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Shocking Disparities In COVID-19 Attitudes And Behaviors Henry I. Miller

Posted By on December 3rd, 2020

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/12/03/shocking-disparities-in-covid-19-attitudes-and-behaviors/

It should be obvious by now that the adoption of measures to prevent the spread of coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19, has become politicized. Consider the presidential campaigns: President Donald Trump held large indoor rallies with mostly mask-less supporters, while President-elect Joe Biden seemed to have a mask sutured to his face and spent much of the campaign in isolation.

Gallup surveys published in November show that partisanship remains the most significant driver of the public’s perceptions of the COVID-19 pandemic and its behaviors in response to it. A majority of Republicans think the best thing for healthy people is to live their lives normally, while most Democrats and independents think sheltering at home is advisable to avoid contracting or spreading the virus. Similarly, Republicans are the most likely to say their lives have somewhat (59%) or completely (8%) gotten back to what they were before COVID-19.

This disparity is unfortunate, because it has never been truer that “we’re all in this together,” or more obvious that we need to rev up our efforts to minimize the probability of spreading COVID-19 infections, if we are “to return to normal activities.” A key metric, the percentage of positive tests for the virus, is currently unacceptably high – the seven-day average is currently over 9%, while the target is to keep it under 3%. 

A high percentage of positive tests means there is significant community spread of the virus, which makes effective testing, tracing, and isolation difficult, if not impossible. Moreover, the seven-day average of daily new cases has been increasing sharply over the past six weeks, and is currently approximately 160,000 per day (see figure below). These are ominous signs as we approach the winter months, with people often congregating indoors in poorly ventilated spaces.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

What Happened to Boris Johnson? It’s what many of you ask me the most – and the question I feel most ashamed to answer. Katie Hopkins

Posted By on December 3rd, 2020

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/12/what-hell-happened-boris-johnson-katie-hopkins/

It’s what many of you ask me the most, and the question I feel most ashamed to answer.

Partly because I don’t have proof of what I am about to tell you. But also because I was once the one banging on about how blooming marvelous he was and why he was lined up to be my fourth husband (or was it fifth?).

Not only did I announce this publicly, but the last time I saw him in person I actually reminded him personally that he was destined to be Mr Hopkins. (No, that was not fear in his eyes; he had indigestion. Probably.)

If you are reading this, Boris Johnson, please know that the offer of my hand in marriage has been rescinded. You have been nothing but a huge disappointment and, as populist leaders go, are about as much use as a potato in a wig.

I did try to answer the “What the hell happened?” question six months ago, though looking back on my answer I fear I was being too easy on the man, blaming his failings on his inability to work the COVID problem, rather than on Boris himself. Six months on I realize it is the weakness of Johnson, not the strength of the COVID conspiracy, that is the issue.

One minute he was crashing along like a sexually profligate rhino looking for a Brexit mate, full of Get Brexit Done, and doing splendid things like proroguing (suspending) Parliament and firing treacherous MPs who were working AGAINST the will of the people.

HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

The Terrorist Attacks You’ve Never Heard Of By Isaac Schorr

Posted By on December 3rd, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/12/the-terrorist-attacks-youve-never-heard-of/

A malicious strain of cyber warfare is targeting our health-care system.

T he American health-care system is under siege. Not only by a deadly novel coronavirus, unleashed by the evil and inept Chinese Communist Party, but also by cyberterrorists whose acts of aggression are just as condemnable and deadly as those of a suicide bomber or hijacker.

On October 28, the University of Vermont (UV) Health Center in Burlington was crippled by an attack on its systems. At the time, the nation’s eyes were set — solely and squarely — on the upcoming election. Thankfully, Ellen Barry and Nicole Perlroth at the New York Times have done yeoman’s work reporting on the attack and its aftermath. So now that the election is behind us, we can identify, name, and address this new kind of national-security threat.

“We expect panic,” declared one hacker in the run-up to the attack. To be sure, for staff working the day the attack came, panic set in when workstations were suddenly rendered inoperable, as were the backup computers. So were the pneumatic tubes used for transporting blood samples and test results, and — worst of all — the electronic medical-record system, which was only restored on November 22, nearly a month after the attack.

The attack on the UV Health Center is not the first act of cyber terror on U.S. health-care infrastructure. The Russian group believed to be responsible for the Burlington attack has, per the FBI, made somewhere around $61 million in ransoms over a 21-month period in 2018 and 2019. In early October, eResearchTechnology, a Philadelphia firm that sells software used in clinical trials — including for certain coronavirus vaccines — was locked out of its data by ransomware — a kind of malware that remains in place until the hackers who have sicced it on you are paid. Hospitals in California, Oregon, Montana, Tennessee, and upstate New York have been similarly afflicted by hackers, who have even gone so far as to release patient data — Social Security numbers, dates of birth, ages, hiring dates, and contact details — on the dark web.

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Mozambique Terrorist Group Poised to Establish an Islamic Emirate by Lawrence A. Franklin

Posted By on December 3rd, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16816/mozambique-terrorism-islamists

Radical Muslims from Kenya and Tanzania are transforming what was initially a low-intensity ethnic rebellion, into a full-fledged Islamic jihad against Mozambique’s central government.

Ansar al-Sunna, estimated to consist of about 20 cells operating throughout northeast Mozambique, is responsible for the murders of about 2,000 people, mostly civilians.

The terrorist group has driven approximately 200,000 people from their homes and burdened the majority Christian country’s central government.

The Islamic State’s Central African Province may have bigger plans for Mozambique’s Ansar al-Sunna. If the terrorists are able to establish an Emirate under Sharia in Cabo Delgado Province, it could serve as a jihadi model, threatening the stability of other states in southern Africa. Malawi, Zimbabwe, South Africa, as well as Africa’s Indian Ocean states of the Comoros and Madagascar, could be targeted.

Jihadists in northern Mozambique have intensified their military operations this year in an apparent attempt to establish an Islamic Emirate in the province of Cabo Delgado. The Islamist insurgency, which began in October 2017, remained below the radar until recently. The escalating violence, however, has become a security concern for Mozambique’s regional neighbors, including South Africa, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya and Somalia. Radical Muslims from Kenya and Tanzania are transforming what was initially a low-intensity ethnic rebellion, into a full-fledged Islamic jihad against Mozambique’s central government.

Ansar al-Sunna (Supporters of Sunni Tradition), aka Ahlu wa Jamo, is affiliated with the Islamic State’s Central African Province and is inspired, in part, by Somalia’s leading terrorist organization, Al-Shabaab. Ansar al-Sunna, estimated to consist of about 20 cells operating throughout northeast Mozambique, is responsible for the murders of about 2,000 people, mostly civilians. These martyred innocents are largely from the same ethnic Kimwani tribe as their murderers, who reside in villages in Cabo Delgado Province. The terrorist group has driven approximately 200,000 people from their homes and burdened the majority Christian country’s central government.

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Iran’s Mullahs Want the “Nuclear Deal”, So Does Biden by Majid Rafizadeh

Posted By on December 3rd, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16812/iran-mullahs-want-nuclear-deal

Iran’s mullahs love the nuclear deal because of its fundamental flaws, especially the sunset clauses that remove restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program after the deal expires soon. The nuclear deal, rather than preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, as it was falsely touted to do, in fact paves the way for Tehran to become a legitimized nuclear state.

With the nuclear deal, the regime would gain global legitimacy, making it even more difficult to hold Iran’s leaders accountable for any malign behavior or terror activity across the world.

Finally, Iran’s ruling clerics want immediately to rejoin the nuclear deal because it would again alienate other governments in the Middle East and inevitably lead to a worsening of relations between the US and its traditional allies, especially Israel, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states.

This flawed deal, in favor of Iran, failed to recognize the rightful concerns of other countries in the region about Iran’s potential nuclear capability, missile proliferation or funding of violent proxies — both within and next door to their territories.

Iran’s ruling mullahs, who are celebrating presumptive President-Elect Joe Biden’s possible presidency in 2021, are already calling on him to rejoin the 2015 nuclear deal, which, incidentally, Iran never signed.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani — already urging the next US administration, which he hopes is the Biden administration — also pointed out, according to the state-run IRNA agency:

“Now, an opportunity has come up for the next U.S. administration to compensate for past mistakes and return to the path of complying with international agreements through respect of international norms.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif also advised Biden on Twitter to abandon President Trump’s Iran policy of maximum pressure and rejoin the nuclear deal.

The Trump administration, after pulling out of the nuclear deal, imposed significant pressure politically and economically on the Iranian regime and re-imposed sanctions on the mullahs.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

What if all the judges are cowards? By Patricia McCarthy

Posted By on December 3rd, 2020

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/12/what_if_all_the_judges_are_cowards.html

Despite the glaring evidence of astronomical vote fraud, the local election officials who participated in the fraud or witnessed it have naturally been stubborn in their refusal to admit the cheating.  

The state judges before whom some of the lawsuits have come have likewise refused to admit there is cause for taking these incidents on.  

Now that the crisis has reached a fever pitch, hundreds of whistleblowers have come forward and sworn affidavits as to what they saw.  There have been public hearings in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Arizona so far.  They have gone on for hours as person after person has testified to the ballot malfeasance they observed. The mainstream media has of course ignored all of this.  Whatever they deign to report is characterized by numerous negative modifiers meant to deceive the public –- ‘baseless,’ ‘unwarranted,’ ‘desperate,’ ‘unproven,’ ‘unsubstantiated,’ etc. — as if the president has mounted this crusade against vote fraud for fun.  Bottom line?  There is, as Sidney Powell has said, a tsunami of evidence of long-planned, unconstitutional, illegal election rigging for Democrat gains.  And they did it in so many deceitful ways. 

At this moment in time, there is no doubt that the president won the election in greater numbers than the cheaters had imagined possible.  As he was gaining on election night beyond their expectations, they called a halt to vote counting for hours in order to catch up with hundreds of thousands of phony ballots from anywhere they could find or manufacture them.  

The chicanery was thankfully detected by the many witnesses who have now come forward but are being thoroughly disregarded by the propagandists at CNN, MSNBC, CBS, ABC and NBC. These outlets are not one bit dedicated to disseminating actual information to the public; their job is to propagandize, to control the prescribed narrative, and to hide the news.  Any threat to that narrative will be shut down, derisively mocked as though it were as fantastical as a comic book.  That is how the American media operates.  Sadly, even Fox News has joined their “we-will-tell-you-what-is-true” liars club.  So much for Fox News; it’s over for the millions of viewers who have supported the cable news outlet for decades.  It turns out all those “conservative” anchors and hosts were either faking it then or are doing the Murdoch sons’ bidding now.  Either way, not one of them is trustworthy, not even Tucker Carlson or Laura Ingraham.  Only their yappy but truly loyal Sean Hannity is true to his word. 

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Trump gave ‘the most important speech’ of his life By Andrea Widburg

Posted By on December 3rd, 2020

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/12/trump_gave_the_most_important_speech_of_his_life.html

“Using myriad facts, Trump described the election fraud that undercut the American political system and asked Biden to join his demand for an investigation.”

President Trump appeared before the American people on Wednesday to give what he described as “the most important speech I’ve ever made.” Cleverly,  he’d already ensured a large audience by teasing in the past few days that he might be giving up. Leftists tuned in to see him resign; his supporters tuned in praying that he wouldn’t. His supporters left happy for Trump, twice using charts, detailed just some of the massive election fraud and promised to keep fighting:

The president explained that our once-sacred “election day” has turned into an election season, with opportunities for “lots of bad things.” While he was warned away from declaring a “premature victory,” Biden was treated as the victor before the election happened. “In fact, they were acting like they already knew what the outcome was going to be. They had it covered and perhaps they did, very sadly for our country.”

Trump assured his supporters, though, that he will keep fighting, using the “constitutional process.” He explained that the fight was necessary because the election was corrupt.

Democrats engaged in a “relentless push to print and mail out tens of millions of ballots sent to unknown recipients with virtually no safeguards of any kind,” which was a petri dish for fraud.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

China deleverages while  the sun shines David Goldman

Posted By on December 3rd, 2020

https://asiatimes.com/author/david-p-goldman/

Beijing’s warning to fintech and property firms to raise equity and pay debts will hit stocks now but lift their long term prospects
Beijing’s warning to fintech and property firms to raise equity and pay debts will hit stocks now but lift their long term prospects

China’s economy and stocks have outperformed Western counterparts during the Covid recession. Image: Twitter

China’s regulators are fixing the roof while the sun is shining. With the economy in full rebound from the second-quarter Covid recession, Beijing has warned fintech and property companies to raise more equity and pay down debt.

That’s good news for China’s financial system but mixed news for some of this year’s best-performing stocks, including food-delivery service Methuan and smartphone maker Xiaomi. Financial stocks, by contrast, turned in their best relative performance of 2020 during the past month.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Dominion contractor drops bombshell at Michigan hearing ‘They were rescanning, counting ballots 8 to 10 times’

Posted By on December 3rd, 2020

https://www.wnd.com/2020/12/dominion-contractor-drops-bombshell-michigan-hea

UPDATE Dec. 2, 2020: This story has been updated to include comments from Chief Judge Timothy Kenny of the Third Judicial Circuit Court in Michigan who dismissed Melissa Carone’s claims in a Nov. 13 ruling, stating her “allegations simply are not credible.”

An IT worker trained and contracted by Dominion Voting Systems who worked at the tabulating center in Detroit on Nov. 3 claimed Tuesday she saw election workers illegally rescanning batches of 50 ballots for Joe Biden over and over to create more votes.

Melissa Carone, who spoke to the Michigan Senate Oversight Committee at a hearing in Lansing, Michigan, said she was at the TCF Center for a total of 27 hours, beginning the morning of Election Day.

“What I witnessed at the TCF Center was simply fraud the whole 27 hours I was there,” she said. “There were batches of ballots being run through the tabulating machines numerous times, being counted eight to 10 times.

“I watched this with my own eyes,” Carone said.

She said that the election official in charge of counting the mail-in ballots, Daniel Baxter, and at least 90% of the workers were “in on the whole thing.”

“There was not a single ballot the whole night, the whole 27 hours I was there, that I saw, that was for Donald Trump,” she said. “Not one. Not a single ballot.”

She also testified she was aware that ballots were being tabulated at the Department of Elections, where she originally had been scheduled to work.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Arizona Hearing Found Ample Election Fraud: Mathematically Improbable That Biden Won state. Fred Lucas

Posted By on December 3rd, 2020

https://www.dailysignal.com/2020/11/30/4-takeaways-from-arizonas-election-fraud-he

On the same day that Arizona certified former Vice President Joe Biden as the winner of the state’s 11 electoral votes, state lawmakers held a fact-finding meeting Monday on allegations of voter fraud that might have tilted the closely contested state.

Biden appears to have won the traditionally Republican-leaning state by just over 10,000 votes. However, witnesses told state lawmakers that mail-in voting fraud and problems with the Dominion Voting Systems machines could have skewed the results.

Dominion has vigorously defended its machines, stating on its website:

According to a Joint Statement by the federal government agency that oversees U.S. election security, the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency: “There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.”  The government & private sector councils that support this mission called the 2020 election “the most secure in American history.”

The event was not a formal legislative hearing, since the Legislature is out of session, but Republican members of both the state Senate and the state House of Representatives participated in the panel, asking questions of witnesses.

The event, which began in late morning and ran well into the evening, wasn’t held at the state Capitol, but rather off-site at a Hyatt Regency hotel in Phoenix, with a “Stop the Steal” rally of supporters of President Donald Trump going on outside.