Wassily Kandinsky Autumn Landscape with Boats 1908
Most of the good news was gone by Tuesday, though US new cases stayed subdued.
I’m confident if you throw in a pair of ringside playoff seats you can get it down to 40%.
• Chinese Regulator: Vaccines Must Have 50% Efficacy, 6 Months Immunity (SCMP)
Covid-19 vaccines must have an efficacy rate of 50 per cent and provide at least six months’ immunity if they are to be approved for use in China, the country’s drug regulator has announced. According to a draft document released by the Chinese Centre for Drug Evaluation (CCDE), 50 per cent is the minimum efficacy rate allowable, although 70 per cent is the target. The document said also that the regulator would consider granting emergency use of vaccines that have not yet completed their final phase of clinical trials. Chinese companies are among the forerunners in the race to produce a vaccine for Covid-19, with four candidates in final testing. A total of 29 products are undergoing clinical trials around the world, seven of which are in the final stage.
On Friday, China issued several documents setting out the standards for clinical trials and research on vaccines, including those based on the unproven mRNA platform. China’s requirement for a minimum 50 per cent efficacy – which means the vaccine would protect half of those injected with it – is in line with the benchmarks set by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Unlike the Chinese draft, the FDA does not have a requirement for a minimum period of immunity. The WHO said in a document published in April that it hoped Covid 19 vaccines would protect recipients for a year, a target that China is also seeking, but many scientists are concerned that might not be achievable.
This is how it all ties together. As I have written many times. Mueller needed Assange muzzled. He wasn’t interested in the truth, or he would have visited him. Mueller/Weissmann needed the RussiaRussia blubber to last. Or they would have come up completely empty.
The Mueller investigation ended on April 11 2019. Julian Assange was dragged out of the Ecuador embassy on April 11 2019.
• Brennan, Strzok and DOJ Needed Assange Arrested – And UK Officials Obliged (CT)
Knowing how much effort the CIA and FBI put into the Russia collusion-conspiracy narrative, it would make sense for the FBI to take keen interest after this August 2017 meeting between Rohrabacher and Assange; and why the FBI would quickly gather specific evidence (related to Wikileaks and Bradley Manning) for a grand jury by December 2017. Within three months of the grand jury the DOJ generated an indictment and sealed it in March 2018. The EDVA sat on the indictment while the Mueller probe was ongoing. As soon as the Mueller probe ended, on April 11th, 2019, a planned and coordinated effort between the U.K. and U.S. was executed; Julian Assange was forcibly arrested and removed from the Ecuadorian embassy in London, and the EDVA indictment was unsealed.
As a person who has researched this three year fiasco; including the ridiculously false 2016 Russian hacking/interference narrative: “17 intelligence agencies”, Joint Analysis Report (JAR) needed for Obama’s anti-Russia narrative in December ’16; and then a month later the ridiculously political Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) in January ’17; this timing against Assange is too coincidental. It doesn’t take a deep researcher to see the aligned Deep State motive to control Julian Assange because the Mueller report was dependent on Russia cybercrimes, and that narrative is contingent on the Russia DNC hack story which Julian Assange disputes.
This is critical. The Weissmann/Mueller report contains claims that Russia hacked the DNC servers as the central element to the Russia interference narrative in the U.S. election. This claim is directly disputed by WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, as outlined during the Dana Rohrabacher interview, and by Julian Assange on-the-record statements. The predicate for Robert Mueller’s investigation was specifically due to Russian interference in the 2016 election. The fulcrum for this Russia interference claim is the intelligence community assessment; and the only factual evidence claimed within the ICA is that Russia hacked the DNC servers; a claim only made possible by relying on forensic computer analysis from Crowdstrike, a DNC contractor.
The CIA holds a massive conflict of self-interest in upholding the Russian hacking claim. The FBI holds a massive interest in maintaining that claim. All of those foreign countries whose intelligence apparatus participated with Brennan and Strzok also have a vested self-interest in maintaining that Russia hacking and interference narrative. Julian Assange is the only person with direct knowledge of how Wikileaks gained custody of the DNC emails; and Assange has claimed he has evidence it was not from a hack. This Russian “hacking” claim is ultimately so important to the CIA, FBI, DOJ, ODNI and U.K intelligence apparatus…. Well, right there is the obvious motive to shut Assange down as soon intelligence officials knew the Mueller report was going to be public.
While Trump was president and Jeff Sessions was AG, “the Mueller team was essentially controlling all DOJ activity”.
• The Big Story Behind The Mueller Special Counsel Purpose (CT)
Foolishness and betrayal of our country have served to reveal dangers within our present condition. Misplaced corrective action, regardless of intent, is neither safe nor wise. The intelligence apparatus was weaponized against a candidate by those who controlled the levers of government. This is what AG Bill Barr needs to explain to the nation. The purpose behind briefing Durham’s lead investigator William Aldenberg was essentially to provide an understanding of what we the people already know. The purpose behind releasing the investigator name is to cut through the chaff and countermeasures and give face to the unit holding the precarious responsibility of sunlight.
The position of Bill Barr, and indeed our nation today, is a direct result of decisions made by Main Justice -as run by the special counsel- in the Fall of 2017 & Summer of 2018. The events surrounding the leaking of the FISA warrant used against U.S. person Carter Page; the purposeful cover-up by Andrew Weissmann; and the downstream 2018 DOJ decision not to prosecute SSCI Security Director James Wolfe for those leaks, was the fork in the road moment for the Department of Justice – and the institutions of government as a whole. Attorney General Jeff Sessions was recused.
As admitted in his June 2nd testimony Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein was providing no special counsel oversight, and the Mueller team was essentially controlling all DOJ activity. That was when the DOJ made a decision not to prosecute Wolfe for leaking classified information. DC U.S. Attorney Jessie Liu signed-off on a plea deal where Wolfe plead guilty to only a single count of lying to the FBI. If the DOJ had pursued the case against Wolfe for leaking the FISA application, everything would have been different. The American electorate would have seen evidence of what was taking place in the background effort to remove President Trump; and we would be in an entirely different place today if that prosecution or trial had taken place.
Something tells me it won’t be the final report, not if they can help it. This nonsense needs to stop.
You and I don’t need a bogeyman enemy to live our lives, only the intelligence services do. And politicians of all stripes.
• Senate Panel Releases Final Report On Russian Interference In 2016 (ZH)
The Senate Intelligence Committee has released a 966 page final report on Russian election interference in the 2016 presidential election, and outlines “Counterintelligence Threats and Vulnerabilities” during the race. The panel interviewed over 200 witnesses and reviewed over 1 million pages of documents, according to The Hill – finding that while Russia made efforts to interfere in the election through disinformation and cyber campaigns, there was insufficient evidence that the Trump campaign ‘colluded’ with the Kremlin, as we were promised was the case by Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and the MSM over the course of several years. “No probe into this matter has been more exhaustive,” said acting Senate Intelligence Chairman Marco Rubio (R-FL) in a statement, adding “We can say, without any hesitation, that the Committee found absolutely no evidence that then-candidate Donald Trump or his campaign colluded with the Russian government to meddle in the 2016 election.”
Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the Committee’s Vice Chairman, had a different interpretation – saying “At nearly 1,000 pages, Volume 5 stands as the most comprehensive examination of ties between Russia and the 2016 Trump campaign to date — a breathtaking level of contacts between Trump officials and Russian government operatives that is a very real counterintelligence threat to our elections.” And while there was no evidence of coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia, the panel found that Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort’s contacts with ‘Kremlin-linked’ officials (as the Washington Post describes them) posed a “grave counterintelligence threat.”
“The volume, released Tuesday, states that former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort worked with a Russian intelligence officer “on narratives that sought to undermine evidence that Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. election,” including the idea that Ukrainian election interference was of greater concern.” -WaPo “One of the Committee’s most important — and overlooked — findings is that much of Russia’s activities weren’t related to producing a specific electoral outcome, but attempted to undermine our faith in the democratic process itself,” said Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC).
Quite a few people doubt it.
• Will the Dam Break After Clinesmith’s Plea? (RCP)
• It was no surprise to learn last week that Kevin Clinesmith had altered an official document. Inspector General Michael Horowitz had already reported it, without naming the culprit. Durham had that information and could have indicted Clinesmith long ago. He didn’t because he was interviewing others about FISA abuses and didn’t want to give them any information from Clinesmith’s indictment. Releasing that information now shows Durham has completed his work on FISA fraud.
• Other, more senior FBI officials must have been involved in these FISA abuses, though Durham hasn’t said so yet. Some committed abuse themselves. Others knew about it or should have known. Still others must have discovered the misrepresentations, but failed to report them to the FISA court, as they were required to do. Those failures are felonies.
• Clinesmith has said he gave other FBI members the true document, not just the altered one. The 23rd paragraph of the charging information says Clinesmith “provided the unchanged C.I.A. email to Crossfire Hurricane agents and the Justice Department lawyer drafting the original wiretap application.” That’s a smoking bazooka.
• How can Durham prove the CIA’s truthful information was circulated and then hidden? By thoroughly checking the FBI’s internal document system. It should record everyone who received Clinesmith’s accurate (unaltered) document and those they later passed it to. If the agents and lawyers merely discussed the falsification, then prosecutors will need several witnesses to substantiate it.
• The real leader of the Mueller team, Andrew Weissmann, is still blowing smoke about these mounting legal problems. On Friday, he tweeted, “Clinesmith is charged with adding the words ‘not a source’ to an email about Carter Page, but nowhere does the charge say that is false, i.e. that Page was a source for the CIA.” Notice, Weissmann is not saying he knew nothing or that Page really was a Russian source. He simply saying that a 180-degree change in the document’s wording doesn’t mean what your lying eyes think it means.
• Weissmann’s comment shows the Mueller team is sticking with their existing disclaimer. Their report says they won’t speculate on “whether the correction of any particular misstatement or omission, or some combination thereof, would have resulted in a different outcome.” In order words, “We don’t see something. We don’t say something. And we don’t know if it matters.”
• Clinesmith actually worked on Robert Mueller’s team. He was tasked from the bureau to work with that team, which then submitted his falsified document to the FISA court. That’s crucially important. If attorneys on the special counsel team knew about his crime and did nothing to inform the court, if they continued to use a document they knew was fraudulent, they will face charges. That would implicate Mueller’s team for the first time in illegal activity to undermine the Trump presidency. That’s a much bigger matter than writing a biased report.
• We know from other declassified documents that it wasn’t just Mueller’s FISA application that had false information. All four applications did. Indeed, they depended on it, especially on the Steele dossier. Then-Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe testified that, without Steele, the warrants would not have been granted. Yet none of the agents and prosecutors ever told the FISA court about fraud, misrepresentation, and bias from Steele, Clinesmith, or others.
• The Mueller team must have known Clinesmith’s actions were a problem. They didn’t just get rid him, they tried to shift the blame. That’s the meaning of an opaque footnote in their report, which said that the bureau, not the Mueller team, supervised “an FBI attorney” who worked for the special counsel. Hey, it’s them, not us!
Weismann doesn’t argue in good faith.
• Justice Delayed or Denied? A Response To Weissmann And Goodman (Turley)
Recently, I posted a criticism of Andrew Weissmann, one of the top prosecutors with Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who ran a column with Professor Ryan Goodman encouraging Justice Department attorneys not to assist U.S. Attorney John Durham in his ongoing investigation (at least before the election) and dismissing the basis for the plea agreement reached with former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith. Goodman argues that I was unfair to him and Weissmann in my posting and I wanted to respond. I did include a longer quote from the column to be sure that their point was better understood in context in an updated posting. However, in my view, the defense of this column only highlights the inherent bias that the original posting sought to address.
Rather than append this long discussion at the end of the original column, I felt it deserved its own posting and consideration by readers. [..] On Twitter, Professor Goodman makes four basic points which I make out into roughly six points. I would like to address each below. However, it is worth noting that only one point appears to be a claim of misrepresentation. First, Goodman states that the posting was “seriously flawed” and “Turley badly misrepresents what we said, what Justice Dept charged, and more… This is a pattern for Turley (see final tweet in this thread for that pattern)…” I will address the “pattern” referenced by Goodman below. However, Goodman states that the blog “falsely claims op-ed calls on DOJ lawyers ‘to undermine’ Durham investigation. He points out that “[o]ur op-ed: DOJ lawyers should refuse IMPROPER requests if VIOLATE oath to Constitution and policy on actions that interfere in election; plus Durham CAN indict after 11/3.”
This appears to be the heart of Goodman’s claim of misrepresentation (indeed it appears the only claim). It is a rather curious and tautological point. Goodman simply restates his argument that what Durham is doing is improper and thus says that it cannot be viewed as “undermining” Durham’s investigation. Yes, I believe telling DOJ lawyers that they should refuse to assist in indictment or pleas is undermining Durham’s investigation, even if it is to do so for a few months. Such pleas or indictments are critical parts to an investigation or additional criminal cases. Durham, who even Democratic leaders have acknowledged is an apolitical and dedicated prosecutor, believes that this plea is needed to move forward on what could be a broader prosecution.
Durham was delayed by the pandemic but has moved to complete this long-standing investigation. For Durham, waiting for additional months is an example of an unnecessary example of justice delayed being justice denied. He is allowed to move forward with his case and the cited “unwritten norm” of the authors is highly challengeable. Regardless of the merits, it hardly seems “seriously flawed” to characterize a call for Durham’s subordinates to stand down as undermining his investigation.
You’ve been programmed. Man, all the people who take this serious…
“Recall similar warnings about Bush and Romney, who are now chums of Democrats in high places.”
• The Specter of a Fascist Coup by Trump Haunts the US (MPN)
Should Trump fail to carry the Electoral College, Noam Chomsky admonishes, “he could send Blackshirts out in the streets… preparation for a plan to try to bring the military in to carry out something which would amount to a military coup.” A New York Times columnist opines: “Put nothing past Trump, not even the destruction of the American electoral process.” Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, explains that Trump’s election delay threat is a coup in the making. Economist Jack Rasmus speculates Trump will “call for his radical right, gun-toting friends to come to Washington to surround and protect the White House.”
The left World Socialist Web Site joins the liberal chorus: “In an act unprecedented in American history, Donald Trump has repudiated the Constitution and is attempting to establish a presidential dictatorship, supported by the military, police and far-right fascistic militia acting under his command.” Meanwhile, in the real world, more than 51 million Americans have filed for unemployment since March. Some 27 million people have lost their health insurance on top of around 30 million who were uninsured before, in the face of the massive pandemic. The Federal Reserve has pumped $7 trillion into corporate bonds, municipal securities, loans and grants to business, while millions are going hungry. The pandemic death toll in the U.S. is 168,345 as it rages out of control. California cannot even accurately count the number of cases being reported.
[..] The obsession with the person of Trump is a testament to the political bankruptcy of the increasingly anemic successors of the New Deal and their epigones on the left who, every four years, admonish us that never before have the stakes been so high: we have to vote for the lesser evil. Given their view of the danger of a fascist coup, we should put aside a progressive agenda and vote for the former senator from Mastercard and learn to love endless imperial war and increasing austerity for working people in a repressive security state.
The liberal-left pundits reproach us to vote Democrat simply because the alternative is not Trump. Recall similar warnings about Bush and Romney, who are now chums of Democrats in high places. Vote, but not for any issue, because the so-called liberal agenda is today devoid of issues. Liberalism is dead. Indicative is its standard-bearer barely showing vital signs. Biden is being told to stay in his basement and even sit out his nominating convention.
The Hollywood Reporter’s only loyalty lies with Hollywood.
• The Plot Against The President (HR)
There’s a hush-hush Russiagate documentary on the horizon from a director who hails from Hollywood royalty. But this one makes the case for President Trump. Amanda Milius, daughter of legendary screenwriter-director John Milius and a State Department alum, has directed The Plot Against the President, based on Lee Smith’s 2019 best seller of the same name. Milius, who optioned the book in manuscript form last summer and stepped down in early March from her post as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Content in the State Department’s Bureau of Global Public Affairs, began working on the doc in secrecy shortly thereafter.
Over the past three months, she interviewed Russiagate critics including Congressman Devin Nunes, Donald Trump Jr., Rudy Giuliani, Kimberly Guilfoyle, Mike Cernovich and Roger Stone as well as Gen. Michael Flynn’s attorney Sidney Powell. Milius’ father, the screenwriter of such classics as Apocalypse Now and Dirty Harry, is such a larger-than-life figure in Hollywood that he has inspired characters in at least two films: The Big Lebowski(played by John Goodman) and Zeroville (Seth Rogen). His politics have long deviated from the industry’s centrist Democratic leanings (he and Charlton Heston served on the board of the NRA at the same time). Amanda, who attended USC’s School of Cinematic Arts and worked in the film industry for a decade, also shares his pro-Trump sentiments.
[..] The film was financed by a handful of private investors that the Washington-based director declines to name. She produced alongside Jonathan Eisenman. The production companies are Wollman Prods. and 1AMDC Prods. The producers are currently in talks with a few distributors and are planning an Oct. 1 release in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election. Milius says the film will offer several additional bombshells that weren’t included in the book, whose thesis is that a coup was engineered by the American establishment elite, including the media, and targeted the president as well as the democratic process.
Trailer The Plot Against The President
The Plot Against the President pic.twitter.com/pB7T40KtDY
— Cernovich (@Cernovich) August 18, 2020
Well, actually she didn’t, it was just protocol. After that she proudly supported Biden. After being snubbed, and seeing her mentor Bernie be snubbed again. Have these people no pride?
• AOC ‘Snubs’ Joe Biden In Speech Nominating Bernie Sanders (Ind.)
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has delivered a snub to Joe Biden when she delivered a speech endorsing her progressive mentor Bernie Sanders for president. In words that likely infuriated supporters of Mr Biden, the New York congresswoman spoke to second the nomination of Mr Sanders as the party’s official candidate. “I want to thank everyone towards a better, more just future for our country and our world,” she said, speaking to second the Vermont senator after he was formally nominated by labour activist and lawyer Bob King. She said she sought to create “mass people’s movement dedicated to addressing the wounds of racial injustice, colonisation, misogyny, and homophobia”.
When Mr Sanders, 78, announced in April he was suspending his campaign for the presidency, after Mr Biden made a series of stunning primary wins to breathe life into a run that appeared dead, he said his name would remain on the ballot and that he would continue to collect delegates. The purpose was not vanity, he said, as some critics said, but in order to better put pressure on Mr Biden to adopt more progressive policies than he might otherwise have felt obliged to do so. Already that has resulted in a succession of policy think thanks that agreed to several policy points on the economy, the environment and criminal and racial justice. Ms Ocasio-Cortez, 30, praised the campaign of Mr Sanders and other progressive candidates who “reimagined systems of immigration and foreign policy that turn away from the violence and xenophobia of our past”.
Oh, c’mon, let me have some fun… All the other stuff is already so serious.
• Biden ‘Is Just Lost,’ Says Obama’s White House Doctor (WE)
The chief White House doctor to former President Barack Obama is worried about the mental health and stamina of former Vice President Joe Biden, suggesting that “something is not right” with the Democratic presidential nominee. “The best way I can describe him every time I see him is that he’s just lost,” said Dr. Ronny Jackson, the former White House physician to Obama and President Trump. “I won’t make any particular diagnosis about dementia. … But what I will say is that something is not right,” added the retired Navy rear admiral who recently won a House GOP primary in Texas. And it is getting so bad that he is “not comfortable” with Biden being commander in chief.
“I’m not,” he said of the top Democrat, set to be nominated by the Democratic Party for president on Thursday. Jackson’s comments are in an upcoming book from Donald Trump Jr., Liberal Privilege: Joe Biden and the Democrats’ Defense of the Indefensible, out Sept. 1 but already selling fast on his website, DonJr.com. In the book, the president’s son and top campaign supporter addressed current issues and included interviews with key current affairs figures, such as Jackson, who began working in the White House Medical Unit under former President George W. Bush and served as “physician to the president” during the Obama and Trump administrations. He stressed to Trump Jr. that he hasn’t reviewed Biden’s records but said that he witnessed the changes to Obama’s vice president in person and over time.
How do you like the coating in your intestines?
• At Least 10 Times More Plastic In The Atlantic Than Presumed (Phys.org)
The mass of ‘invisible’ microplastics found in the upper waters of the Atlantic Ocean is approximately 12- 21 million tons, according to research published in the journal Nature Communications today. Significantly, this figure is only for three of the most common types of plastic litter in a limited size range. Yet, it is comparable in magnitude to estimates of all plastic waste that has entered the Atlantic Ocean over the past 65 years: 17 million tons. This suggests that the supply of plastic to the ocean have been substantially underestimated. The lead author of the paper, Dr. Katsiaryna Pabortsava from the National Oceanography Centre (NOC), said “Previously, we couldn’t balance the mass of floating plastic we observed with the mass we thought had entered the ocean since 1950.
This is because earlier studies hadn’t been measuring the concentrations of ‘invisible’ microplastic particles beneath the ocean surface. Our research is the first to have done this across the entire Atlantic, from the UK to the Falklands.” Co-author, Professor Richard Lampitt, also from the NOC, added “if we assume that the concentration of microplastics we measured at around 200 meters deep is representative of that in the water mass to the seafloor below with an average depth of about 3000 meters, then the Atlantic Ocean might hold about 200 million tons of plastic litter in this limited polymer type and size category. This is much more than is thought to have been supplied.”
“In order to determine the dangers of plastic contamination to the environment and to humans we need good estimates of the amount and characteristics of this material, how it enters the ocean, how it degrades and then how toxic it is at these concentrations. This paper demonstrates that scientists have had a totally inadequate understanding of even the simplest of these factors, how much is there, and it would seem our estimates of how much is dumped into the ocean has been massively underestimated.”
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KimK Baltimore
Holy shit. This woman is a fuckin boss. Baltimore, elect this woman pic.twitter.com/lAp4zA5y9f
— Quoth the Raven (@QTRResearch) August 18, 2020
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