Hedy Lamarr Born November 9, 1914. As well as acting in 30 films, during the Second World War she co-developed a frequency-hopping guidance system for American torpedoes, the principles of which are used in Bluetooth and WiFi today.
Man of the Year (2006)
https://twitter.com/i/status/1324953850462298112
Wait until you hear about Russia Collusion
Wait until you hear about Russia Collusion. https://t.co/k23xgkd0w6
— The Red-Headed libertarian ™ (@TRHLofficial) November 9, 2020
Predictably, this leads some people to call for Barr’s impeachment. Maybe because the only thing the Dems have been successful at was Trump’s one-sided impeachment. But Barr faces a conundrum: There is a longstanding tradition at the DOJ to not investigate “until after the election certification process is completed”, but that would mean an official result would be there, which would then have to be reversed in case there is serious fraud, but by then it would be much harder to execute.
• Barr Authorizes DOJ Prosecutors To Investigate Election Irregularities (JTN)
Attorney General William Barr has issued a memo in which he said that he authorized federal prosecutors “to pursue substantial allegations of voting and vote tabulation irregularities prior to the certification of elections in your jurisdictions in certain cases, as I have already done in specific instances.” Barr noted that this did not serve to indicate the Justice Department has determined that voting irregularities affected election outcomes. “Such inquiries and reviews may be conducted if there are clear and apparently-credible allegations of irregularities that, if true, could potentially impact the outcome of a federal election in an individual state,” Barr wrote. “Any investigation of claims of irregularities that, if true, would clearly not impact the outcome of a federal election in an individual State should normally be deferred until after the election certification process is completed.
While U.S. Attorneys maintain their inherent authority to conduct inquiries and investigations as they deem appropriate, it will likely be prudent to commence any election-related matters as a preliminary inquiry, so as to assess whether available evidence warrants further investigative steps”. Media outlets recently projected Democrat Joe Biden as the winner of the presidential contest, but President Trump has not conceded and has made allegations of voter fraud. “While it is imperative that credible allegations be addressed in a timely and effective manner, it is equally imperative that Department personnel exercise appropriate caution and maintain the Department’s absolute commitment to fairness, neutrality and non-partisanship,” Barr wrote in the memo.
“While serious allegations should be handled with great care, specious, speculative, fanciful or far-fetched claims should not be a basis for initiating federal inquiries.” “Nothing here should be taken as any indication that the Department has concluded that voting irregularities have impacted the outcome of any election,” Barr wrote. “Rather, I provide this authority and guidance to emphasize the need to timely and appropriately address allegations of voting irregularities so that all of the American people, regardless of their preferred candidate or party, can have full confidence in the results of our elections.”
Heritage Foundation “There was an unprecedented number of lawsuits filed before election day—with one common theme: ALL tried to eliminate security protocols for absentee ballots and tried to implement vote harvesting in every state.”
There was an unprecedented number of lawsuits filed before election day—with one common theme: ALL tried to eliminate security protocols for absentee ballots and tried to implement vote harvesting in every state. pic.twitter.com/1CrbKDydxr
— Heritage Foundation (@Heritage) November 9, 2020
• Trump Campaign Alleges Potential Fraud In Pennsylvania Election Lawsuit (JTN)
The Trump campaign on Monday announced that it had filed a lawsuit against Secretary of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Kathy Boockvar and the Boards of Elections in seven counties. The election-related lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, and plaintiffs include the Trump campaign and two individuals. “Voters in Pennsylvania were held to different standards simply based on how they chose to cast their ballot, and we believe this two-tiered election system resulted in potentially fraudulent votes being counted without proper verification or oversight, as well as many voters being disenfranchised simply for casting their votes in-person,” Trump 2020 campaign general counsel Matt Morgan said in a statement. “We will not stop fighting for transparency and integrity in our electoral process and ensuring all Americans can trust in the results of a free and fair election.”
A whole series of “glitches” by now. Not worth investigating, you say?!
• System ‘Glitch’ Also Uncovered In Wisconsin – Removes Lead from Joe Biden (GP)
We’ve reported on numerous events identified in the 2020 election already which are being referred to as ‘glitches’ by the Democrats. Tonight we just uncovered another ‘glitch’ in Wisconsin. When this one is confirmed it will result in a 19,500 vote gain for Trump making the Wisconsin race a total toss-up. There is now a pattern of events we have uncovered across the country where votes are being taken from Republicans at all levels and transferred to competing Democrats in offsetting amounts. These are not random because in every case votes are moved from Republicans to Democrats. This is beginning to appear like a strategy used by the Democrats to steal this election.
We reported first on a system glitch, as it was labeled, in Michigan which switched 6,000 votes back to President Trump. Then another example was uncovered in Oakland County Michigan where again a Republican won his race as a result [of] this glitch. Then in Pennsylvania a ‘glitch’ was uncovered where nearly 20,000 votes were moved from President Trump to Biden. When this is confirmed it will result Biden’s lead being cut by 40,000 votes in Pennsylvania bringing this race back to even. Then we found approximately 6,000 votes which were taken from Trump and moved to Biden in Georgia due to a ‘glitch’. Now tonight we have identified approximately 10,000 votes that were moved from President Trump to Biden in just one Wisconsin County.
This information came from an individual who saw this happen in Rock County Wisconsin. On election night the results of the county were presented during the evening and showed that President Trump won Wisconsin in 2016. At 10:59 the votes came in and the race was close with both candidates at around 29,000 ballots. Then by 11:12 President Trump had taken a nearly 1,000 vote lead on Biden with 31,000 votes to Biden’s 30,000. At 11:21 these results had not changed much. Then at 11:43 more votes came in and they showed Trump had taken a commanding lead at 46,649 to Biden’s 37,133. This was a 9,516 vote lead for Trump.
But then suddenly at 11:57 these votes had swapped. Biden was reported with 46,649 and Trump was reduced to Biden’s former total of 37,133. These votes had swapped from the President Trump to Biden – again a swap from a Republican to a Democrat. The net impact was 19,032 votes. We checked these numbers again tonight from a different source and the final numbers are still showing Biden ahead of President Trump by the same 9,516 votes. Currently the race in Wisconsin is showing Biden with a lead of 1,630,570 votes to President Trump’s 1,610,030 votes. When this adjustment is confirmed Biden will only hold a 1,508 vote lead. This of course is before any of the hundreds of thousands of questionable votes showing up for Biden in Milwaukee early in the morning after the election are validated.
“..the software’s development was funded by the Clinton Global Initiative in 2014..”
The Democrats… the Resistance… “progressives,” the Left — whatever you want to call them — are much less afraid of being caught for committing election fraud than for getting nailed on a long list of previous and quite serious crimes dating back a decade, including SpyGate, MuellerGate (Russian Collusion), Ukraine-WhistleblowerGate, Uranium One, the Skolkovo technology transfer, the Clinton Foundation’s pay-to-play doings, and the recently disclosed influence-peddling and money-laundering schemes of the Biden Family. A little election fraud ain’t nuthin to that massive, reeking landfill of perfidy and sedition, and folks apparently forget that the election happened just on the eve of whatever investigative results John Durham & Company may be ready to drop on the nation — including the afore-alluded-to Biden Family hijinks, of which there is a live case at the DOJ. Boy are they afraid of all that.
Just sayin… in case you put it out of mind in all the excitement. So, now we will discover whether they committed targeted election fraud, and then, perhaps, we’ll find out how those other matters turn. As for the election fraud itself, you can be sure that a holy host of computer nerd statisticians on Mr. Trump’s end have been working backstage, out of the limelight, to sift those kwazy numbers coming out of places like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, Wisconsin, Arizona, and Nevada where the race was pretty darn tight. From a strictly procedural point-of-view, Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes look like an open-and-shut case of official misfeasance — insofar as that state’s Supreme Court exceeded its authority in changing the election law to allow ballots received after 8p.m. election day to be counted for days afterward (election law being the sole prerogative of the state legislature).
And that’s a lot of ballots. That will likely be adjudicated in the US supreme court, and pretty pronto, given the exigent circumstances. Then there are the janky numbers in all those other states where the Dominion vote tabulation software was used: 130,000 here… 27,000 there… et cetera. By the way, the company that puts out this Dominion product is partly owned by Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein’s husband, Richard C. Blum; one of its top executives is Nancy Pelosi’s former chief-of-staff; and the software’s development was funded by the Clinton Global Initiative in 2014. I guess they know a good thing when it jumps up and bites them on the lips.
“..the company “uploaded something last night, which is not normal, and it caused a glitch.” “That is something that they don’t ever do. I’ve never seen them update anything the day before the election..”
• Maricopa GOP Chair Failed to Show Up to Certify Dominion Voting Machines (GP)
Republican Arizona State Rep. Kelly Townsend is calling on Maricopa County GOP Chairman Rae Chornenky to step down, along with her first Vice Chair, for failing to show up to certify the Dominion Voting Machines. There has been major controversy over their machines due to the company’s ties to Democrats and the Clinton Foundation. “I just found our that Maricopa County GOP Chairman Rae Chornenky failed to show up to certify the Dominion / Machines. For this reason, I call for her resignation, along with her 1st Vice Chair,” Rep. Townsend tweeted.
The machines were used in 33 states, including Arizona, Michigan and Georgia. Mark Malloch Brown, Chairman of the Board of Smartmantics, which makes the machines, also serves on George Soros’ Open Societies Foundation Board. In Georgia, voting was halted for two hours after the company sent an “update” to their machines. Marcia Ridley, elections supervisor at Spalding County Board of Elections, told Politico that the company “uploaded something last night, which is not normal, and it caused a glitch.” “That is something that they don’t ever do. I’ve never seen them update anything the day before the election,” Ridley said. Ridley said she did not know what the upload contained.
“Polls create the plays. Election models create the score. Fivey Fox and “Nate Silver” announce the game. All to create engagement with a giant media corp.
No one understands how to create and sell a spectator sport better than Disney.”
• The Grifters, Chapter 3 – Election Prediction (Ben Hunt)
How do you get more engagement with your news programming? How do you trigger more neurotransmitter brain chemicals in your ABC News audience? By creating “news” that can be transformed into an entertaining/enraging game. By transforming a singular Election Day event into a months-long spectator sport, complete with plays and scores and announcers and cheering/anxious fans. That’s what election modeling does. That’s why public polling and election modeling exist. Polls to create the “news”, election models to create the score, Fivey Fox and “Nate Silver” to announce the game. All to create engagement with a diversified media corporation.
That’s why Disney acquired FiveThirtyEight. That’s why they originally had it within ESPN and then transferred it to ABC News. That’s why they created the cartoon characters of Fivey Fox and “Nate Silver”. No one understands how to create and sell a spectator sport better than Disney. Here’s the kicker. This spectator sport that Disney/ABC News/FiveThirtyEight has created around Election Day has very little connection with the election itself. The “scores” and the “announcing” and the game itself are a totally distinct thing from the process and dynamic and the outcome of our most important political institution. And they know it. And yet they sell their game over and over again as if it were the real thing. That’s what makes it a grift.
In a nutshell, the FiveThirtyEight prediction model is designed around thousands of simulations of statewide results (based on statewide polls and a hypothesized probability distribution on state level results) that are then mapped against the Electoral College. These thousands of simulations of possible statewide results create a probabilistic distribution on the Electoral College outcome, and whatever percentage of outcomes are on the good side of 269 Electoral College votes for a candidate is the answer for the point-in-time odds of that candidate winning. FiveThirtyEight went into Election Day 2020 assigning Joe Biden a 90% chance of winning, which was even more divorced from election reality than their 2016 “prediction” that Hillary Clinton had a 72% chance of winning.
There is zero alpha … zero useful information … in a model that predicts an election outcome with near certainty when in truth that outcome hinges on a few tens of thousands of votes out of 150 million votes cast. To use a spectator sports analogy, FiveThirtyEight set the 2020 betting odds for this “football game” with Joe Biden as a massive favorite, say 20 points. He won by 1 point. In 2016, FiveThirtyEight had Hillary Clinton as a somewhat less massive favorite, say 15 points. She lost by 1 point. There’s nothing “robust” about these predictions, as “Nate Silver” is currently claiming. These predictions are disasters. FiveThirtyEight would be laughed out of Vegas for setting odds like this.
Mark who?
• US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper Fired And Replaced, Trump Announces (RT)
President Donald Trump has announced via Twitter that US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper has been removed from his position, and has already been replaced. Christopher C. Miller, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, will take on the defense secretary role “effective immediately,” Trump tweeted. “Mark Esper has been terminated. I would like to thank him for his service,” he added. Rumors have circulated for months that Esper would either be fired or resign. In June, he publicly disagreed with the president floating the idea of deploying active-duty military to cities dealing with riots stemming from Black Lives Matter protests. The two have disagreed on other issues too, and Trump even suggested in August that Esper was on his way out. Asked if he had confidence in Esper’s leadership, Trump referred to him as “Mark Yesper” and said he “considers” firing everybody. “At some point, that’s what happens,” he said. Esper had served as secretary of defense since June 2019.
Twitter comment: “Wait, the vaccine was known to be successful weeks ago?? Fauci, Biden, media mocked Trump at this time for saying vaccine was close. The Oct announcement just happened to be delayed AFTER the election?”
• COVID19 Vaccine From Pfizer and BioNTech Is Strongly Effective
Pfizer and partner BioNTech said Monday that their vaccine against Covid-19 was strongly effective, exceeding expectations with results that are likely to be met with cautious excitement — and relief — in the face of the global pandemic. The vaccine is the first to be tested in the United States to generate late-stage data. The companies said an early analysis of the results showed that individuals who received two injections of the vaccine three weeks apart experienced more than 90% fewer cases of symptomatic Covid-19 than those who received a placebo. For months, researchers have cautioned that a vaccine that might only be 60% or 70% effective.
The Phase 3 study is ongoing and additional data could affect results. In keeping with guidance from the Food and Drug Administration, the companies will not file for an emergency use authorization to distribute the vaccine until they reach another milestone: when half of the patients in their study have been observed for any safety issues for at least two months following their second dose. Pfizer expects to cross that threshold in the third week of November.
In their announcement of the results, Pfizer and BioNTech revealed a surprise. The companies said they had decided not to conduct the 32-case analysis “after a discussion with the FDA.” Instead, they planned to conduct the analysis after 62 cases. But by the time the plan had been formalized, there had been 94 cases of Covid-19 in the study. It’s not known how many were in the vaccine arm, but it would have to be nine or fewer. Gruber said that Pfizer and BioNTech had decided in late October that they wanted to drop the 32-case interim analysis. At that time, the companies decided to stop having their lab confirm cases of Covid-19 in the study, instead leaving samples in storage. The FDA was aware of this decision.
“Serious adverse events that occur in drug trials include death, immediate risk of death, long term or serious incapacitation, and hospitalization.”
• China Vaccine Trial Halted After Serious Adverse Event (BBG)
The final-stage trial of a Chinese frontrunner vaccine candidate has been halted in Brazil due to a serious adverse event, the first time that any of the Asian nation’s rapidly developed Covid-19 shots have met with such a setback. Testing of Sinovac Biotech Ltd.’s vaccine, called Coronavac, has been halted in Brazil after an event that occurred on Oct. 29, said the Brazil Health Agency on Tuesday, without any further detail on the illness. The study is interrupted in accordance with regulations while the agency analyzes if the study should continue, it said. Serious adverse events that occur in drug trials include death, immediate risk of death, long term or serious incapacitation, and hospitalization.
Such pauses are not uncommon in large-scale drug trials and two western developers – AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson – have paused their vaccine trials in recent months due to serious adverse events, only to re-start them after investigation. But China has already started administering its vaccines, including Coronavac, to hundreds of thousands of people under an expansive emergency use approval, making the prospect of a safety issue being detected at this stage more concerning. Last month, China’s science ministry said its companies have inoculated about 60,000 volunteers in final-stage trials, but there have been no reports of serious adverse events.
You can’t listen only to virologists and epidemiologists. It’s bad science.
• Chancellor Merkel, Put an End to the COVID “Fear Machine” (German Doctors)
Dear Chancellor Dr. Merkel, We, the signatories, are doctors from all areas of healthcare, who have been serving people in practices and clinics for decades. During this time, we have witnessed more than one seasonal infection in Germany, most of them with far more severe conditions and significantly more deaths than since January 2020 from COVID infectious diseases. Together we serve approx. 70.000 people. The circumstances of the coronavirus wave in the FRG have been perceived differently than the media and the ongoing warnings of politics, which were unjustified in fact, presented to the public for months. Predictions of individual advisory virologists with millions of seriously ill and hundreds of thousands of deaths in Germany have not been true in any way.
In the practices, hardly any infected patients were infected and if, then with normal, mostly mild progressions of virus flu. The hospitals have been more empty than ever before. There was no overload of ICU. Doctors, doctors and nurses were skillful in short-term work. Initially, we found the wave of the virus running towards us to be threatening and were able to understand the infection protection measures. However, there are months of secured evidence and facts that this wave of the virus is only slightly more intense than an ordinary seasonal flu and must be considered much more harmless than, for example, influenza infection in 2017/2018 with 27.000 deaths in Germany. According to the data situation, there hasn’t been a threat to the German population from Covid-19 for months. This must be the reason to return to normal life in Germany a life without restrictions, fear and infection hysteria.
We’re increasingly seeing older people with depression, young children and adolescents with severe anxiety and behavioral disorders, people with severe conditions who could have been cured in timely treatment. We notice disruptions in interpersonal cooperation, hysteria and aggression caused by fear of infection, there are more and more vigilations and denunciations of “positive swab victims” – all this leads to an unprecedented tension and division of the population. The development of additional severe chronic diseases is foreseeable. These diseases with their severe consequences are expected to far outweigh the possible Covid-19 damage in the FRG.The signatories therefore call on those responsible for health care and politics to discharge their responsibilities for the people of our country and immediately avert this threatening development.
We demand an immediate revision of the available data by an independent panel of experts from all relevant specialized groups and a prompt implementation of the resulting consequences for the people of our country.We demand that ineffective and possibly even harmful anti-infection measures be stopped immediately and that mass testing is meaningful (e.g. Currently, 1,1 million tests / week, of which 99,3 % negative, cost per week: EUR 82,5 million) to be audited by a panel of independent experts. We demand to intensify the protection of risk patients and only from them, where every viral infection can take a dramatic course – the healthy, immune competent population does not need protection beyond the general hygiene and health measures that have been known and proven for generations.
“Anxiety, depression and insomnia were most common among recovered COVID-19 patients…and the researchers also found significantly higher risks of dementia…”
• One In Five COVID19 Patients Develop Mental Illness Within 90 Days (R.)
Many COVID-19 survivors are likely to be at greater risk of developing mental illness, psychiatrists said on Monday, after a large study found 20% of those infected with the coronavirus are diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder within 90 days. Anxiety, depression and insomnia were most common among recovered COVID-19 patients in the study who developed mental health problems, and the researchers also found significantly higher risks of dementia, a brain impairment condition. “People have been worried that COVID-19 survivors will be at greater risk of mental health problems, and our findings … show this to be likely,” said Paul Harrison, a professor of psychiatry at Britain’s Oxford University.
Doctors and scientists around the world urgently need to investigate the causes and identify new treatments for mental illness after COVID-19, Harrison said. “(Health) services need to be ready to provide care, especially since our results are likely to be underestimates (of the number of psychiatric patients),” he added. The study, published in The Lancet Psychiatry journal, analysed electronic health records of 69 million people in the United States, including more than 62,000 cases of COVID-19. In the three months following testing positive for COVID-19, 1 in 5 survivors were recorded as having a first time diagnosis of anxiety, depression or insomnia. This was about twice as likely as for other groups of patients in the same period, the researchers said.
The study also found that people with a pre-existing mental illness were 65% more likely to be diagnosed with COVID-19 than those without. Mental health specialists not directly involved with the study said its findings add to growing evidence that COVID-19 can affect the brain and mind, increasing the risk of a range of psychiatric illnesses. “This is likely due to a combination of the psychological stressors associated with this particular pandemic and the physical effects of the illness,” said Michael Bloomfield, a consultant psychiatrist at University College London.
Just lovely! If you catch COVID, you get mental health issues. And if you go into lockdown so you don’t catch COVID….you also get mental health issues.
• Children Regressing And Struggling Mentally In Lockdown (G.)
Children hardest hit by Covid-19 measures have regressed during the pandemic, with some who were potty-trained pre-lockdown reverting to nappies and dummies, and others forgetting basic numbers or how to use a knife and fork, according to the schools watchdog Ofsted. Older children have lost physical fitness as well as reading and writing skills, and some are showing signs of mental distress, which can be seen in an increase in eating disorders and self-harm, according to Ofsted’s chief inspector, Amanda Spielman. More children are being taken out of school to be home-educated, particularly among families from minority ethnic communities, who are at greater risk from Covid and may be more fearful of catching it. Meanwhile, school leaders are “fire-fighting” as concerns grow about budget pressures.
The findings, based on 900 visits to schools and social care settings by Ofsted inspectors since schools fully reopened in September, paint a worrying picture of the impact of the pandemic on children at every stage of the education system in England. While children with good support structures have coped well, those whose parents were unable to work flexibly and have therefore been less available to help have lost out most. Children with special educational needs and disabilities have been “seriously affected” across all age groups, both in their care and education, losing vital support including speech and language services. Ofsted remains worried about children at risk of neglect, exploitation and abuse. Child protection referrals fell while schools were closed to most pupils and have not yet returned to normal levels.
But not facemask?!
• Lockdown Named Word Of The Year By Collins Dictionary (G.)
Lockdown, the noun that has come to define so many lives across the world in 2020, has been named word of the year by Collins Dictionary. Lockdown is defined by Collins as “the imposition of stringent restrictions on travel, social interaction, and access to public spaces”, and its usage has boomed over the last year. The 4.5bn-word Collins Corpus, which contains written material from websites, books and newspapers, as well as spoken material from radio, television and conversations, registered a 6,000% increase in its usage. In 2019, there were 4,000 recorded instances of lockdown being used. In 2020, this had soared to more than a quarter of a million.
“Language is a reflection of the world around us and 2020 has been dominated by the global pandemic,” says Collins language content consultant Helen Newstead. “We have chosen lockdown as our word of the year because it encapsulates the shared experience of billions of people who have had to restrict their daily lives in order to contain the virus. Lockdown has affected the way we work, study, shop, and socialise. With many countries entering a second lockdown, it is not a word of the year to celebrate but it is, perhaps, one that sums up the year for most of the world.” Other pandemic-related words such as coronavirus, social distancing, self-isolate and furlough were on the dictionary’s list of the top 10 words. So was the term key worker.
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Very much worth watching.
Tucker: We heard you. It’s hard to trust anything. Here’s what we know.
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