Some extreme members of Congress prodded potential insurrectionists on Jan 6

 

mall 2007

Hunter Walker of Rolling Stone writes that organizers of the January 6 imsurrection met withseveral more extreme members of Congress and were even told they would get legal cover.

He was interviewed on PBS news hour.

Many fully vaccinated elderly still at high risk

near Frederick Md

Amy McKeever notes in National Geographic that many elderly people remain at relatively high risk for severe COVID even when fully vaccinated.  

Colin Powell, however, also had a major cancer, multiple  myeloma.

Could vaccine injection technique reduce the risk of possible vaccine injury to younger adults?

 

John Campbell, from the UK, interviews Kyle, in Idaho, a mountain bike racer who had a severe autoimmune reaction to  a second Pfizer shot in June.  

However he says he had  a metallic taste in his mouth after the second shot which may imply accidental penetration of  a vein in the upper arm. 

A subsequent video explains the aspiration issue.

Picture: Wikipedia embed, click for attribution

Can people who have recovered from Covid claim immunity as with vaccination?

 

9/11 memorial

 

Robbie Whelan writes in the Wall Street Journal a detailed argument that some people who have recovered from COVID want evidence of recovery to count as vaccination link, title “Some Workers Want Covid-19 Recovery Accepted as Evidence of Immunity: Previous infection should be recognized as proof of protection and exempt employees from vaccine mandates, some workers say.”

 

There are theoretical advantages to having encountered other proteins as well as the spike protein.

There are questions about recovery from mild or asymptomatic infection.

In time blood tests for t- and memory cell immunity should get better.

Substack reports bluntly on school boards and abuse of students by indoctrinating Critical Race Theory

 

lcps 2021-8

Bari Weiss just appeared on CNN to discuss substacks with Brian Stelter.

I wanr ro share Maud Maron’s article on her site  “Why Are Moms Like Me Being Called Domestic Terrorists?: Showing up to dress down school boards over their dereliction of duty isn't a crime. It's good parenting and good citizenship.”

She includes an image from Loudoun County school board.

She talks about indoctrination if kids and elimination of ,merit and advanced placement because it makes systematically disadvantaged kids feel relatively worthless.

Rapid tests, the latest

 

bridge, Pa

Betsy Morris of the Wall Street Journal explains (Oct 12) how to use rapid tests and includes a link with an illustrated account of how to do the Binax test, which I have done. A new Flowflex test has been apptoved. 

She warns that, despite vaccination, some venues may insist on rapid tests for entry.  A positive test would be reportable, require isolation and make getting home by public transportation legally dubious.  But the idea of breakthrough cases might justify their use.  

Even mild COVID associated with long term brain function loss

 

san francisco 2018-9

Nanette Asimov writes in the San Francisco Chronicle, link,” Here's what Bay Area doctors say about how COVID affects the brain”.  There is link to a non-peer-reviewed Oxford study.

Even mild cases show brain function loss, especially in areas near the olfactory nerve. Not so clear the breakthrough cases.

Counterpoint on debt ceiling reprieve

 

garden

A Newsweek counterpoint om the debt ceiling.

video -- MMT!

BETSEY STEVENSON , PROFESSOR OF PUBLIC POLICY AND ECONOMICS, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN, actually wants confiscation of wealth to make good on debt if it can’t be paid.

PHIL KERPEN , PRESIDENT, AMERICAN COMMITMENT argues in circular fashion that the secondary default threat does impose discipline.

Tim Wise dissects Trumpist conservatism (look at his anti-racist resume on YT)

arlington va 2020

Tim Wise has some juicy posts on Medium.

This is one on vaccine refusers.

Sociopathy. I would see this as more a wartime behavior issue.

And this piece on functional and systemic racism compared to individualized racism. 

Democracy on the ropes because moderates want nothing to do with activism!

 

baseball

Robert Kagan offers a long oped “Our constitutional crisis is already here” Sept 23, 2021.

The basic idea is that Trump’s base comprises anti-intellectual tribal people used to a way of life that gives them enough agency, and who join up to stop the anti-racist threat. 

Traditional individualistic liberals are heard from by their own agency and feel that being organized to take sides is beneath them. They leave politics to the aggrieved losers on both sides.

Biden blunt on debt limit

capitol 2021-9

 Biden spoke clearly about the debt ceiling.

Yes, the Senate can filibuster even a dem-only bill, to force full reconciliation without progressive items.

Here is McConnell's letter.

David Hogg, write your term paper.  

Close to oral treatments to give when testing positive

 

ches bay 2019-9

Merck, Pfizer and Roche are making rapid progress with oral medications to be given after exposure. Positive tests, or even breakthroughs.

Generally the meds offer fake proteins to confuse replication.

Merck is the closest to emergency authorization, with  molnupiravir.

Robert Hart writes for Forbes.

Jilia Riles discusses contagion in breakthrough cases for HuuPost..

Democrats and debt default

mall 2007

Washington Post columnist Marc A. Thiessen explains why it up to Democrats in Congress to take care of the debt-ceiling.  Right now it looks like default may happen Monday Oct 18. 

Just add the debt-limit to a simple reconciliation. 

The writer does assert that passes in the Senate 51-50.

Then progressives never get the benefits they want, and could rebel, having nothing to lose personally.

McConnel still conflates debts already incurred with new spending, because a lot of the public is stupid..   

Stable people in the middle resist personal involvement in tribal protests and leave politics to losers with every reason to go to war. 

Testosterone blockers may help older male COVID patients

 

nih

Knowridge reports a Nature study Communication that notes that testosterone blockers used to treat prostate cancer will help elderly male patients with COVID, by reducing TMPRESS2 , in many tissues including lungs. Would this be given early after positive test?

The idea behind prostate treatment itself was unacceptable to my own father when he passed in 1986 at 82 after only brief illness.

Should rapid tests be free? when there is a debt ceilimg?

 

casselman pagoda

Michael Mina expresses outrage that someone is charged $380 for a covid test to protect neighbors.

Sarah Kliff writes for The Upshot, in thr NYTimes , about GS Labs, as if this was what Congress had intended .     

Generally you can buy rapid tests only on stand-alone CVS stores bur not when included in Target.

Atlanta faces secession of Buckhead over 'Abolish the police' fears from 2020 revolutionary radicalism

arlanta pride 2004

 Christina Maxouris, Ryan Young and Maria Cartaya on CNN analyze Buckhead’s desire to separate from Atlanta. I am more familiar with areas like Decateur.

 

The obvious reason:  crime and property values.  To expand residents fear post-Floyd pressure to degrade police protection of individual, familial and small business property rights. 

Leftist activists insist the well-off get over themselves and share more personal risk and return their privilege so that oppressed people have more reason to play by some rules.

Democrats create headlines on debt-ceiling today

 

I-45 near Houston, 2018-5

The House has offered a bill to keep the government open until Dec. 3 and suspend the debt limit until then, although it has little chance of passing the Senate. CNN reports, and it was a big deal today.

Yellen warned everyone today about the dangers of defaulting (CNN) (WSJ).

But the WSJ laid out a path for Democrats to raise the debt limit all by themselves (reconciliation) and claims this is all show and tell, for first graders.

The Treasury's web page on the debt ceiling is here.

Futures were rising late Tuesday suggesting WS isn't that spooked yet.

David Pakman guest explains America's "private" health care system as a result of systemic racism in the past

 

Virginia Hospital Center Healing Garden, 2009

I’ll share another David Pakman show excerpt, with Thom Hartmann, “The Real Reason We Don’t Have Single Payer Healthcare”

Put simply, he maintains, it’s systemic racism, in the past, when it was blatant (during the days people liked eugenics). 

Now, while the UK has single payer and Canada is close, not all the western world has complete single payer.  Many countries like Germany and Switzerland have universal coverage that works, but that still have a large private component.  Canada’s grew by province and didn’t happen all at once.

David Pakman does detailed interview with major virologist on COVID21

 

masks required

On Sept. 2, David Pakman did a major interview with Columbia University virologist Vincent Racaniello.  There is a lot of discussion of the mutations that have occurred as more people are immune to the original strains, under selection pressure. 

The Columbia professor has done many interviews for Lex Fridman.

Racaniello discounted the lab leak hypothesis.  He claims that China was not doing work with these viruses in Wuhan, which sounds hard to believe. But it is true that the range of viruses in animals, especially bats, is much greater than we had realized.

Racaniello also believes that ‘big pharma” should have been developing generic therapeutics for these kinds of coronaviruses, to be given by mouth when infection is detected.  We know how to do this, but just didn’t (it’s not Ivermectin, but it may be a little bit like “gay medicine” to control HIV). He was not as enthusiastic about masks as the non-medical intervention as he might be, seeming to think they reduced spread of Delta by about 60%, but are often fitted or worn poorly or substandard.  What if everyone wore N95's?  

Goodrx has an undated discussion of all the medications “in good repute” with the medical establishment, here, by Jennifer Tran, PharmD.  

NIH has a table as of July 2021 of agents under trial or investigation.  It is curious that there is approval of remdesivir for all its problems, and not more targeted attempts with some other substances of controversy. You can watch Chris Martenson’s latest video on one particular medication of controversy, and if it gets taken down, look for it on Odysee.

GOP already recalcitrant on debt ceiling, and it's silently dangerous

 

Capitol, 2021-9-18

Paul Kane of the Washington Post in a “Power Post” writes today “Senate Republicans say they will vote to allow a debt default, leaving Democrats scrambling for plan to avert economic crisis”.  

Apparently the Democrats need to get 10 votes from Senate Republicans. Filibuster may become an issue.

On the “Bill Retires” blog yesterday, I discussed the Treasury Secretary (Janet Yellen – Jerome Powell heads the Fed and Yellen used to) having other “super extraordinary measures”.  I also discussed the possibility of immediate cuts of social security payments by mean testing, although that would be messy to do.

The GOP simply doesn’t want the government to bail out the victims of Covid, seeing this a game of survival of the fittest.  The markets don't seem to have noticed this showdown yet. 

Umair Haque of Eudaimonia writes “The GOP will stop at nothing to destroy America”. I don’t know if these antics by Republics means Stansberry is right.

Update: 9/20:  Apparently the Democrats could do the debt ceiling without the filibuster threat (needing 10 Republicans) with the budget reconciliation, but that wouldn't happen in time to stop a default (The Hill).