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Follow the Science? How COVID Authoritarians Get It Wrong


Muda69

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A closer look at U.S. deaths due to COVID-19

https://web.archive.org/web/20201126223119/https://www.jhunewsletter.com/article/2020/11/a-closer-look-at-u-s-deaths-due-to-covid-19

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According to new data, the U.S. currently ranks first in total COVID-19 cases, new cases per day and deaths. Genevieve Briand, assistant program director of the Applied Economics master’s degree program at Hopkins, critically analyzed the effect of COVID-19 on U.S. deaths using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in her webinar titled “COVID-19 Deaths: A Look at U.S. Data.”

From mid-March to mid-September, U.S. total deaths have reached 1.7 million, of which 200,000, or 12% of total deaths, are COVID-19-related. Instead of looking directly at COVID-19 deaths, Briand focused on total deaths per age group and per cause of death in the U.S. and used this information to shed light on the effects of COVID-19.

She explained that the significance of COVID-19 on U.S. deaths can be fully understood only through comparison to the number of total deaths in the United States. 

After retrieving data on the CDC website, Briand compiled a graph representing percentages of total deaths per age category from early February to early September, which includes the period from before COVID-19 was detected in the U.S. to after infection rates soared. 

Surprisingly, the deaths of older people stayed the same before and after COVID-19. Since COVID-19 mainly affects the elderly, experts expected an increase in the percentage of deaths in older age groups. However, this increase is not seen from the CDC data. In fact, the percentages of deaths among all age groups remain relatively the same. 

“The reason we have a higher number of reported COVID-19 deaths among older individuals than younger individuals is simply because every day in the U.S. older individuals die in higher numbers than younger individuals,” Briand said.

Briand also noted that 50,000 to 70,000 deaths are seen both before and after COVID-19, indicating that this number of deaths was normal long before COVID-19 emerged. Therefore, according to Briand, not only has COVID-19 had no effect on the percentage of deaths of older people, but it has also not increased the total number of deaths. 

These data analyses suggest that in contrast to most people’s assumptions, the number of deaths by COVID-19 is not alarming. In fact, it has relatively no effect on deaths in the United States.

This comes as a shock to many people. How is it that the data lie so far from our perception? 

To answer that question, Briand shifted her focus to the deaths per causes ranging from 2014 to 2020. There is a sudden increase in deaths in 2020 due to COVID-19. This is no surprise because COVID-19 emerged in the U.S. in early 2020, and thus COVID-19-related deaths increased drastically afterward.

Analysis of deaths per cause in 2018 revealed that the pattern of seasonal increase in the total number of deaths is a result of the rise in deaths by all causes, with the top three being heart disease, respiratory diseases, influenza and pneumonia.

“This is true every year. Every year in the U.S. when we observe the seasonal ups and downs, we have an increase of deaths due to all causes,” Briand pointed out.

When Briand looked at the 2020 data during that seasonal period, COVID-19-related deaths exceeded deaths from heart diseases. This was highly unusual since heart disease has always prevailed as the leading cause of deaths. However, when taking a closer look at the death numbers, she noted something strange. As Briand compared the number of deaths per cause during that period in 2020 to 2018, she noticed that instead of the expected drastic increase across all causes, there was a significant decrease in deaths due to heart disease. Even more surprising, as seen in the graph below, this sudden decline in deaths is observed for all other causes. 

943c93ab-5e5e-4402-a235-5e756030ca8f.sized-1000x1000.png?w=2000&dpr=1.5

COURTESY OF GENEVIEVE BRIAND 

Graph depicts the number of deaths per cause during that period in 2020 to 2018.

This trend is completely contrary to the pattern observed in all previous years. Interestingly, as depicted in the table below, the total decrease in deaths by other causes almost exactly equals the increase in deaths by COVID-19. This suggests, according to Briand, that the COVID-19 death toll is misleading. Briand believes that deaths due to heart diseases, respiratory diseases, influenza and pneumonia may instead be recategorized as being due to COVID-19. 

6b057424-a047-49bd-96b5-c0a65cbce88a.sized-1000x1000.png?w=2000&dpr=1.5

COURTESY OF GENEVIEVE BRIAND  

Graph depicts the total decrease in deaths by various causes, including COVID-19.  

The CDC classified all deaths that are related to COVID-19 simply as COVID-19 deaths. Even patients dying from other underlying diseases but are infected with COVID-19 count as COVID-19 deaths. This is likely the main explanation as to why COVID-19 deaths drastically increased while deaths by all other diseases experienced a significant decrease.

“All of this points to no evidence that COVID-19 created any excess deaths. Total death numbers are not above normal death numbers. We found no evidence to the contrary,” Briand concluded.

In an interview with The News-Letter, Briand addressed the question of whether COVID-19 deaths can be called misleading since the infection might have exacerbated and even led to deaths by other underlying diseases.

“If [the COVID-19 death toll] was not misleading at all, what we should have observed is an increased number of heart attacks and increased COVID-19 numbers. But a decreased number of heart attacks and all the other death causes doesn’t give us a choice but to point to some misclassification,” Briand replied.

In other words, the effect of COVID-19 on deaths in the U.S. is considered problematic only when it increases the total number of deaths or the true death burden by a significant amount in addition to the expected deaths by other causes. Since the crude number of total deaths by all causes before and after COVID-19 has stayed the same, one can hardly say, in Briand’s view, that COVID-19 deaths are concerning.

Briand also mentioned that more research and data are needed to truly decipher the effect of COVID-19 on deaths in the United States.

Throughout the talk, Briand constantly emphasized that although COVID-19 is a serious national and global problem, she also stressed that society should never lose focus of the bigger picture — death in general. 

The death of a loved one, from COVID-19 or from other causes, is always tragic, Briand explained. Each life is equally important and we should be reminded that even during a global pandemic we should not forget about the tragic loss of lives from other causes.

According to Briand, the over-exaggeration of the COVID-19 death number may be due to the constant emphasis on COVID-19-related deaths and the habitual overlooking of deaths by other natural causes in society. 

During an interview with The News-Letter after the event, Poorna Dharmasena, a master’s candidate in Applied Economics, expressed his opinion about Briand’s concluding remarks.

“At the end of the day, it’s still a deadly virus. And over-exaggeration or not, to a certain degree, is irrelevant,” Dharmasena said.

When asked whether the public should be informed about this exaggeration in death numbers, Dharmasena stated that people have a right to know the truth. However, COVID-19 should still continuously be treated as a deadly disease to safeguard the vulnerable population.

 

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Ok - Here are some numbers from https://www.census.gov/popclock/ 

and 

https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6 to put into your hat.

US Population:  331,780,397

US Covid Cases: 13,421,114 (4.0 % of the population have or have had the virus - Since March)

US Covid Deaths:  267,080 (1.9 % of CASES have actually died from the virus or had the virus while dying from something else)

Which (if my math is accurate) means everyone reading this has 8.05 to the -04 power (wtf that number is, but it is really small) % chance of dying from the virus.  Higher if you are elderly.  But nevermind that - Stay home and mask up!!

OH - and disregard the the fact that the CDC is now producing PIC death numbers now as one figure.  (Pneumonia, Influenza, Coronavirus) 

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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9009297/How-did-Covid-REALLY-spread-world-Coronavirus-blood-samples-December.html

A new study that found traces of coronavirus in US blood samples from December last year is adding to the growing evidence that the virus was circulating for months before China announced its existence, casting more shadows over the truth about the pandemic and fuelling suspicions of a cover-up by Beijing. 

Claims the global outbreak began in a livestock market in Wuhan last winter have crumbled in the face of scientific evidence proving the virus was all over the Western world weeks and even months before China declared the first cases to the World Health Organization on December 31.

Research published on Monday revealed that 39 blood samples taken between December 13 and 16 last year in CaliforniaOregon and Washington state had tested positive for Covid antibodies, meaning the people who gave them had been infected weeks earlier.The evidence is the earliest trace so far of the virus on US soil, and a further 67 samples from between December 30 and January 17 tested positive in ConnecticutIowaMassachusettsMichiganRhode Island and Wisconsin.  

It adds to a growing body of proof that the virus had spread thousands of miles outside of China long before its existence was acknowledged. Scientists in Italy say they now have proof the virus was there in September 2019, traces of it were found in Brazil in November, a French hospital patient had it in his lungs in December, and the virus was present in sewage in Spain in January.

The CDC study is the latest in a string of global papers that smash through claims that the virus didn't emerge until December:

  • September 3, 2019 – Veneto, Italy: A study carried out in Italy, by the National Cancer Institute in Milan, found coronavirus antibodies in 111 people out of 959 blood samples taken before March 2020. The first sample that tested positive was dated September 3 and collected in the Veneto region of the country. Italy announced its first official case on February 20.
  • September 4 and 5, 2019 – Emilia Romagna and Liguria, Italy: The National Cancer Institute study found antibodies in blood samples taken from the two regions, which are to the south-west of Veneto.
  • September 9, 2019 – Lombardy, Italy: The first two antibody-positive samples from Lombardy, the Alpine region that contains Milan and was one of the worst hit places in the world during the first wave, date back to September 9. By the time all of September's samples had been analysed, 13 out of 23 that were antibody positive had been taken in Lombardy.
  • September 11, 2019 – Lazio, Italy: The first antibody-positive specimen found from the Lazio region was dated September 11. 
  • November 2019 – Brazil: Analysis of past human sewage samples from the southern Brazilian region of Santa Catalina found traces of the SARS-Cov-2 coronavirus as early as November 27. In the city of Florianopolis, samples from between October 30 and March were analysed, will all samples from November 27 onwards testing positive. Brazil announced its first official case on February 26. 
  • November 2019 – China: Leaked government documents show cases of coronavirus were being recorded in Wuhan as early as November 17, the South China Morning Post reported in March. China announced its first official cases on December 31. 
  • December 2019 – United States: A CDC study published on November 30 2020 revealed that coronavirus antibodies had been found in blood samples taken from people in California, Oregon and Washington as early as December 17. Further testing found Covid-positive samples dating to mid-December and early January in Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, Rhode Island and Wisconsin. The US announced its first official case on January 21. 
  • December 2019 – France: A man who was coughing up blood in intensive care in Paris on December 27 2019 has since been found to have had coronavirus. Scientists discovered the airport worker by trawling back through patients hospitalised with flu-like symptoms in December. A retrospective coronavirus test done on blood samples taken while he was in hospital found he was infected with the virus at the time, according to a study published in the International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents. France announced its first official case on January 24.
  • December 2019 – China: The first cases of 'pneumonia of unknown cause' are reported to the World Health Organization by Chinese officials. A total of 44 had been declared by January 3.
  • January 2020 – Spain: A study by the University of Barcelona discovered traces of the coronavirus in sewage in the city in a sample from January 15. It has been regularly testing sewage during the pandemic to track the presence of the virus, and a look back at older samples found it weeks before Covid-19 was officially discovered in the city. An even older sample showed a 'low' concentration of the virus in March 2019, but this required further research to confirm, scientists said. Spain announced its first official case on January 31. 
  • January 2020 – United Kingdom: A man who died on January 30 after falling ill in December later had his death attributed to Covid-19 by a coroner after traces of coronavirus were found in his lungs. Peter Attwood, 84, had developed symptoms of coronavirus on December 28 and later died in hospital, his daughter said, and she also reported being ill with a similar condition in December. Mr Attwood's death happened a day before Britain's first cases of coronavirus were reported on January 31.

The studies looking for historic traces of coronavirus divide into three main categories: they either look for signs of specific antibodies in old blood samples, test old sewage samples for traces of the virus's genetic material, or test bodily fluids from past hospital patients.

All the methods should – if they work perfectly – only show up genuine signs of the SARS-Cov-2 coronavirus, which causes Covid-19. However, imperfect tests mean there is some room for error or misdiagnosis.

Looking for antibodies in past blood samples is a robust way of checking for the disease because antibodies specific to this coronavirus can generally only be found in people who have been infected with it. They are made by the body's own immune system and only made if someone is exposed to the real virus.

A possible stumbling block of this method is that antibody tests are not 100 per cent accurate, meaning they will always produce false positive results. False positives appear where the true result is negative, giving misleading results, and are an inevitable part of medical testing. 

This same problem can arise when testing former hospital patients' fluid samples, which is based on looking for signs of the virus's genetics in the person's bloodstream, which would indicate they were infected at the time.

Scientists have also claimed that some people develop generic coronavirus antibodies triggered by other, similar viruses that aren't SARS-CoV-2. This could make some people test positive when in fact they haven't had the virus. 

Testing sewage samples for the virus relies on the presence of the virus's own genetic material, independent of any human bodily fluids. 

The virus's genetics can be detected anywhere that viruses – whether dead or alive – are present. They may remain in water, for example, for days or even weeks after being transmitted out of the body through a cough or sneeze or in faeces. Finding traces of the virus in sewage water is a good indicator that it is infecting people in that area.   

Almost 64million people worldwide have been officially diagnosed with the coronavirus since the pandemic began, although the total is known to be considerably higher, and around 1.5million have died.

Officials in China raised the alarm about 27 cases of the disease – which at the time they said was an unknown type of pneumonia – on December 31, 2019, although leaked documents have since proven they had recorded infections in Wuhan at least as early as November 17.

The first officially announced victim of Covid-19 was announced on January 11, and the World Health Organization declared a global health emergency on January 31.

Documents leaked to CNN in the US show that China had kept thousands of coronavirus cases unreported during February as the pandemic spiralled out of control, on some days confirming fewer than half the number of infections that internal documents suggested had happened.

China has come under repeated fire since January over its apparent covering up of the true extent of coronavirus's spread in the country, including how many people caught the virus and when it started happening.

Despite being ground zero for the pandemic, the communist dictatorship has still only declared 93,000 cases and 4,700 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University. This compares to 1.6m cases in the UK and 13.7m in the US.

Commenting on discrepancies in China's numbers, the Council on Foreign Relations's Yanzhong Huang told CNN: 'It was clear they did make mistakes - and not just mistakes that happen when you're dealing with a novel virus - also bureaucratic and politically-motivated errors in how they handled it.'

Trying to save face politically is thought to have been a driver behind the country's delay in publicly announcing it had found the disease. Documents suggest it was first discovered in mid-November but not confirmed until the end of December.

 

So if you are a conspiracy theorist, (if you believe this was a man-made virus) this would play right into a theory that China had to keep it secret until it was spread wide enough to be called a "Global Pandemic" and scare the snot out everyone for whatever reason it was designed for.....

Also interesting and I think overlooked today - Scientists have also claimed that some people develop generic coronavirus antibodies triggered by other, similar viruses that aren't SARS-CoV-2. This could make some people test positive when in fact they haven't had the virus. 

In other words - "Coronavirus" has been around for a long time and (IMHO) is contributing to the COVID-19 numbers today, especially during flu season.  

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Who didn't see something like this coming?  (BTW - this happens with any vaccine new or existing)

https://nypost.com/2020/12/09/uk-issues-warning-about-pfizers-covid-19-vaccine/

People with “significant” allergic reactions are being warned not to get Pfizer’s new coronavirus vaccine — after two people needed treatment after being jabbed on the day it was launched in the UK.

The unidentified duo — both staff in the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) — needed treatment for an “anaphylactoid reaction” Tuesday after they were among the first in the world to get the shot.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) immediately issued precautionary advice against vaccinating anyone with a history of “significant” allergic reactions to medicines, food or vaccines.

“Two people with a history of significant allergic reactions responded adversely yesterday,” said professor Stephen Powis, national medical director for the NHS in England, adding that “both are recovering well.”

“The MHRA have advised on a precautionary basis that people with a significant history of allergic reactions do not receive this vaccination,” he said, insisting the advice was “common with new vaccines.”

Now - THIS could be a problem:

https://nypost.com/2020/12/09/no-drinking-for-two-months-after-covid-19-vaccine-russia-says/

Russian officials are warning citizens to avoid alcohol for two months after receiving the country’s COVID-19 vaccine — tough-to-swallow news for one of the world’s heaviest-drinking countries.

The warning came from Russian Deputy Prime Minister Tatiana Golikova, who said in an interview that Russians will have to observe extra precautions during the 42 days it takes for the Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine to become effective.

“[Russians] will have to refrain from visiting crowded places, wear face masks, use sanitizers, minimize contacts and refrain from drinking alcohol or taking immunosuppressant drugs,” Golikova told TASS News Agency.

Anna Popova, the head of Rospotrebnadzor, Russia’s consumer safety watchdog, echoed the sentiments in an interview with Radio Komsomolskaya Pravda, as reported in the Moscow Times.

 

“It’s a strain on the body. If we want to stay healthy and have a strong immune response, don’t drink alcohol,” she said.

According to the World Health Organization, Russia is the fourth-largest consumer of alcohol per person in the world. The average Russian consumes 15.1 liters (almost 4 gallons) of alcohol a year, according to the agency.

Russia’s efforts to vaccinate its population began in earnest over the weekend in Moscow. Health authorities in the country estimate that 100,000 people have already been inoculated.

“By the end of the week, all regions of the country will join this campaign,” Golikova said.

Russian health officials say the Sputnik V vaccine is over 90 percent effective, but reports say medical workers who have taken the shot have come down with COVID-19. Russian President Vladimir Putin has reportedly refused to take it.

Western experts have expressed skepticism at the speed at which the purported vaccine was developed and Russia hasn’t provided any data to back up its claims for the shot.

Russia has recorded 2.4 million coronavirus cases, as well as over 42,000 deaths from the disease.

 

 

Edited by swordfish
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Some good common sense advice forwarded from one of my nurse friends.  Common sense advice I have followed for many years in the RV industry and attending winter and spring RV shows with huge attendances numbers all over the country and Canada in every airport in every climate you can imagine and I can vouch that I have been able to avoid the worst ailments because of this.

CORONA Common Sense
Since they are calling on Respiratory therapist to help fight the Corona virus, and I am a retired one, too old to work in a hospital setting. I'm gonna share some common sense wisdom with those that have the virus and trying to stay home. If my advice is followed as given you will improve your chances of not ending up in the hospital on a ventilator. This applies to the otherwise generally healthy population, so use discretion.
1. Only high temperatures kill a virus, so let your fever run high. Tylenol, Advil. Motrin, Ibuprofen etc. will bring your fever down allowing the virus to live longer. They are saying that ibuprophen, advil etc will actually exacerbate the virus. Use common sense and don't let fever go over 103 or 104 if you got the guts. If it gets higher than that take your tylenol, not ibuprophen or advil to keep it regulated. It helps to keep house warm and cover up with blankets so body does not have to work so hard to generate the heat. It usually takes about 3 days of this to break the fever.
2. The body is going to dehydrate with the elevated temperature so you must rehydrate yourself regulaly, whether you like it or not. Gatorade with real sugar, or pedialyte with real sugar for kids, works well. Why the sugar? Sugar will give your body back the energy it is using up to create the fever. The electrolytes and fluid you are losing will also be replenished by the Gatorade. If you don't do this and end up in the hospital they will start an IV and give you D5W (sugar water) and Normal Saline to replenish electrolytes. Gatorade is much cheaper, pain free, and comes in an assortment of flavors
3. You must keep your lungs moist. Best done by taking long steamy showers on a regular basis, if your wheezing or congested use a real minty toothpaste and brush your teeth while taking the steamy shower and deep breath through your mouth. This will provide some bronchial dilation and help loosen the phlegm. Force your self to cough into a wet wash cloth pressed firmly over your mouth and nose, which will cause greater pressure in your lungs forcing them to expand more and break loose more of the congestion.
4. Eat healthy and regularly. Gotta keep your strength up.
5. Once the fever breaks, start moving around to get the body back in shape and blood circulating.
6. Deep breath on a regular basis, even when it hurts. If you don't it becomes easy to develop pneumonia. Pursed lip breathing really helps. That's breathing in deep and slow then exhaling through tight lips as if your blowing out a candle, blow until you have completely emptied your lungs and you will be able to breath in an even deeper breath. This helps keep lungs expanded as well as increase your oxygen level.
7. Remember that every medication you take is merely relieving the symptoms, not making you well.
8. If your still dying go to ER.
I've been doing these things for myself and my family for over 40 years and kept them out of the hospital, all are healthy and still living today.
Thank you all for sharing. We gotta help one another.

 

 

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Stop Saying Lockdown Is 'Not That Hard'

https://reason.com/2020/12/10/stop-saying-lockdown-is-not-that-hard/

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"You need to stay home," said the voiceover in an April public health ad in New York state. "It's all they're asking us to do. It's not that hard."

It's not that hard. This (or some variant) has been a frequent refrain from officials, public health experts, and others throughout the coronavirus pandemic. The tone is a mash of encouragement and paternalism intended to convey that many of us can avoid contributing to the disease's spread with relatively easy precautions.

It's not that hard is true of hand washing. It's almost always true of wearing a mask. But it is not true of lockdowns. It is not true of social distancing. It is not true of skipping Christmas or Thanksgiving or your mom's birthday or your brother's wedding. It's not true of missing church and New Year's Eve parties and eating in restaurants. It's not true of going without regular, in-person contact with friends and loved ones.

This actually is that hard. It sucks, and we should say so.

That is not to say it's not worth it. My household has been pretty conservative—as in careful, not Republican—about pandemic mitigation measures, conservative enough to get criticized for it both by family members and by strangers on the internet. We took advantage of the summer months to go to outdoor, masked church services, and we've had a limited number of friends over for bonfires in our backyard every week. I tried to stretch that stuff as long as possible into the fall, but I live in Minnesota and now it's just too cold, especially with our kids involved. Both church and socializing have moved back online. Most weeks we encounter only ourselves, our nanny, and sometimes staff at stores.

But like many things, this does not become easy just because we judge it worthwhile. Doing Easter service online was the right call, but it wasn't not that hard. Staying in our house all the time with two teething, bored toddlers isn't not that hard. Being unable to take them for a leisurely, purposeless, and, crucially, heated stroll through the mall isn't not that hard. Our twins having literally no other playmates their own age isn't not that hard. Wholly inadequate Zoom time with our friends isn't not that hard. None of this is not that hard.

And we're comparatively lucky! We have reliable, fast internet access and friends with the same. We can stay connected in a better-than-nothing facsimile of our ordinary relationship. We can at least see each other's faces. Many other Americans with limited tech skills or internet service cannot do likewise.

Our jobs are white-collar and allow us to work from home full-time. That's only true of about two in 10 people in this country.

Our income is high enough that we are the recipients of deliveries, not the deliverers. "You need to stay home" is not an order with which the truckers and postal workers and so many other people who keep us fed and clothed can comply.

Our kids are young enough that we're not dealing with the fiasco of online school. Friends with older kids are agonizing, switching schools, trying desperately to make an unworkable situation work.

Our child care wasn't disrupted, as so many people's was, because the incredibly high cost of day care for twin infants had already pushed us to the nanny option. But plenty of parents, especially mothers, have had their careers interrupted or put entirely on hold because there is no one to watch their children.

And their children, by the way, do not have an adult's understanding of the timeline of this crisis and can't entirely comprehend why everything is strange and scary right now. That isn't not that hard, and I don't think it's coincidental that I most often seem to see It's not that hard issuing from the lips of childless, white-collar, middle-class (or richer) people who do not have a chronic illness or disability. Maybe, for those few, it's truly not that hard. It is that hard for the rest of us.

It's hard because people need people. We are made to be in relationships with each other. Our brains, hearts, souls, spirits—whatever you want to call that core of our being—that thing need parties. It needs human contact. It needs community. It needs beers on the couch. It needs board games late into the night. It needs play dates. It needs not to die alone. It needs not to give birth alone. It needs love. And the internet, blessed and cursed as it is, can transmit love only so well

The end of the COVID-19 pandemic is finally in sight. By summer, they tell us, anyone who wants a vaccine can have it. Life will drift back to normal. We'll have parties again. So it's maybe six months to go. That's not very long, in the grand scheme of things. The bulk of this is already behind us. Pandemics past have been longer and deadlier.

But right now, and for months to come, this is still happening. It is still lonely. It is still difficult. And I still don't want to hear from anyone's mouth—least of all public health officials—the pernicious, dismissive, inhuman claim that it's not that hard.

 

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There's Still No Evidence that Either Lockdowns or Masks Are "Game Changers"

https://mises.org/wire/theres-still-no-evidence-either-lockdowns-or-masks-are-game-changers

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Data visualization is a wonderful thing. It helps us understand important trends that would be invisible in raw data alone. Now more than ever, data analysts have been instrumental in providing data visualizations that rebut two of the most widely accepted, baseless slogans of the prolockdown, militant mask-wearing crowd: "Lockdowns save lives" and "Wear the damn mask." The data tell a surprisingly clear story about the effectiveness of mask mandates and lockdowns in stopping the spread of covid-19: both are futile and the latter is deadly.

 

“Lockdowns Save Lives.”

Without any historical or scientific precedent indicating that lockdowns were even remotely effective at saving lives, governors single-handedly shut down their economies in an effort to quickly do something, anything to slow the spread. Questioning these orders on moral or utilitarian grounds quickly became "questioning the science," an exceptionally strange slogan for its assumption that any evidence existed that vindicated the efficacy of lockdowns. But after only a few months of lockdown, it first became apparent that there was no correlation between how soon a region locked down and that region's death toll:

The abysmally low R2 value shows that locking down quickly clearly did not matter, but what about locking down in general? Surely the strictest lockdowns would save more lives, right? Hardly.

If the science was settled on lockdown efficacy, this plot should unambiguously slope downwards, indicating that more stringent lockdowns are more effective at mitigating cases. No such trend exists. Here is a population-adjusted visualization, courtesy of PANDA, that compares a nation’s lockdown stringency with its death toll per million.

Again, if lockdown science is truly settled, the right half of this graph should consist almost entirely of black and red bars—countries with "hard" to "extreme" lockdown stringency—while the left half should consist almost entirely of purple and green bars—countries with "normal" to "light" lockdown stringency. We see no such correlation, and to point out the lack of correlation in any of the above charts will have you anathematized by the mainstream media and their favored health experts.

The Costs of Locking Down

Not only have the lockdowns played no role in disease mitigation, they come with deadly costs. You would think that the prolockdown health officials informing public health decisions would have entertained the potential costs of disrupting global supply chains and forcing hundreds of millions of people to remain shuttered in their homes. No matter. When nations around the globe are at "war" with a virus, immediate action is the only option. Damn the consequences.

What follows are some of the most alarming costs of the lockdowns, costs that are hardly eclipsed by the plethora of anecdotal sob stories floating around on social media. The establishment media and public health officials were doomed to look past these potential consequences because of their monomaniacal fixation on “cases,” a fixation that elevated short-term economic thinking and feel-good policies above all else.

  • The New York Times predicts 1.4 million excess tuberculosis deaths alongside nearly 1 million excess malaria and HIV deaths.
  • The UN estimates that as many as 130 million people will be at risk of starvation thanks to the lockdown's disruption of global food supply chains.
  • The CDC reported just under 200,000 excess deaths, a 26.5 percent jump from previous years, attributable to covid-19 over a ten-month period; a majority of these deaths affected 25–44-year-olds.
  • UNICEF predicted an excess of 1.2 million child deaths (ages 5 and under) over a six-month period
  • The Associate Press linked virus-related hunger to 10,000 child deaths per month for the first year of the pandemic
  • The CDC conducted a week-long survey in June finding that 25 percent of young adults between 18–24 years of age have considered suicide because of the pandemic.
  • CBS cited a study indicating the potential for 75,000 excess deaths of despair: deaths due to drug and alcohol abuse or suicide
  • A CDC report found a 31 percent increase in mental health–related emergency room visits for children between the ages of 12 and 17 over a three-month period.

Even The Atlantic now admits that asking people in low- to middle-income countries to stay home is, in many cases, asking them to starve. There is simply no way to justify the claim the lockdowns save lives with a knowledge of their costs. More can be found on the physical, mental, and social health consequences of the lockdowns at Collateral Global and thepriceofpanic.com.

“Wear the Damn Mask.”

This past Wednesday governor Mike DeWine of Ohio went on a lengthy Twitter tirade about the importance of wearing masks. Among many remarks, he most foolishly tweeted that we now know "mask wearing…is the chief way of slowing this virus.” Statements like these give the impression that wearing masks slows the spread of covid-19. The data consistently refute this preposterous claim:

Were these charts to be left blank, you would not be able to accurately pin the mask mandate on the graph. If masks play such a pivotal role in disease mitigation, then these charts—more to be found here, here, here, and here—should look nothing like they do, especially in the United States, where mask compliance, as of mid-August, was at 84 percent. If these visualizations appear to show anything, it is that the virus runs its course regardless of politicians' failed attempts to control it.

A Brief Note on "Cases"

This has undoubtedly been a case-driven pandemic. Lockdowns, public health mandates, and societal panic have ebb and flow alongside case count. Much, if not all, of this panic can be attributed to extremely sensitive PCR (polymerase chain reaction) tests, which are used to identify covid-19 "cases." Quotations around "cases" are warranted given that the vast majority of positive PCR tests are detecting inert genetic material, essentially "dead" chunks of virus that pose no threat to anybody. A recent New York Times piece sums up the PCR sensitivity issue nicely.

Officials at the Wadsworth Center, New York’s state lab, have access to C.T. values from tests they have processed, and analyzed their numbers at The Times’s request. In July, the lab identified 872 positive tests, based on a threshold of 40 cycles. With a cutoff of 35, about 43 percent of those tests would no longer qualify as positive. About 63 percent would no longer be judged positive if the cycles were limited to 30. In Massachusetts, from 85 to 90 percent of people who tested positive in July with a cycle threshold of 40 would have been deemed negative if the threshold were 30 cycles.

In the same article Juliet Morrison, virologist at the University of California, said any PCR tests running more than 35 cycles are too sensitive, and Harvard epidemiologist Michael Mina even recommended a cycle count threshold of 30 or less! The same New York Times article also pointed to the CDC’s own calculations, which suggest that “it is extremely difficult to detect any live virus in a sample above a threshold of 33 cycles.”

Ultrasensitive PCR testing leads to an artificially high "case" count, which translates to an artificially high number of covid-19 hospitalizations—an excellent analysis of inflated covid hospitalization numbers can be found here. Simply lowering the sensitivity of PCR tests to realistic levels would crumble covid dogmata and end this baseless panic almost instantly. Surprisingly, despite these inflated numbers, United States hospital utilization rates remain under 80 percent in all areas except Rhode Island and Washington, D.C. In some regions, this represents an improvement over previous years.

Returning to Normal Life

The data have spoken, and we are long overdue for a return to normal life, not some dystopian "new normal" where strangers are faceless pathogens and gatherings are limited to ten people. The world desperately needs more "antiscience" individuals like New York City councilman Joe Borelli, who tweeted the following prior to Thanksgiving:

I'll be having more than 10 ppl at my house on Thanksgiving. My address is public record. Some family will come from (gasp!) New Jersey.

Kids will see their grandparents, cousins will play in the yard, sis in law will bring strawberry rhubarb pie, & a turkey will be overcooked.

— Joe Borelli (@JoeBorelliNYC) November 11, 2020

Of course this led to infuriated responses like "You're siding with the virus!" which more or less sums up the establishment's rebuttal of anyone who desires their own humanity or doesn't reflexively bow down to "expert authority."

Human beings are more than just passionless biological entities whose sole purpose is to remain fed, hydrated, go to work, and experience life on a laptop screen. Through its lockdowns and media-induced fear mongering, the state has all but destroyed the very things that make life worth living: musicals, concerts, holidays, professional sporting events, family gatherings and celebrations, recreational travel, religious worship, comedy gigs, art festivals, and so much more. These things technically still exist, but only as shadows in Plato's cave.

Rack this post.  More proof that lockdowns and mask mandates are just government officials grasping at straws, and enjoying flexing their authoritarian muscles while they do it.

 

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https://www.foxnews.com/media/nbc-mocked-miracle-necessary-coronavirus-vaccine

NBC News was blistered on social media Monday for its past claim that a "medical miracle" would have to occur to fulfill President Trump's hopes of a functional coronavirus vaccine by the end of 2020.

A widely shared May 15 NBC News "fact check" said Trump's prediction of having a vaccine by the end of the year was likely a pipe dream. It quoted Emory professor Dr. Walter Orenstein saying "a lot of things could go wrong." Another said a vaccine in a minimum of 12 months was only doable under the "best of circumstances."

"Experts say that the development, testing and production of a vaccine for the public is still at least 12 to 18 months off, and that anything less would be a medical miracle," reporter Jane C. Timm wrote.

As the world watched two New York health care workers receive doses of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine Monday, some wondered how a "fact check" of Trump's prediction was possible in the first place. 

Republican spokesman Steve Guest quipped, "4 Pinocchio's for NBC," a reference to the Washington Post's fact-checking guide.

MSNBC repeatedly touted the article on its airwaves that week, with some pundits mocking Trump's optimism. 

"I would bet my left arm that Donald Trump can't spell vaccine, let alone be able to make a prediction about when we're likely to see one," MSNBC contributor and Lincoln Project co-founder Steve Schmidt told a chuckling Joy Reid on May 15.

A Miami Herald article on Oct. 23 declared, "Trump says COVID-19 vaccine is coming ‘within weeks.’ Experts say that’s not possible." CNN cast doubt on Trump’s September suggestion that every American could receive a vaccine by April by quoting an anonymous source in a report headlined, “Trump says every American can get a coronavirus vaccine by April, but health experts say that's not likely.”

MSNBC's Ari Melber said it would require "basically a miracle happening" for Trump's claim to come true, while headlines like Business Insider's "A coronavirus vaccine probably won't be ready before the end of 2021, according to a Swiss pharmaceutical giant" flashed on the screen.  

Other news outlets also expressed pessimism about the likelihood of an effective vaccine being deployed by year's end. PolitiFact quoted one expert on April 23 who said it was not unusual for vaccine development to take 10 to 15 years, although it added the coronavirus vaccine was on an accelerated timeline.

"It could end up being less than 18 months, closer to 12, or in the absolutely best case, maybe less than that," University of Maryland professor Dr. Kathleen Neuzil, director of the Center for Vaccine Development and Global Health, said, adding that would be a "tremendous feat."

"The development for an effective vaccine against the coronavirus by even the end of the year would mark a watershed moment in medicine as vaccines typically take several years, if not decades, to succeed," NPR reported on Sept. 9.

Trump has repeatedly touted the success of Operation Warp Speed, the public-private partnership spearheaded by his administration to produce a viable vaccine and distribute it to hundreds of millions of Americans.

The Food and Drug Administration gave emergency authorization to Pfizer's vaccine last week and is expected to also grant it to Moderna's. Other vaccines are in late-stage trials and could be authorized in the coming months, the New York Times reported.

 

SF doesn't see anyone lining up to apologize to the President for this......

 

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Americans Are in Full Revolt Against Pandemic Lockdowns

https://reason.com/2020/12/16/americans-are-in-full-revolt-against-pandemic-lockdowns/

Quote

Echoing New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio warned city residents this week to prepare for a "full shutdown" as part of ongoing efforts to slow the spread of COVID-19. The two elected officials better not hold their breath waiting for compliance. Evidence from around the country shows that many Americans are thoroughly sick of impoverishing, socially isolating lockdown orders, and are revolting against the often-hypocritical politicians who issue them.

"The governor said in a New York Times interview over the weekend that we should prepare for the possibility of a full shutdown. I agree with that," Mayor de Blasio told interviewers on December 14. "We need to recognize that that may be coming and we've got to get ready for that now, because we cannot let this virus keep growing."

The mayor commented following Cuomo's ban on indoor dining at New York City restaurants. That was issued a week after Staten Island residents cheered bar owner Daniel Presti, who was arrested for defying pandemic restrictions. Days later, Presti ran his car into a sheriff's deputy who sought to rearrest him for continuing to serve patrons. Both of the deputy's legs were broken.

While Presti's level of violent resistance against lockdowns is much too extreme, he's not alone in his opposition. From coast to coast, businesses and individuals are ignoring restrictive rules that threaten their livelihoods, stifle social contact, and threaten to strangle the necessary interactions of everyday life.

"Another shutdown just isn't an option for us," the Seven Sirens Brewing Company of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, announced last week on its Facebook page. "We, and thousands of other small businesses throughout the country simply will not survive. […] After speaking with our bank, staff members, families, attorneys, and local government officials…we have decided we will not comply with future shutdown mandates. We will continue to operate with the same, proven-safe measures we implemented 5 months ago."

The brewery is only one of many businesses listed by Pennsylvania Opening Businesses/Defying the Governor, which has over 43,000 members on Facebook as I write. The group encourages the public the patronize anybody who bucks state rules to continue offering goods and services to willing customers.

"Many readers side with businesses that may stay open in defiance of Pennsylvania's coronavirus shutdown orders," the Morning Call newspaper noted of public response to such stories.

The ReOpen Minnesota Coalition similarly represents hundreds of businesses defying closure orders and raises money for legal defense against state enforcement actions.

"The last nine months have needlessly put small business owners and employees in the regrettable position of watching their dreams evaporate before their eyes and their families go without basic necessities," the group commented this week on the effect of pandemic lockdowns. It calls for stripping Gov. Tim Walz of his emergency powers and for ignoring restrictions so that people can decide for themselves when and how to interact.

On the West Coast, many restaurants also open their doors to customers despite state orders to the contrary.

"While some of the larger chains and corporations are following the orders, many of the mom and pop shops say going to takeout only would put them out of business," ABC News reported last week.

The city council in Solvang, a tourism-fueled community in Santa Barbara County, recently voted to ignore shutdown orders that threaten locals' livelihoods. Officials "directed that the City of Solvang will not actively enforce these latest State shutdown orders, and that the City request the County and State regulators to prioritize education and that they also not enforce the orders within the City limits," according to a letter from Mayor Ryan Toussaint.

None of this should be a surprise. Small businesses have taken it in the teeth from restrictions that cut them off from customers and cash; data gathered by Yelp shows many of them closing permanently. Restaurants, which traditionally have tight profit margins to begin with, have been especially hard hit.

"Many of those in the Twin Cities and greater Minnesota restaurant industry have told the Star Tribune that they feel they may never recover," the Minneapolis StarTribune reported this week.

"As of today, 17% of restaurants—more than 110,000 establishments—are closed permanently or long-term" as a result of this year's economic distress, the National Restaurant Association announced on December 7.

Fatigue with lockdown orders was predicted by experts months ago, and voiced by the public in growing numbers.

Renewed restrictions are likely to be met by "silent compliance, critical compliance or visible resistance," Britain's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) cautioned in June.

Americans "are far less willing to comply with shelter-in-place advice today than they were in the early weeks of the coronavirus pandemic this spring," Gallup reported last month. Forty-nine percent "say they would be very likely to stay home for a month if public health officials recommended it due to a serious outbreak of the virus in their community. This contrasts with solid majorities in the spring who said they were likely to comply with such shelter-in-place advice, including a high of 67% in late March/early April."

Politicians actively fanned the flames of resistance with their "rules are only for the little people" flouting of their own orders. Amidst a flurry of high-profile examples, California Gov. Gavin Newsom's expensive gathering with other officials at The French Laundry stands out for its arrogance. Why should regular people driven to the brink of poverty and despair pay any attention to the dictates of such creatures?

In distress and after due consideration, many Americans have decided that they shouldn't comply. Individually and in organized groups, often with the support of their communities, people are pushing back against lockdown orders that they find more threatening than COVID-19.

Mayor de Blasio, Cuomo, and their colleagues near and far may loudly announce new restrictions on life, but they're going to find ever-shrinking ranks willing to listen.

So when will the brown-shirted government thugs show up to enforce these draconian lockdowns?

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4 minutes ago, Muda69 said:

Americans Are in Full Revolt Against Pandemic Lockdowns

https://reason.com/2020/12/16/americans-are-in-full-revolt-against-pandemic-lockdowns/

So when will the brown-shirted government thugs show up to enforce these draconian lockdowns?

They won’t. The election is over. The pandemic was weaponized and used to bring down Trump. He helped ... a lot. It’s served it’s purpose. There’s a vaccine in production. The politicos will move on to the next great cause, and the pandemic will be ... whatever.

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1 minute ago, Bobref said:

They won’t. The election is over. The pandemic was weaponized and used to bring down Trump. He helped ... a lot. It’s served it’s purpose. There’s a vaccine in production. The politicos will move on to the next great cause, and the pandemic will be ... whatever.

And now we have a large number of the U.S. populace conditioned to blindly accept future government lockdown edicts.  The next one will probably be New Green Deal related, i.e. we all have to stay home and huddle in place in order to reduce our carbon emissions to save the planet.

 

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'Losing A Generation': Fall College Enrollment Plummets For First-Year Students: https://www.npr.org/2020/12/17/925831720/losing-a-generation-fall-college-enrollment-plummets-for-first-year-students

Quote

All throughout high school, Brian Williams planned to go to college. But as the pandemic eroded the final moments of his senior year, the Stafford, Texas, student began to second guess that plan.

"I'm terrible at online school," Williams says. He was barely interested in logging on for his final weeks of high school; being online for his first semester at Houston Community College felt unbearable.

"I know what works best for me, and doing stuff on the computer doesn't really stimulate me in the same way an actual class would."

Paying for college was always going to be hard, but it was even harder to justify the expense during a pandemic. "We had no money for it," he says, "and I'm not trying to go into debt and pay that for the rest of my life."

He wondered if college in 2020 was "really worth it." So he postponed, and instead got a job at Jimmy John's so he could start saving up.

Williams is one of hundreds of thousands of students who decided to put off higher education this year. According to new data from the National Student Clearinghouse, undergraduate enrollment this fall declined by 3.6% from the fall of 2019. That's more than 560,000 students, and twice the rate of enrollment decline seen last year. Most of that decline occurred at community colleges, where enrollment fell by more than 10%, or over 544,000 students.

"To see this level of decline all at once is so sudden and so dramatic," says Doug Shapiro, who leads the research center at the National Student Clearinghouse. "It's completely unprecedented."

Students attending college for the first time represent one of the largest groups missing from college classes this fall, Shapiro says. For students who graduated from high school in the class of 2020, the number of graduates enrolling in college are down by 21.7% compared with last year, based on preliminary data. For graduates at high-poverty high schools there was a 32.6% decline in attending college, compared with a 16.4% decline for graduates of low-poverty schools.

"That's a lot of individuals whose lives are on hold, whose career and educational aspirations are suspended," says Shapiro. "You can almost think of this as an entire generation that will enter adulthood with lower education, lower skills, less employability, ultimately lower productivity."

Shapiro says the pandemic is largely to blame for this year's drastic declines, but it's also true that college-going has been on a decade-long downward trend. College enrollment nationwide fell 11% between 2011 and 2019, the Clearinghouse found.

Fewer people going to college and getting a degree spells trouble for individual families, for communities and for the U.S. economy as a whole.

"There is a much larger implication here for the country," says Angel Pérez, who oversees the National Association for College Admission Counseling. "The fact is if we lose an entire generation of young people in the pipeline to college, that will have an impact on our tax base. It will have an impact on an educated citizenry."

'A very bad financial time'

For colleges, lower enrollment means fewer tuition dollars, which translates to a drop in revenue at a time when college budgets were already strained because of the pandemic.

Now, colleges have begun to tighten their belts. In October, Ithaca College, a private college in upstate New York, announced plans to cut about 130 faculty positions to deal with falling enrollment. That's in addition to pandemic-related cuts the college made in April. Across the country institutions have announced furloughs and layoffs; they've cancelled sports, majors and even entire departments. More than 50 universities have suspended admissions to their Ph.D. programs, The Chronicle of Higher Education found.

"To be blunt, we are in a very bad financial time for higher education, and the most unfortunate part is I don't see that we have sort of reached the bottom yet," says Dominique Baker, a professor of education policy at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

"What determines how bad this eventually gets are things like what is the federal government doing? How much funding does the federal government give out to states? How much funding does the federal government give out to individual higher education institutions to help them?" she says. "If we're not seeing a significant investment in higher education, this is going to become much more widespread."

Without federal or state money, colleges may look to increase tuition to offset budget shortfalls. In Florida, there's talk of raising tuition at public institutions for the first time in several years.

Even after the pandemic is over, colleges won't be out of the woods. They're still facing a demographic cliff: The number of U.S. high school graduates is expected to peak by 2025, buoyed by non-white students, then decline through the end of 2037, according to projections by the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education. In other words, the pool of eligible college students is shrinking.

....

Yep,  these institutions, which have become fat and administration-bloated after feasting on that "free" government loan money for the last several decades, will have to tighten their belts.  Boo hoo.

 

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13 minutes ago, Muda69 said:

And now we have a large number of the U.S. populace conditioned to blindly accept future government lockdown edicts.  The next one will probably be New Green Deal related, i.e. we all have to stay home and huddle in place in order to reduce our carbon emissions to save the planet.

 

I wasn’t around during the Civil War, but in my lifetime I cannot recall a time when the American people have been so divided, and not just on different sides. They’re on the extremes of both sides. So, IMO, the gulf is wider than ever. What we saw this past year was nothing short of civil unrest aimed at the government. There is a reasonable possibility that the next great issue to divide us - regardless of what it is - will result in the same, only orders of magnitude greater, since many legitimized this year’s civil unrest in the name of political expediency. IMO, it is not at all far-fetched to think of whole sections of cities ablaze, martial law, troops in the streets. 

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2 minutes ago, Bobref said:

I wasn’t around during the Civil War, but in my lifetime I cannot recall a time when the American people have been so divided, and not just on different sides. They’re on the extremes of both sides. So, IMO, the gulf is wider than ever. What we saw this past year was nothing short of civil unrest aimed at the government. There is a reasonable possibility that the next great issue to divide us - regardless of what it is - will result in the same, only orders of magnitude greater, since many legitimized this year’s civil unrest in the name of political expediency. IMO, it is not at all far-fetched to think of whole sections of cities ablaze, martial law, troops in the streets. 

" I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical."  - Thomas Jefferson

 

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3 minutes ago, Bobref said:

I wasn’t around during the Civil War, but in my lifetime I cannot recall a time when the American people have been so divided, and not just on different sides. They’re on the extremes of both sides. So, IMO, the gulf is wider than ever. What we saw this past year was nothing short of civil unrest aimed at the government. There is a reasonable possibility that the next great issue to divide us - regardless of what it is - will result in the same, only orders of magnitude greater, since many legitimized this year’s civil unrest in the name of political expediency. IMO, it is not at all far-fetched to think of whole sections of cities ablaze, martial law, troops in the streets. 

That's what happens when you put off making necessary changes to a 200+ year old document. 

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2 minutes ago, DanteEstonia said:

That's what happens when you put off making necessary changes to a 200+ year old document. 

And with our inability to achieve consensus on even the smallest issues, what are the chances of any meaningful effort to do that now?

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42 minutes ago, DanteEstonia said:

That's what happens when you put off making necessary changes to a 200+ year old document. 

So exactly what necessary changes would you make to the U.S. Constitution that would prevent "whole sections of cities ablaze, martial law, troops in the streets. " as Bobref puts it?

 

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1 minute ago, Muda69 said:

So exactly what necessary changes would you make to the U.S. Constitution that would prevent "whole sections of cities ablaze, martial law, troops in the streets. " as Bobref puts it?

1. Direct election of the President for a 6-year term. Presidents cannot serve consecutive terms. 

2. 4 year terms for Senator

3. A Judicial Appointment Commission, based on the one used in Indiana, would nominate judges.

4. Congressional term limits. 

5. A new amending formula for the US Constitution. 

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6 minutes ago, DanteEstonia said:

3. A Judicial Appointment Commission, based on the one used in Indiana, would nominate judges.

Including Supreme Court Justices?

7 minutes ago, DanteEstonia said:

4. Congressional term limits. 

What kind of term limits?

7 minutes ago, DanteEstonia said:

5. A new amending formula for the US Constitution. 

Please elaborate.

 

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2 minutes ago, Muda69 said:

Including Supreme Court Justices?

Of course.

3 minutes ago, Muda69 said:

What kind of term limits?

Ideally 20 years per chamber.

3 minutes ago, Muda69 said:

Please elaborate.

Instead of having State governments ratify Constitutional Amendments, why not instead have the people who elect the State governments ratify the Constitutional Amendments? 

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1 minute ago, DanteEstonia said:

Instead of having State governments ratify Constitutional Amendments, why not instead have the people who elect the State governments ratify the Constitutional Amendments? 

So Constitutional Amendment by popular vote.  Why didn't you just say it?  And yeah, that would turn out real well, would effectively turn the entire USA into California.

Interesting that you didn't list the elimination of the Electoral College.  Was that because your liberal hero Mr. Biden won this round of the uni-party sweepstakes?

 

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