is highly ritualized and choreographed, and I would remind our comrades that Hong Kong’s uprising failed. Beijing is enforcing its rule without the least fear that the street revolts will interfere. The authorities don’t even have to work hard at suppression any more.

    Minsk shows every sign of being another failure in that nothing will get better and much will get worse for the masses by replacing — or not replacing — Lukashenko with someone else. When the system itself is the problem who heads it doesn’t matter in a fundamental way. And replacing one rotten system with something worse doesn’t do anything on behalf of the people.

    Lessons still not learned.

  39. Plague Species

    krake’s question is the most important question. The oligarchs and the entirety of their support system must be eliminated. Not just deposed and removed from power. Eliminated. Because if you don’t eliminate them, they keep coming back like weeds or cancer. Yes, the system needs to be replaced so that it can no longer produce fresh batches of them, but also, those in circulation need to be eliminated so that the system can be replaced and they are prevented from ever rehabilitating the old order of things.

    I started by naming names in another thread. All of these creatures can, and must, be identified as criminals. They have their databases and files on us, in turn we should have our databases and files on them. When the zeitgeist manifests and not until, then will be the time to take appropriate, resolute, final action against those in the database. They have made it more than clear. It is them versus us. They believe they are superior to us to the point they practically believe we are different species, and who knows, maybe we are. It is a war and they’re winning it hands down because they’ve managed to convince the unwashed sheep there is no war and instead they have the unwashed sheep killing each other at their clever, manipulative behest.

    I increasingly believe an evil intelligence created the universe and life within it. I say it is evil because it gave us them. It has rewarded them. And as if that isn’t cruel enough, it punishes us for their transgressions against its creation. I truly believe this intelligence behind all of this delights in it. The irony is, this intelligence behind it all is a sad, pathetic, bad joke. Donald Trump sits atop the pinnacle of power of this intelligence as its manifested in its creation. The orange douchebag is abominable in every conceivable way. Donald Trump is the culmination and reflection of this “intelligent” creation. Either the creator or creators is/are (a) malevolent, sadistic psychopath(s) who enjoy(s) torture, pain and suffering and murder, or, whilst intelligent, is/are (a) royal fuckup(s) and that’s an understatement.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0-hgSjnomA

    https://www.amazon.com/Darwins-Doubt-Explosive-Origin-Intelligent/dp/0062071483

  40. “You are working mightily to justify a Biden/Harris victory and I, a DNC defeat.”

    That is completely wrong, though speaking the full truth could conceivably cost Trump some votes. But those lost votes would be more than overcome were Trump not such a dunce and/or accomodationist to the prevailing institutional forces. In the medical sphere, those institutional forces are so corrupt, collectively, that I unapologetically refer to them as the Medical Mafia. In fact, Trump is not completely incompetent, politically, wrt the Medical Mafia, because he’s moved to cut prescription drug prices, via executive order. Of course, he could have done the same thing in Month 1 of his Presidency, but for some reason, he was in no rush to drain that particular swamp. (I think there is question about the legality of his order. However, even a failing effort can have both strategic and political value, where ‘political value’ can be understood both cynically, as well as practically, in the sense of moving the needle, creating expectations in the public, thus political pressure, etc.)

    “Your rhetorical questioning is intended to support keeping things as they are” Again, you are completely wrong, though this statement more or less confirms my opinion of your writings as tribalistic.

    I would recommend a couple of Ian Welsh diaries:

    from “Why Obama And Democrats Don’t Do Much of What Liberals Want (Netroots Failure: Part 2)”

    “Politicians do most things because someone wants them done who can hold them accountable if they don’t do it. That includes bad things, and good things. Anyone who doesn’t understand this reality doesn’t understand even the most basic part of politics.

    You dances with the ones who brought you, as Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney once said, Obama won by bypassing the Netroots and lying to Progressives and Liberals: he won without us, he owed us nothing once elected.

    Political power is constituted of getting people elected, getting people unelected and being able to reward or punish people for doing or not doing what you want. If you can’t do any of those things, you have no power.

    This is realpolitik.”

    and “A brief note on why the progressive blog movement failed”

    “In the early 2000s progressive blogging seemed like a big deal. At the first Yearly Kos, as it was called then, big name politicians came and kissed our ass. We were covered by major newspaper and TV outlets. Etc…

    Today, we are nothing.

    The reason is simple: we could not elect enough of our people. We could not instill sufficient fear. We could not defeat incumbents. We did not produce juice. Clark and Dean didn’t win the 2004 Presidential nomination. Dean was taken out in a particularly nasty fashion (via the manufactured Dean Scream.)

    So progressives have no power, because they have no principles: they cannot be expected to actually vote for the most progressive candidate, to successfully primary candidates, to care about policy first and identity second, to not take scraps from the table and sell out other progressive’s interests.”

    What is true of progressives and the Democratic Party, is true of America Firsters and the Republican Party. I, personally, fail to see how America can be “first”, or “great”, and allow such a rapacious Medical Mafia to continue to hold sway. (And no, I don’t hate America, like so many of the rioters.) Last night, Pence echoed Trump’s claim to “have made America great” (after only 2 years!), because the economy was “the greatest the world had ever seen” (or some such fluff). This is BS, writ large(even if I accepted the claim of “greatest economy the world had ever seen”), and I don’t see why I have to pretend to go along with it, even if I greatly prefer the Republican crime family to the Democratic crime family.

  41. bruce wilder

    One possible answer to the strange, but not-strange ineffectualness of massive or persistent street protest, I found in this article, which (despite its title) is about the effect of tidal waves of propaganda.

    https://off-guardian.org/2020/08/26/the-fatal-attraction-of-techo-fascism/

    That essay is quite good on what Ché Pasa is ruminating upon just above.

    On other fronts, I see that the DNC snoozeZOOM managed to lift Trump over 50% approval ratings in polls for the very first time that I can recall. Biden/Harris are such truly awful candidates that they managed to create a post-convention bounce for the other guys! Comparison of Hillary’s lead over Trump on August 24, 2016 with Biden’s around August 24, 2020 puts Biden at half of Clinton’s margin back then. woocoodenode?

  42. Plague Species

    GM, that was superb. I consider it the preamble to a new constitution. A constitution with teeth and staying power. A living document that cannot be easily subverted and circumvented by wily, malevolent psychopaths and their sycophantic courtiers.

  43. @GM

    “The stupefying fundamentally suicidal lunacy of the anti-lockdown crowd never ceases to amaze me. You have people who have fully swallowed the propaganda of the very oligarchy that has decided that their lives are entirely disposable while not realizing that even the superficial economic arguments do not apply at all.

    The only possible “point of rationality” for the duration of the lockdowns was the point at which the virus is eliminated from the population.”

    Speaking of lunacy related to the lockdowns, I suggest you give a listen to Chris Martenson’s youtube video “Covid-19 Lockdowns Doing Much More Harm Than Good?” for more info. Also on youtube: “The Fact-Free Lockdown Hysteria | Thomas E. Woods, Jr.”

    I’m not an expert, but your argument from incredulity is a logical fallacy that doesn’t exactly showcase your own expert bona fides in this area, now, does it?

    Oh, and even the experts don’t agree. The real experts.

    BTW, in your expert opinion, should society lock down every year when a new strain of influenza appears, and remain locked down, until the new strain “is eliminated from the population”? Do tell.

    I would also recommend https://swprs.org/a-swiss-doctor-on-covid-19/ for science references related to covid-19. As a general rule, I would distrust talking heads, on TV and elsewhere, who bluster about “science” but either don’t cite it, at all; or else just tidbits which somehow only reinforce their own ideological predispositions.

  44. @GM

    I’m sorry, I replied to your comment before reading most of it. It does have some substance to it.

    I am certainly sympathetic to rational consideration of the costs of long term care for survivors. But that is one factor, and how to weight it is not as sure as the law of gravitation. No more than how to weight deaths from influenza.

  45. I tend to view the Medical Mafia as mostly about profit. Hence, you don’t want to kill off your marks; what you want to do is suck as much money out of them, as you can. The profit potential of a forced, yearly vaccine, as opposed to the problematic business model of standard drugs, has been laid out by Dr.Shiva Ayyadurai.

    I’m an unashamed “conspiracy theorist”, and highly recommend Michael Parenti’s writings on the subject. However, while the “standard of evidence” for a reasonable conspiracy theory is generally/almost always lower than that of a criminal trial, it’s only too easy to be fooled by mere associations and a good imagination.

  46. GlassHammer

    “And yet instead of calling for justice and proper punishments, so many regular people are instead supporting them by being against lockdowns…” – GM

    Most Americans live (barely live) paycheck to paycheck so the immediate problem in a lockdown is not having food, water, and shelter. They may die from the virus but they will 100% die from losing food, water, and shelter.

    Everything about your survival in America is based on having a job.

    So your immediate threat will always be local officials locking you out of your means to survive.

    America is a poor country, and nothing about it can be explained without accepting that fundamental fact.

  47. someofparts

    Here’s a break from despair –

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tziyYhJKwPI

    On youtube, so some ads to skip, but worth it.

    Keith Richards & the boys with Ry Cooder – Jammin’ with Edward

  48. someofparts

    my mistake- Richards may not be on this one

  49. Stirling S Newberry

    Think of Bernie as a disision tree.

    The next question is “Will my vote matter?” If it does, then hand the bugalar what he wants e.g. Vote Bidden what ever the consequence. You know it will be exquisite awful. If it does not, which is the majority because only a few states will it truly matter, go the the next stage.

    The next question is “Am I being bribed?” For example, you are on SSI. Vote for your interest. “You do not want to, but you must.” Otherwise, go to the next question.

    “Is there any one whose bribe will work in my faver?” This includes descendants. Vote for your potential bribe.

    It is the population pyramid than keeps the duopoly in place – many get SSI. They are bleeding but ever so slowly. Others will vote AOC or Green or Working Families to show that that attention is about the future.

  50. NL

    “Will my vote matter?” — Nooo . There is no intelligent justification for voting in general. After that what’s left is emotion/spite /hopium/habit /loyalty to the system that was taught from childhood/profit/propaganda.

  51. Willy

    S. Brennan,
    There are reasons for guns and immigrants.

    Guns laws cannot be honestly debated as long as DC is in the back pocket of the NRA, or other powerfully influential firearms sales organizations. Some of the staunchest conservatives I know routinely employ illegals. This doesn’t mean they all do, but every staunch conservative that I know can rationalize their own hypocrisies with a great lack of self-awareness. The part of their brain where honest and thoughtful debate resides, has atrophied, while other, less honest parts have grown strong from years of exercise.

    Of course, this isn’t a black and white thing but a spectrum of disorders, like autism. There’s plenty of hypocritical liberal praetorian guards out there too.

    Conservatives rationalize hypocrisy because of a continuously cultivated greed culture. It’s a Bernays brainwashing / Madison Avenue / K Street thing. A mindless consumer mammonist cultism so powerful that it’s overcome even the Christian teachings which say that this life is but a speck in the eternal life. Think about how satanic much of evangelism has become, without their even knowing it. We now get to have a mindless total consumerist culture just so that a few thousand pathological elites can feed their insatiable pathologies. I mean seriously, how many mansions does one need to not live in just to be happy? How many underage girls do they need to ‘own’?

    We supplicate the town drunks so they can stay drunk. We keep them powerful because we believe their lies. They rationalize it all by telling us that we’re bad people if we don’t ourselves drink.

    Today, you’re nothing, you’re a socialist, a stupid Venezuelan Marxist, a rioting loser, a low IQ minority, if you don’t have the wealth to show off that you’ve been buying the status products which makes them rich.

    So now our politics is a highly persuasive “science” which serves the few, which rationalizes all the negatives, and isn’t much of a functional civil service anymore. Elite democrats included.

  52. GM

    GlassHammer PERMALINK
    August 27, 2020
    “And yet instead of calling for justice and proper punishments, so many regular people are instead supporting them by being against lockdowns…” – GM

    Most Americans live (barely live) paycheck to paycheck so the immediate problem in a lockdown is not having food, water, and shelter. They may die from the virus but they will 100% die from losing food, water, and shelter.

    Yes, which is why I clearly pointed out that if you are to do a proper lockdown with elimination of the virus as the goal, you need to make it so that people’s physical survival is not tied to having a job, because a lockdown means guaranteed unemployment, and most people in this country (and most others) have no savings at all.

    And that means redistribution.

    This is the real tragedy here — people were tricked from the very beginning into thinking that the only choices are:

    1. Lockdown accompanied by them losing their livelihoods

    2. Letting some mostly old and non-white people die.

    Believing that these were the only two choices, many decided on the much worse for themselves and for society, but in the benefit of the oligarchy, option.

    But those were by no means the only two options.

    And again, that is why all of this is so tragic to watch. Neoliberalism should be collapsing now. But the population has very successfully been made to believe that indeed there is no alternative, so it will be left to continue its destruction of humanity unchallenged.

  53. S Brennan

    “I don’t understand why all of Bernie’s disappointed supporters haven’t joined the Green party in droves. What am I missing?”

    Bernie’s effectiveness and yes, he was very effective at herding the naive into the abattoir’s pen. Twenty years from now Bernie will be seen as one of this nation’s most brilliant con men…he was brilliant. The same con, the same crowd…twice and most are still enamored by his “courage”…brilliant.

    Twice inside of four years Sanders spellbound innocent gullible souls. Bernie conned them into spending their time, spending their money and spending their reputations into cheering him, adoring him, worshiping him and, this is important, to the exclusion of all others, then, like a real showman.. >>>>poof<<<< he was gone and the gate was locked, all options were gone. TINA!!!

    No, the Wizard of Oz had nothing on Sanders, nothing. No little Toto could make the faithful see him behind the curtain, pulling the levers to the delight of the DNCers. Nope, Bernie's no fool, for the second time, he grabbed his thirty pieces of silver and he was gone.

    Who will take Bernie's place at the Emerald City, who will run the next con with all the flair of that Wizard? Ian says Alexia Cortez [AOC] has that in her but, I don't know. Maybe Cortez can run the con but, let's face it, pulling off Bernie's con at the end of his life made sense, I mean he'll be dead before the marks truly understand that they have been had. But Cortez is young, she'll live the majority of her life as a known quisling…I can't see it. I think Cortez is just being used by Sanders as smoke and mirrors to obscure his exit.

  54. GlassHammer

    “Believing that these were the only two choices” – GM

    Choices are time sensitive, you can’t expect people to ignore the immediate problems.

    If you and your family won’t survive long enough to see the third option then you won’t ever consider it.

    You would have to be crazy to ignore the alligator closet to the boat.

  55. jonboinAR

    Metamars:
    “By the time a general election rolls around, one’s agency, as a voter, is to vote for a sold-out Republican, or sold-out Democrat.”

    OR A THIRD PARTY CANDIDATE. Or, write in, for example, Tulsi Gabbard. “Oh, you want to waste your vote, they always answer.”
    My response: “WTH? WT -everloving- H are you talking about?”

  56. S Brennan

    JonboinAR; I was a big supporter of Tulsi but…

    When Bernie decided to enter the ring after being non-committal…a month after Tulsi announced, Tulsi was doomed. Bernie [and fans] stomped Tulsi to the ground, dragged her through the mud, she was staked down with campaign debt and made to grovel for relief, once she quit, Bernie’s job was done and he could hardly wait a week to leave the campaign trail. Disgusting.

    Bernie Sanders is one of the most despicable characters in American political history, the most evil? No. But, to crush Tulsi Gabbard, a person who sacrificed everything for Sanders 2016 campaign, a campaign that we now know was never intended anything more than self-aggrandizing is despicable.

    Thanks to Bernie [and his followers], Tulsi has been ground into dust…let her memory be, she was the true leftist that was summarily crushed, not by some fascist cabal, but by America’s “left/liberals”. Cortez is to be the new Bernie, the new Judas Iscariot, the shiny new penny…the new distraction, hell she’s already working with Hillary…write her in, leave the only decent human in the 2020 campaign in peace.

    America’s “left/liberals” shouldn’t complain, they can’t be bothered to pay attention long enough to merit anything more than what they have been served up by the DNC…Biden/Harris, two people who share a racist past, one who slept her way into power, the other used his power to be a lifelong groper, perhaps rapist…two of the vilest creatures in a pantheon of depravity.

  57. Ché Pasa

    The guillotine set up in front of Jeff Bezos’ house today was a nice touch, though.

  58. Anybody stupid enough to ignore worldwide experience, by medical professionals, using HCQ better have a decent plan B, or else suffer the consequences.

    Once again, an aggregation website of HCQ vs. covid-19 studies is c19study.com. Therein, I count:
    22 Negative studies + negative meta-studies
    64 Positive studies + positive meta-studies

    What do you count?

  59. @jonboinAR

    Yes, you are correct, you can also vote 3rd party. I’ve been a 3rd party voter most of my life (generally only voting for Presidents). Ralph Nader, Ross Perot, John Anderson (though I couldn’t actually cast that vote, even though I showed up at a polling place). I’ve voted once for a Democrat (Obama in ’08), and once for a Republican (Trump).

    The crazy, ruthless Democrats, who are abiding extreme racial divisiveness, riots, and treasonous persecution of the legally elected POTUS by garbage Russia/Russia/Russia charges, have driven me into the arms of the waiting, rotten, Republicans.

    Nice job, Democrats!

  60. S Brennan

    Metamars;

    Let’s talk about something useful, is quercetin a reasonable substitute ionophore for Hydroxycloriquine?

    Working class folks who lack the power/wealth to circumvent the DNC/Deep-State embargo need the best defense they are allowed. Can quercetin do some of the lifting of Hydroxycloriquine?

    Yeah, not nearly as good but, let’s talk about what we CAN – DO instead bemoaning our powerlessness.

  61. Thomas B Golladay

    @ S Brennan

    Yes it is, as well as Ivermectin which is even cheaper than HCQ and works even better in a trio with doxycycline, and zinc.

    FDA of course is ignoring their efficacy and warning against them. Again Trump isn’t exerting executive power to fire the FDA Officials, Fauci, and others.

    Both parties need to be voted out.

  62. S Brennan

    Thomas B Golladay; is Ivermectin OTC?

  63. Willy

    Mr. Trump is a man of many talents. Entrepreneur, investor, golfer, grifter and groper. And now medical scientist. He is indeed on a mission from God (His Will be done).

  64. bruce wilder

    GM: If you are to do a 6-9 month lockdown . . .

    It bothered me that I let this go. I do not think it reasonable at all to imagine that it is possible to do a lockdown for more than a very few days. It isn’t just that people need to go to work to earn income; a lot of people have to go to work just to keep basic services and goods available.

    Being unable to think the mechanics of policy through is a big problem in American political discourse.

    People latch on to what they feel is a moral point and accuse an imaginary other of simply ignoring the morally “obvious” and stop listening and stop thinking. It seems to me anti-lockdown others served that purpose for you. But, regardless of whether any one made it a partisan issue, a real lockdown extending 6 months or more is not possible, whether anyone opposed it or not.

    I think conservatives often feel libruls are abusing reason when they scorn opposing conservatives while failing to be realistic about policy details: defund the police, open borders, prohibit private gun ownership. And, people on the left are often aggrieved when reactionary centrists question how much more (!) expensive M4all must be, or worry nonsensically about the burden of the national debt on our grandchildren.

    It is a problem of polarizing styles of argument — over-use of moral declarations in particular, but also a problem of a political media that promotes teh stupid as a badge of honor.

  65. Ian Welsh

    Lockdowns of a few months are reasonable IF they are supported properly. Of course, the US is incapable of doing that, but it was done in China and various other places. There have been plenty of articles about how such countries (Vietnam, S. Korea) etc… do their quarantines and lockdowns. Food is delivered, income support is there, etc…

    If you don’t do it properly, it doesn’t work, then you do it half-assed for what seems like forever. You discredit policies by doing them badly then saying “see, it doesn’t work!”

  66. GM

    bruce wilder PERMALINK

    I do not think it reasonable at all to imagine that it is possible to do a lockdown for more than a very few days. It isn’t just that people need to go to work to earn income; a lot of people have to go to work just to keep basic services and goods available.

    I am afraid you are very confused about the real value of “income”.

    Money has no intrinsic value at all aside from the fact that we have agreed to provide real physical goods and services in exchange for it.

    There is no law of nature that mandates that people “earn income” or drop dead. Human beings have in fact existed perfectly fine without “income” for most of human history, and they can in principle be provided with the physical necessities for survival without it today too, if only we collectively met a certain minimal threshold of rationality and enlightenment.

    And of course nobody is stupid enough to suggest that everyone gets locked down without anyone left to run the life support systems. There are plenty of ways to organize such activities in ways that would minimize the spread and help resolve the problem. But they all require a functioning state and an intact production base, neither of which requirements appears to be met in the US and most of Europe.

    As an example, during the cold war a number of countries had stockpiles of gas masks ready for everyone in case of a chemical or biological attack.

    I am watching the fiasco that is the push to reopen schools (which can really only be rationally explained if the powers that be are trying to get everyone infected as soon as possible so that there is no point in ever even invoking the idea of another lockdown) and I am thinking about:

    1. What happened to that sort of preparedness?

    2. Why, if we are really so desperate to reopen schools, have we not manufactured sufficiently many P100 full or half face respirators (the reusable ones that do a proper job of blocking viral particles) to give a couple to every kid and a teacher and solve the problem with the spread in classrooms? It’s been more than six months since it was abundantly clear that something like this would be needed, and it’s not like it is impossible — during WWII the US was producing hundreds of airplanes every day, while here we’re talking about a piece of plastic and rubber, and we have had 75 years of perfecting and automating manufacturing processes since then.

    Nobody is even talking about doing such a thing. Why? I think we all know the answers.

    But that indeed does invalidate the idea of a doing a lockdown to eliminate the virus, which can and will work if executed properly.

    BTW, note that this is not just an internal US affair — several small nations, especially some tourist destinations, had the virus either eliminated or at least brought under controls, but they are now having large outbreaks very clearly linked to travelers from the US. Expect to see many more such situations in the future (assuming that there are countries left that have it under control, of course) because the US still has the power to bully smaller countries into submission.

  67. NR

    metamars:

    c19study is low-quality information. There’s no systematic review, no meta analysis, no randomized trials, and it’s mostly observational reports (and cherry-picked ones at that). It says front and center that about half the studies are NOT peer-reviewed.

    There’s no accounting for the quality of the study. It just lumps them all together, regardless of sample size or type of study (randomized controlled trials are the pinnacle, and there are zero of them that show positive outcomes).

    Relatedly, there’s no real value to the percentages they give. It doesn’t account for the size of the effect. Any minor effect is just labeled positive, but it could be minuscule and basically useless. A very slight positive finding from a small, flawed study is counted as equivalent to a very conclusive inconclusive or negative finding from a gold standard, massive study.

  68. Stirling S Newberry

    Charlie Parker

    groundbreaking saxophonist
    swing saxophone the bird
    complexity tommy-gun velocity
    improvisations jazz’s
    Now’s the Time
    thrilling scarifying polyrhythms
    You will never learn
    epochal consequence appetites

    Yardbird revolutionary passing chords woodshedding
    Ornithology Bird Gets the Worm
    You will never learn
    hipster subculture Beat Generation
    opiates microphone Max Making Wax
    A high clear note above.

  69. Ché Pasa

    The guillotine was moved over to the White House perimeter last night and a somewhat Trumpie looking dummy was “executed” thereon. Badly. “Such anarchy!” screamed the Twitterverse onlookers.

    Everything’s going according to plan…

  70. @NR

    Not having examined all, or even most, of the studies, in detail, I cannot comment as to their specifics. I haven’t even heard most of the recent covid presentations by Dr. Chris Martenson, who is a 1 man wrecking crew of bad science, related to covid-19.

    At this point, I’m sort of tired looking at studies claimed to show HCQ doesn’t work, then seeing they’re garbage, or else deeply flawed. The study retracted by Lancet with the fudged Surgisphere data was the worst, but we can’t forget ‘classics’ like the Brazilian one that used chloroquine in toxic doses, and killed some people; or the craptastic VA study that was heavily weighted with “Hail Mary” application of HCQ, though even that can’t be nailed down precisely, as dosing timetable data wasn’t given. Even though it was strongly believed, from the start, that HCQ is more effective as an early treatment.

    Unlike political arguments, scientific ones should be settled on the basis of the strongest evidence.

    If YOU want to deconstruct the strongest evidence for HCQ efficacy, after going through all of them listed at c19study.com, feel free. Maybe I’ll respond. You’d be better off getting a response from Chris Martenson, or somebody else equally qualified, who has as much integrity as I judge him to have. Also, I’ll echo Chris Martenson and say that the most reliable studies would look at HCQ + ZINC, administered early, versus other testing models.

    One thing that’s not going to happen is me just taking your word about this. You claim “no meta analysis”, even though many of the reports ARE meta analyses. In fact, I count 9 of them, or roughly 10%.

    How many meta-analyses type studies do your lying eyes count? And why do you say the studies are “cherry picked”? Once again, I count 22 negative studies + negative meta analysis studies. If c19study was “cherry picking”, why did they include these 22 negatives?

    You sound like you’re reading from a “debunking” script…..

    If you want to amuse me, why don’t you give your very best comment about what the Lancet / Surgisphere POS getting through peer review at this ‘prestigious’ journal tells about the level of integrity in the whole medical research field AS A WHOLE? This a ‘meta’ type question, where the meta has to do with human psychology, corruption, and institutional pressures.

    My experience is that “debunkers” ignore the rottenness of the eco-system surrounding the scientists and researchers of the people they (apparently) trust, as authorities. This is as dumb as ignoring the rottenness at the top and inside of the Democratic and Republican parties, if you’re trying to achieve anything socially useful, that requires interacting with Democrats and/or Republicans that are in power.

    My answer to that particular bit of irrationality and/or dumbness and/or shilling is http://www.reddit.com/r/bad_science_culture/

  71. S Brennan

    Here’s a study used to “debunk” Yale School of Public Health professor Harvey Risch per the Yale News: “YSPH professor criticized for promoting unproven drug to treat COVID-19”

    “David Boulware — an infectious disease physician-scientist at the University of Minnesota — published a paper that showed that post-exposure prophylactic, or preventative, use of hydroxychloroquine or hydroxychloroquine and zinc did not prevent symptomatic infection after being exposed to a COVID-19 infected individual…hydroxychloroquine early in their course of infection did not lead to a statistically significant reduction of symptom severity compared to the placebo, and that it also failed to reduce hospitalizations by a significant amount.”
    https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-4207

    So, unlike others, I go and read about the “study’s” protocol and what do I find?

    “Design: Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial conducted from 22 March through 20 May 2020. (ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT04308668)”

    WOW !!! Sounds GREAT all the right words in the HEADLINE!!! But then I read past the headline and what do I find?

    “Setting: Internet-based Survey across the United States and Canada”

    Wait a minute, an internet study with self-reporting and no monitoring…it gets worse.

    “Participants: Symptomatic, nonhospitalized adults with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 >[OR][OR][OR]<'s for a self -reporting study touted as high science but, let's keep going because we going to get to the punch-line.

    "Only 58% of participants received SARS-CoV-2 testing"

    The donors for this study are private and prefer to remain anonymous.

    This study was used to to "debunk" and it's an effing piece of bull$#!t.

    This is the type of shit used to "debunk" hydroxychloroquine and a guy like Yale School of Public Health professor Harvey Risch for suggesting it's use. Disgusting.

    The problem with Covid-19 isn't Trump, whatever you think of him, it's people willing to wrap themselves in "science" in order to further a economic/political objective.

    https://www.newsweek.com/key-defeating-covid-19-already-exists-we-need-start-using-it-opinion-1519535

  72. S Brennan

    again, another comment in limbo

  73. NR

    When I said “no meta analysis,” I meant that the site itself was not doing meta analysis, it was simply throwing a bunch of different studies together and giving them all the same weight without analyzing them. But since you want to talk about meta analysis, it’s worth pointing out the fact that there are many meta analyses that they decided not to post on their website. And guess which metas they chose not to post? The ones showing no benefit of HCQ, of course. Many examples can be found here:

    https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&scisbd=1&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=hydroxychloroquine+covid+meta+analysis&btnG=

    Note that there are 58 hits on that search and as you said, only 9 meta analyses are posted on the website. That is a LOT of omission.

    This site is not run by someone who simply wants to provide aggregated data. They cherry-pick what to list and they add those misleading percentages at the top of the site. It’s garbage.

    Oh, and by the way, there have been randomized controlled trials on HCQ: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2016638

    They found no effect.

  74. Dan

    @someofparts,

    What a jam! Thanks, I needed that.

  75. NR:

    The 1st link in your search result, to “A systematic review of trial registry entries for randomized clinical trials investigating COVID-19 medical prevention and treatment” is about a registry of randomized clinical trials for covid-19 treatments. One of the categories is “antimalarial drugs”. There’s 118 registry entries for such trials; 64 are ongoing; 7 are completed

    Of the completed studies, I don’t see any conclusion drawn. Do you?

    You’re going to have to do more work if you want to show that the c19study.com is missing a lot of relevant papers, and of those that are missing, they have a bias towards excluding negative meta studies…..

    As for c19study.com giving all listed studies “equal weight”, that’s your own strawman. They say, at the botttom of the page, “Every study has some limitations when considered in isolation (for example confounding factors; sub-optimal treatment regimens; dosing regimens that may be too low, too high, or insufficiently account for the long half-life of HCQ; large treatment delays; small sample sizes; lack of focus on severity; reliance on Internet surveys; and patient characteristics very different from the most at-risk population).”

    I interpret this as YMMV, basically the opposite of the studies having “equal weight”.

    It’s true they didn’t analyze them, but so what? It is what it is. Now, if it’s true their site has a clear bias, that’s a different matter.

    If you want to create an aggregation site that does analysis of each listing, have at it.

  76. different clue

    @Plague Species,

    To put too fine a point on it, one might rephrase your advice upthread in the following way . . .

    We need a Final Solution to the Oligarch Question in America today.

  77. NR

    metamars: I give you a list of 59 search results for HCQ meta analyses, you look at the first one and handwave away the other 57. That’s simply not a way to get accurate information on the subject.

    If you look at the meta analyses available, you’ll see that the ones available on the c19study website are heavily cherry-picked, with only two of the ones showing no benefit/not advising using HCQ being listed on the website. That’s a major issue with the data they present.

    “As for c19study.com giving all listed studies “equal weight”, that’s your own strawman.”

    It’s not a strawman, it’s exactly what they do. They add every single study into the percentage at the top of their website without regard to type of study, sample size, status of peer review, etc. Every study is weighted the same–which is the definition of “equal weight.”

    It’s clear that the goal of that website is to create a false sense that “HCQ works” at all costs, using misleading statistics to do so.

  78. NR

    Anyone who is interested and has some free time, look through Google Scholar at the recent meta or systematic studies published on HCQ. Most state that there is no benefit and/or more research is needed since most of the studies have major flaws, while a much smaller number assert there is some benefit.

  79. Willy

    Besides moon bases and jetpacks, I’d assumed that medical testing and history matrices would become so sophisticated by 2020, that any side effects for any known drug could be accurately calculated for any single individual.

    Patient: “Doc, so my chances with my current CV-19 treatment gives me a 70% chance. I’d like to try HCQ.”

    Doc: “Sorry, but based on your biochemistry results and medical history, your calculated odds of contracting arrhythmia and cardiovascular issues from HCQ are 80%.”

    Patient: “That’s fine. I’ll risk it.”

    Doc: “Okay. Sign here.”

    Instead, we have this likely reality in 2020:

    Patient: “You deep staters just want me to die because I voted for Trump! I want my HCQ NOW!!”

    Doc: “Sorry, but HCQ hasn’t been approved yet.”

    Patient: “MOTHER F@%& COMMIE ASS#()* FLIPPIN DOCTORS IN LEAGUE WITH SATAN!!……….”

    Doc pulls out phone to video yet another Karen video for Youtube consumption.

  80. @NR

    My apologies. I didn’t know what PrEP and PEP were, nor did I notice that those tabs were clickable. They apparently stand for “pre exposure prophylaxis” and “post exposure prophylaxis”. They appear to not be precisely defined, on this website, but if they follow the AIDS example I see a aidsinfo.nih.gov, PEP mean taken within 72 hours.

    So, yes, the studies are weighted “equally” in generating these aggregate numbers. Or, more precisely (probably) WERE weighted “equally”, because currently, there are 34 positive “Late” studies, and 66 total “Late” studies, giving 51.5% Positive “Late” studies. (Subtracting 7 Inconclusive or retracted from the denominator gives 57.6% Positive “Late”, so either they are rounding up incorrectly, or they aren’t computing it dynamically, as they add data).

    In light of their paragraph on the bottom, that is still mostly irrelevant, UNLESS they are giving a biased subset of actual studies, as you claim. Even then, the problem would be in the biased subset, more than the aggregate calculation method. It’s kind of obvious to me that the aggregate shouldn’t be taken super seriously as a precise metric. Trying to weight the papers in terms of quality, while welcome (if done honestly), would entail a lot of work. (I’m glossing over a lot, in that last sentence). Furthermore, to make a more precise aggregate even more solid, I’d also prefer looking into the financial ties, retraction history, history of ethics violations, etc., of the authors, and figuring all that in. But who is going to do all this work? The US government easily has enough money to report out aggregate results based on a fabulously thorough investigation of each report. Ah, but they can’t be bothered even constructing an “equally weighted” c19study.com of their own. No mystery, there….

    Having said all that, I’m not going to do your work for you. You’re the one making the claim about c19study reporting misleading results. You apparently didn’t even bother checking out the first hit on the search that you, yourself, posted.

    Did you actually look into ANY of the others?

    Finally, on the bottom of their site, they say “Please send us corrections, updates, comments.” . So, if you find notable omissions, you could do the civically useful thing and actually pass on that information to them. If they fail to incorporate legitimate omissions, then you’d have something to crow about.

  81. S Brennan

    Willy;

    The reason we didn’t achieve a lot of the societal gains in science you mention is because our population, like yourself [see your above remark] are incapable of reasoned or scientific thinking.

    Willy, in your above remark above you wish to take the argument away from science and place in the realm of political/cyber bullying, fine have at it, I am not intimidated but, I will ignore your posts in future. I can see by your last remark, your ignorance of science and reason is a self-imposed sequestration and your comments are not worth my time.

    Finally, Harvey A. Risch, MD, PhD , Professor of Epidemiology, Yale School of Public Health is not a Trump supporter nor is he some kinda nut, he’s a man whose conscience forced him to speak out on then loss of life being imposed by political/economic social construct.

    https://www.newsweek.com/key-defeating-covid-19-already-exists-we-need-start-using-it-opinion-1519535

  82. Willy

    My bad S Brennan.

    I obviously touched a raw nerve. To be honest I don’t know the actual numbers associated with any HCQ risks. But I do know that our once great “science and reason” institutions have lost much respect and hence all the “political/cyber bullying”.

    If you’re as confident in your “science and reason” as you appear to be, then would it be possible for you to intentionally contract the virus, give your “controversial” treatments a go, and then after your successful recovery tell your story here? Of course if you’re not up to the challenge I have no doubts that you’ll find a great many willing “science and reason” takers from amongst the Townhall or American Spectator crowd.

    Maybe from those humble beginnings you could start your own private version of the FDA or WHO which out-competes those once respected organizations because of the superior “science and reason”?

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