[Bytor Peltor]

Originally Posted by h8kurdt

Obama warned Trump about Flynn

So that's ruined your narrative there.

Not at all!

I think it helps establish the narrative I presented!!

[h8kurdt]

Originally Posted by Robert Schunk

Agreed. President Obama may have been trying to prevent the hiring of General Flynn by President Trump to prevent General Flynn's knowledge from getting into the Trump White House and being taken seriously therein.

And he would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for you meddling kids!

[!@#$%!]

EDITORIAL| VOLUME 395, ISSUE 10236, P1521, MAY 16, 2020
Reviving the US CDC

The Lancet
Published:May 16, 2020DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)31140-5

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to worsen in the USA with 1·3 million cases and an estimated death toll of 80 684 as of May 12. States that were initially the hardest hit, such as New York and New Jersey, have decelerated the rate of infections and deaths after the implementation of 2 months of lockdown. However, the emergence of new outbreaks in Minnesota, where the stay-at-home order is set to lift in mid-May, and Iowa, which did not enact any restrictions on movement or commerce, has prompted pointed new questions about the inconsistent and incoherent national response to the COVID-19 crisis.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the flagship agency for the nation's public health, has seen its role minimised and become an ineffective and nominal adviser in the response to contain the spread of the virus. The strained relationship between the CDC and the federal government was further laid bare when, according to The Washington Post, Deborah Birx, the head of the US COVID-19 Task Force and a former director of the CDC's Global HIV/AIDS Division, cast doubt on the CDC's COVID-19 mortality and case data by reportedly saying: “There is nothing from the CDC that I can trust”. This is an unhelpful statement, but also a shocking indictment of an agency that was once regarded as the gold standard for global disease detection and control. How did an agency that was the first point of contact for many national health authorities facing a public health threat become so ill-prepared to protect the public's health?

In the decades following its founding in 1946, the CDC became a national pillar of public health and globally respected. It trained cadres of applied epidemiologists to be deployed in the USA and abroad. CDC scientists have helped to discover new viruses and develop accurate tests for them. CDC support was instrumental in helping WHO to eradicate smallpox. However, funding to the CDC for a long time has been subject to conservative politics that have increasingly eroded the agency's ability to mount effective, evidence-based public health responses. In the 1980s, the Reagan administration resisted providing the sufficient budget that the CDC needed to fight the HIV/AIDS crisis. The George W Bush administration put restrictions on global and domestic HIV prevention and reproductive health programming.

The Trump administration further chipped away at the CDC's capacity to combat infectious diseases. CDC staff in China were cut back with the last remaining CDC officer recalled home from the China CDC in July, 2019, leaving an intelligence vacuum when COVID-19 began to emerge. In a press conference on Feb 25, Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, warned US citizens to prepare for major disruptions to movement and everyday life. Messonnier subsequently no longer appeared at White House briefings on COVID-19. More recently, the Trump administration has questioned guidelines that the CDC has provided. These actions have undermined the CDC's leadership and its work during the COVID-19 pandemic.

There is no doubt that the CDC has made mistakes, especially on testing in the early stages of the pandemic. The agency was so convinced that it had contained the virus that it retained control of all diagnostic testing for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, but this was followed by the admission on Feb 12 that the CDC had developed faulty test kits. The USA is still nowhere near able to provide the basic surveillance or laboratory testing infrastructure needed to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.

But punishing the agency by marginalising and hobbling it is not the solution. The Administration is obsessed with magic bullets—vaccines, new medicines, or a hope that the virus will simply disappear. But only a steadfast reliance on basic public health principles, like test, trace, and isolate, will see the emergency brought to an end, and this requires an effective national public health agency. The CDC needs a director who can provide leadership without the threat of being silenced and who has the technical capacity to lead today's complicated effort.

The Trump administration's further erosion of the CDC will harm global cooperation in science and public health, as it is trying to do by defunding WHO. A strong CDC is needed to respond to public health threats, both domestic and international, and to help prevent the next inevitable pandemic. Americans must put a president in the White House come January, 2021, who will understand that public health should not be guided by partisan politics.

[tw2113]

My Butthole Hurts Because I'm Getting Fucked One Way Or Another And All I Got Was $1200 For The Pain.

[tw2113]

Originally Posted by tw2113

My Butthole Hurts Because I'm Getting Fucked One Way Or Another And All I Got Was $1200 For The Pain.

This was originally in all caps but Thurston Moore hates shouting and removed most of it.

[Bytor Peltor]

Originally Posted by Robert Schunk

I disagree with Mark Levin in that the judge must entertain the motion to dismiss the case now before it, which remains before it until it has been dismissed or otherwise disposed of. Any Application for Writ of Prohibition must fail as the court of original jurisdiction (i.e.,Judge Sullivan's court) retains jurisdiction until the case has been dismissed or otherwise disposed of. (Besides, it was the prosecution that chose the court upon which he serves as one of the judges as the venue in the first place!)

Mr. Levin rightfully accuses the FBI of police misconduct during their investigation of Mr. Flynn, yet this is far from Judge Sullivan denying him due process of law before his court.

My one point of agreement with Mr. Levin is that Judge Sullivan erred in appointing a strawman counsel to draught a brief opposing the motion, as it's properly the role of the judge himself with or without the assistance of his law clerks to consider causes for dismissing the motion.

I appreciate your points concerning Mr. Levin.

Regarding General Flynn, I’ve heard some mention the government threatened pressure/prosecution of his son and Flynn’s agreement to plea deal halted that......does General Flynn now have recourse?

It will be interesting to see how this plays out!

[The Soup Nazi]

From New York Magazine/Vulture:

Matrix Director Lilly Wachowski Has an Important Message for Elon Musk and Ivanka Trump

Once you make something and release it into the wild, you no longer have control over it, a fact no creator is more acutely aware of, and presumably bummed by, than Matrix filmmaker Lilly Wachowski. Well, maybe the guy who drew Pepe the Frog, but Wachowski is the creator who had a special message for Elon Musk and Ivanka Trump on Sunday when the former encouraged his followers to “take the red pill,” a reference to the 1999 smash action movie Wachowski directed with sister Lana Wachowski.

In The Matrix, taking a red pill allows Keanu Reeves’s protagonist, Neo, to recognize that he, along with the rest of humanity, is trapped inside a computer-generated reality. In the parlance of our times, the red pill typically refers to men’s rights activists or, more broadly, any assortment of conservative and conspiracy ideologies. Based on Elon Musk’s recent behavior, his red pill presumably refers to breaking quarantine in the face of the coronavirus pandemic. Either way, Lilly Wachowksi has a message for his misuse of The Matrix, and for Ivanka’s endorsement retweet, which you can read below.

 

[tw2113]

So much for any sense of enjoyment i may have had in November, Amash dropped out already.

[Screaming Skull]

Stormy, Stormy, Stormy...Russia, Russia, Russia...Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine...Impeach, Impeach, Impeach. The last-ditch effort to destabilize the Trump presidency is to lock-down until Wednesday, November 4th, right? Livelihoods be damned...YOU. MUST. OBEY.

Desperation reeks.

[h8kurdt]

Originally Posted by Screaming Skull

Stormy, Stormy, Stormy...Russia, Russia, Russia...Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine...Impeach, Impeach, Impeach. The last-ditch effort to destabilize the Trump presidency is to lock-down until Wednesday, November 4th, right? Livelihoods be damned...YOU. MUST. OBEY.

Desperation reeks.

Hahahahahaha!

[h8kurdt]

Originally Posted by Screaming Skull

Stormy, Stormy, Stormy...Russia, Russia, Russia...Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine...Impeach, Impeach, Impeach. The last-ditch effort to destabilize the Trump presidency is to lock-down until Wednesday, November 4th, right? Livelihoods be damned...YOU. MUST. OBEY.

Desperation reeks.

Still chuckling about this one. All this destabilising is his own doing.

Anyway, in today's episode of "what's Trump done now" he's continuing his riling against the WHO. Let's not forget that he was singing their praises a couple of months ago. Couldn't possibly be an attempt at deflection from his own failings in handling this pandemic could it? Noooo

It's also possible that he has literally no idea what the WHO can and can't do. WHO issued a PHEIC (public health emergency of int’l concern) on 30th Jan- the highest level of alarm. Countries could either then prepare, or not prepare.

Obviously he chose not to prepare.

[Bytor Peltor]

Originally Posted by h8kurdt

Couldn't possibly be an attempt at deflection from his own failings in handling this pandemic could it?

Once again, SYG already has a thread for COVID discussion. However, if you think this narrative will help impact what happens in November......best of luck with that!

[h8kurdt]

Originally Posted by Bytor Peltor

Once again, SYG already has a thread for COVID discussion. However, if you think this narrative will help impact what happens in November......best of luck with that!

Don't think it was me saying anything like that. Anyway, point is that it's about Trump. So here it goes.

You don't think what he's saying is deflection?

[h8kurdt]

https://thehill.com/opinion/criminal...acted-properly

Whoops-a-daisy

And to think how much effort Bytor put it into his long rambling posts saying Obama was a traitor.

I mean, I'm writing this like he'd ever concede that Trump was wrong, but y'know, miracles happen everyday, right?

[Bytor Peltor]

Flynn Files Emergency Petition With U.S. Court Of Appeals To Replace Judge And Dismiss Case

“Gen. Michael Flynn has filed a writ of mandamus with the United States Court of Appeals with the District of Columbia to dismiss the case against Flynn, vacate the order appointing an amicus curiae and reassign the case to another judge.

The petition comes after Judge Emmet Sullivan, who oversees Flynn’s case, failed to grant the government’s motion to dismiss based on what his defense believes is a political prejudice against Flynn.“

[Bytor Peltor]

Originally Posted by h8kurdt

And to think how much effort Bytor put it into his long rambling posts saying Obama was a traitor.

Not much effort required when the evidence is overwhelming......and this is just the tip of the iceberg!

Declassified Susan Rice Email Confirms Michael Flynn Was Personally Targeted In Oval Office Meeting

 

Ted Cruz

“Wow. Ongoing spying from an outgoing POTUS on the incoming POTUS—directed by Obama himself—is unprecedented in the 243 years of our nation’s history.”

If you keep clinging to your opinion pieces, h8kurdt, I’m afraid you will end up going down with the ship......but good luck with that!

[h8kurdt]

You're the one adamant that something is going to come out of this, not me.

[Bytor Peltor]

Judicial Watch Lawsuit Forces Declassification and Release of “Electronic Communication” Used to Launch Obama Administration’s Spy Operation on President Trump’s 2016 Campaign


“No wonder the DOJ and FBI resisted the public release of this infamous ‘electronic communication’ that ‘opened’ Crossfire Hurricane – it shows there was no serious basis for the Obama administration to launch an unprecedented spy operation on the Trump campaign,” stated Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “We now have more proof that Crossfire Hurricane was a scam, based on absurd gossip and innuendo. This document is Exhibit A to Obamagate, the worst corruption scandal in American history. This document shows how Attorney General Barr and U.S. Attorney Durham are right to question the predicate this spy operation.”


FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION
Electronic Communication

Title: Crossfire Hurricane Date: 07/31/2016

Cc: [Redacted]
Strzok Peter P II

From: COUNTERINTELLIGENCE
[Redacted]
Contact: Strzok Peter P II, [Redacted]

Approved by: Strzok Peter P II

Drafed by: Strzok Peter P II

Case ID #: [Redacted]

CROSSFIRE HURRICANE;
FOREIGN AGENTS REGISTRATION ACT –
RUSSIA;
SENSITIVE INVESTIGATIVE MATTER

DOCUMENT RESTRICTED TO CASE PARTICIPANTS
This document contains information that is restricted to case participants

Synopsis: (S/ / CC/NF) Opens and assigns investigation

Reason 1.4 (b)
Derived from: FBI
NSISC-20090615
Declassify On: 20411231

[Redacted]

(S/NF) An investigation is being opened based on information received by Legat [Redacted] on 07/29/2016. The text of that email follows:

SECRET/ORCON/NOFORN
[Redacted]

Title: (S/ / CC/NF) CROSSFIRE HURRICANE
Re: [Redacted] 07/31/2016

BEGIN EMAIL

(U/ /FOUO) Legat [Redacted] information from [Redacted] Deputy Chief of Mission

Synopsis:
(U/ /FOUO) Legat [Redacted] received information from the [Redacted] Deputy Chief of Mission related to the hacking of the Democratic National Committee’s website/server.

Details:
(S/ /REL TO USA[Redacted] On Wednesday, July 27, 2016, Legal Attaché (Legat) [Redacted] was summoned to the Office of the Deputy Chief of Mission (DCM) for the [Redacted] who will be leaving [Redacted] post Saturday July 30, 2016 and set to soon thereafter retire from government service, advised [Redacted] was called by [Redacted] about an urgent matter requiring an in person meeting with the U.S. Ambassador. [Note: [Redacted]. The [Redacted] was scheduled to be away from post until mid-August, therefore [Redacted] attended the meeting.

(S/ [Redacted]) [Redacted] advised that [Redacted] government had been seeking prominent members of the Donald Trump campaign in which to engage to prepare for potential post-election relations should Trump be elected U.S. President. One of the people identified was George Papadopolous (although public media sources provide a spelling of Papadopoulos), who was believed to be one of Donald Trump’s foreign policy advisers. Mr. Papdopoulos was located in [Redacted] so the [Redacted] met with him on several occasions, with [Redacted] attending at least one of the meetings.

(S/ [Redacted]) [Redacted] recalled [Redacted] of the meetings between Mr. Papdopolous and [Redacted] concerning statements Mr. Papadopolous made about suggestions from the Russians that they (the Russians) could assist the Trump campaign with the anonymous release of information during the campaign that would be damaging to Hillary Clinton. [Redacted] provided a copy of the reporting that was provided to [Redacted] from [Redacted] to Legal [Redacted]. The text is exactly as follows:

(Begin Text)

(S/ [Redacted]) 5. Mr. Papadopolous [Redacted] also suggested the Trump team had received some kind of suggestion from Russia that it could assist this process with the anonymous release of information during the campaign that would be damaging to Mrs. Clinton (and President Obama). It was unclear whether he or the Russians were referring to material acquired publicly of through other means. It was also unclear how Mr. Trump’s team reacted to the offer. We note the Trump team’s reaction could, in the end, have little bearing of what Russia decides to do, with or without Mr. Trump’s cooperation.
(End Text)

(s/ [Redacted]
[Redacted]
(s/ [Redacted] Legat requests that further action on this information should consider the sensitivity that this information was provided through informal diplomatic channels from [Redacted] to the U.S. Embassy’s DCM. It was clear from the conversation Legal [Redacted]
had with DCM that [Redacted] knew follow-up by the U.S. government would be necessary, but extraordinary efforts should be made to protect the source of this information until such a time that a request from our organization can be made to [Redacted] to obtain this information through formal channels.

END EMAIL

(S/ / CC/NF) Based on the information provided by Legat [Redacted] this investigation is being opened to determine whether individual(s) associated with the Trump campaign are witting of and/or coordinating activities with the Government of Russia.

[Bytor Peltor]

FBI director orders internal review of Flynn investigation

 

McEnany Schools Reporters On ‘Good Journalism’, Provides Suggested Questions On ‘Unmaskings’

 

“I just want to follow up with you guys on that, did anyone take it upon themselves to pose any questions about Michael Flynn and unmasking a President Obama spokesperson?”


**crickets**


Lesson 1: Why did the Obama administration use opposition research funded by a political organization and filled with foreign dirt to surveil members of the Trump campaign?

Lesson 2: Why was Lieutenant General Michael Flynn unmasked? Not by the intel community entirely, but by Obama’s chief of staff, by the former Vice President Joe Biden, by Susan Rice, by the Treasury Secretary?

Lesson 3: Why was Flynn’s identity leaked in a criminal act?

Lesson 4: Why did the DOJ Sally Yates learn about the unmasking from President Obama?

Lesson 5: Why did James Clapper, John Brennan, Samantha Power, and Susan Rice privately admit under oath they had no evidence of collusion while saying the opposite publicly?


McEnany concluded before exiting the briefing room, “It’s a long weekend, you guys have three days to follow up on those questions. And I certainly hope the next time I ask some hands go up because Obama’s spokesperson should be asked those questions.”


Just like major media, the SYG free minded freethinkers sound a lot like crickets, too!

Everyone have a great holiday weekend!

[The Soup Nazi]

Zakaria's column on The Washington Post this week (I "highlighted" the fifth paragraph):

Democrats are falling into a familiar trap on China

As polls continue to show a steady lead for Joe Biden, President Trump is getting increasingly desperate. He has now committed himself to an election strategy that is centered on pointing the finger at China and its leader, Xi Jinping. Throughout January and February, Trump had showered praise on Xi, describing him as “strong, sharp and powerfully focused,” repeatedly emphasized the close Sino-American cooperation on covid-19, and praised Beijing for its “transparency.” As late as March 27, Trump tweeted, “We are working closely together. Much respect!”

That was before it became clear that he had mishandled the outbreak in the United States, and before his approval rating began to drop. So he returned to a familiar pattern: blaming foreigners. If the 2016 campaign was centered around blaming Mexico, the 2020 campaign will clearly focus on scapegoating China. Trump surrogates are already insisting that China must pay for the damage it has done — which will presumably happen right after Mexico pays for the wall.

Let me be clear: China engaged in a coverup of the initial outbreak in Wuhan. Local officials silenced whistleblowers. The entire Chinese Communist Party system was terrified that this bad news would slow growth, spook markets and reveal that it had mishandled a public health emergency. The CCP did the same and more during the SARS outbreak of 2003.

But the Chinese authorities also did some things right. They sequenced the entire genome of the coronavirus and released it to the world on Jan. 12, much faster than happened with SARS. They also realized, belatedly, that in this case their censorship and control were exacerbating the public health crisis. On Jan. 21, the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission posted a statement: “Whoever deliberately delays or conceals reporting for the sake of their own interests will be forever nailed to history’s pillar of shame.” (The post was later removed, probably because it revealed that people had been delaying and concealing reports.)

In any event, by the end of January the World Health Organization had announced a global health emergency, and several places moved quickly to combat it. The United States was not one of them. Had Trump done so, the United States would be in a very different situation today. Taiwan, which gets millions of travelers from mainland China each year, didn’t close its borders to China until after the United States, yet it took smart, targeted steps to limit the spread. It has had, to date, seven deaths from covid-19. Hong Kong, a dense city with a similar number of residents as New York, has had four. Those are not typos.

The real puzzle is not that Trump is engaging in China-bashing but why Democrats are joining in. They are falling into a familiar trap: Republicans take a legitimate challenge to the United States and pump it up into a mortal danger, massively exaggerating the threat and accusing the Democrats of appeasement or even of taking part in a conspiracy with the enemy. And Democrats, instead of standing their ground, get scared and join in the scaremongering. In response to ads bashing Biden and China, Biden released his own China-bashing ad, which even competed with Trump in its racially charged tone. Rather than explaining that policy toward China requires both confrontation and cooperation, the Biden campaign has basically conceded the argument to Trump.

These are not just election-year antics. Such tactics have lasting consequences. Democrats supported coups and covert operations across the world in the 1950s and 1960s for fear that they would be labeled soft. They stumbled into Vietnam in large measure because Lyndon B. Johnson did not want to face Republican accusations that he “lost” a country to communism. The most recent generation of Democrats went along with the Iraq War largely because they did not want to be seen as weak in the War on Terror. In 2002, as Republicans began beating the drums for war with Iraq, Biden joined them. “We have no choice but to eliminate the threat,” he said on “Meet the Press”. “This is a guy who’s an extreme danger to the world.”

Trump’s latest campaign strategy is to attack China and an international body, the World Health Organization. Never mind that the WHO is, as Bill Gates has noted, more closely connected to the United States than any other country, with deep ties to the CDC. Never mind that it does not have powers to compel sovereign countries (such as China) largely because of rules written and supported by Washington, which is allergic to external interference from international groups.

For Trump, the attacks make sense. He and his followers want to cripple international institutions. They want an end to global cooperation on issues such as climate change. They understand that a cold war with China would destroy globalization and the open, rules-based international order.

But Democrats believe in this world. They see it as the fulfillment of a vision conceived by Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt that has provided for unprecedented peace and prosperity over the past 70 years. So why are they joining in its destruction?