November 8th, 2020 • 3h 15m
Shownotes
Every new episode of No Agenda is accompanied by a comprehensive list of shownotes curated by Adam while preparing for the show. Clips played by the hosts during the show can also be found here.
2020
PA victory signs from Brian
I'm at Independence Hall and all of the Biden Harris signs they're giving out look like this:
The back of the signs are blank and not one sign with Joe's image on it.
Only Kamala
Trump Nov 7 Statement
Transition Integrity Project: Is this Soros Linked Group Plotting a "Color Revolution" Against President Trump? - Revolver
Fri, 06 Nov 2020 01:28
Transition Integrity Project: Is this Soros Linked Group Plotting a ''Color Revolution'' Against President Trump?
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In our previous report on Never Trump State Department official George Kent, Revolver News drew attention to the ominous similarities between the strategies and tactics the United States government employs in so-called ''Color Revolutions'' and the coordinated efforts of government bureaucrats, NGOs, and the media to oust President Trump.
This follow-up report will focus specifically on how the ''contested election scenario'' we are hearing so much about plays into the Color Revolution framework '-- indeed, sowing doubt about the democratic legitimacy of the target and coupling it with calls for massive ''mostly peaceful'' demonstrations comes straight out of the Color Revolution playbook. And this is precisely the messaging we've seen from by those same key players in media, government, and the Democrat Party machine, most prominently from a shadowy George Soros-linked group known as the Transition Integrity Project '-- more about them soon.
First, a quick note on Color Revolutions. A ''Color Revolution'' in this context refers to a specific type of coordinated attack that the United States government has been known to deploy against foreign regimes, particularly in Eastern Europe deemed to be ''authoritarian'' and hostile to American interests. Rather than using a direct military intervention to effect regime change as in Iraq, Color Revolutions attack a foreign regime by contesting its electoral legitimacy, organizing mass protests and acts of civil disobedience, and leveraging media contacts to ensure favorable coverage to their agenda in the Western press.
It would be disturbing enough to note a coordinated effort to use these exact same strategies and tactics domestically to undermine or overthrow President Trump. The ominous nature of what we see unfolding before us only truly hits home when one realizes that the people who specialize in these Color Revolution regime change operations overseas are, literally, the very same people attempting to overthrow Trump by using the very same playbook. Given that the most famous Color Revolution was the ''Orange Revolution'' in the Ukraine, and that Black Lives Matter is being used as a key component of the domestic Color Revolution against Trump, we can encapsulate our thesis at Revolver with the simple remark that ''Black is the New Orange.''
Transition Integrity Project:
So what is the Transition Integrity Project, and what does it have to do with the Color Revolution against Trump? Here is how friendly media outlets represent the Transition Integrity Project and its agenda:
A bipartisan group of about 80 political operatives and academics has been involved in discussions about what could happen if President Donald Trump were to lose the November election and then contest the results, potentially refusing to leave the White House.
The Boston Globe first reported on Sunday that the group of Democrats and Republicans (all of whom oppose the president) convened an online meeting to hash out scenarios as part of what has been called the Transition Integrity Project in June. [Newsweek]
Of course, what they do not say about this ostensibly ''bipartisan'' group is that its founder, Rosa Brooks, is a long-time close associate of George Soros and his Open Society Foundation. She served both as special counsel to the President at George Soros' Open Society Foundation and as a Board Member of the Open Society Foundation.
In 2006-2007, Brooks was Special Counsel to the President at the Open Society Institute in New York. Brooks has also served as a consultant for Human Rights Watch'... She currently serves on the advisory board of the Open Society Foundation's US Programs, the advisory board of National Security Action and the board of the Harper's Magazine Foundation. [Georgetown Law]
Media outlets such as the National Pulse have drawn attention Rosa Brooks' Soros connections as well as some interesting connections to Democrat Presidential candidate Joe Biden. It is certainly suspicious that the head of a group claiming to be bipartisan, which runs war games that reinforce the dangerous new talking point that President Trump won't concede the election, just happens to be linked to George Soros and Joe Biden. To top it all off, Never Trump Russiagate fanatics Bill Kristol and David Frum participated in the study as well. In fact, the entire project appears to be a collaboration between establishment Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans. Shockingly, when anti-Trump Republicans pretended to be him in a simulation, they had him do a bunch of illegal and unconstitutional acts! Wow, what an incredibly revealing simulation!
On the one hand it is tempting to look at this as just another case of Democrat operatives falsely representing themselves as bi-partisan and getting away with it due to a compliant media. There is of course some truth to this, but in a deeper sense this interpretation misses the plot completely. The domestic Color Revolution framework hints at something far more dangerous and sinister. George Soros and his Open Society Foundation have played key roles in the Color Revolutions in Eastern Europe, including the famous Orange Revolution and Euromaidan Revolution in the Ukraine, in which mass demonstrations and acts of civil disobedience were organized in order to overthrow the target regime helmed by Russia-aligned Yanukovich. Setting aside the question of whether the overthrow of Yanukovich was justified or in American interests, what is crucial here is the similarity not only in method but even in vocabulary. Mass demonstrations are part of the Color Revolution playbook, especially when they can incite crackdowns that can then be used as further pretext to escalate demonstrations against the target regime. Notice the vocabulary George Soros' Open Society Foundation used to describe the Euromaidan protests:
In late November 2013, Ukrainians took to the streets in peaceful protest after then-president Viktor Yanukovych chose not to sign an agreement that would have integrated the country more closely with the European Union'....
The International Renaissance Foundation part of the Open Society family of foundations, has supported civil society in Ukraine since 1990. For 25 years, the International Renaissance Foundation has worked with civil society organizations defending human rights and justice, tackling corruption, supporting Ukrainian minorities including Tatars and Roma, pursuing health and education reform, and helping to facilitate Ukraine's European integration.
The International Renaissance Foundation played an important role supporting civil society during the Euromaidan protests. The foundation ensured that legal aid was made available throughout the crisis to civic activists, protesters, and journalists; supplied victims of violence with medical care; enabled civil society solidarity and organization; supported channels like Hromadske TV in independent, live reporting about events on the Maidan; and documented cases of torture, beatings, and police and courts abuse. [Open Society Foundation]
This description of the Euromaidan Color Revolution by Brookings Institute scholar Steven Pifer is worth noting:
February 21 marks the sixth anniversary of the end of Ukraine's Maidan Revolution. Three months of largely peaceful protests concluded in a spasm of deadly violence. President Victor Yanukovych fled Kyiv and later Ukraine, prompting the Rada (Ukraine's parliament) to appoint acting leaders pending early elections. [Brookings Institute]
Prior to his post at Brookings, Steven Pifer was of course an Ambassador to Ukraine under President Obama. And, of course, he was actively involved in promoting the failed Ukraine-themed impeachment attempt against President Trump.
It's important to look at the context of what was happening between the U.S. and Ukraine on July 25, Pifer told McFaul. For one thing, Trump had put nearly $400 million in military aid for Ukraine on hold before the call took place. In addition, the two countries were in the midst of planning a meeting between the two leaders at the Oval Office at the time.
''Those are big things for Zelensky, particularly at the beginning of his term in office,'' said Pifer, who is a William J. Perry fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation. ''If he can show that he delivers on the assistance and also on the photo op with the American president '-- that looks really good at home. And it's also a good message to send to the Russians: 'I've got a relationship with the Americans.''' [Stanford's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies]
Pifer's interlocutor here, McFaul, just happens to have been the Senior Ambassador to Russia under Obama during the period of the Maidan protests. McFaul is yet another Color Revolution specialist who played an active role promoting the impeachment of President Trump. In fact, after Revolver's story exposing State Department official George Kent, McFaul took to Twitter to denounce the term ''color revolution'' in favor of the more palatable ''democratic breakthrough.''
Autocrats have demonized the phrase, "color revolutions." (& revolution generally has a negative connotation for many.) Instead, I use the term "democratic breakthroughs."
'-- Michael McFaul (@McFaul) August 23, 2020
McFaul's Color Revolution bona fides are so substantial he literally wrote the book on it. He is one of two editors of a series of essays ''Revolution in Orange'' about the Orange Color Revolution in Ukraine.
The dramatic series of protests and political events that unfolded in Ukraine in the fall of 2004'--the ''Orange Revolution'''--were seminal both for Ukrainian history and the history of democratization. Pro-Western presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko was poisoned with dioxin, an industrial pollutant that left him weakened and horribly disfigured. When this assassination attempt failed, the Kremlin-backed ruling party resorted to voter intimidation and massive electoral fraud to win the runoff election. Supporters of Yushchenko responded with a series of strikes, sit-ins, and marches throughout Ukraine. Thanks in large part to this peaceful revolution, the election results were annulled. [Amazon]
Does this plot sound familiar?
Of course this Color Revolution book received a nice blurb by none other than George Soros himself.
Keen observers of the recent transition, Aslund and his coauthors write with authority about the challenges and opportunities Ukraine faces today. Drawing on broad experience in the region, they examine the situation through a comparative lens. This book should be read carefully by students and policy makers alike.''
'--George Soros, Chairman, Open Society Institute
We can start to get a sense that a curiously high percentage of key Trump opposition figures, especially those involved with the impeachment of the President, have or have had some kind of professional role overseeing Color Revolutions in Eastern Europe. The people most viciously and effectively targeting Trump today are regime change professionals of the Color Revolution variety, whose preferred playbook involves a combination of attacking the legitimacy and electoral integrity of their target, mobilizing mass demonstrations of ''mostly peaceful protesters,'' and using any effort to crack down on said protests to further escalate the offensive against the target regime.
Here is a passage from one of the key books on Color Revolutions, literally called ''The Playbook.'' The reader may find some of the highlighted passages relevant to the domestic situation unfolding before our eyes.
Here is another passage:
The author of this book, conveniently titled ''The Democracy Playbook'' just happens to have also participated in the Transition Integrity Project.
Now that we are armed with the Color Revolution framework, and the specific role that electoral legitimacy plays in that model, we are in a strong position to evaluate the true agenda behind the Transition Integrity Project's ''War Game'' scenario suggesting that Trump won't concede the election. The title of Rosa Brooks's Washington Post piece is suggestive, prompting us to wonder whether it is a prediction or a threat: ''What's the Worst that Could Happen: The Election Will Likely Spark Violence and a Constitutional Crisis:''
A landslide for Joe Biden resulted in a relatively orderly transfer of power. Every other scenario we looked at involved street-level violence and political crisis.
Translation: vote for Biden, or else.
Soon, Attorney General William P. Barr opens an investigation into unsubstantiated allegations of massive vote-by-mail fraud and ties between Democratic officials and antifa. In Michigan and Wisconsin, where Biden has won the official vote and Democratic governors have certified slates of pro-Biden electors, the Trump campaign persuades Republican-controlled legislatures to send rival pro-Trump slates to Congress for the electoral college vote.
Translation: despite severe problems with mail in voting, any effort by the Justice Department to ensure the integrity of a mass mail-in system will be interpreted in advance as part of an authoritarian coup on the part of Trump. In other words, if Trump takes any reasonable measures to prevent the Color Revolution coup against him, he will automatically be acting in an authoritarian manner justifying said Color Revolution against him. Funny how that works, isn't it?
In every exercise, both teams sought to mobilize their supporters to take to the streets. Team Biden repeatedly called for peaceful protests, while Team Trump encouraged provocateurs to incite violence, then used the resulting chaos to justify sending federalized Guard units or active-duty military personnel into American cities to ''restore order,''
Translation: No matter how violent these ''peaceful protests'' become, any effort by Trump to establish authority will be used to confirm the pre-determined conclusion that he is an authoritarian and that extraordinary measures must be taken to remove him from office.
Social media platforms can commit to protecting the democratic process, by rapidly removing or correcting false statements spread by foreign or domestic disinformation campaigns and by ensuring that their platforms aren't used to incite or plan violence.
Translation: Social media must be fully censored leading up to the election. Facebook is already doing its part, for instance, by aggressively censoring any mention of Kyle Rittenhouse that suggests he acted in self-defense (he did).
When people unite to demand democracy and the rule of law, even repressive regimes can be stopped in their tracks.
Trump's is a ''repressive regime'' and therefore extraordinary measures usually reserved for repressive regimes overseas''namely, color revolutions''are justified to prevent him from taking office. Note that this sentiment was echoed explicitly in a similar ''roundtable'' discussion on the election done by the New York Times a little over a week ago. One of the contributors, Jamelle Bouie, spelled it out quite explicitly:
I think the Democratic party and its affiliated institutions and organizations need to be prepping basically a defense of ballot counting, sort of a nationwide effort to stop that tampering. I think there needs to be plans for protests and demonstrations. This is going to sound very hyperbolic, but I think that we have to think of the task of getting Trump out as less of a traditional democratic transition and more of something akin to pushing an authoritarian regime out. [New York Times]
One does not ''vote out'' an authoritarian regime, or they are not authoritarian. Dictatorships are only overthrown, and Bouie's statement is an explicit call to do exactly that. The actually-peaceful process of voting must be supplemented''or supplanted''with ''mostly peaceful protests'' if the result isn't correct. Which leads us to the next passage from Rosa Brooks:
Mass mobilization is no guarantee that our democracy will survive '-- but if things go as badly as our exercises suggest they might, a sustained, nonviolent protest movement may be America's best and final hope.
Translation: Just in case Biden isn't able to win fair and square, they have introduced a mail-in voting system that dramatically increases the likelihood of some type of contested election scenario. If that occurs, the outcome of the election will no longer be in the realm of democratic choice, where perhaps the forces against Trump have a disadvantage. Instead, the election becomes an issue of sustained mass mobilization of demonstrators capitalizing on every opportunity for escalation, a full court press by media demonizing every effort by Trump to restore order as authoritarian, and a transmission of the electoral process to court battles which disadvantage Trump.
There is of course one scenario, a very dark one, that remains unexplored. If the Color Revolution against Trump frames him as an authoritarian unwilling to leave office, the only alternative is to remove him by force. Both Al Gore and Joe Biden have already taken the extremely irresponsible and dangerous step of floating a military role in removing Trump should their Color Revolution not turn out the way they plan.
If Trump lost the election but refused to accept the results, Gore said he believes the military would intervene. He noted that under the parameters of the Constitution, Trump's last day in office is Jan. 20, 2021. [Fox News]
So they are setting things up in such a way as to almost ensure that a clear winner will not exist on Election Day, and framing any refusal of President Trump to concede as grounds for military removal. This final stage of the Color Revolution is something that Rosa Brooks of the Transition Integrity Project has entertained for quite some time. The following excerpt is from a piece Rosa Brooks wrote shortly after the 2016 election, suggesting a fourth way to remove Trump from office before 2020.
The fourth possibility is one that until recently I would have said was unthinkable in the United States of America: a military coup, or at least a refusal by military leaders to obey certain orders. [Foreign Policy]
And this is how the Color Revolution operation against Trump and by extension against all of his supporters evidently concludes'--with the possibility of a military coup.
After 2016, a critical mass of ruling class factions in the national security apparatus, state bureaucracies, Big Tech, and media decided that they would never allow the American people to meddle in their own elections again. And as a result of this contempt for the will of the people, our country is closer to an existential crisis than it has been at any period since the Civil War.
In an age of mandated masks there is one metaphorical mask that is slipping'--that is the mask of pretty illusions that covered up the true nature of the American power structure with phrases like ''liberal democracy.'' As this mask slips and we confront both the face and the fist of evil, we must do everything in our power to prevent the complete transformation of this country into the brutal, soulless tyrannies our would be overlords imagine for us and our posterity.
Stay tuned for more explosive coverage of this attempted Color Revolution. Much more to come.
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Joe Biden's election update speech draws celebrity reactions | Fox News
Sat, 07 Nov 2020 12:47
Published November 07, 2020
The former vice president addressed the nation after taking leads in several statesOne day after President Trump did the same, Joe Biden appeared before the nation to share his view of the state of the 2020 presidential election.
As votes continue to be counted, Biden took leads in both Pennsylvania and Georgia -- though both states had yet to call their races. A handful of other states' races remained uncalled as well.
During his Thursday address, Trump drew ire from celebrities as he continued to claim widespread voter fraud.
This time around, stars took to Twitter to praise for Biden -- as a path to victory appeared to emerge for the Democratic nominee.
CELEBRITIES REACT TO TRUMP'S ELECTION UPDATE
"How bizzare is it to hear a sane man after these last 4 years," wrote John Cusack. "It's almost weird to hear the sound of coherence."
"I clapped alone in my apt. RELIEVED," said Billy Eichner.
HOLLYWOOD STARTS TO GET EXCITED AS BIDEN PICKS UP BATTLEGROUND STATES; EXPRESSES DISAPPOINTMENT OVER SENATE
"A strong, steady, reasoned President-elect spoke to the nation, and I felt the collective exhale," said "Will & Grace" alum Debra Messing. "America has spoken. The most Americans in US history. She voted for Change. It's going to be ok."
"Quiet," Josh Gad wrote online. "There's a President speaking."
"'Sleepy Joe' all you like, @realDonaldTrump," Jeffrey Wright posted. "Joe Biden is the captain now."
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"The president spoke and it actually made me feel better than i did before he spoke!!!!" said Ben Platt.
Alyssa Milano shared a simple quote from Biden's speech: "We are opponents '-- not enemies."
"Nice to have a human again," said Dylan O'Brien with a red heart emoji.
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In reference to Biden being joined by running mate Sen. Kamala Harris on stage, comedian Natasha Rothwell said: "I will be processing the fact that there is a black woman on the stage right now for the foreseeable future."
chupamelku on Twitter: "@adamcurry That was a quick update... regime change operation / colour revolution is nothing without the complicity of the media, this was so clear here, I hope we can finally realize that the media is the enemy of the people. http
Sat, 07 Nov 2020 17:57
chupamelku : @adamcurry That was a quick update... regime change operation / colour revolution is nothing without the complicity'... https://t.co/ioopDtBtyh
Sat Nov 07 17:56:56 +0000 2020
President Trump statement: 'This election is far from over'
Sat, 07 Nov 2020 21:04
President Donald Trump looks down at his notes as he speaks at the White House, Thursday, Nov. 5, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)President Donald Trump is not conceding to President-elect Joe Biden, promising unspecified legal challenges seeking to overturn the outcome of the race for the White House.
Trump said in a statement that ''our campaign will start prosecuting our case in court to ensure election laws are fully upheld and the rightful winner is seated.''
The statement began: ''We all know why Joe Biden is rushing to falsely pose as the winner, and why his media allies are trying so hard to help him: they don't want the truth to be exposed. The simple fact is this election is far from over.''
Trump was at his Virginia golf course when the presidential race was called for Biden on Saturday. Biden clinched his victory with a win in Pennsylvania, the state where he was born.
In recent weeks, Trump has alleged '-- without evidence '-- widespread fraud and misconduct in the election.
His comments have drawn bipartisan rebuke from election officials and lawmakers as dangerous attempts to undermine public confidence in the vote.
Biden, in a statement that did not mention his opponent, said: ''With the campaign over, it's time to put the anger and the harsh rhetoric behind us and come together as a nation.''
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Kamala is a Super-spreader | Definition of Super-spreader by Merriam-Webster
Sun, 08 Nov 2020 13:57
su·'per-spread·'er | \ Ës¼-pÉr-Ëspre-dÉr \ variants: or superspreader
plural super-spreaders or superspreaders
: an individual who is highly contagious and capable of transmitting a communicable disease to an unusually large number of uninfected individuals Health authorities are watching uneasily for an event that could reverse their apparent success in containing the U.S. outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome: the arrival of a so-called super-spreader . '-- M. A. J. McKenna The story of a traveling British businessman who appears to have passed the coronavirus to Britons in at least three countries has prompted concerns over a ' superspreader ,' who could play an outsize role in transmitting the infection. '-- Karla Adam
Voter Irregularity
USPS Worker Charged After Being Arrested at Canadian Border With Stolen Ballots
Fri, 06 Nov 2020 15:05
A United States Postal Service employee was arrested and charged after being stopped at the U.S.-Canada border this week with undelivered mail, including absentee ballots.
Brandon Wilson, 27, of Buffalo, New York is facing a delay or destruction of mail charge, according to a criminal complaint. The charge carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Wilson was stopped at the Canadian border in New York State on Nov. 3 and investigators found over 800 pieces of undelivered mail, including absentee ballots.
According to court documents, on Election Day at approximately 7:34 p.m., Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers encountered Wilson at the Peace Bridge Port of Entry. The roadway connects the United States and Canada.
As part of a standard vehicle sweep, Wilson was asked to open the trunk of his 2016 Chevrolet Impala. Officers found a mail bin containing numerous mail pieces, along with multiple U.S. Postal Service (USPS) uniform items bearing the service's logo and a USPS identification badge with Wilson's name.
Wilson claimed the mail belonged to him and his mother, but was unable to explain why the letters were addressed to other people living in a variety of zip codes, according to the complaint. Wilson claimed he was not heading to Canada. He said he made a wrong turn. He said he intended to deliver the mail and had forgotten to return the mail to the post office.
The USPS Office of Inspector General was called to retrieve the recovered mail pieces. A subsequent inventory of the recovered mail pieces revealed three absentee ballots sent to two Buffalo addresses from the Erie County, New York Board of Elections. A total of 813 pieces of mail was found.
Cars drive past a mailbox in Morristown, N.J, on Aug. 17, 2020. (Theo Wargo/Getty Images)The letters were destined for zip codes 14227, 14211, 14214, with the majority destined for 14215. Cancellation dates showed seven dates between Sept. 16 and Oct. 26, 2020.
Wilson told special agents with the USPS Office of Inspector General that he placed mail from his assigned delivery routes inside the trunk of his vehicle.
Wilson said he started doing so in September. Overall, he said he placed mail into the trunk on more than four but less than 10 instances.
Wilson ''intended to whittle down the amount of mail in the trunk of his vehicle by placing a small amount of the mail into USPS mis sort containers in the morning before his shift began,'' the criminal complaint states.
Wilson denied knowledge of the election ballots and said he did not steal greeting cards, cash, or checks.
''This Office is committed not only to ensuring the integrity of the mails but also of individuals' rights to vote in a free and fair election,'' U.S. Attorney James Kennedy for the Western District of New York said in a statement. ''The criminal conduct with which this defendant is alleged to have engaged, undermined both of those interests.''
Wilson appeared in U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York by teleconference on Wednesday.
A public defender representing the USPS employee didn't respond to a request for comment.
A spokesman for the USPS told The Buffalo News that Wilson was assigned to ''emergency placement,'' an off duty status without pay.
Zachary Stieber contributed to this report.
'F*ck You, We Did A Good Job': Nate Silver Defends FiveThirtyEight's Election Predictions | The Daily Caller
Sat, 07 Nov 2020 13:32
Nate Silver, the founder and editor-in-chief of FiveThirtyEight, defended the website's polling on a Wednesday podcast, telling critics ''f*ck you, we did a good job.''
''I do want to ask about polling because I think I would be virtually decapitated on Twitter if I didn't get into this,'' FiveThirtyEight podcast host Galen Druke said.''I think some of the biggest polling errors we maybe have seen were in maybe Wisconsin or Florida, but in other states like Georgia we didn't really see that much of a polling error.'' (RELATED: Philadelphia City Commissioners Say They Are Investigating After Video Allegedly Shows GOP Poll Watcher Getting Kicked Out Of Polling Place)
''I know that the pitchforks are already coming for the pollsters,'' Druke continued, ''but what do we make of that scattered result and of the level of rage that we've seen over the past 24 hours?''
Critics expressed frustration after some polling predicted former Vice President Joe Biden beating President Donald Trump by a significant margin when in reality the race turned out to be very close. FiveThirtyEight gave Biden a 71% chance of winning the election '' the same odds the pollsters gave Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Nate Silver needs job retraining assistance. https://t.co/t8nXw55mC8
'-- Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) November 5, 2020
That time Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight owned up to being craptastically wrong again #OppositeDay https://t.co/xqPtHelgxG
'-- Joe Concha (@JoeConchaTV) November 5, 2020
But for real, how the hell does Nate Silver have a job?
'-- Dan Arel (@danarel) November 4, 2020
Nate Silver spent all year analyzing congressional districts and polls and everything possibly related to the election.
And again, he couldn't have been more off. This isn't an NFL game, this is *the country.*
How's this possible? https://t.co/S6Pc8QN9Ol
'-- Jason McIntyre (@jasonrmcintyre) November 4, 2020
''If they're coming after FiveThirtyEight, the answer is f*ck you, we did a good job,'' Silver responded. ''And the reason why is because look, we are here to provide guidance on how accurate the polls might or might not be. And the whole premise of why Joe Biden was a fairly heavy favorite was that he could withstand 2016's style polling error or a bit larger, and even those polls are sometimes wrong.''
''On the one hand, I think it shows increased sophistication that people can say okay, maybe you didn't miscall that many winners,'' Silver added, noting that the only state that Biden lead in the polling average but ended up losing was Florida.
Silver said that in 2016, the polls incorrectly predicted the winner, but in 2020 the polls correctly predicted the winner, but the margins were off.
Stephen Lombardi on Twitter: "See letter to @Google CEO @sundarpichai concerning #socialmedia #votemanipulation through targeted #vote reminders
Sat, 07 Nov 2020 21:15
Stephen Lombardi : See letter to @Google CEO @sundarpichai concerning #socialmedia #votemanipulation through targeted #vote reminders'... https://t.co/xMCbeT6mQe
Sat Nov 07 20:50:02 +0000 2020
Michigan's Antrim County election results investigated after going blue
Sat, 07 Nov 2020 23:40
LANSING '-- Officials are investigating wonky election results in Antrim County in northern Michigan that could add a few thousand votes to the tallies for President Donald Trump and Republican Senate candidate John James.
Antrim County Clerk Sheryl Guy, a Republican who ran unopposed and won a third four-year term Tuesday in the strongly GOP county, said results on electronic tapes and a computer card were accurate but it appeared that some of the results were somehow scrambled after the cards were transported in sealed bags from township precincts to county offices and downloaded onto a computer.
In 2016, Trump won Antrim County with about 62% of the vote, compared with about 33% for Democrat Hillary Clinton. Trump beat Clinton by about 4,000 votes.
Wednesday morning, Antrim results showed Democrat Joe Biden leading Trump by slightly more than 3,000 votes, with 98% of precincts reporting.
Officials had not checked the results before posting them, but later asked: "How could Democrats take over this county?" Guy said Wednesday.
Now, officials are going over the tape of all the results and inputting the numbers manually, Guy said. They hoped to post updated numbers Wednesday night, she said.
"It takes us back to the '80s, is what it does," said Guy, who has worked for the county for more than 40 years, having served as a deputy clerk before running for the elected post.
Antrim uses Dominion voting equipment and does not use cellular modems to transmit results from precincts to county offices, Guy said. Instead, the data is transported by election officials. Guy said she is in talks with the company that maintains the election equipment but the apparent glitch could also be the result of unspecified "human error."
Tom McMillin, a former state lawmaker from Oakland County and a member of the State Board of Education, said he noticed irregularities with the Antrim County vote totals late Tuesday, when he was checking out returns for Board of Education candidates.
In some precincts, but not all, Biden and other Democratic candidates had far more votes than normal, McMillin said.
"It just looked weird," he said. "Two-thirds of the townships looked really messed up."
More:Republicans poised to retain control of Michigan state House
More:Michigan's election has more than 77,000 spoiled ballots: Here's what that means
The apparent discrepancy was striking enough that it drew the attention of not just McMillin, but Michigan journalists and other political observers who drew attention to the Antrim numbers on social media.
McMillin said his calculations suggest Trump and James could each be in line for a net vote gain of 4,000 to 5,000 votes. Other candidates would also be affected, he said.
Contact Paul Egan: 517-372-8660 or pegan@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @paulegan4. Read more on Michigan politics and sign up for our elections newsletter.
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Detroit city worker blows whistle, claims ballots were ordered backdated, FBI probing | Just The News
Sun, 08 Nov 2020 04:40
First specific allegation in Michigan of systemic acts of voting fraud.
The FBI is investigating allegations of election fraud in Detroit after a city worker stepped forward and claimed election workers were asked to backdate ballots that had come in after the election deadline had passed, multiple officials said.
A senior law enforcement official in Washington confirmed that an investigation was opened after the whistleblower's concerns were forwarded from the Michigan Republican Party. "The FBI is investigating," the official said.
GOP officials in Michigan said the whistleblower was identified and assisted by Phill Kline, the head of the Thomas More Society's Amistad Project, which has been litigating voting disputes and irregularities across the country for months.
Kline declined comment.
But Michigan GOP chairwoman Laura Cox confirmed Friday afternoon the here party referred a whistleblower to the FBI and U.S. attorney in Detroit.
"The MIGOP has referred a whistleblower case to the U.S. Attorney in which a city of Detroit employee was directed to change the date of receipt, in the official election record on ballots which had been received after the deadline," Cox said. "This directive allegedly came from both City and State employees who were working at the TCF center. These allegations are highlighted by the city of Detroit's attempt to block Republican poll challengers from supervising this process."
This is a developing story.
Rumor Control | CISA
Sun, 08 Nov 2020 14:04
Mis- and Disinformation can undermine public confidence in the electoral process, as well as in our democracy.
A message from the CISA Director.
This video is also available directly on YouTube.
This webpage is for people with questions about the security of their vote and preemptively debunks potential areas for disinformation. You can learn more about mis- and disinformation from CISA's Countering Foreign Influence Task Force. Click an icon below to go directly to that section.
Reality: The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) do not design or audit ballots, which are processes managed by state and local election officials.
Rumor: DHS or CISA printed paper ballots with security measures and is auditing results as a countermeasure against ballot counterfeiting.
Get the Facts: While DHS and CISA assist states and localities with securing election infrastructure, DHS and CISA do not design, print, or audit ballots. State and local election officials manage ballot design and printing, as well as the auditing of results.
Local election offices have security and detection measures in place that make it highly difficult to commit fraud through counterfeit ballots. While the specific measures vary, in accordance with state and local election laws and practices, ballot security measures can include signature matching, information checks, barcodes, watermarks, and precise paper weights.
DHS and CISA operate in support of state and local election officials, and do not administer elections or handle ballots. CISA's role in election security includes sharing information, such as cyber threat indicators, with state and local election officials, as well as providing technical cybersecurity services (e.g. vulnerability scanning) upon the request of those officials.
Useful Sources
Election Infrastructure Security, CISAElection Security, DHSFederal Role in U.S. Campaigns and Elections: An Overview, CRSMail-in Voting Integrity Safeguards, CISAMail-in Voting 2020 Risk Assessment, CISAYour local or state election officials EAC state-by-state directoryLink directly to this rumor by using: https://www.cisa.gov/rumorcontrol#rumor19 Reality: Robust safeguards including canvassing and auditing procedures help ensure the accuracy of official election results.
Rumor: A bad actor could change election results without detection.
Get the Facts: The systems and processes used by election officials to tabulate votes and certify official results are protected by various safeguards that help ensure the accuracy of election results. These safeguards include measures that help ensure tabulation systems function as intended, protect against malicious software, and enable the identification and correction of any irregularities.
Every state has voting system safeguards to ensure each ballot cast in the election can be correctly counted. State procedures often include testing and certification of voting systems, required auditable logs, and software checks, such as logic and accuracy tests, to ensure that ballots are properly counted before election results are made official. With these security measures, election officials can check to determine that devices are running the certified software and functioning properly.
Every state also has laws and processes to verify vote tallies before results are officially certified. State processes include robust chain-of-custody procedures, auditable logs, and canvass processes. The vast majority of votes cast in this election will be cast on paper ballots or using machines that produce a paper audit trail, which allow for tabulation audits to be conducted from the paper record in the event any issues emerge with the voting system software, audit logs, or tabulation. These canvass and certification procedures are also generally conducted in the public eye, as political party representatives and other observers are typically allowed to be present, to add an additional layer of verification.
Useful Sources
Election Results Reporting Risks and Mitigations, CISAElection Infrastructure Cyber Risk Assessment, CISAMail-in Voting Integrity Safeguards, CISAMail-in Voting Processing Factors Map, CISAPost-Election Process Mapping Infographic, CISAYour local or state election officials. EAC state-by-state directoryPost-election audits, NCSLPolicies for Election Observers, NSCLLink directly to this rumor by using: https://www.cisa.gov/rumorcontrol#rumor17 Reality: Election results reporting may occur more slowly than prior years. This does not indicate there is any problem with the counting process or results. Official results are not certified until all validly cast ballots have been counted, including ballots that are counted after election night.
Rumor: If results as reported on election night change over the ensuing days or weeks, the process is hacked or compromised, so I can't trust the results.
Get the Facts: Elections will look different this year amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Although ballot processing in some states may take longer than in past years due to increases in mail-in ballot usage and process adaptations to make voting safer during the pandemic, this does not impact the accuracy of the counting process. Election results reported on election night are always unofficial and are provided solely for voters' convenience. In fact, no state requires that official results be certified on election night itself. Fluctuations in unofficial results reporting will occur during and after election night as more ballots are processed and counted, often including military and overseas ballots, and validated provisional ballots. Variations in state processes may also mean ballots cast through different methods (e.g., early in-person voting, mail-in voting, and election day voting) are counted and unofficially reported in different orders. Official results are released after rigorous canvassing (verification) and certification by local and state election officials.
Useful Sources
FBI-CISA Public Service Announcement: Foreign Actors and Cybercriminals Likely to Spread Disinformation Regarding 2020 Election ResultsElection Results Reporting Risks and Mitigations, CISAMail-in Voting 2020 Risk Assessment, CISAMail-in Voting Integrity Safeguards, CISAMail-in Voting Processing Factors Map, CISAPost-Election Process Mapping Infographic, CISAUSPS Election Mail Information Center, USPSFederal Election Results FAQs, CRSState Election Canvassing Timeframes and Recount Thresholds, NASSAfter the Voting Ends: The Steps to Complete an Election, NCSLElection Security State Policies, NCSLChanges to Mail in Voting in 2020, NCSLLink directly to this rumor by using: https://www.cisa.gov/rumorcontrol#rumor14 Reality: Provisional ballots are counted in every election regardless of result margins.
Rumor: Provisional ballots are only counted if there's a close race.
Get the Facts: All provisional ballots are reviewed by election officials in every election regardless of result margins. Provisional ballots cast by individuals whose eligibility can be verified are counted. Additionally, election officials are required to provide individuals who cast provisional ballots written information regarding how they can determine whether their vote was counted and, if it was not counted, the reason for its rejection.
Useful Sources
52 U.S.C. § 21082Post-Election Process Mapping Infographic, CISAProvisional Ballots, NCSLState Policies on Voting In-Person or Changing Vote After Requesting a Mail/Absentee Ballot, NASSYour local or state election officials. EAC state-by-state directoryLink directly to this rumor by using: https://www.cisa.gov/rumorcontrol#rumor15 Reality: In some circumstances, elections officials are permitted to ''duplicate'' or otherwise further mark cast ballots to ensure they can be properly counted.
Rumor: Witnessing election officials marking ballots means that fraudulent voting is taking place.
Get the Facts: Some ballots cannot be read by a ballot scanner due to issues such as damage or misprinting. Some jurisdictions hand count such ballots, while others create duplicate ballots so they can be read by a ballot scanner. Some jurisdictions permit election officials to enhance markings on ballots that are too faint to scan following a process to adjudicate the voter's intent based on state law. In jurisdictions where duplication of unscannable ballots is permitted, election officials duplicate the ballot precisely to ensure all the voter's choices are transferred correctly to the new ballot. Both the original and duplicate ballot are labeled and logged so that the two ballots can be tracked and audited. Many jurisdictions require bipartisan teams of two or four personnel to complete this process and verify that votes are accurately transferred to duplicated ballots. The process is often open to public observation.
In some jurisdictions, ballot duplication is referred to as ballot remaking, ballot replication, or ballot transcription.
Useful Sources
After the Voting Ends: The Steps to Complete an Election, NCSLBallot Duplication blog series, Council of State Governments Overseas Voting InitiativeYour local or state election officials EAC state-by-state directory.Link directly to this rumor by using: https://www.cisa.gov/rumorcontrol#rumor16 Reality: Election night results are not official results.
Rumor: If election night reporting sites experience an outage, vote counts will be lost or manipulated.
Get the Facts: Election night results are not official results. These sites may experience outages due to a variety of issues including too many people trying to view the site or cyberattacks. Such disruptions do not impact the integrity of votes or the official certified results. Election results made available on election night are always unofficial. Official results are rigorously canvassed (reviewed), and certified by local and state election officials. Most states have requirements for post-election audits as well.
Useful Sources
FBI-CISA Public Service Announcement: Foreign Actors and Cybercriminals Likely to Spread Disinformation Regarding 2020 Election ResultsFBI-CISA Public Service Announcement: Cyber Threats to Voting Processes Could Slow But Not Prevent VotingPost-Election Process Mapping Infographic, CISAFederal Election Results FAQs, CRSLink directly to this rumor by using: https://www.cisa.gov/rumorcontrol#rumor11 Reality: A defaced or manipulated election night reporting webpage would not impact counting and certification of official results.
Rumor: If the election night reporting webpage is defaced or displays incorrect results, the integrity of the election is compromised.
Get the Facts: If a webpage has been defaced or is displaying incorrect results, it would not impact the integrity of votes or the official certified results. Election results made available on election night are always unofficial.
Useful Sources
FBI-CISA Public Service Announcement: Foreign Actors and Cybercriminals Likely to Spread Disinformation Regarding 2020 Election ResultsFBI-CISA Public Service Announcement: Cyber Threats to Voting Processes Could Slow But Not Prevent VotingPost-Election Process Mapping Infographic, CISALink directly to this rumor by using: https://www.cisa.gov/rumorcontrol#rumor12 Reality: Malicious actors can use fake personas and impersonate real accounts.
Rumor: If a social media account claims an identity, the account must be run by that person or organization.
Get the Facts: Malicious actors often use fake personas and impersonate real accounts to trick the public into believing disinformation, including election-related disinformation.
Popular social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, and others provide an indication, such as a checkmark that is either blue or grey, to indicate that an account is verified by the platform. If an account claims to be a well-known person or official organization but is not verified, they may be an imposter.
There are multiple things to look for if you think an account is fake or spoofed. Is the account brand new? Do they create content or merely re-share? Do they have a coherent profile description and does it match what they are sharing? Do they have a real profile photo? A best practice when looking for election-related information is to go to trusted sources, like your local election official.
If you find a suspicious social media post or account, consider reporting the activity to the platform so others don't get duped. Most platforms have a ''report'' function built into posts, so it's easy to report suspicious items, such as misinformation about election infrastructure. If an account is posting election disinformation, consider reporting to your state or local election official.
Useful Sources
CISA Disinformation Toolkit#TrustedInfo2020, NASSVoter Resources: State Voter Information, NASEDVoting and Elections Information, usa.govYour local or state election officials EAC state-by-state directoryLink directly to this rumor by using: https://www.cisa.gov/rumorcontrol#rumor1 Reality: Cyber actors can "spoof" or forge email sender addresses to look like they come from someone else.
Rumor: I received an election-related email that looks like it came from a certain organization, so the organization must have sent it.
Get the Facts: Cyber actors can forge emails to look like they came from someone else. This common tactic is called email spoofing, where attackers send an email pretending to be from a specific domain or organization in an attempt to harvest personal data or spread malware. Such spoofed emails can also be used to disseminate false or inflammatory information. To send realistic-looking emails, cyber actors may forge the sender address to hide the origin of an email or set up spoofed domains that have a slightly different name from the real domain. Always be wary of out of the ordinary emails and look to trusted sources, such as the organization's official website, in order to verify. Never provide personal information or download files from suspicious emails. If you receive a suspicious election-related email, consider reporting it to your local election official or local FBI field office.
Useful Sources
FBI-CISA Public Service Announcement: Spoofed Internet Domains and Email Accounts Pose Cyber and Disinformation Risks to VotersActions to Counter Email-based Attacks on Election-Related Entities, CISAEnhanced Email and Web Security, CISALink directly to this rumor by using: https://www.cisa.gov/rumorcontrol#rumor2 Reality: Some voter registration data is publicly available.
Rumor: Someone possessing or posting voter registration data means voter registration databases have been hacked .
Get the Facts: Some voter registration information is public information and is available to political campaigns, researchers, and often members of the public, frequently for purchase. According to a recent FBI and CISA public alert, cyber actors may make false claims of ''hacked'' voter information to undermine confidence in U.S. democratic institutions.
Useful Sources
Availability of State Voter File and Confidential InformationFBI-CISA Public Service Announcement: False Claims of Hacked Voter Information Likely Intended to Cast Doubt on Legitimacy of U.S. ElectionsAccess To and Use Of Voter Registration Lists, NCSLLink directly to this rumor by using: https://www.cisa.gov/rumorcontrol#rumor3 Reality: Online voter registration websites can experience outages for non-malicious reasons.
Rumor: An online voter registration website experiences an outage and claims are made the election has been compromised.
Get the Facts: Outages in online voter registration systems occur for a variety of reasons, including configuration errors, hardware issues, natural disasters, communications infrastructure issues, and distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. As CISA and FBI warned in a recent public alert, a system outage does not necessarily mean the integrity of voter registration information or any other election system has been impacted. When an outage occurs, election officials work to verify the integrity of voter registration information.
Useful Sources
FBI-CISA Public Service Announcement: False Claims of Hacked Voter Information Likely Intended to Cast Doubt on Legitimacy of U.S. ElectionsSecuring Voter Registration Data, CISAYour local or state election officials EAC state-by-state directoryLink directly to this rumor by using: https://www.cisa.gov/rumorcontrol#rumor4 Reality: A compromise of a state or local government system does not necessarily mean election infrastructure or the integrity of your vote has been compromised.
Rumor: If state or local jurisdiction information technology (IT) has been compromised, the election results cannot be trusted.
Get the Facts: Hacks of state and local IT systems should not be minimized; however, a compromise of state or local IT systems does not mean those systems are election-related. Even if an election-related system is compromised, a compromise of a system does not necessarily mean the integrity of the vote has been affected. Election officials have multiple safeguards and contingencies in place, including provisional ballots or backup paper poll books that limit the impact from a cyber incident with minimal disruption to voting. Additionally, having an auditable paper record ensures that the vote count can be verified and validated.
Useful Sources
FBI-CISA Public Service Announcement: Cyber Threats to Voting Processes Could Slow But Not Prevent VotingElection Infrastructure Cyber Risk Assessment, CISALink directly to this rumor by using: https://www.cisa.gov/rumorcontrol#rumor5 Reality: Malicious actors can fake manipulation of voter registration data to spread disinformation.
Rumor: Videos, images or emails suggesting voter registration information is being manipulated means voters will not be able to vote.
Get the Facts: Claims are easy to fake and can be used for disinformation purposes. If voter registration data were to be manipulated, states have several safeguards in place to enable voters to vote, including offline backups of registration data, provisional ballots, and in several states, same-day registration.
Useful Sources
FBI-CISA Public Service Announcement: False Claims of Hacked Voter Information Likely Intended to Cast Doubt on Legitimacy of U.S. ElectionsSecuring Voter Registration Data, CISASecuring Voter Registration Systems, NCSLLink directly to this rumor by using: https://www.cisa.gov/rumorcontrol#rumor6 Reality: Safeguards are in place to prevent home-printed or photocopied mail-in ballots from being counted.
Rumor: A malicious actor can easily defraud an election by printing and sending in extra mail-in ballots.
Get the Facts: This is false. Committing fraud through photocopied or home-printed ballots would be highly difficult to do successfully. This is because each local election office has security measures in place to detect such malicious activity. While the specific measures vary, in accordance with state and local election laws and practices, such security measures include signature matching, information checks, barcodes, watermarks, and precise paper weights.
Useful Source
Mail-in Voting Election Integrity Safeguards Infographic, CISALink directly to this rumor by using: https://www.cisa.gov/rumorcontrol#rumor7 Reality: Safeguards are in place to protect against fraudulent voting using the Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot (FWAB).
Rumor: A malicious actor can easily defraud an election using the Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot (FWAB).
Get the Facts: Changing an election using fraudulently submitted FWABs would be highly difficult to do. This is because election offices have security measures in place to detect such activity.
The FWAB is primarily used as a backup ballot for military and overseas voters who requested but did not yet receive their absentee ballot. FWAB users must provide their signature and meet varying state voter registration and absentee ballot request requirements, which can include provision of full or partial social security number, state identification number, proof of identification, and/or witness signature.
Since only military and overseas voters are eligible to use the FWAB, relatively few of them are submitted each election. In 2016, states reported that only 23,291 total FWABs were submitted nationwide, with all but six states receiving less than 1,000 FWABs statewide. Since use is relatively rare, spikes in FWAB usage would be detected as anomalous.
Useful Sources
52 U.S.C. §'¯20303Voting Assistance Guide, FVAPElection Forms and Tools for Sending, FVAP2016 Election Administration and Voting Survey Comprehensive Report, EACLink directly to this rumor by using: https://www.cisa.gov/rumorcontrol#rumor8 Reality: Election officials provide writing instruments that are approved for marking ballots to all in-person voters using hand-marked paper ballots.
Rumor: Poll workers gave specific writing instruments, such as Sharpies, only to specific voters to cause their ballots to be rejected.
Get the Facts: Election jurisdictions allow voters to mark ballots with varying types of writing instruments, based on state law and other considerations such as tabulation system requirements. Poll workers are required to provide approved writing devices to voters.
Although felt-tip pens, like Sharpies, may bleed through ballots, some election officials have stated that ballot tabulation equipment in their jurisdictions can still read these ballots. Many jurisdictions even design their ballots with offset columns to prevent any potential bleed through from impacting the ability to easily scan both sides of ballots.
If a ballot has issues that impact its ability to be scanned, it can be hand counted or duplicated, or adjudicated by election officials, who use defined procedures such as chain of custody to ensure protect ballot secrecy and integrity. Many states additionally have ''voter intent'' laws that allow for ballots to be counted even when issues such as bleed-throughs or stray marks are present, as long as the voter's intent can still be determined.
Useful Sources
After the Voting Ends: The Steps to Complete an Election, NCSLBallot Duplication blog series, Council of State Governments Overseas Voting InitiativeYour local or state election officials. EAC state-by-state directoryLink directly to this rumor by using: https://www.cisa.gov/rumorcontrol#rumor18 Reality: Voters are protected by state and federal law from threats or intimidation at the polls, including from election observers.
Rumor: Observers in the polling place are permitted to intimidate voters, campaign, and interfere with voting.
Get the Facts: While most states have a process to permit a limited number of credentialed or registered observers at in-person voting locations to observe the voting process, state and federal laws offer voters general protection from threats and intimidation, including from observers. States use varying terms for observers, including ''poll watchers,'' ''challengers,'' and ''poll agents.'' In general, observers are prohibited from violating ballot secrecy, campaigning, collecting private voter information, and obstructing or interfering with the voting process. Observers in some states may report potential issues to election officials, such as questioned eligibility of a voter, suspicious behavior, or suspected rule violations. Intimidation or threatening behavior is never permissible.
Under certain circumstances, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) Civil Rights Division may monitor polling place procedures for the protection of voters under federal voting rights laws. International observers, including delegations from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe or the Organization for American States, who have been invited by the U.S. Department of State, may also observe in-person voting processes in some states.
If you feel that you've been a victim of, or witnessed, voter intimidation or threats, please report the experience to the DOJ Civil Rights Division's Voting Section by phone 800-253-3931 or through its complaint portal at https://civilrights.justice.gov/. If you experience an emergency, please call 911.
Useful Sources
18 U.S.C. § 245(b)(1)(A), 18 U.S.C. §'¯594, 52 U.S.C. §'¯20511, 18 U.S.C. §§ 241 and 242Election Crimes and Security, FBIFederal Prosecution of Election Offenses, DOJAbout Federal Observers and Election Monitoring, DOJState Laws on Poll Watchers and Challengers, NASSPoll Watchers and Challengers, NCSLPolicies for Election Observers, NCSLOSCE/ODIHR Election Observation USA 2020 Factsheet, OSCELink directly to this rumor by using: https://www.cisa.gov/rumorcontrol#rumor13 Reality: Safeguards are in place to protect ballot secrecy.
Rumor: Someone is claiming to know who I voted for.
Get the Facts: Ballot secrecy is guaranteed by law in all states. Election officials implement various safeguards to protect voters' choices from being viewable or knowable by others, including the election officials themselves. With few exceptions, these security measures ensure that individual ballots, once cast, cannot be traced back to the voters who cast them. For in-person voting, privacy measures include dividers between voting stations and requirements that poll workers maintain distance from voters while they are casting their ballots. For mail-in and provisional voting, election officials follow strict procedures to ensure ballot secrecy when ballots are retrieved from mail-in and provisional ballot envelopes.
Ballot secrecy rights may be voluntarily waived by voters in certain circumstances, and waiver may be required in some of these, such as military and overseas voters that vote by fax or e-mail.
While ballot choices are secret in almost all circumstances, a voter's party affiliation and history of voting generally are not. Information contained in voter registration records, such as name, address, phone number, and political party affiliation (in states with party-based voter registration), is generally available to political parties and others. This data also regularly contains information on whether a voter voted in a particular election, but not their ballot choices.
Useful Sources
Voting Outside the Polling Place: Absentee, All-Mail and other Voting at Home Options, NCSL Secrecy of the Ballot and Ballot Selfies, NCSLStates that are Required to Provide Secrecy Sleeves for Absentee/Mail Ballots, NCSLAccess To and Use of Voter Registration Lists, NCSLLink directly to this rumor by using: https://www.cisa.gov/rumorcontrol#rumor9 Reality: Polling place lookup sites can experience outages for non-malicious reasons.
Rumor: If polling place lookup sites experience an outage, election infrastructure must have been compromised.
Get the Facts: Polling place lookup sites, like all websites, may experience outages for a variety of reasons, impacting their availability to voters. Polling place lookup sites are not connected to infrastructure that counts votes and are typically segmented from infrastructure that enables voting, such as the voter registration database. Election officials will point potential voters to alternate tools and resources for this information in the event of an issue.
Useful Sources
Election Infrastructure Cyber Risk Assessment, CISAElection Infrastructure Cyber Risk Infographic, CISAYour local or state election officials EAC state-by-state directoryLink directly to this rumor by using: https://www.cisa.gov/rumorcontrol#rumor10
GLITCH
Dominion voting systems
This financial analysis (Benford's Law of Anomalous Numbers) is used in forensic accounting by the SEC to detect fake numerical data. Enron's financials stood out as doctored under this model.
In 2018 an analysis of the 2016 election results in Milwaukee showed suspicious numbers for Hillary. Beyond that thesis, the suspicious counties showed a common machine vendor of Dominion.
In 2014, this company invested $2.25m in the Clinton Foundation.
For the 2020 election this same phenomenon has been identified once again in
Wisconsin: https://thedonald.win/p/11PpU0elkL/wisconsin-will-go-red-benfords-l/c/
Detroit: https://thedonald.win/p/11PpTw7jd6/michigan-will-go-red-benfords-la/c/
Pennsylvania: https://thedonald.win/p/11PpU0fJuT/pennsylvania-will-go-red-benford/c/
https://thedonald.win/p/11PpTxETac/voter-fraud-detected-in-philadel/c/
Again, Dominion was the common vendor in all these cases. Likely at the hand of intentional "glitches".
Texas rejected Dominion voting systems
https://www.sos.texas.gov/elections/laws/dominion.shtml
Software rejected by TX more than once.
The examiner reports identified multiple hardware and software issues that preclude the Office of the
Texas Secretary of State from determining that the Democracy Suite 5.5-A system satisfies each of
the voting-system requirements set forth in the Texas Election Code.
Specifically, the examiner reports raise concerns about whether the Democracy Suite 5.5-A system is suitable for its intended purpose; operates efficiently and accurately; and is safe from FRAUDULENT or unauthorized MANIPULATION. (note: emphasis mine)
Therefore, the Democracy Suite 5.5-A system and corresponding hardware devices do
not meet the standards for certification prescribed by Section 122.001 of the Texas Election Code.
We simply believe tecnology
Georgia election official: Machine glitch caused by last-minute vendor upload - POLITICO
Sat, 07 Nov 2020 23:40
The companies ''uploaded something last night, which is not normal, and it caused a glitch,'' said Marcia Ridley, elections supervisor at Spalding County Board of Election. That glitch prevented pollworkers from using the pollbooks to program smart cards that the voters insert into the voting machines.
Ridley said that a representative from the two companies called her after poll workers began having problems with the equipment Tuesday morning and said the problem was due to an upload to the machines by one of their technicians overnight.
''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.
Gabriel Sterling, voting system implementation manager in the secretary of state's office, told reporters that the issue likely was a dataset that got uploaded to the systems, but that they don't know for certain. He did not say if the dataset was uploaded by the voting machine vendor.
Sterling told reporters the issue took some time to fix because technicians had to bring in additional equipment to correct the problem.
Neither Dominion nor KnowInk responded to a request to comment. A spokesperson for the secretary of state's office also did not respond to follow-up questions about who uploaded the dataset and whether it had been reviewed and tested by anyone beforehand.
Jennifer Doran, elections director for the Morgan County Board of Elections and Registration, said the issue was with how the KnowInk pollbooks encode a voter access card that is used with the Dominion voting machines.
When voters sign in at a voting location, poll workers insert a voter access card into the Poll Pad tablet and encode it for that voter. The card is then inserted into voting machines to display the proper ballot for that voter. The glitch apparently prevented poll workers from encoding those cards.
''Morgan County poll workers did a great job of quickly moving to emergency backup procedures so that voters were able to continue voting,'' Doran said. She said Dominion technicians fixed the issue.
The counties devised a workaround in some cases by having poll managers use their own card and a code to initialize the voting machine for each voter. But this caused long lines at some precincts.
Georgia uses Dominion voting machines and KnowInk Poll Pads statewide '-- systems that the state only deployed in every county for the first time this year after replacing its previous 20-year-old electronic voting systems. It's not clear why other Georgia counties did not have the problems Morgan and Spalding had.
Eric Geller contributed to this report.
Software Glitch Caused 6,000 Votes to Switch From Trump to Biden in One MI County '-- 47 MI Counties Used This Software '' TopTradeGurus
Fri, 06 Nov 2020 23:06
please shareMichigan GOP Chair: 47 of Michigan counties used the same software that caused 6,000 votes in one county to switch from Trump to Biden. ''These counties that used this software need to closely examine their result for similar discrepancies.''
WATCH VIDEO https://video.twimg.com/amplify_video/1324780820410884098/vid/1280x720/0OAj7dx3goqlohYV.mp4?tag=13Michigan has had a software 'glitch' which switched 6,000 votes from Trump to Biden in one county. If this 'glitch' has occurred in all 47 counties it was used in, Trump will win Michigan when it is investigated.UPDATE: Michigan's Antrim County flipped to a win for Donald Trump after an election-software glitch was fixed today. Revised totals now show that Trump won by an estimated 2,500 votes. Michigan's GOP Chairwoman, Laura Cox is calling for 47 other counties in Michigan to ''closely examine their results for similar discrepancies.''
URGENT: Twitter, Facebook, & The News Media plan to block trump from communicating with his people. You can download the Trump Campaign app for official communications.GET THE TRUMP APP FOR FASTEST UPDATES ''
please share RIGGED ELECTION 2020 Michigan '' Pennsylvania '' WisconsinLatest Stories About Rigged Elections:
Rumor Control | CISA
Sun, 08 Nov 2020 14:04
Mis- and Disinformation can undermine public confidence in the electoral process, as well as in our democracy.
A message from the CISA Director.
This video is also available directly on YouTube.
This webpage is for people with questions about the security of their vote and preemptively debunks potential areas for disinformation. You can learn more about mis- and disinformation from CISA's Countering Foreign Influence Task Force. Click an icon below to go directly to that section.
Reality: The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) do not design or audit ballots, which are processes managed by state and local election officials.
Rumor: DHS or CISA printed paper ballots with security measures and is auditing results as a countermeasure against ballot counterfeiting.
Get the Facts: While DHS and CISA assist states and localities with securing election infrastructure, DHS and CISA do not design, print, or audit ballots. State and local election officials manage ballot design and printing, as well as the auditing of results.
Local election offices have security and detection measures in place that make it highly difficult to commit fraud through counterfeit ballots. While the specific measures vary, in accordance with state and local election laws and practices, ballot security measures can include signature matching, information checks, barcodes, watermarks, and precise paper weights.
DHS and CISA operate in support of state and local election officials, and do not administer elections or handle ballots. CISA's role in election security includes sharing information, such as cyber threat indicators, with state and local election officials, as well as providing technical cybersecurity services (e.g. vulnerability scanning) upon the request of those officials.
Useful Sources
Election Infrastructure Security, CISAElection Security, DHSFederal Role in U.S. Campaigns and Elections: An Overview, CRSMail-in Voting Integrity Safeguards, CISAMail-in Voting 2020 Risk Assessment, CISAYour local or state election officials EAC state-by-state directoryLink directly to this rumor by using: https://www.cisa.gov/rumorcontrol#rumor19 Reality: Robust safeguards including canvassing and auditing procedures help ensure the accuracy of official election results.
Rumor: A bad actor could change election results without detection.
Get the Facts: The systems and processes used by election officials to tabulate votes and certify official results are protected by various safeguards that help ensure the accuracy of election results. These safeguards include measures that help ensure tabulation systems function as intended, protect against malicious software, and enable the identification and correction of any irregularities.
Every state has voting system safeguards to ensure each ballot cast in the election can be correctly counted. State procedures often include testing and certification of voting systems, required auditable logs, and software checks, such as logic and accuracy tests, to ensure that ballots are properly counted before election results are made official. With these security measures, election officials can check to determine that devices are running the certified software and functioning properly.
Every state also has laws and processes to verify vote tallies before results are officially certified. State processes include robust chain-of-custody procedures, auditable logs, and canvass processes. The vast majority of votes cast in this election will be cast on paper ballots or using machines that produce a paper audit trail, which allow for tabulation audits to be conducted from the paper record in the event any issues emerge with the voting system software, audit logs, or tabulation. These canvass and certification procedures are also generally conducted in the public eye, as political party representatives and other observers are typically allowed to be present, to add an additional layer of verification.
Useful Sources
Election Results Reporting Risks and Mitigations, CISAElection Infrastructure Cyber Risk Assessment, CISAMail-in Voting Integrity Safeguards, CISAMail-in Voting Processing Factors Map, CISAPost-Election Process Mapping Infographic, CISAYour local or state election officials. EAC state-by-state directoryPost-election audits, NCSLPolicies for Election Observers, NSCLLink directly to this rumor by using: https://www.cisa.gov/rumorcontrol#rumor17 Reality: Election results reporting may occur more slowly than prior years. This does not indicate there is any problem with the counting process or results. Official results are not certified until all validly cast ballots have been counted, including ballots that are counted after election night.
Rumor: If results as reported on election night change over the ensuing days or weeks, the process is hacked or compromised, so I can't trust the results.
Get the Facts: Elections will look different this year amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Although ballot processing in some states may take longer than in past years due to increases in mail-in ballot usage and process adaptations to make voting safer during the pandemic, this does not impact the accuracy of the counting process. Election results reported on election night are always unofficial and are provided solely for voters' convenience. In fact, no state requires that official results be certified on election night itself. Fluctuations in unofficial results reporting will occur during and after election night as more ballots are processed and counted, often including military and overseas ballots, and validated provisional ballots. Variations in state processes may also mean ballots cast through different methods (e.g., early in-person voting, mail-in voting, and election day voting) are counted and unofficially reported in different orders. Official results are released after rigorous canvassing (verification) and certification by local and state election officials.
Useful Sources
FBI-CISA Public Service Announcement: Foreign Actors and Cybercriminals Likely to Spread Disinformation Regarding 2020 Election ResultsElection Results Reporting Risks and Mitigations, CISAMail-in Voting 2020 Risk Assessment, CISAMail-in Voting Integrity Safeguards, CISAMail-in Voting Processing Factors Map, CISAPost-Election Process Mapping Infographic, CISAUSPS Election Mail Information Center, USPSFederal Election Results FAQs, CRSState Election Canvassing Timeframes and Recount Thresholds, NASSAfter the Voting Ends: The Steps to Complete an Election, NCSLElection Security State Policies, NCSLChanges to Mail in Voting in 2020, NCSLLink directly to this rumor by using: https://www.cisa.gov/rumorcontrol#rumor14 Reality: Provisional ballots are counted in every election regardless of result margins.
Rumor: Provisional ballots are only counted if there's a close race.
Get the Facts: All provisional ballots are reviewed by election officials in every election regardless of result margins. Provisional ballots cast by individuals whose eligibility can be verified are counted. Additionally, election officials are required to provide individuals who cast provisional ballots written information regarding how they can determine whether their vote was counted and, if it was not counted, the reason for its rejection.
Useful Sources
52 U.S.C. § 21082Post-Election Process Mapping Infographic, CISAProvisional Ballots, NCSLState Policies on Voting In-Person or Changing Vote After Requesting a Mail/Absentee Ballot, NASSYour local or state election officials. EAC state-by-state directoryLink directly to this rumor by using: https://www.cisa.gov/rumorcontrol#rumor15 Reality: In some circumstances, elections officials are permitted to ''duplicate'' or otherwise further mark cast ballots to ensure they can be properly counted.
Rumor: Witnessing election officials marking ballots means that fraudulent voting is taking place.
Get the Facts: Some ballots cannot be read by a ballot scanner due to issues such as damage or misprinting. Some jurisdictions hand count such ballots, while others create duplicate ballots so they can be read by a ballot scanner. Some jurisdictions permit election officials to enhance markings on ballots that are too faint to scan following a process to adjudicate the voter's intent based on state law. In jurisdictions where duplication of unscannable ballots is permitted, election officials duplicate the ballot precisely to ensure all the voter's choices are transferred correctly to the new ballot. Both the original and duplicate ballot are labeled and logged so that the two ballots can be tracked and audited. Many jurisdictions require bipartisan teams of two or four personnel to complete this process and verify that votes are accurately transferred to duplicated ballots. The process is often open to public observation.
In some jurisdictions, ballot duplication is referred to as ballot remaking, ballot replication, or ballot transcription.
Useful Sources
After the Voting Ends: The Steps to Complete an Election, NCSLBallot Duplication blog series, Council of State Governments Overseas Voting InitiativeYour local or state election officials EAC state-by-state directory.Link directly to this rumor by using: https://www.cisa.gov/rumorcontrol#rumor16 Reality: Election night results are not official results.
Rumor: If election night reporting sites experience an outage, vote counts will be lost or manipulated.
Get the Facts: Election night results are not official results. These sites may experience outages due to a variety of issues including too many people trying to view the site or cyberattacks. Such disruptions do not impact the integrity of votes or the official certified results. Election results made available on election night are always unofficial. Official results are rigorously canvassed (reviewed), and certified by local and state election officials. Most states have requirements for post-election audits as well.
Useful Sources
FBI-CISA Public Service Announcement: Foreign Actors and Cybercriminals Likely to Spread Disinformation Regarding 2020 Election ResultsFBI-CISA Public Service Announcement: Cyber Threats to Voting Processes Could Slow But Not Prevent VotingPost-Election Process Mapping Infographic, CISAFederal Election Results FAQs, CRSLink directly to this rumor by using: https://www.cisa.gov/rumorcontrol#rumor11 Reality: A defaced or manipulated election night reporting webpage would not impact counting and certification of official results.
Rumor: If the election night reporting webpage is defaced or displays incorrect results, the integrity of the election is compromised.
Get the Facts: If a webpage has been defaced or is displaying incorrect results, it would not impact the integrity of votes or the official certified results. Election results made available on election night are always unofficial.
Useful Sources
FBI-CISA Public Service Announcement: Foreign Actors and Cybercriminals Likely to Spread Disinformation Regarding 2020 Election ResultsFBI-CISA Public Service Announcement: Cyber Threats to Voting Processes Could Slow But Not Prevent VotingPost-Election Process Mapping Infographic, CISALink directly to this rumor by using: https://www.cisa.gov/rumorcontrol#rumor12 Reality: Malicious actors can use fake personas and impersonate real accounts.
Rumor: If a social media account claims an identity, the account must be run by that person or organization.
Get the Facts: Malicious actors often use fake personas and impersonate real accounts to trick the public into believing disinformation, including election-related disinformation.
Popular social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, and others provide an indication, such as a checkmark that is either blue or grey, to indicate that an account is verified by the platform. If an account claims to be a well-known person or official organization but is not verified, they may be an imposter.
There are multiple things to look for if you think an account is fake or spoofed. Is the account brand new? Do they create content or merely re-share? Do they have a coherent profile description and does it match what they are sharing? Do they have a real profile photo? A best practice when looking for election-related information is to go to trusted sources, like your local election official.
If you find a suspicious social media post or account, consider reporting the activity to the platform so others don't get duped. Most platforms have a ''report'' function built into posts, so it's easy to report suspicious items, such as misinformation about election infrastructure. If an account is posting election disinformation, consider reporting to your state or local election official.
Useful Sources
CISA Disinformation Toolkit#TrustedInfo2020, NASSVoter Resources: State Voter Information, NASEDVoting and Elections Information, usa.govYour local or state election officials EAC state-by-state directoryLink directly to this rumor by using: https://www.cisa.gov/rumorcontrol#rumor1 Reality: Cyber actors can "spoof" or forge email sender addresses to look like they come from someone else.
Rumor: I received an election-related email that looks like it came from a certain organization, so the organization must have sent it.
Get the Facts: Cyber actors can forge emails to look like they came from someone else. This common tactic is called email spoofing, where attackers send an email pretending to be from a specific domain or organization in an attempt to harvest personal data or spread malware. Such spoofed emails can also be used to disseminate false or inflammatory information. To send realistic-looking emails, cyber actors may forge the sender address to hide the origin of an email or set up spoofed domains that have a slightly different name from the real domain. Always be wary of out of the ordinary emails and look to trusted sources, such as the organization's official website, in order to verify. Never provide personal information or download files from suspicious emails. If you receive a suspicious election-related email, consider reporting it to your local election official or local FBI field office.
Useful Sources
FBI-CISA Public Service Announcement: Spoofed Internet Domains and Email Accounts Pose Cyber and Disinformation Risks to VotersActions to Counter Email-based Attacks on Election-Related Entities, CISAEnhanced Email and Web Security, CISALink directly to this rumor by using: https://www.cisa.gov/rumorcontrol#rumor2 Reality: Some voter registration data is publicly available.
Rumor: Someone possessing or posting voter registration data means voter registration databases have been hacked .
Get the Facts: Some voter registration information is public information and is available to political campaigns, researchers, and often members of the public, frequently for purchase. According to a recent FBI and CISA public alert, cyber actors may make false claims of ''hacked'' voter information to undermine confidence in U.S. democratic institutions.
Useful Sources
Availability of State Voter File and Confidential InformationFBI-CISA Public Service Announcement: False Claims of Hacked Voter Information Likely Intended to Cast Doubt on Legitimacy of U.S. ElectionsAccess To and Use Of Voter Registration Lists, NCSLLink directly to this rumor by using: https://www.cisa.gov/rumorcontrol#rumor3 Reality: Online voter registration websites can experience outages for non-malicious reasons.
Rumor: An online voter registration website experiences an outage and claims are made the election has been compromised.
Get the Facts: Outages in online voter registration systems occur for a variety of reasons, including configuration errors, hardware issues, natural disasters, communications infrastructure issues, and distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. As CISA and FBI warned in a recent public alert, a system outage does not necessarily mean the integrity of voter registration information or any other election system has been impacted. When an outage occurs, election officials work to verify the integrity of voter registration information.
Useful Sources
FBI-CISA Public Service Announcement: False Claims of Hacked Voter Information Likely Intended to Cast Doubt on Legitimacy of U.S. ElectionsSecuring Voter Registration Data, CISAYour local or state election officials EAC state-by-state directoryLink directly to this rumor by using: https://www.cisa.gov/rumorcontrol#rumor4 Reality: A compromise of a state or local government system does not necessarily mean election infrastructure or the integrity of your vote has been compromised.
Rumor: If state or local jurisdiction information technology (IT) has been compromised, the election results cannot be trusted.
Get the Facts: Hacks of state and local IT systems should not be minimized; however, a compromise of state or local IT systems does not mean those systems are election-related. Even if an election-related system is compromised, a compromise of a system does not necessarily mean the integrity of the vote has been affected. Election officials have multiple safeguards and contingencies in place, including provisional ballots or backup paper poll books that limit the impact from a cyber incident with minimal disruption to voting. Additionally, having an auditable paper record ensures that the vote count can be verified and validated.
Useful Sources
FBI-CISA Public Service Announcement: Cyber Threats to Voting Processes Could Slow But Not Prevent VotingElection Infrastructure Cyber Risk Assessment, CISALink directly to this rumor by using: https://www.cisa.gov/rumorcontrol#rumor5 Reality: Malicious actors can fake manipulation of voter registration data to spread disinformation.
Rumor: Videos, images or emails suggesting voter registration information is being manipulated means voters will not be able to vote.
Get the Facts: Claims are easy to fake and can be used for disinformation purposes. If voter registration data were to be manipulated, states have several safeguards in place to enable voters to vote, including offline backups of registration data, provisional ballots, and in several states, same-day registration.
Useful Sources
FBI-CISA Public Service Announcement: False Claims of Hacked Voter Information Likely Intended to Cast Doubt on Legitimacy of U.S. ElectionsSecuring Voter Registration Data, CISASecuring Voter Registration Systems, NCSLLink directly to this rumor by using: https://www.cisa.gov/rumorcontrol#rumor6 Reality: Safeguards are in place to prevent home-printed or photocopied mail-in ballots from being counted.
Rumor: A malicious actor can easily defraud an election by printing and sending in extra mail-in ballots.
Get the Facts: This is false. Committing fraud through photocopied or home-printed ballots would be highly difficult to do successfully. This is because each local election office has security measures in place to detect such malicious activity. While the specific measures vary, in accordance with state and local election laws and practices, such security measures include signature matching, information checks, barcodes, watermarks, and precise paper weights.
Useful Source
Mail-in Voting Election Integrity Safeguards Infographic, CISALink directly to this rumor by using: https://www.cisa.gov/rumorcontrol#rumor7 Reality: Safeguards are in place to protect against fraudulent voting using the Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot (FWAB).
Rumor: A malicious actor can easily defraud an election using the Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot (FWAB).
Get the Facts: Changing an election using fraudulently submitted FWABs would be highly difficult to do. This is because election offices have security measures in place to detect such activity.
The FWAB is primarily used as a backup ballot for military and overseas voters who requested but did not yet receive their absentee ballot. FWAB users must provide their signature and meet varying state voter registration and absentee ballot request requirements, which can include provision of full or partial social security number, state identification number, proof of identification, and/or witness signature.
Since only military and overseas voters are eligible to use the FWAB, relatively few of them are submitted each election. In 2016, states reported that only 23,291 total FWABs were submitted nationwide, with all but six states receiving less than 1,000 FWABs statewide. Since use is relatively rare, spikes in FWAB usage would be detected as anomalous.
Useful Sources
52 U.S.C. §'¯20303Voting Assistance Guide, FVAPElection Forms and Tools for Sending, FVAP2016 Election Administration and Voting Survey Comprehensive Report, EACLink directly to this rumor by using: https://www.cisa.gov/rumorcontrol#rumor8 Reality: Election officials provide writing instruments that are approved for marking ballots to all in-person voters using hand-marked paper ballots.
Rumor: Poll workers gave specific writing instruments, such as Sharpies, only to specific voters to cause their ballots to be rejected.
Get the Facts: Election jurisdictions allow voters to mark ballots with varying types of writing instruments, based on state law and other considerations such as tabulation system requirements. Poll workers are required to provide approved writing devices to voters.
Although felt-tip pens, like Sharpies, may bleed through ballots, some election officials have stated that ballot tabulation equipment in their jurisdictions can still read these ballots. Many jurisdictions even design their ballots with offset columns to prevent any potential bleed through from impacting the ability to easily scan both sides of ballots.
If a ballot has issues that impact its ability to be scanned, it can be hand counted or duplicated, or adjudicated by election officials, who use defined procedures such as chain of custody to ensure protect ballot secrecy and integrity. Many states additionally have ''voter intent'' laws that allow for ballots to be counted even when issues such as bleed-throughs or stray marks are present, as long as the voter's intent can still be determined.
Useful Sources
After the Voting Ends: The Steps to Complete an Election, NCSLBallot Duplication blog series, Council of State Governments Overseas Voting InitiativeYour local or state election officials. EAC state-by-state directoryLink directly to this rumor by using: https://www.cisa.gov/rumorcontrol#rumor18 Reality: Voters are protected by state and federal law from threats or intimidation at the polls, including from election observers.
Rumor: Observers in the polling place are permitted to intimidate voters, campaign, and interfere with voting.
Get the Facts: While most states have a process to permit a limited number of credentialed or registered observers at in-person voting locations to observe the voting process, state and federal laws offer voters general protection from threats and intimidation, including from observers. States use varying terms for observers, including ''poll watchers,'' ''challengers,'' and ''poll agents.'' In general, observers are prohibited from violating ballot secrecy, campaigning, collecting private voter information, and obstructing or interfering with the voting process. Observers in some states may report potential issues to election officials, such as questioned eligibility of a voter, suspicious behavior, or suspected rule violations. Intimidation or threatening behavior is never permissible.
Under certain circumstances, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) Civil Rights Division may monitor polling place procedures for the protection of voters under federal voting rights laws. International observers, including delegations from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe or the Organization for American States, who have been invited by the U.S. Department of State, may also observe in-person voting processes in some states.
If you feel that you've been a victim of, or witnessed, voter intimidation or threats, please report the experience to the DOJ Civil Rights Division's Voting Section by phone 800-253-3931 or through its complaint portal at https://civilrights.justice.gov/. If you experience an emergency, please call 911.
Useful Sources
18 U.S.C. § 245(b)(1)(A), 18 U.S.C. §'¯594, 52 U.S.C. §'¯20511, 18 U.S.C. §§ 241 and 242Election Crimes and Security, FBIFederal Prosecution of Election Offenses, DOJAbout Federal Observers and Election Monitoring, DOJState Laws on Poll Watchers and Challengers, NASSPoll Watchers and Challengers, NCSLPolicies for Election Observers, NCSLOSCE/ODIHR Election Observation USA 2020 Factsheet, OSCELink directly to this rumor by using: https://www.cisa.gov/rumorcontrol#rumor13 Reality: Safeguards are in place to protect ballot secrecy.
Rumor: Someone is claiming to know who I voted for.
Get the Facts: Ballot secrecy is guaranteed by law in all states. Election officials implement various safeguards to protect voters' choices from being viewable or knowable by others, including the election officials themselves. With few exceptions, these security measures ensure that individual ballots, once cast, cannot be traced back to the voters who cast them. For in-person voting, privacy measures include dividers between voting stations and requirements that poll workers maintain distance from voters while they are casting their ballots. For mail-in and provisional voting, election officials follow strict procedures to ensure ballot secrecy when ballots are retrieved from mail-in and provisional ballot envelopes.
Ballot secrecy rights may be voluntarily waived by voters in certain circumstances, and waiver may be required in some of these, such as military and overseas voters that vote by fax or e-mail.
While ballot choices are secret in almost all circumstances, a voter's party affiliation and history of voting generally are not. Information contained in voter registration records, such as name, address, phone number, and political party affiliation (in states with party-based voter registration), is generally available to political parties and others. This data also regularly contains information on whether a voter voted in a particular election, but not their ballot choices.
Useful Sources
Voting Outside the Polling Place: Absentee, All-Mail and other Voting at Home Options, NCSL Secrecy of the Ballot and Ballot Selfies, NCSLStates that are Required to Provide Secrecy Sleeves for Absentee/Mail Ballots, NCSLAccess To and Use of Voter Registration Lists, NCSLLink directly to this rumor by using: https://www.cisa.gov/rumorcontrol#rumor9 Reality: Polling place lookup sites can experience outages for non-malicious reasons.
Rumor: If polling place lookup sites experience an outage, election infrastructure must have been compromised.
Get the Facts: Polling place lookup sites, like all websites, may experience outages for a variety of reasons, impacting their availability to voters. Polling place lookup sites are not connected to infrastructure that counts votes and are typically segmented from infrastructure that enables voting, such as the voter registration database. Election officials will point potential voters to alternate tools and resources for this information in the event of an issue.
Useful Sources
Election Infrastructure Cyber Risk Assessment, CISAElection Infrastructure Cyber Risk Infographic, CISAYour local or state election officials EAC state-by-state directoryLink directly to this rumor by using: https://www.cisa.gov/rumorcontrol#rumor10
QFS
Bogus DHS press release QFS
QFS-Q WTF?
SCOTUS
The Supreme Court hands Trump a small victory in Pennsylvania's vote count. - The New York Times
Sat, 07 Nov 2020 18:53
Politics | The Supreme Court hands Trump a small victory in Pennsylvania's vote count. Justice Samuel Alito and his wife, Martha-Ann, in Washington, D.C., in September. Credit... Pool photo by Andrew Harnik Nov. 7, 2020, 7:48 a.m. ET Nearly a dozen lawsuits filed by President Trump and his allies are working their way through the courts in Nevada, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Georgia, trying '-- so far unsuccessfully '-- to stop ballot counting and invalidate enough votes to erase Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s leads there. Here is a look at those cases.
In Pennsylvania, the biggest fight has been over ballots that were postmarked by Election Day but arrive later. In September, the state Supreme Court ruled, over Republican objections, that election officials could accept ballots arriving up to three days later. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to intercede, but left open the possibility that it could revisit the question.
Separately, the Supreme Court did grant the Trump camp a minor victory in Pennsylvania on Friday evening, when Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. ordered election officials there to keep the late-arriving ballots separate from other ballots, and not to include them, for now, in announced vote totals. But the victory was essentially in name only: Pennsylvania's secretary of state had already given that instruction.
The entire dispute over the late-arriving ballots could be moot, because Mr. Biden has taken the lead in Pennsylvania even without them.
One of several other Pennsylvania disputes involves people from both parties who observe the tabulation in Philadelphia, where they were told to stay 10 feet away from the vote counters. Some Trump allies have claimed, falsely, that no observers were allowed. In response to a Republican complaint, a judge ruled on Thursday that they could stand within six feet, but refused to stop the counting.
A similar case in Michigan was thrown out.
In Nevada, the Trump campaign has sued to stop the processing of mail ballots, claiming that its monitors had inadequate access. A judge denied the request, citing a lack of evidence. Another Republican suit claimed lax authentication of ballots; a judge dismissed it.
An Arizona lawsuit claims that ballots filled out with felt-tipped pens were being discarded; state and federal officials say that is false. A case in Georgia claims that a few dozen late-arriving ballots '-- which the state does not allow, even if they are postmarked by Election Day '-- were not properly set apart, raising the possibility that they would be counted. A judge threw out the complaint, saying there was no evidence that the ballots in question had arrived late.
What happens if Biden dies before inauguration day? '-- Quartz
Sun, 08 Nov 2020 13:00
In the nearly three months before inauguration day on Jan. 20, there are still a few more hoops for Joe Biden to jump through before taking office: the official electoral college vote on Dec. 14, followed by the congressional certification of that vote on Jan. 6.
It may seem morbid, but given that Biden, at 77, will be the oldest president-elect in history and is running in the midst of a pandemic, it's worth clarifying what would happen if he dies before taking office.
If Biden were to die before December's electoral college vote, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) would have the ability to name a replacement candidate and pressure the electors currently committed to Biden to support them instead. Presumably, although not necessarily, the new candidate would be Biden's vice president Kamala Harris.
Most states have laws, upheld by the Supreme Court, that penalize or discount so-called ''faithless'' electors who switch their vote'--so it's likely that this DNC-selected candidate would win, although there would be sure to be plenty of legal wrangling over each state's handling of this process. There's also nothing stopping the DNC from simply leaving Biden's name on the ballot and proceeding on the assumption that Harris will assume his position after the electoral college vote, although this seems less likely.
Once Biden is selected by the electoral college, he officially becomes the president-elect. If he were to die between the electoral college vote but before the early January congressional certification, members of congress have an opportunity to object to the electoral results in any state and, if both chambers agree, to switch that state's votes to the opposing candidate. It's pretty hard to imagine Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic House speaker, agreeing to hand a state to Trump in any conceivable circumstance.
After Congressional certification and before inauguration day, the 20th amendment would kick in. It provides that ''if, at the time fixed for the beginning of the term of the president, the president elect shall have died, the vice president elect shall become president.''
Here's hoping that none of this becomes relevant'--regardless of your choice of candidate, this election has dragged on for long enough already.
Read more of Quartz's election coverageAmerican democracy bent but it didn't breakWhat Biden's win changes for America, China, and the environmentThe dystopian, Trumpian future narrowly avoided by America and the planetHow Biden's climate plan will work without a Democratic Senate
Retribution
Millennial virtue signalling hysteria
Long time NA listener here (10 years) -- I'm a 26 year old millennial and live in Los Angeles.
Thought you might be interested in hearing about some recent experiences I've had over the last few weeks in response to your comments about the millennial hysteria and virtue signaling going on with the election.
While this hysteria is nothing new to any of us, it's becoming more pervasive and concerning, even with the election outcome. A few weeks ago, my girlfriend of one year broke up with me because of my decision to vote for Trump. I'm not going to go into why I voted for him for brevity, but regardless my vote doesn't matter, I live in California. The reason she cut ties with me, she claimed, was because of her pursuit as a lawyer, and that our two belief systems simply can't morally co-exist. In other words, dating a Trump supporter isn't cool, sexy, and god forbid her future attorney friends find out who she is dating.
This is only one of three instances. After the election this past Tuesday, I confessed to another friend of mine that I voted for Trump. This friend was also shocked. I told her it's okay to have healthy disagreements and that we shouldn't prioritize politics before friendship. I was met with the following response: "That's fine that you voted for Trump. I don't judge you for having a different opinion than me, but now I know that we have fundamentally different opinions. But this isn't a difference of opinion, this is systematically denying other human beings life and health and liberty. I can't overlook this and can't consider you a friend in the way I used to." I was pretty disappointed given this has been a close friend of mine for 5 years and someone I genuinely cared about.
Here's another response I got from a third friend: "You and 70 million other people not only voted against basic human rights and equality, but you decided racism, homophobia, islamophobia, transphobia & misogynistic behavior wasn't a deal break in a president. Quite frankly, I don't want anything to do with someone like that."
I always knew there was this level of hysteria/virtue signaling, but I see this evolving into something bigger and more concerning; retribution.
Even on social media, I am seeing a lot of content from people my age questioning how society is planning on holding Trump supporters accountable, insinuating some sort of South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission for the U.S. While this seems far-fetched, it's already happening. Scope the Trump Accountability Project if you haven't yet (link at the bottom). I guess my overall point I'm trying to make is that even as Trump may be gone, Trump derangement syndrome doesn't seem like it's departing any time soon. This is sad it's like this, but I think you have been spot on all along about children being oversocialized and under informed. Take it from me, a millennial.
You and John are the best and I appreciate all that you do! I've sent you $100 through PayPal (might show up as John Boyd) as I would certainly appreciate a thorough de-douching and some general karma.
TYFYC,
Patrick
Being poor winners shows the ultimate un-amricanism
The Kids will come home from a cold carnival
The Trump Accountability Project
Sun, 08 Nov 2020 12:14
We must never forget those who furthered the Trump agenda.We should welcome in our fellow Americans with whom we differ politically.
But those who took a paycheck from the Trump Administration should not profit from their efforts to tear our democracy apart. The world should never forget those who, when faced with a decision, chose to put their money, their time, and their reputations behind separating children from their families, encouraging racism and anti-Semitism, and negligently causing the unnecessary loss of life and economic devastation from our country's failed response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
We should not allow the following groups of people to profit from their experience:
Those who elected him.Individuals who worked for the Trump for President campaign, Republican National Committee, and affiliated PACs in 2016 or 2020.
Those who staffed his government.Individuals who worked in any role as a political appointee in the Trump Administration.
Those who funded him.Individuals who used their massive personal wealth and influence to bundle money for Trump.
Blackburn Stares Down Radical Leftists Compiling Trump Supporter List
Sun, 08 Nov 2020 12:47
Sen. Marsha Blackburn has responded to an initiative from far-left Democrats and Never Trump Republicans aiming to target supporters of President Donald Trump by adding them to a list and holding them ''accountable'' after the election.
Blackburn's remarks were made in a tweet, which quoted the announcement of the ''Trump Accountability Project,'' which aims to ''make sure anyone who took a paycheck to help Trump undermine America is held responsible for what they did.''
''If by undermining America you mean stopping Democrat socialists, not defunding police and blocking the Green New Deal, add me to your list,'' Blackburn wrote, adding the hashtag #MAGA.
If by undermining America you mean stopping Democrat socialists, not defunding police and blocking the Green New Deal, add me to your list!#MAGA
'' Marsha https://t.co/JwFRxO3aZi
'-- Marsha Blackburn (@VoteMarsha) November 7, 2020
The effort, which was kickstarted on Friday, was promoted by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-NY), who wrote in a tweet, ''Is anyone archiving these Trump sycophants for when they try to downplay or deny their complicity in the future? I foresee decent probability of many deleted Tweets, writings, photos in the future.''
Lol at the ''party of personal responsibility'' being upset at the idea of being responsible for their behavior over last four years
'-- Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) November 6, 2020
''Lol at the 'party of personal responsibility' being upset at the idea of being responsible for their behavior over last four years,'' she added in another tweet.
The website's database full of names of Trump supporters includes a list of federal judges appointed by the president.
Jennifer Rubin, a Washington Post columnist and a consistent Never Trumper, said in a tweet that any Republican who challenges the results of the presidential election should be disqualified from holding public office and not welcome in ''polite'' society.
Any R now promoting rejection of an election or calling to not to follow the will of voters or making baseless allegations of fraud should never serve in office, join a corporate board, find a faculty position or be accepted into "polite" society. We have a list.
'-- Jennifer 'Count Every Vote' Rubin (@JRubinBlogger) November 6, 2020
''Any R now promoting rejection of an election or calling to not to follow the will of voters or making baseless allegations of fraud should never serve in office, join a corporate board, find a faculty position or be accepted into 'polite' society,'' Rubin stated. ''We have a list.''
Follow Kyle on Twitter @RealKyleMorris and Facebook.
Are Kids Getting Enough Hardship Inoculation & Empathy? - ClearSay
Sun, 08 Nov 2020 13:11
I've noticed a pattern; an increase in emotional fragility in children and now, adults. How is this happening? The short and simple answer: ''Bubble-wrapped children''.
Most parents care about their children and justifiably want happiness for them.
Unfortunately, these caring parents may not realize the benefits of allowing their children to experience hardship may often outweigh the pain or potential risk involved in the ''hard'' or ''boring'' or ''dangerous'' activity.
Notice how the mom in the video below gently, yet firmly works with your child to attempt to get both their needs met?
Here's an easy experiment you can tryWhen a child has the physical and mental capability to do something for themselves, and they come to you asking for help they don't really need, put aside your need to nurture or guide and (gently, if necessary) insist they do the thing.
''I hear you. It's easier if I do it for you. I wonder how much more powerful you will be when you can do this yourself?''
Of course, you will weigh the risks! I'm not advising you to put your child in danger. The point here is not to harm or cause pain to your children. The point is to allow them to experience the natural consequences of the world around them so they grow up to be people who rise to a challenge, rather than shirk away in fear. And bonus: less work for you as a parent.
Not authoritarian or permissiveWhat I'm recommending is neither ''permissive parenting'' or ''authoritarian parenting''. It's part of a growing movement called ''peaceful parenting'' where we acknowledge that interference, especially coercion, comes with a price.
Note: The ''system'' we base this article on is called Practical Empathy (PEQ) developed by Scott Swain after fifteen years of studying Nonviolent Communication (NVC) by Marshall Rosenberg, PhD.
Like most parents, we prefer our children grow up to be people who are peaceful, resourceful, responsible, powerful, and empathetic. So we, as examples, embody these traits for our children to see and experience as they grow up.
Now many parents who are not studied up on peaceful parenting might say, ''But I do all that!'' Oh? Let's see.
Do you consider it peaceful to force a child to wear what you think is best for them to wear, rather than allow them to be responsible for their own choices and experience the natural consequences lesson of learning that indeed that clothing they chose earned them discomfort throughout their day? This is a battle you can, at an appropriate age, of course, choose to let go of.
But what's the harm?Here's an image that hopefully answers that question. If this image is confusing for you, start in the middle, at the bottom. Notice the family there and the take-away ''message'' given to their children? This is a generalized example of a pre-90's family. As time moves on, the family size shrinks because parents are having less kids and fathers are sticking around less often.
Now let's talk solutionsWhich of the following is a more empathetic response to the child?''Mommy, the things that boy said to me hurt my feelings!''(a) ''That boy was wrong. He's mean. Ignore him!''
(b) ''Oh my sweet baby! Let's get you some ice cream and a toy!''
(c) ''Don't be a wimp. Hurt him back!''
(d) ''Are you sad because it hurts to hear things like that and you want more consideration for your feelings?''
AFTER empathy for your child, maybe even progressing to encouraging empathy for others with something like, ''I wonder why that boy is hurting so much he says things like that to other people?''
Which of the above methods jumps straight to ''fixing,'' ''solution,'' ''distraction,'' ''reward,'' and/or ''us vs. them'' programming and which gives empathy?
Going a bit deeper: Look again at the empathetic approach. It's conveying some powerful messages such as, ''You are responsible for your feelings'' (empowering the child) and ''His actions come from his experiences.'' Also important: We are not assigning blame or responsibility here, though PEQ-type empathy often tends to at least point out where responsibility is.
In a nutshell: Get in the habit of asking yourself, ''Does this situation offer an opportunity to become a lesson in natural consequences or empathy?''Credit to Becky Bailey's Conscious Discipline system for the idea of natural consequences. Not necessarily a new thing in the parenting world but it was new to me when I discovered it and I've found much use in the practice. In 2013, a daycare in Austin (Children's Discovery Center) required me to learn her system before I could train the teachers and kids there in use of PEQ.
Want more? Check out these articlesNOTE: The above articles are in queue to be moved to this site, so please excuse the mess.
Some books I recommend on this topicNonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg
Practical Empathy by Scott Swain (book coming out soon)
Easy To Love, Difficult to Discipline: The 7 Basic Skills for Turning Conflict by Becky Bailey
Conscious Discipline: 7 Basic Skills for Brain Smart Classroom Management by Becky Bailey
Everything Voluntary from Politics to Parenting by Skyler Collins
Punished by Rewards by Alfie Kohn
How Children Learn by John Holt
Build Back Better
Build Back Better registered Oct 10 2016 -> meant for HRC
Let Us Out!
Dobrosolav report on covid Moscow
Private clinics are not allowed to conduct Covid tests.
Private laboratories are allowed.
This was not the case in April and appears has been changed according to certain podcasts.
Any tests done must be submitted to Роспотребнадзор (Rospotrebnadzor) - a central government agency, roughly the equivalent of the US FDA.
If you do test positive, you *MUST* install a covid tracking (tracking, not tracing) app, and quarantine. The app is quite literally called "Социальный Мониторинг" (Social Monitoring), available in the app stores(!).
The quarantine (two weeks) starts from the time the test is submitted to the central agency.
Once you are quarantined
- You must open the app every four hours and take a selfie.
- If your phone's GPS shows you as somewhere other than your place of residence, you are fined 4000 rubles. (approx 50 dollars, or about 1/4th of your monthly salary for anywhere that isn't moscow. 1/10th of a standard moscow salary).
If you are unwilling to install the app, you are fined 4000 rubles.
If you are *unable* to install the app, the fine is 4000 rubles.
Liverpool barcode children
Whistleblower NHS worker reveals what's REALLY going in hospitals | Daily Mail Online
Thu, 05 Nov 2020 22:36
A whistleblower NHS healthcare assistant who publicly resigned after claiming she had 'no work for three weeks' at the height of the pandemic has said the claim the NHS is overrun is 'all lies.'
A viral Facebook video shows Shelley Tasker, 43 - a healthcare assistant at Treliske hospital, which is part of the Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust - telling members of the public what is 'really going on' behind closed doors in NHS hospitals.
In the clip filmed outside Truro Cathedral with a crowd gathering, Shelley, who is a mother and part-time photographer from Camborne, Cornwall, takes to a microphone and says: 'As much as I've always loved our NHS, it's no longer our NHS. It's run by the corrupt government and the people running this company.
'We no longer have health care, we can't see dentists. I can tell you now when I was working at the height of the pandemic I had no work for three weeks because there were no patients. We have a particular Covid ward. None of the wards were overflowing with Covid patients and they're not now.'
She went on to claim that the flu and Covid cases are now recorded as 'the same thing' on death certificates.
In response to cheers from the crowd, she continues: 'I can tell you on Friday in Treliske there were three people in with Covid. No extra deaths, three - and that covers Treliske, West Cornwall and Hayle hospital.
'The total deaths from these three hospitals in seven months, is 76 people - that's about ten people a month over the last seven months, and we have locked down.
NHS figures show that 67 people died from Covid-19 at Treliske hospital between March and September, and official data seems to back up her point - there were just four people with the virus receiving care at the Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust on October 29.
Speaking exclusively to FEMAIL about the figures the government are presenting to the public, Shelley claimed: 'It's all lies. We've closed all of Cornwall down for three people in hospital.
Charlie Rainbow took to Facebook to share a video of Cornwall Freedom Rally speech from Shelley Tasker (pictured) as she publicly resigned
NHs worker Shelley (pictured) claimed that when she was working at the height of the pandemic she had no work for three weeks because there were no patients
The Facebook page was quickly flooded with comments, including one person who wrote: 'Fantastic. Well done for speaking the truth' (pictured)
ARE CORNWALL'S HOSPITALS REALLY THAT EMPTY? Ms Tasker claimed there were just three patients in the Royal Cornwall Hospital, formerly and still commonly known as the Treliske Hospital, last Friday.
And official data seems to back up her point - there were just four people with the virus receiving care at the Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust on October 29.
For comparison, the trust - which also includes West Cornwall Hospital and St Michael's Hospital - was treating 32 Covid-19 patients at once at the height of the pandemic. But even then, it was nowhere close to being over-run by the infected.
However, Cornwall has yet to be hit by the second wave of the pandemic, with northern areas and the Midlands bearing the brunt this time around.
The fact hospitals have been filling up in hotspots has been used to justify the second national lockdown, with gloomy health bosses warning the NHS could run out of beds nationally in weeks.
But many parts of the NHS, particularly in the south, still lie empty because so many people are still hesitant to use its services for fear of catching Covid-19 or being a burden on the health service.
Some fear this could change in an instant, however, if infections continue to rise because southern hospitals have much less capacity.
SAGE - the Government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies - warned the Government the NHS was on track to be completely overwhelmed by the end of this month.
The dire forecast was made using mathematical models that were a month out of date and high low confidence intervals.
The prediction has since been challenged by top scientists and doctors who say the modelling did not anticipate how effective the three-tier lockdown system would be.
Boris Johnson admitted yesterday his localised approach was driving down cases and the R rate in hotspots.
'They haven't even died - they've supposedly got COVID. How many people are going to die because of this?
'There's a massive agenda going on here and people need to start realising.'
Speaking about her decision to address the topic publicly, Shelley, whose main aim was encourage 'other people would come forward,' explained: 'It's been a long time coming.
'I've kept quiet and people needed to see those figures.
'I think lots of people are now questioning things. That's got to be good because the world can't carry on as it is.'
She went on to say she will 'absolutely' not be adhering to the rules of second lockdown.
' I will be doing everything I want to do. If I want to see my friends...To be honest with you, we won't be going to pubs or anything like that, nothing will change for me,' she said.
'I don't have massive gatherings and stuff like that.
'There will be protests and we've got to carry on protesting. I will walk my dog and go to the beach and things like that.
'I don't think there'a restriction on exercise and stuff. I haven't looked too much into it to be honest with you.'
'No way it's going to happen for me, and it's not going to be happening for loads of people.
'People haven't got time to be reporting if there's seven people in the house - the police aren't going to come out for that.
'There's nothing that really needs to change for me. I'm just advising everybody to carry on as normal as they can't do anything.'
A spokesperson for Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust told MailOnline: 'We're in the middle of a once in a lifetime pandemic and it is unacceptable for anybody to spread lies which could be harmful to people's health, let alone from somebody in a respected position.
'The public's incredible support for the NHS played a major role in helping us handle the first wave of coronavirus, and as we face a potential second wave, it is absolutely vital our staff and the public follow the latest public health guidance to help keep us all safe.'
In the viral clip, Shelley starts her speech by saying: 'Today I am publicly resigning OK? I am wearing this uniform sadly for the last time.
'I absolutely loved my job, those of you who have been following what's going on, we've done tasks, we've organised protests, I've had a lot of flack.
'We're at the point now it's all coming back to me. I've had an email from work last night asking me what's going on, people are reporting me and unfortunately I can't lie any more.
'I did something really bad. I took a screenshot on Friday which shows the figures of how many people are in Treliske hospital with Covid and I shared it, because this should be public information.'
'Lots of people have to start speaking out, there's lot of doctors and nurses who have come forward. They're all on restrictive duties, they're all seeing solicitors etc.'
Even during the peak of the first wave of coronavirus in the UK, Covid-19 patients never accounted for more than 30 per cent of all hospital patients and tens of thousands of vacated beds went unused during the spring
A leaked NHS report suggests there are still fewer than average numbers of beds in use in NHS hospital, despite normal hospital care resuming and a surge in the number of people who are being treated for Covid-19
Shelley says that on Friday in Treliske there were three people in with Covid - which covers Treliske, West Cornwall and Hayle hospital
During the speech, Shelley (pictured) went on to claim that the flu and Covid cases are now combined as the same thing
'I've decided there's no point, I have gone against the rules of the NHS and have shared confidential information that people need to see. '
Shelley goes on to allege that anyone who thinks lockdown is going to make a difference are 'completely wrong.'
'Our economy is going to crash, small businesses, people are going to starve,' she says.
'You think it's going to be a month? We were flattening the curve back in April - and this was when the disease was supposedly dying out. The lockdown came in then.'
'Why are our children allowed to go to school but we have to carry on? Because at the moment, they want us to work.
'But that's not going to happen because the schools will be closed soon.
'So the cases in the hospital, there's three people in Treliske hospital with Covid - that was on Friday.
She went on to claim that the flu and Covid cases are now recorded as the same thing.
'If you died with Covid within 28 days that goes on your death certificate,' she explains. 'You may not realise as well that the flu numbers have gone right down. Where have they gone?'
'The PCR tests were not designed for diagnosing this disease - 94 per cent of them are false positives. We say no, to no more lockdowns.'
Many people took to the comments section to praise Shelley for speaking out (pictured)
She continues: 'Social distancing - there's nothing social about it. How many people have died because of the lockdown because they've not had their treatments.
'I've got a friend whose mum committed suicide. When is this going to end?
It is doing more damage closing the country and hospitals than keeping it open. Screw the social distancing, we need to fight back.'
And it wasn't long before the post was flooded with comments from people praising Shelley for speaking out.
'Brilliant brave lady. More NHS staff need to speak the truth, this is the most important issue you will ever face. Ask yourself why are they doing this?' wrote one, while a second penned: 'You go girl thank you for your honesty ....pity more don't speak out.'
Hospitals are NO busier than normal, critics are being silenced and there IS more space in empty Nightingales, top experts claim (and they slam ministers for 'caving in' to dodgy propaganda from Number 10's 'gloomsters')The NHS was never on track to be overwhelmed with coronavirus patients this winter but No10 was forced to hit the lockdown panic button because of its 'gloomster' scientific advisers, top experts fumed today.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock has warned the health service could collapse and seriously ill non-Covid patients could be turned away unless Covid-19's resurgence is nipped in the bud.
But eminent doctors and scientists told MailOnline ministers had got their priorities twisted by sacrificing people's physical and mental wellbeing to save the NHS '-- which was designed to protect the people.
They claimed wards are no busier than they normally are at this time of year and that a large chunk of the people being treated for Covid-19 were either already in hospital when they caught the virus or would've been admitted for other reasons.
Oxford University's Professor Carl Heneghan, an expert in evidence-based medicine and practicing GP, said his analysis suggested a fifth of infected patients in the NHS acquired the virus in hospital, meaning they were already taking up a bed before contracting the disease.
NHS England has about 140,000 beds at its disposal - including capacity at the seven Nightingale hospital built during the first wave and thousands of beds commandeered from the private sector - and currently there are just shy of 10,500 Covid-19 patients in its hospitals. It means people with the disease are occupying fewer than 10 per cent of the health service's overall capacity.
Leaked documents suggest the NHS on a national scale is actually treating fewer patients than it was last year. Just 84 per cent of all hospital beds were occupied across the country on Tuesday, according to the document, which is lower than the 92 per cent recorded over the autumn of 2019.
It is true that a small handful of hospitals in hotspots in the North West are under strain after bearing the brunt of a surge in infections in recent months. But Karol Sikora, a consultant oncologist and professor of medicine at the University of Buckingham, said: 'This is supposed to be a national health service, if Leeds' ICU is full, we can send patients to Newcastle, for example. We do it all the time, for other conditions.'
Critical care admissions have been a far cry from the levels seen during the first peak in spring (shown in this graph by the Intensive Care National Audit and Research Unit), casting more doubt about the need for second lockdown
Both Professor Sikora and Professor Heneghan claimed the health service is put under pressure every winter from other seasonal illnesses - due to having the lowest bed capacity per population in Europe - yet it manages to come out the other side without the need for the UK to adopt crude interventions.
Another senior NHS intensive care doctor made similar comments to MailOnline but claimed they were silenced by health bosses, who threatened them with disciplinary action if they contradicted the hospital data used to justify the lockdown.
One told this website: 'It is my personal view a lockdown was not needed right now, the data they've used has been conveniently sampled. The official rationale from the Government will be to ensure people are safe and lives are saved but I think the real reason is they do not want to receive the same criticism they did the first time round.
The first lockdown, while successful in protecting the NHS from being overwhelmed with Covid-19, has had a catastrophic effect on healthcare across the board. There were 27million fewer GP appointments than normal during the shut down, raising fears it led to the worsening of other conditions such as asthma and diabetes.
ICU UNITS ARE NO BUSIER THAN USUAL, LEAKED DOCUMENTS SHOWLeaked documents revealed intensive care units are no busier than normal for this time of year for most trusts, pouring extra cold water on claims the NHS is close to being overrun.
Eighteen per cent of critical care beds available across the health service nationally, which is normal for the autumn.
Data from the NHS Secondary Uses Services, seen by The Telegraph, claims to show that even in the worst hit region, the North West, seven per cent of critical care beds are still free.
The figures show there is still 15 per cent 'spare capacity' across the country '' fairly normal for this time of year.
That's even without the thousands of Nightingale hospital beds which will provide extra capacity if needed.
Even in the North-West, the worst affected region in the 'second wave', only 92.9 per cent of critical care beds are currently occupied.
And in the peak of the Covid outbreak in April, critical care beds were never more than 80 per cent full, according to the data.
There were around 5,900 critical care - or ICU - beds in the NHS in January 2020, according to the King's Fund.
It is not clear how many Covid-19 patients are on critical care wards as this data is not available. But the number of patients on a ventilator - 952 on November 3 - gives a rough idea. However, not all patients on ventilators are classed as being in ICU.
Tens of thousands less people than average went for cancer checks during that time and there were hundreds more deaths from heart attacks. Nearly a million people have lost their jobs since March and, when the furlough scheme ends next year, this is expected to rise again.
Professor Heneghan added: 'The perpetual opening up and closing down approach is incoherent and comes to a point where you create more harm than benefit, running long term damage to nation's health.
'We had since May to prepare for this winter, it was clear then this would be a seasonal pathogen. We've got capacity in private hospitals and the Nightingales [which were built during the first wave but went unused].'
Referring to doctors reportedly being censored by NHS bosses for speaking out against the lockdown, he said: 'What I'm concerned about is lack of transparency that allows people to come forward in the NHS to provide much needed comment on what is going on, it's unacceptable. I am an NHS employee myself.
'Functioning democracies require people to come forward and speak the truth, and we are being denied that. If we don't have that we don't have a functioning democracy.'
Every winter the health service is put under pressure because people tend to get sicker from a slew of other illnesses and need care as the country moves deeper into the colder months.
Professor Sikora predicts 'at least half' of the 10,300 Covid-19 patients in hospital right now would be there anyway, for other conditions - though there is no data to stack up his claims.
He told MailOnline: 'A lot of patients have Covid but they're in hospital because they were ill before [getting the virus]. People with comorbidites always come at winter, ever since I've been a medical student.
'Remember these people might have chest and heart and other underlying conditions, a positive PCR result doesn't mean they were hospitalised for Covid.
'I've been a doctor for decades, this is no different to a normal year. We sometimes have had to close surgeries down to make room for more patients during winter pressures, way before Covid.'
The Government has honed in on the small handful of hospitals in hotspot areas that are under strain after bearing the brunt of a surge in infections in September and October and pointed to them as evidence the NHS could be overrun.
But Professor Sikora said the Government should've held its nerve and given the three-tiered lockdown system - which was only introduced on October 14 in Liverpool - time to have an effect. Boris Johnson admitted yesterday his localised approach was driving down cases and the R rate in hotspots.
He suggested the Government's scientific advisers were nervous about coming under the same scrutiny heaped their way during the first wave.
Professor Sikora added: 'Yes there was a steep rise in infections from September to October but the numbers have plateaued.
Oxford University's Professor Carl Heneghan (left) and renowned oncologist Professor Karol Sikora claimed wards are no busier than they normally are at this time of year and that a large chunk of the people being treated for Covid-19 were either already in hospital when they caught the virus or would've been admitted for other reasons
'Clearly what happened was government lost the plot and caved because it thought it was going to be overrun due to the propaganda presented by SAGE.
'Gloomsters always win because they can't go wrong with a lockdown. If you're like me and predict an optimistic outcome which then doesn't come true, you get fired.
'It's puzzling, if the prediction is we're going to be overwhelmed, then a lockdown is justified. But it can't be true, we're already in November and it's not even close.'
Professor Heneghan added: 'If you look in areas like Liverpool, the tiered restrictions caused a reduction in cases across all age groups. The people of Liverpool understood what the issues were and modified their behaviour.
'So I would be rewarding people of Liverpool with approach that says here's some light at end of tunnel, rather than a lockdown.'
SAGE - the Government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies - warned the Government the NHS was on track to be completely overwhelmed by the end of this month. The dire forecast was made using mathematical models that were a month out of date and high low confidence intervals.
The prediction has since been challenged by top scientists and doctors who say the modelling did not anticipate how effective the three-tier lockdown system would be.
Professor Heneghan said: 'The modelling was completely inaccurate. But once the PM is presented such a gloomy scenario, it becomes impossible to go with any other situation than lockdown.
'It's impossible to make decisions if you've got models that are a month out of date. We get words of 'assumptions, scenarios, projections' '' but scientists cant predict more than six weeks ahead with any accuracy.'
The NHS was last night thrust back into its highest alert level, in anticipation of a wave of coronavirus hospital admissions in the coming weeks.
Sir Simon Stevens, NHS England's chief executive, claimed the move to level four was in response to the 'serious situation ahead'.
A move to level four means health bosses believe there is a real threat that an expected influx of Covid-19 patients could start to force the closure of other vital services across the nation.
Yet leaked documents on Wednesday revealed intensive care units were no busier than normal for this time of year for most trusts, pouring extra cold water on claims the NHS is close to being overrun.
Eighteen per cent of critical care beds available across the health service nationally, which is normal for the autumn. Data from the NHS Secondary Uses Services, seen by The Telegraph, claims to show that even in the worst hit region, the North West, seven per cent of critical care beds are still free.
The figures show there is still 15 per cent 'spare capacity' across the country '' fairly normal for this time of year. That's even without the thousands of Nightingale hospital beds which will provide extra capacity if needed.
Even in the North-West, the worst affected region in the 'second wave', only 92.9 per cent of critical care beds are currently occupied. And in the peak of the Covid outbreak in April, critical care beds were never more than 80 per cent full, according to the data.
There were around 5,900 critical care - or ICU - beds in the NHS in January 2020, according to the King's Fund. It is not clear how many Covid patients are on critical care wards because this data is not available. But the number of patients on a ventilator - 952 on November 3 - gives a rough idea. However, not all patients on ventilators are classed as being in ICU.
There are just under 10,300 patients with Covid-19 on general and acute wards in NHS hospitals in England at the moment, official data shows. This means Covid-19 patients account for around 10 per cent of all available beds.
However, there are still more than 13,000 beds available on general wards, considering there are almost 114,000 NHS beds in England overall. Professor Sikora estimates there are about 140,000 beds overall once the Nightingale hospitals and extra capacity in the private sector which the NHS has bought in case it does get pushed to the brink.
MailOnline revealed at the height of the first wave in April that Covid-19 patients never made up more than 30 per cent of the total beds occupied. Just under 19,000 patients out of 70,000 in hospitals at that time had Covid-19.
Commenting on the data, Professor Heneghan told MailOnline 'This is completely in line with what is normally available at this time of year. What I don't understand is that I seem to be looking at a different data-set to what the Government is presenting.
'Everything is looking at normal levels and free bed capacity is still significant, even in high dependency units and intensive care, even though we have a very small number across the board. We are starting to see a drop in people in hospitals.
'Tier Three restrictions are working phenomenally well and, rather than locking down, I would be using this moment to increase capacity.'
But Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, which represents hospitals, said there is 'no point' using national bed occupancy rates to argue that lockdown isn't needed.
He tweeted : 'Many hospital CEOs in the north tell us they are under extreme pressure. Many of them say their Covid-19 patient numbers are above what they saw in the peak of the first phase.
'The argument from NHS CEOs in rest of country is many are already seeing high worrying levels of general bed occupancy. And if the Covid pattern in the north is repeated elsewhere in the country a month later, it'll coincide with winter when NHS is at its most stretched.
'This means trusts won't be able to give the treatment and quality of care they would want, to all who need it. None of this is reflected in, or affected by, current national ICU bed occupancy rates. They are irrelevant as far as this risk is concerned.'
PCR
Iowa State random covid testing
Random Testing. To further mitigate the risk of infection, we are expanding our on-campus testing at Johnny's in Hilton Coliseum to include testing of randomly selected students. This testing strategy will help us identify asymptomatic positive cases. We will also use testing data to pinpoint areas with notable case counts and determine appropriate testing strategies for those areas to help contain the spread of the virus.
Who is Eligible? Undergraduate, graduate, and professional students are eligible to be randomly selected for asymptomatic testing. Those selected will receive an email or text message with instructions for scheduling a time to be tested at Johnny's in Hilton Coliseum. We strongly encourage that you take this request seriously and complete your test as directed. This testing strategy is not intended to punish anyone. Students who are selected should not fear disciplinary action for doing the responsible thing to complete the testing. This is another important way you can help mitigate the spread and support the health and safety of our campus and community.
Gifts and Prizes. As a show of appreciation, those selected who complete the testing will receive a $5 gift card for ISU Dining, and they will be entered in a drawing for a chance at larger prizes. Prizes in the drawing include ten $50 ISU Dining gift cards, ten $500 scholarships, a one semester Department of Residence housing contract, and a one semester ISU Dining contract. The gifts and prizes are thanks to the Student Government Executive Committee, Department of Residence, and the President's Office.
CDC replaces text about re-testing
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/if-you-are-sick/end-home-isolation.html
This was deleted:
Data to date show that a person who has had and recovered from COVID-19 may have low levels of virus in their bodies for up to 3 months after diagnosis. This means that if the person who has recovered from COVID-19 is retested within 3 months of initial infection, they may continue to have a positive test result, even though they are not spreading COVID-19.
This was replaced:
However, anyone who has had close contact with someone with COVID-19 and who meets the following criteria does NOT need to stay home.
Has COVID-19 illness within the previous 3 months and
Has recovered and
Remains without COVID-19 symptoms (for example, cough, shortness of breath)
The COVID-19 RT-PCR Test: How to Mislead All Humanity. Using a "Test" To Lock Down Society - Global Research
Sun, 08 Nov 2020 13:09
Introduction: using a technique to lock down society
All current propaganda on the COVID-19 pandemic is based on an assumption that is considered obvious, true and no longer questioned:
Positive RT-PCR test means being sick with COVID. This assumption is misleading.
Very few people, including doctors, understand how a PCR test works.
RT-PCR means Real Time-Polymerase Chain Reaction.
In French, it means: R(C)action de Polym(C)risation en Cha®ne en Temps R(C)el.
In medicine, we use this tool mainly to diagnose a viral infection.
Starting from a clinical situation with the presence or absence of particular symptoms in a patient, we consider different diagnoses based on tests.
In the case of certain infections, particularly viral infections, we use the RT-PCR technique to confirm a diagnostic hypothesis suggested by a clinical picture.
We do not routinely perform RT-PCR on any patient who is overheated, coughing or has an inflammatory syndrome!
It is a laboratory, molecular biology technique of gene amplification because it looks for gene traces (DNA or RNA) by amplifying them.
In addition to medicine, other fields of application are genetics, research, industry and forensics.
The technique is carried out in a specialized laboratory, it cannot be done in any laboratory, even a hospital. This entails a certain cost, and a delay sometimes of several days between the sample and the result.
Today, since the emergence of the new disease called COVID-19 (COrona VIrus Disease-2019), the RT-PCR diagnostic technique is used to define positive cases, confirmed as SARS-CoV-2 (coronavirus responsible for the new acute respiratory distress syndrome called COVID-19).
These positive cases are assimilated to COVID-19 cases, some of whom are hospitalized or even admitted to intensive care units.
Official postulate of our managers: positive RT-PCR cases = COVID-19 patients. [1]
This is the starting postulate, the premise of all official propaganda, which justifies all restrictive government measures: isolation, confinement, quarantine, mandatory masks, color codes by country and travel bans, tracking, social distances in companies, stores and even, even more importantly, in schools [2].
This misuse of RT-PCR technique is used as a relentless and intentional strategy by some governments, supported by scientific safety councils and by the dominant media, to justify excessive measures such as the violation of a large number of constitutional rights, the destruction of the economy with the bankruptcy of entire active sectors of society, the degradation of living conditions for a large number of ordinary citizens, under the pretext of a pandemic based on a number of positive RT-PCR tests, and not on a real number of patients.
Technical aspects: to better understand and not be manipulated
The PCR technique was developed by chemist Kary B. Mullis in 1986. Kary Mullis was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1993.
Although this is disputed [3], Kary Mullis himself is said to have criticized the interest of PCR as a diagnostic tool for an infection, especially a viral one.
He stated that if PCR was a good tool for research, it was a very bad tool in medicine, in the clinic [4].
Mullis was referring to the AIDS virus (HIV retrovirus or HIV) [5], before the COVID-19 pandemic, but this opinion on the limitation of the technique in viral infections [6], by its creator, cannot be dismissed out of hand; it must be taken into account!
PCR was perfected in 1992.
As the analysis can be performed in real time, continuously, it becomes RT (Real-Time) '' PCR, even more efficient.
It can be done from any molecule, including those of the living, the nucleic acids that make up the genes:
DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid)RNA (Ribonucleic Acid)Viruses are not considered as ''living'' beings, they are packets of information (DNA or RNA) forming a genome.
It is by an amplification technique (multiplication) that the molecule sought is highlighted and this point is very important.
RT-PCR is an amplification technique [7].
If there is DNA or RNA of the desired element in a sample, it is not identifiable as such.
This DNA or RNA must be amplified (multiplied) a certain number of times, sometimes a very large number of times, before it can be detected. From a minute trace, up to billions of copies of a specific sample can be obtained, but this does not mean that there is all that amount in the organism being tested.
In the case of COVID-19, the element sought by RT-PCR is SARS-CoV-2, an RNA virus [8].
There are DNA viruses such as Herpes and Varicella viruses.
The most well known RNA viruses, in addition to coronaviruses, are Influenza, Measles, EBOLA, ZIKA viruses.
In the case of SARS-CoV-2, RNA virus, an additional specific step is required, a transcription of RNA into DNA by means of an enzyme, Reverse Transcriptase.
This step precedes the amplification phase.
It is not the whole virus that is identified, but sequences of its viral genome.
This does not mean that this gene sequence, a fragment of the virus, is not specific to the virus being sought, but it is an important nuance nonetheless:
RT-PCR does not reveal any virus, but only parts, specific gene sequences of the virus.
At the beginning of the year, the SARS-CoV-2 genome was sequenced.
It consists of about 30,000 base pairs. The nucleic acid (DNA-RNA), the component of the genes, is a sequence of bases. In comparison, the human genome has more than 3 billion base pairs.
Teams are continuously monitoring the evolution of the SARS-CoV-2 viral genome as it evolves [9-10-11], through the mutations it undergoes. Today, there are many variants [12].
By taking a few specific genes from the SARS-CoV-2 genome, it is possible to initiate RT-PCR on a sample from the respiratory tract.
For COVID-19 disease, which has a nasopharyngeal (nose) and oropharyngeal (mouth) entry point, the sample should be taken from the upper respiratory tract as deeply as possible in order to avoid contamination by saliva in particular.
A
ll the people tested said that it is very painful [13].
The Gold Standard (preferred site for sampling) is the nasopharyngeal (nasal) approach, the most painful route.
If there is a contraindication to the nasal approach, or preferably to the individual being tested, depending on the official organs, the oropharyngeal approach (through the mouth) is also acceptable. The test may trigger a nausea/vomiting reflex in the individual being tested.
Normally, for the result of an RT-PCR test to be considered reliable, amplification from 3 different genes (primers) of the virus under investigation is required.
''The primers are single-stranded DNA sequences specific to the virus. They guarantee the specificity of the amplification reaction. >> [14]
''The first test developed at La Charit(C) in Berlin by Dr. Victor Corman and his associates in January 2020 allows to highlight the RNA sequences present in 3 genes of the virus called E, RdRp and N . To know if the sequences of these genes are present in the RNA samples collected, it is necessary to amplify the sequences of these 3 genes in order to obtain a signal sufficient for their detection and quantification. >>[15].
The essential notion of Cycle Time or Cycle Threshold or Ct positivity threshold [16].
An RT-PCR test is negative (no traces of the desired element) or positive (presence of traces of the desired element).
However, even if the desired element is present in a minute, negligible quantity, the principle of RT-PCR is to be able to finally highlight it by continuing the amplification cycles as much as necessary.
RT-PCR can push up to 60 amplification cycles, or even more!
Here is how it works:
Cycle 1: target x 2 (2 copies)
Cycle 2: target x 4 (4 copies)
Cycle 3: target x 8 (8 copies)
Cycle 4: target x 16 (16 copies)
Cycle 5; target x 32 (32 copies)
Etc exponentially up to 40 to 60 cycles!
When we say that the Ct (Cycle Time or Cycle Threshold or RT-PCR positivity threshold) is equal to 40, it means that the laboratory has used 40 amplification cycles, i.e. obtained 240 copies.
This is what underlies the sensitivity of the RT-PCR assay.
While it is true that in medicine we like to have high specificity and sensitivity of the tests to avoid false positives and false negatives, in the case of COVID-19 disease, this hypersensitivity of the RT-PCR test caused by the number of amplification cycles used has backfired.
This over-sensitivity of the RT-PCR test is deleterious and misleading!
It detaches us from the medical reality which must remain based on the real clinical state of the person: is the person ill, does he or she have symptoms?
That is the most important thing!
As I said at the beginning of the article, in medicine we always start from the person: we examine him/her, we collect his/her symptoms (complaints-anamnesis) and objective clinical signs (examination) and on the basis of a clinical reflection in which scientific knowledge and experience intervene, we make diagnostic hypotheses.
Only then do we prescribe the most appropriate tests, based on this clinical reflection.
We constantly compare the test results with the patient's clinical condition (symptoms and signs), which takes precedence over everything else when it comes to our decisions and treatments.
Today, our governments, supported by their scientific safety advice, are making us do the opposite and put the test first, followed by a clinical reflection necessarily influenced by this prior test, whose weaknesses we have just seen, particularly its hypersensitivity.
None of my clinical colleagues can contradict me.
Apart from very special cases such as genetic screening for certain categories of populations (age groups, sex) and certain cancers or family genetic diseases, we always work in this direction: from the person (symptoms, signs) to the appropriate tests, never the other way around.
This is the conclusion of an article in the Swiss Medical Journal (RMS) published in 2007, written by doctors Katia Jaton and Gilbert Greub microbiologists from the University of Lausanne :
PCR in microbiology: from DNA amplification to result interpretation:
''To interpret the result of a PCR, it is essential that clinicians and microbiologists share their experiences, so that the analytical and clinical levels of interpretation can be combined.''
It would be indefensible to give everyone an electrocardiogram to screen everyone who might have a heart attack one day.
On the other hand, in certain clinical contexts or on the basis of specific evocative symptoms, there, yes, an electrocardiogram can be beneficial.
Back to RT-PCR and Ct (Cycle Time or Cycle Threshold).
In the case of an infectious disease, especially a viral one, the notion of contagiousness is another important element.
Since some scientific circles consider that an asymptomatic person can transmit the virus, they believe it is important to test for the presence of virus, even if the person is asymptomatic, thus extending the indication of RT-PCR to everyone.
Are RT-PCR tests good tests for contagiousness? [17]
This question brings us back to the notion of viral load and therefore Ct.
The relationship between contagiousness and viral load is disputed by some people [18] and no formal proof, to date, allows us to make a decision.
However, common sense gives obvious credence to the notion that the more virus a person has inside him or her, especially in the upper airways (oropharynx and nasopharynx), with symptoms such as coughing and sneezing, the higher the risk of contagiousness, proportional to the viral load and the importance of the person's symptoms.
This is called common sense, and although modern medicine has benefited greatly from the contribution of science through statistics and Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM), it is still based primarily on common sense, experience and empiricism.
Medicine is the art of healing.
No test measures the amount of virus in the sample!
RT-PCR is qualitative: positive (presence of the virus) or negative (absence of the virus).
This notion of quantity, therefore of viral load, can be estimated indirectly by the number of amplification cycles (Ct) used to highlight the virus sought.
The lower the Ct used to detect the virus fragment, the higher the viral load is considered to be (high).
The higher the Ct used to detect the virus fragment, the lower the viral load is considered to be (low).
Thus, the French National Reference Centre (CNR), in the acute phase of the pandemic, estimated that the peak of viral shedding occurred at the onset of symptoms, with an amount of virus corresponding to approximately 108 (100 million) copies of SARS-CoV-2 viral RNA on average (French COVID-19 cohort data) with a variable duration of shedding in the upper airways (from 5 days to more than 5 weeks) [19].
This number of 108 (100 million) copies/μl corresponds to a very low Ct.
A Ct of 32 corresponds to 10-15 copies/μl.
A Ct of 35 corresponds to about 1 copy/μl.
Above Ct 35, it becomes impossible to isolate a complete virus sequence and culture it!
In France and in most countries, Ct levels above 35, even 40, are still used even today!
The French Society of Microbiology (SFM) issued an opinion on September 25, 2020 in which it does not recommend quantitative results, and it recommends to make positive up to a Ct of 37 for a single gene [20]!
With 1 copy/μl of a sample (Ct 35), without cough, without symptoms, one can understand why all these doctors and scientists say that a positive RT-PCR test means nothing, nothing at all in terms of medicine and clinic!
Positive RT-PCR tests, without any mention of Ct or its relation to the presence or absence of symptoms, are used as is by our governments as the exclusive argument to apply and justify their policy of severity, austerity, isolation and aggression of our freedoms, with the impossibility to travel, to meet, to live normally!
There is no medical justification for these decisions, for these governmental choices!
In an article published on the website of the New York Times (NYT) on Saturday, August 29, American experts from Harvard University are surprised that RT-PCR tests as practiced can serve as tests of contagiousness, even more so as evidence of pandemic progression in the case of SARS-CoV-2 infection [21].
According to them, the threshold (Ct) considered results in positive diagnoses in people who do not represent any risk of transmitting the virus!
The binary ''yes/no'' answer is not enough, according to this epidemiologist from the Harvard University School of Public Health.
''It's the amount of virus that should dictate the course of action for each patient tested. >>
The amount of virus (viral load); but also and above all the clinical state, symptomatic or not of the person!
This calls into question the use of the binary result of this RT-PCR test to determine whether a person is contagious and must follow strict isolation measures.
These questions are being raised by many physicians around the world, not only in the United States but also in France, Belgium (Belgium Health Experts Demand Investigation Of WHO For Faking Coronavirus Pandemic), France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, the United States and the United Kingdom. in Germany, Spain'...
According to them: ''We are going to put tens of thousands of people in confinement, in isolation, for nothing. >> [22]. 22] And inflict suffering, anguish, economic and psychological dramas by the thousands!
Most RT-PCR tests set the Ct at 40, according to the NYT. Some set it at 37.
''Tests with such high thresholds (Ct) may not only detect live virus but also gene fragments, remnants of an old infection that do not represent any particular danger,'' the experts said.
A virologist at the University of California admits that an RT-PCR test with a Ct greater than 35 is too sensitive. ''A more reasonable threshold would be between 30 and 35,'' she adds.
Almost no laboratory specifies the Ct (number of amplification cycles performed) or the number of copies of viral RNA per sample μl.
Here is an example of a laboratory result (approved by Sciensano, the Belgian national reference center) in an RT-PCR negative patient:
No mention of Ct.
In the NYT, experts compiled three datasets with officials from the states of Massachusetts, New York and Nevada that mention them.
Conclusion?
''Up to 90% of the people who tested positive did not carry a virus. >>
The Wadworth Center, a New York State laboratory, analyzed the results of its July tests at the request of the NYT: 794 positive tests with a Ct of 40.
''With a Ct threshold of 35, approximately half of these PCR tests would no longer be considered positive,'' said the NYT.
''And about 70% would no longer be considered positive with a Ct of 30! ''
In Massachusetts, between 85 and 90% of people who tested positive in July with a Ct of 40 would have been considered negative with a Ct of 30, adds the NYT. And yet, all these people had to isolate themselves, with all the dramatic psychological and economic consequences, while they were not sick and probably not contagious at all.
In France, the Centre National de R(C)f(C)rence (CNR), the French Society of Microbiology (SFM) continue to push Ct to 37 and recommend to laboratories to use only one gene of the virus as a primer.
I remind you that from Ct 32 onwards, it becomes very difficult to culture the virus or to extract a complete sequence, which shows the completely artificial nature of this positivity of the test, with such high Ct levels, above 30.
Similar results were reported by researchers from the UK Public Health Agency in an article published on August 13 in Eurosurveillance: ''The probability of culturing the virus drops to 8% in samples with Ct levels above 35.'' [23]
In addition, currently, the National Reference Center in France only evaluates the sensitivity of commercially available reagent kits, not their specificity: serious doubts persist about the possibility of cross-reactivity with viruses other than SARS-CoV-2, such as other benign cold coronaviruses. [20]
It is potentially the same situation in other countries, including Belgium.
Similarly, mutations in the virus may have invalidated certain primers (genes) used to detect SARS-CoV-2: the manufacturers give no guarantees on this, and if the AFP fast-checking journalists tell you otherwise, test their good faith by asking for these guarantees, these proofs.
If they have nothing to hide and if what I say is false, this guarantee will be provided to you and will prove their good faith.
We must demand that the RT-PCR results be returned mentioning the Ct used because beyond Ct 30, a positive RT-PCR test means nothing.We must listen to the scientists and doctors, specialists, virologists who recommend the use of adapted Ct, lower, at 30. An alternative is to obtain the number of copies of viral RNA/μl or /ml sample. [23]We need to go back to the patient, to the person, to his or her clinical condition (presence or absence of symptoms) and from there to judge the appropriateness of testing and the best way to interpret the result.Until there is a better rationale for PCR screening, with a known and appropriate Ct threshold, an asymptomatic person should not be tested in any way.
Even a symptomatic person should not automatically be tested, as long as they can place themselves in isolation for 7 days.
Let's stop this debauchery of RT-PCR testing at too high Ct levels and return to clinical, quality medicine.
Once we understand how RT-PCR testing works, it becomes impossible to let the current government routine screening strategy, inexplicably supported by the virologists in the safety councils, continue.
My hope is that, finally, properly informed, more and more people will demand that this strategy be stopped, because it is all of us, enlightened, guided by real benevolence and common sense, who must decide our collective and individual destinies.
No one else should do it for us, especially when we realize that those who decide are no longer reasonable or rational.
Summary of important points :
The RT-PCR test is a laboratory diagnostic technique that is not well suited to clinical medicine.It is a binary, qualitative diagnostic technique that confirms (positive test) or not (negative test) the presence of an element in the medium being analyzed. In the case of SARS-CoV-2, the element is a fragment of the viral genome, not the virus itself.In medicine, even in an epidemic or pandemic situation, it is dangerous to place tests, examinations, techniques above clinical evaluation (symptoms, signs). It is the opposite that guarantees quality medicine.The main limitation (weakness) of the RT-PCR test, in the current pandemic situation, is its extreme sensitivity (false positive) if a suitable threshold of positivity (Ct) is not chosen. Today, experts recommend using a maximum Ct threshold of 30.This Ct threshold must be informed with the positive RT-PCR result so that the physician knows how to interpret this positive result, especially in an asymptomatic person, in order to avoid unnecessary isolation, quarantine, psychological trauma.In addition to mentioning the Ct used, laboratories must continue to ensure the specificity of their detection kits for SARS-CoV-2, taking into account its most recent mutations, and must continue to use three genes from the viral genome being studied as primers or, if not, mention it. Overall Conclusion
Is the obstinacy of governments to use the current disastrous strategy, systematic screening by RT-PCR, due to ignorance?
Is it due to stupidity?
To a kind of cognitive trap trapping their ego?
In any case, we should be able to question them, and if among the readers of this article there are still honest journalists, or naive politicians, or people who have the possibility to question our rulers, then do so, using these clear and scientific arguments.
It is all the more incomprehensible that our rulers have surrounded themselves with some of the most experienced specialists in these matters.
If I have been able to gather this information myself, shared, I remind you, by competent people above all suspicion of conspiracy, such as H(C)l¨ne Banoun, Pierre Sonigo, Jean-Fran§ois Toussaint, Christophe De Brouwer, whose intelligence, intellectual honesty and legitimacy cannot be questioned, then the Belgian, French and Quebec scientific advisors, etc., know all this as well.
So?
What's going on?
Why continue in this distorted direction, obstinately making mistakes?
It is not insignificant to reimpose confinements, curfews, quarantines, reduced social bubbles, to shake up again our shaky economies, to plunge entire families into precariousness, to sow so much fear and anxiety generating a real state of post-traumatic stress worldwide, to reduce access to care for other pathologies that nevertheless reduce life expectancy much more than COVID-19! [24]
Is there intent to harm?
Is there an intention to use the alibi of a pandemic to move humanity towards an outcome it would otherwise never have accepted? In any case, not like that!
Would this hypothesis, which modern censors will hasten to label ''conspiracy'', be the most valid explanation for all this?
Indeed, if we draw a straight line from the present events, if they are maintained, we could find ourselves once again confined with hundreds, thousands of human beings forced to remain inactive, which, for the professions of catering, entertainment, sales, fairgrounds, itinerants, canvassers, risks being catastrophic with bankruptcies, unemployment, depression, suicides by the hundreds of thousands. [25-26-27-28]
The impact on education, on our children, on teaching, on medicine with long planned care, operations, treatments to be cancelled, postponed, will be profound and destructive.
''We risk a looming food crisis if action is not taken quickly.'' [29].
It is time for everyone to come out of this negative trance, this collective hysteria, because famine, poverty, massive unemployment will kill, mow down many more people than SARS-CoV-2!
Does all this make sense in the face of a disease that is declining, over-diagnosed and misinterpreted by this misuse of overly sensitively calibrated PCR tests?
For many, the continuous wearing of the mask seems to have become a new norm.
Even if it is constantly downplayed by some health professionals and fact-checking journalists, other doctors warn of the harmful consequences, both medical and psychological, of this hygienic obsession which, maintained permanently, is in fact an abnormality!
What a hindrance to social relations, which are the true foundation of a physically and psychologically healthy humanity!
Some dare to find all this normal, or a lesser price to pay in the face of the pandemic of positive PCR tests.
Isolation, distancing, masking of the face, impoverishment of emotional communication, fear of touching and kissing even within families, communities, between relatives'...
Spontaneous gestures of daily life hindered and replaced by mechanical and controlled gestures '...
Terrified children, kept in permanent fear and guilt'...
All this will have a deep, lasting and negative impact on human organisms, in their physical, mental, emotional and representation of the world and society.
This is not normal!
We cannot let our rulers, for whatever reason, organize our collective suicide any longer.
Translated from French by Global Research. Original source: Mondialisation.ca
Dr Pascal Sacr(C) is a physician specialized in critical care, author and renowned public health analyst, Charleroi, Belgium. He is a Research Associate of the entre for Research on Globalization (CRG)
****
Professionals whose references and comments are the basis of this article in its scientific aspect (especially and mainly on RT-PCR):
1) H(C)l¨ne Banoun
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Helene_Banoun
PhD, Pharmacist biologist
Former INSERM Research Officer
Former intern at the Paris Hospitals
2) Pierre Sonigo
Virologist
Research Director INSERM, worked at the Pasteur Institute
Heads the Virus Genetics Laboratory in Cochin, Paris.
Participated in 1985 in the sequencing of the AIDS virus.
3) Christophe De Brouwer
PhD in Public Health Science
Honorary Professor at the School of Public Health at ULB, Belgium
4) Jean-Fran§ois Toussaint
Doctor, Professor of Physiology at the University of Paris-Descartes
Director of IRMES, Institute for BioMedical Research and Sports Epidemiology
Former member of the High Council of Public Health
***
Notes (French)
[1] ''Une nette augmentation du nombre de cas dans toutes les provinces et toutes les tranches d'ge'', 7sur7 ACTU Belgique, 5-10-2020
[2] Le gouvernement belge renforce des mesures anti-Covid, VRT.be ; 6 octobre 2020.
[3] Non, l'inventeur du test PCR n'a pas dit que sa m(C)thode (C)tait inefficace pour d(C)tecter les virus, dans Le Monde, 7 octobre 2020
[4] Kary Mullis : Le test PCR ne permet pas de savoir si vous ªtes malade >>, vid(C)o accessible sur YouTube, 9 octobre 2020.
[5] https://www.weblyf.com/2020/05/coronavirus-the-truth-about-pcr-test-kit-from-the-inventor-and-other-experts/
[6] The Truth about PCR Test Kit from the Inventor and Other Experts >>
[7] PCR en microbiologie : de l'amplification de l'ADN l'interpr(C)tation du r(C)sultat
[8] COVID : La PCR nasale peut-elle mentir ?, Dr Pascal Sacr(C), AIMSIB, 30 ao>>t 2020.
[9] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaAcSJI0oMs&feature=youtu.be, 8 octobre 2020. volution g(C)nomique des virus ARN l'Institut Pasteur, environ la moiti(C) des nucl(C)otides sont susceptibles d'avoir mut(C) sur les 30 000 nucl(C)otides de l'ARN viral. Pour l'instant aucune mutation ou d(C)l(C)tion n'a (C)t(C) associ(C)e une perte de s(C)v(C)rit(C) de la maladie sur une grande (C)chelle g(C)ographique mais de nombreuses publications devraient bient´t pr(C)ciser ces points. >>
[10] https://www.mediterranee-infection.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/FD_Raoult_SARS-CoV-2_EID_Sep2020_vL2.pdf, Article IHU-M(C)diterran(C)e, Professeur D. Raoult, Dramatic increase in the SARS-CoV-2 mutation rate and low mortality rate during the second epidemic in summer in Marseille, 7 septembre 2020
Conclusions :
Dans l'ensemble, comme l'ont r(C)cemment soulign(C) Tomaszewski et al. (7) qui ont d(C)crit pour les g(C)nomes viraux disponibles jusqu'en mai 2020 un d(C)placement mutationnel sur la spike et le complexe de r(C)plication vers des g¨nes codant pour d'autres prot(C)ines non structurelles qui interagissent avec les voies de d(C)fense de l'h´te, il semble que le taux de mutation du SARS-CoV-2 s'acc(C)l¨re depuis mai, impliquant principalement des mutations C vers U. L'augmentation du taux de mutation du SRAS-CoV-2 g(C)n¨re des g(C)notypes viraux plus (C)loign(C)s de la souche Wuhan initiale que ceux observ(C)s de mars avril. Cela semble entra®ner des (C)pid(C)mies de dur(C)e limit(C)e, du moins pour le premier nouveau g(C)notype que nous avons identifi(C), et est associ(C) une gravit(C) globalement moindre ce stade du d(C)veloppement de cette nouvelle (C)pid(C)mie.
Mutations observed in these seven different viral genotypes are located in most SARS- CoV-2 genes including structural and non-structural genes among which nsp2, nsp3 (predicted phosphoesterase), nsp5 (membrane glycoprotein), nsp12 (RNA-dependent RNA polymerase), S (Spike glycoprotein), ORF3a, E (membrane glycoprotein), M (membrane glycoprotein), ORF8 and N (Nucleocapsid phosphoprotein).
[11] https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Helene_Banoun Evolution of SARS-CoV-2: Review of mutations, role of the host immune system, octobre 2020, mise jour par H(C)l¨ne Banoun,
PhD, Pharmacien biologiste, ancien Charg(C) de Recherches INSERM, ancien Interne des H´pitaux de Paris.
[12] https://nextstrain.org/, We are incorporating SARS-CoV-2 genomes as soon as they are shared and providing analyses and situation reports. In addition we have developed a number of resources and tools, and are facilitating independent groups to run their own analysis. Please see the main SARS-CoV-2 page for more.
[13] Tutoriel pr(C)l¨vement nasopharyng(C) : Un geste technique, essentiel la fiabilit(C) du test COVID-19
[14] Covid-19 : comment fonctionnent les tests et quelles sont leurs utilit(C)s ?
[15] COMMENT FONCTIONNENT LES TESTS DE DPISTAGE DU COVID-19 ? 7 avril 2020, Laboratoire de biologie et pharmacologie appliqu(C)e (LBPA), Cl(C)mence Richetta, ma®tre de conf(C)rences au d(C)partement biologie de l'ENS Paris-Saclay et chercheuse en virologie au LBPA : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNVDHCf8bGA
Independent researcher, PhD 9
Former research fellow at INSERM (French Institute for Health and Medical Research)
[16] Par Pierre Sonigo, virologiste (un des d(C)couvreurs du VIH), MD PhD, CSO at Sebia, clinical diagnostics
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/diagnostic-du-covid19-comprendre-les-tests-pcr-leur-et-pierre-sonigo/?trackingId=pTYxDkpvRzKHWZwCzxSIag%3D%3D
Diagnostic du COVID19 : comprendre les tests PCR, leur interpr(C)tation et leurs limites, publi(C) le 16 septembre 2020
La PCR utilise un principe tr¨s particulier : la cible du test, un fragment d'ARN viral, est massivement amplifi(C)e afin de permettre sa d(C)tection. Au cours de l'analyse, une r(C)action enzymatique associ(C)e des cycles >> de variation de temp(C)rature permet une s(C)rie de r(C)plications >> successives de l'acide nucl(C)ique cible. Chaque cycle correspond une multiplication th(C)orique de la cible par 2. On multiplie donc par 2 en un cycle, par 4 en 2 cycles, par 8 en 3 cycles, par 16 en 4 cycles, et ainsi de suite de mani¨re exponentielle. A l'heure actuelle, l'amplification est g(C)n(C)ralement pratiqu(C)e sur 40 cycles, soit une amplification th(C)orique de 2^40, environ mille milliards de fois ! En r(C)alit(C), la r(C)plication n'est pas efficace 100%, mais la cible est amplifi(C)e environ un million de fois, ce qui permet de d(C)tecter moins d'une dizaine de fragments d'ARN dans le volume analys(C).
Lorsque l'acide nucl(C)ique viral est d(C)tectable apr¨s un petit nombre de cycles, cela signifie que la quantit(C) de virus dans l'(C)chantillon de d(C)part est grande. Au contraire, lorsqu'il faut un grand nombre de cycles de r(C)plication pour d(C)tecter l'ARN viral, cela signifie que l'(C)chantillon de d(C)part contient une quantit(C) de virus tr¨s faible. On parle alors en nombre de cycles, ou Ct, qui signifie cycle time >>, pour d(C)finir, au moins de fa§on semi quantitative, la quantit(C) d'ARN pr(C)sent dans l'(C)chantillon de d(C)part. Ainsi, un petit Ct correspond un grand nombre de copies, un grand Ct un petit nombre de copies.
Cette spectaculaire sensibilit(C) n'est pas sans inconv(C)nient et n(C)cessite des pr(C)cautions particuli¨res. En effet, un (C)chantillon positif amplifi(C) un million de fois contient une tr¨s haute concentration de cible et le risque qu'il contamine (carry over) d'autres (C)chantillons est particuli¨rement (C)lev(C). La saturation des laboratoires peut encore accro®tre ce risque et g(C)n(C)rer des faux positifs accidentels. Dans ces conditions, il est important que les r(C)sultats positifs soient confirm(C)s par un second test, plus forte raison lorsqu'un test positif pr(C)sente des cons(C)quences significatives, qu'elles soient m(C)dicales, professionnelles ou li(C)es l'obligation d'isolement.
La deuxi¨me question importante concernant la PCR, une fois encore cons(C)quence de sa spectaculaire sensibilit(C), est celle de sa signification clinique. Un sujet parfaitement asymptomatique pr(C)sentant une PCR positive ne peut ªtre qualifi(C) de malade >>, comme on le lit dans les m(C)dias qui rapportent la progression de l'(C)pid(C)mie ! Peut-on mªme parler de cas >> ? C'est pourtant le terme utilis(C) dans les d(C)nombrements officiels. Ne sommes-nous pas en train d'oublier le patient pour se focaliser sur la technologie ? Est-ce une (C)pid(C)mie d'ARN dans des tubes que nous surveillons ou une maladie grave et potentiellement mortelle ?
Des publications r(C)centes soulignent que la dose d(C)tectable par PCR est inf(C)rieure la dose infectieuse ou contagieuse : aucun virus infectieux n'a pu ªtre retrouv(C) chez les patients asymptomatiques pr(C)sentant des tests PCR positifs avec un Ct (C)lev(C). Suite ces r(C)sultats, la question du seuil de Ct qui permet de d(C)clarer un (C)chantillon positif est d(C)battue. Peut-on rendre un r(C)sultat n(C)gatif chez un sujet asymptomatique dont la positivit(C) appara®t au-del de 35 cycles ? A d(C)faut, est-il utile de retester ces (C)chantillons ? Comme souvent en mati¨re de diagnostic m(C)dical, lorsqu'un seuil de positivit(C) est d(C)termin(C), faut-il privil(C)gier la sensibilit(C) ou la sp(C)cificit(C) du test ?
De plus, un (C)chantillon confirm(C) positif d'un point de vue analytique reste un faux positif du point de vue de la clinique, si la personne test(C)e est en parfaite sant(C), parfois mªme prªt affronter une comp(C)tition de tennis ou de football professionnels ! La question devient uniquement celle de sa potentielle contagiosit(C). C'est la question de la transmission (C)ventuelle par des sujets asymptomatiques, qui sans ªtre eux-mªmes en danger, pourraient en repr(C)senter un pour les autres.
Par rapport cette question, il est important de raisonner quantitativement. La virologie, ce n'est pas du tout ou rien. De mani¨re g(C)n(C)rale, au cours des infections virales aigus, le risque de contagion et la gravit(C) de l'infection varient en fonction de la quantit(C) de virus pr(C)sents dans l'organisme et de leur excr(C)tion dans le milieu ext(C)rieur. Quelques copies de virus tapis dans les sinus n'ont pas la dangerosit(C) d'un million projet(C)s par la toux. Un sujet asymptomatique produit moins de virus qu'un sujet symptomatique et les s(C)cr¨te moins vers l'ext(C)rieur. La quantit(C) de virus produite et donc le risque de contagion sont corr(C)l(C)s la gravit(C) des sympt´mes. Mªme si elle n'est pas de z(C)ro, le risque de transmission est donc vraisemblablement faible pour un sujet asymptomatique. Malheureusement, r(C)p(C)ter sans cesse que la contagion venant d'un sujet parfaitement asymptomatique est possible sans aucune pr(C)cision sur le niveau de risque pousse prendre des mesures disproportionn(C)es avec le risque.
De mªme, la strat(C)gie d(C)pister-isoler >> n'est pas r(C)aliste lorsque le d(C)pistage n'est pas suffisamment fiable et surtout lorsque le virus est d(C)j largement r(C)pandu dans la population. Il est bien trop tard pour appliquer une m(C)thode con§ue pour bloquer une (C)pid(C)mie sa naissance. Comme pour une invasion de coccinelles ou de frelons, on ne peut stopper un virus qui est d(C)j partout avec une passoire trou(C)e 25% et bouch(C)e par endroits. L'(C)chec de la strat(C)gie actuelle est plut´t li(C) sa conception na¯ve et inapplicable qu'aux mauvais comportements des citoyens.
Si, comme on l'observe en ce moment, la diffusion virale reprend, faut-il d(C)pister plus massivement ou revoir la strat(C)gie de protection de la population ?
Cette question ne rel¨ve pas de la science. Elle d(C)pend des risques acceptables par un individu ou par un groupe. Si on est dans la recherche du risque minimal, proche de z(C)ro, parce que le risque n'a pas (C)t(C) quantifi(C), ou pour des raisons de responsabilit(C) juridique, on doit prendre les pr(C)cautions maximales. Si on accepte un risque mªme faible, on peut reprendre certaines libert(C)s et prot(C)ger ceux qui en ont r(C)ellement besoin.
Le scientifique doit mesurer la grandeur des risques et ne pas se contenter d'affirmer qu'un (C)v(C)nement adverse est possible >>. Mais ce n'est pas son r´le de d(C)cider si ces risques peuvent ªtre pris par autrui.
Les tests PCR permettent une d(C)tection extrªmement sensible de l'ARN viral. Ils sont indispensables mais ne sont pas la solution ultime et unique qui permettra de contr´ler l'(C)pid(C)mie et de g(C)rer efficacement les risques de contagion. Appliqu(C)e lorsque le virus est largement diss(C)min(C) dans la population, la strat(C)gie d(C)pister isoler >> est vou(C)e l'(C)chec. Du fait de la sensibilit(C) tr¨s (C)lev(C)e et des limites de leur sp(C)cificit(C), les tests PCR doivent ªtre pratiqu(C)s et interpr(C)t(C)s avec pr(C)caution, et comme toujours en lien avec le contexte clinique et (C)pid(C)miologique. N'oublions pas qu'un sujet asymptomatique doit plut´t ªtre consid(C)r(C) comme immunis(C) que comme malade.
[17] Les tests RT-PCR du Covid-19 se r(C)v¨lent ªtre de tr¨s mauvais tests de contagiosit(C), Xavier Boisinet, mis jour le 3/9/2020.
[18] De nombreuses publications partag(C)es des milliers de fois sur les r(C)seaux sociaux en quelques jours affirment que 90% >> des personnes d(C)clar(C)es positives au Covid-19 ont en fait des charges virales trop basses pour ªtre malades >> ou contagieuses >>. C'est faux.
[19] Mise au point du CNR sur la r(C)alisation des pr(C)l¨vements et la sensibilit(C) des tests RT-PCR pour la d(C)tection du SARS-CoV-2, 9 mai 2020
[20] Avis du 25 septembre 2020 de la Soci(C)t(C) Fran§aise de Microbiologie (SFM) relatif l'interpr(C)tation de la valeur de Ct (estimation de la charge virale) obtenue en cas de RT-PCR SARS-CoV-2 positive sur les pr(C)l¨vements cliniques r(C)alis(C)s des fins diagnostiques ou de d(C)pistage, 25 septembre 2020
[21] Coronavirus '' Les tests PCR inadapt(C)s contre l'(C)pid(C)mie? Jusqu' 90% de personnes test(C)es ne seraient pas contagieuses >>, bas(C) sur une (C)tude d'une (C)quipe de Harvard ( Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health) de Michael Mina, d(C)partement d'(C)pid(C)miologie, je vous mets en fichier joint le PDF correspondant, une (C)tude, reprise par le NY Times :
Pour eux, la limite du test PCR (pr(C)l¨vement par voie nasale ou salivaire) r(C)side dans la brutalit(C) et la simplicit(C) du r(C)sultat qu'il donne. La personne est soit positive, soit n(C)gative. Pas plus de renseignement, notamment sur la contagiosit(C) du malade.
Or, les scientifiques d'Harvard soul¨vent le probl¨me de la quantit(C) de virus que ce test PCR ne donne pas et qui pourrait, selon eux, permettre de donner des cl(C)s suppl(C)mentaires pour contrer l'(C)pid(C)mie.
Les tests standards diagnostiquent un grand nombre de personnes qui peuvent ªtre porteuses de quantit(C)s relativement insignifiantes du virus >>, explique ainsi le Dr. Michael Mina, (C)pid(C)miologiste la Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health. >>
[22] Au rythme actuel avec nos tests RT-PCR, nous allons confiner des dizaines de milliers de gens pour rien >>, alerte le Dr. Yvon Le Flohic, manuel Moragues, 3 septembre 2020.
[23] Tests de diagnostic ultra sensibles, les tests RT-PCR sortent positifs mªme pour des individus qui portent trop peu de virus pour ªtre encore contagieux. Pour en faire de meilleurs tests de contagiosit(C), certains appellent baisser leur seuil de d(C)tection. Est-ce une bonne id(C)e ? Quelles sont les limites de cette solution ? D(C)cryptage.Xavier Boinivet, 15 septembre 2020
[24] Jean-Luc Gala (UCL) estime que les futures mesures de la Celeval, tel le lockdown, vont tuer l'(C)conomie, provoquer des suicides et d(C)stabiliser l'tat. Le Celeval, ou Cellule d'(C)valuation, est le groupe d'experts qui conseillent le gouvernement belge dans la gestion du COVID.
[25] L'OMS plaide pour (C)viter tout prix les confinements : 'Cela ne rend que les pauvres plus pauvres'
[26] Voici comment la pand(C)mie risque de faire exploser la pauvret(C) mondiale, une premi¨re en 22 ans
[27] 'Le coronavirus menace 500 millions de personnes de pauvret(C)', pr(C)vient l'Oxfam. Ce n'est pas le coronavirus, la menace, mais l'attitude de nos gouvernants face au coronavirus !
[28] Le ch´mage de masse est d(C)sormais mondial
[29] 'Nous risquons une crise alimentaire imminente si des mesures ne sont pas prises rapidement'. Encore une fois, ce n'est pas cause du coronavirus, mais cause de notre attitude face cette crise.
Coronavirus: Rapid test 'missed over 50% of positive cases in pilot' | The Independent
Sun, 08 Nov 2020 13:33
A rapid coronavirus test that gives results in only 20 minutes missed more than half of positive cases during a pilot scheme in Greater Manchester, according to reports.
Scientists said the rapid test '' a key part of Boris Johnson's Operation Moonshot mass testing plan '' identified only 46.7 per cent of infections during a trial in Manchester and Salford last month.
The team from Greater Manchester's mass testing group (MTEG) raised concerns about the accuracy of the OptiGene Direct RT-LAMP test, in a letter published by The Guardian.
''The current available data from the Manchester pilot shows low sensitivity (46.7 per cent) of the Direct RT-LAMP platform,'' the letter said.
The scientists said they had ''significant concerns'' and felt the data did not support a large-scale rollout of the tests to staff in clinical settings, such as hospitals and care homes.
However, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has pushed back against the claims, arguing that it was ''incorrect'' to suggest this particular kind of rapid test has a low sensitivity.
Professor Mark Wilcox, co-chair of the department's Technical Validation Group, the rapid LAMP test used in Manchester had been validated in another recent pilot elsewhere that showed it had an overall sensitivity of nearly 80 per cent.
''The direct LAMP tests used in Manchester have been validated in other laboratories and in real-world testing for use in different settings,'' said Mr Wilcox.
''It is incorrect to claim the tests have a low sensitivity, with a recent pilot showing overall technical sensitivity of nearly 80 per cent rising to over 96 per cent in individuals with a higher viral load, making it important for detecting individuals in the infectious stage.
''The challenge now is to understand the reasons for the difference in claimed sensitivity in one evaluation versus those in multiple others.''
The loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) swab tests can be analysed at ambient temperature next to testings centres, rather than the standard PCR swab tests which are taken to remote laboratories for processing.
The MTEG scientists, who reports to Greater Manchester's health chiefs and the mayor Andy Burnham, revealed their fears in a letter to Martyn Pritchard, chair of the region's testing strategy group.
The government's mass testing plans being developed under Operation Moonshot could see up to 10 million people tested every day at a reported cost of £100bn.
Mr Johnson said that technical advances '' including different kinds of rapid testing being piloted across Liverpool from Friday '' could help allow for a return towards normal life.
The prime minister told a Downing Street press conference on Thursday: ''These really are full of promise, I do think that testing does offer a real way forward for this country.''
The LAMP tests are due to be used as part of the pilot scheme which starts in Liverpool on Friday, though several other types of rapid Covid tests will also be used in the city.
Vaccines and such
State Bar Passes Mandatory COVID-19 Vaccination Recommendation | New York Law Journal
Sun, 08 Nov 2020 04:23
News Mary Beth Morrissey, chair of the bar association's Health Law Section's Task Force on COVID-19, said in a statement after the vote on Saturday, ''The authority of the state to respond to a public health crisis is well-established in constitutional law.'' A lab technician extracts a portion of a COVID-19 vaccine candidate during testing at the Chula Vaccine Research Center, run by Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand, Monday, May 25, 2020. Researchers in Thailand claim to have promising results with the vaccination on mice, and have begun testing on monkeys. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)The New York State Bar Association on Saturday passed a resolution urging the state to consider making it mandatory for all New Yorkers to undergo COVID-19 vaccination when a vaccine becomes available, even if people object to it for ''religious, philosophical or personal reasons.''
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Jason Grant is a staff writer covering legal stories and cases for the New York Law Journal, the National Law Journal and Law.com, and a former practicing attorney. He's written and reported previously for the New York Times, the Star-Ledger, the L.A. Times and other publications. Contact him at [email protected] On Twitter, pls find him @JasonBarrGrant
Ferrets!
First the came for Mink, then DOGS!
Just a short info from Denmark.
By the 16 of November her in Denmark all mink are to be put down du to a mutation the Danish "cdc" Statens Serums Institut found. Thy say that they have found al least 5 mutations of the COVID-19 virus They call it cluster 5. And that say it jumps from Mink to people. That are stepping up test by 3 fold by the 16 of November in north Jutland from 6500 test a day now.
I have heard people making fun of the fact saying they will be coming for our pets next, with fear in there voice.
But that might be the perfect plan for the state to get rid of all the dogs and make us make more babies 😂🤣
Sorry for the late info.
Kres Drewsen
Nasal Spray Prevents Covid Infection in Ferrets, Study Finds - The New York Times
Sun, 08 Nov 2020 12:44
Scientists at Columbia University have developed a treatment that blocks the virus in the nose and lungs, is inexpensive and needs no refrigeration.
Ferrets are used by scientists studying flu, SARS and other respiratory diseases because the animals can catch viruses through the nose much like humans do. Credit... Peter Kovalev\TASS, via Getty Images A nasal spray that blocks the absorption of the SARS-CoV-2 virus has completely protected ferrets it was tested on, according to a small study released on Thursday by an international team of scientists. The study, which was limited to animals and has not yet been peer-reviewed, was assessed by several health experts at the request of The New York Times.
If the spray, which the scientists described as nontoxic and stable, is proved to work in humans, it could provide a new way of fighting the pandemic. A daily spritz up the nose would act like a vaccine.
''Having something new that works against the coronavirus is exciting,'' said Dr. Arturo Casadevall, the chairman of immunology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, who was not involved in the study. ''I could imagine this being part of the arsenal.''
The work has been underway for months by scientists from Columbia University Medical Center in New York, Erasmus Medical Center in the Netherlands and Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Columbia University Medical Center.
The team would require additional funding to pursue clinical trials in humans. Dr. Anne Moscona, a pediatrician and microbiologist at Columbia and co-author of the study, said they had applied for a patent on the product, and she hoped Columbia University would approach the federal government's Operation Warp Speed or large pharmaceutical companies that are seeking new ways to combat the coronavirus.
The spray attacks the virus directly. It contains a lipopeptide, a cholesterol particle linked to a chain of amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. This particular lipopeptide exactly matches a stretch of amino acids in the spike protein of the virus, which the pathogen uses to attach to a human airway or lung cell.
Before a virus can inject its RNA into a cell, the spike must effectively unzip, exposing two chains of amino acids, in order to fuse to the cell wall. As the spike zips back up to complete the process, the lipopeptide in the spray inserts itself, latching on to one of the spike's amino acid chains and preventing the virus from attaching.
''It is like you are zipping a zipper but you put another zipper inside, so the two sides cannot meet,'' said Matteo Porotto, a microbiologist at Columbia University and one of the paper's authors.
The work was described in a paper posted to the preprint server bioRxiv Thursday morning, and has been submitted to the journal Science for peer review.
Dr. Peter J. Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, said the therapy looked ''really promising.''
''What I'd like to know now is how easy it is to scale production,'' he said.
In the study, the spray was given to six ferrets, which were then divided into pairs and placed in three cages. Into each cage also went two ferrets that had been given a placebo spray and one ferret that had been deliberately infected with SARS-CoV-2 a day or two earlier.
Ferrets are used by scientists studying flu, SARS and other respiratory diseases because they can catch viruses through the nose much as humans do, although they also infect each other by contact with feces or by scratching and biting.
After 24 hours together, none of the sprayed ferrets caught the disease; all the placebo-group ferrets did.
''Virus replication was completely blocked,'' the authors wrote.
The protective spray attaches to cells in the nose and lungs and lasts about 24 hours, Dr. Moscona said. ''If it works this well in humans, you could sleep in a bed with someone infected or be with your infected kids and still be safe,'' she said.
The amino acids come from a stretch of the spike protein in coronaviruses that rarely mutates. The scientists tested it against four different variants of the virus, including both the well-known ''Wuhan'' and ''Italian'' strains, and also against the coronaviruses that cause SARS and MERS.
In cell cultures, it protected completely against all strains of the pandemic virus, fairly well against SARS and partially against MERS.
The lipoprotein can be inexpensively produced as a freeze-dried white powder that does not need refrigeration, Dr. Moscona said. A doctor or pharmacist could mix the powder with sugar and water to produce a nasal spray.
Other labs have designed antibodies and ''mini-proteins'' that also block the SARS-CoV-2 virus from entering cells, but these are chemically more complex and may need to be stored in cold temperatures.
Dr. Moscona and Dr. Porotto have been collaborating on similar ''fusion inhibitor'' peptides for 15 years, they said in a conference call. They have developed some against measles, Nipah, parainfluenza and other viruses.
But those products aroused little commercial interest, Dr. Porotto said, because an effective measles vaccine already exists and because the deadly Nipah virus only turns up occasionally in faraway places like Bangladesh and Malaysia.
Monoclonal antibodies to the new coronavirus have been shown to prevent infection as well as treat it, but they are expensive to make, require refrigeration and must be injected. Australian scientists have tested a nasal spray against Covid-19 in ferrets, but it works by enhancing the immune system, not by targeting the virus directly.
Because lipopeptides can be shipped as a dry powder, they could be used even in rural areas in poor countries that lack refrigeration, Dr. Moscona said.
Dr. Moscona, a pediatrician who usually works on parainfluenza and other viruses that infect children, said she was most interested in getting the product to poor countries that may never have access to the monoclonal antibodies and mRNA vaccines that Americans may soon have. But she has little experience in that arena, she said.
Dogs are People Too
Nestle's Purina Launches Insect-Based Pet Food
Sun, 08 Nov 2020 13:38
(Courthouse News photo/Barbara Leonard)ZURICH (AFP) '-- If your pet is a picky eater now, wait until it sees what Nestle's pet food brand Purina has in store: a new line of chow based on insect protein.
The Swiss food giant said Thursday that Purina was launching a line based on ''alternative proteins'' from insects and plants, ''to make better use of the planet' resources.''
The Beyond Nature's Protein line of dry food for cats and dogs will first be sold in Switzerland, where it will become available this month, Nestle said in a statement.
Purina veterinarians and nutritionists have developed two separate recipes, with one based on chicken, pig's liver and millet, and the second using insect protein, chicken and fava beans.
''The insect protein comes from black soldier fly larvae, which are already in use in animal feed in Europe,'' the statement said.
The new line offers ''a complete nutritious alternative to conventional dog and cat products, while taking care of the planet's precious resources by diversifying the protein sources,'' Purina chief Bernard Meunier said in the statement.
As for how pets will react to the new bug-infused dishes, Nestle said Purina would be surveying consumers for feedback.
(C) Agence France-Presse
Dark Winter
The Global Economy: Heading Toward a Dark Winter? | Council on Foreign Relations
Sat, 07 Nov 2020 04:56
The global economy is poised for a difficult period. The largest economies in Europe are shutting down for a second time. The benefits of the U.S. stimulus are starting to fade. Asia should be in a better place, given its health statistics'--but its recovery to date has relied in part on the rest of the world's demand and thus it isn't fully insulated from renewed global weakness.
Europe: More Stimulus NeededMore From Our Experts
Both the United States and Europe reported strong recoveries in the third quarter. The euro area grew a bit faster than the U.S. economy in the third quarter, but that is misleading since the strong rebound in the third quarter stemmed from a bigger fall in the second quarter. Output in the euro area remained a little more than 4 percent below its prepandemic level, while output in the United States is down by around 3.5 percent.
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It is already clear that Europe is set for a weak fourth quarter. European Central Bank (ECB) President Christine Lagarde was diplomatic: ''The euro area economic recovery is losing momentum more rapidly than expected.'' Even if the current round of lockdowns is somewhat less disruptive than in the spring, it will set the recovery back'--or rather, the resurgence of the virus has set the recovery back, since, even absent formal restrictions, households tend to take steps to limit the risk of transmission.
The World This Week
A weekly digest of the latest from CFR on the biggest foreign policy stories of the week, featuring briefs, opinions, and explainers. Every Friday.
The ECB almost certainly will need to provide more support for Europe's recovery at its meeting in December'--and Europe's fiscal stance will need to be recalibrated.
Europe should get credit for its aggressive fiscal response to the COVID-19 shock. But now it seems too optimistic to expect that effective containment of the virus will allow for a natural rebound in activity that will generate a rise in revenues and bring down fiscal deficits in 2020. Absent a quick public health breakthrough, more fiscal support likely will be needed in 2021, something that the ECB recognizes.
More From Our Experts
United States: A Weak Recovery Looms Without More Policy ActionThe apparent strength of the U.S. recovery in the third quarter is also deceptive. The economy'--as a chart of estimated monthly gross domestic product (GDP) shows'--was already losing momentum in August and September. The reported increase in the average level of activity in the third quarter relative to the second quarter is largely because it was much better in May and June than in March and especially April.
It isn't hard to figure out why. The fiscal support that Congress provided in the spring supported household incomes, and it provided the foundation for a strong rise in the consumption of goods even as demand for many services remained subdued. This has not been a typical downturn: most downturns are led by a fall in investment and investment goods, but this downturn has been driven by a fall in demand for services. The large increase in U.S. demand for durable household goods has not been enough to drive a strong recovery in U.S. industrial production, since U.S. industry is more geared toward the production of large capital goods for businesses'--such as aircraft'--than household goods. The trade deficit has soared on the back of increased demand for consumption goods and still weak exports.
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International Economics
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The lack of recent momentum, combined with the failure to agree on a preelection stimulus package, portends a weak U.S. recovery at best. The uptick in COVID-19 cases poses further downside risks. Even in the best-case scenario, where an effective vaccine is approved in the near future, it will take time for a large portion of the population to be vaccinated. There is no real doubt that the U.S. economy needs more fiscal support. The chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, has been admirably clear on this point.
Asia: Drawing on the Rest of the World for DemandAsia should be the engine of the global recovery. The virus originated in China, which is now one of the few countries globally where reported output is more or less back to its prepandemic trend. South Korea and Taiwan have exceptionally good health records, and their economies are up year-over-year. Under normal circumstances, China's strong recovery would be pulling in imports, including manufactured imports. (Its output is up by close to 5 percent year-over-year, while output of many of its trade partners is down by roughly the same percentage.) China's outperformance, in turn, would normally reduce its trade surplus.
But these are not normal times. China has benefited from the shift in global demand away from services and toward the medical kits, home appliances, and laptops it produces in great quantities. But it has not done much in terms of policy to support its own consumption. As a result, the recovery in industrial production has outpaced the recovery in consumption, and China's trade surplus is setting records. But there is a downside here: China's own recovery remains vulnerable to falloff in global demand, as it has not been entirely homegrown.
Emerging Economies: Not Yet Turning the CornerFinally, if China is set aside, the world's emerging economies are not doing well. Most of them have provided a smaller fiscal stimulus than most advanced economies, and most emerging markets are now running substantial trade surpluses, which means their savings are helping to finance the fiscal deficits of advanced economies. African countries have injected smaller amounts of fiscal stimulus than they did back in 2008, according to the International Monetary Fund, since they entered the COVID-19 shock with depleted coffers after the big fall in commodity prices in 2014''15. Low interest rates in advanced economies have not translated into low borrowing costs everywhere. That is why the Group of Thirty is calling for a substantial mobilization of international support to help poor countries finance pandemic-related shocks. It could be done without large new budget outlays in the advanced economies, and it would help the entire global economy recover from a once-in-a-generation crisis.
Editor's Note: The author has been advising the team supporting Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. He was also a project director for the Group of Thirty report on a COVID-19 recovery.
Shut Up Slave!
In the Netherlands, a Cartoon in School Leads to Online Threats and an Arrest - The New York Times
Sat, 07 Nov 2020 03:54
Threats against a high school teacher who displayed a political cartoon that supported the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo have alarmed Dutch officials.
A woman was arrested on suspicion of making online threats against a teacher in the Dutch city of Rotterdam. Credit... Peter Dejong/Associated Press Nov. 6, 2020 Updated 10:22 p.m. ET A month after a teacher in France was beheaded for showing caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad to his class, fears are growing in the Netherlands that the ripple effects of the attack are spreading in that country.
On Friday, an 18-year-old woman in the Dutch city of Rotterdam was arrested on suspicion of making online threats against a high school teacher who had displayed in his classroom a cartoon supporting Charlie Hebdo, the French satirical newspaper that had originally published the Muhammad caricatures.
Local media on Thursday reported that another teacher was threatened after he showed a cartoon depicting Muhammad during a class about free speech at a high school in the city of Den Bosch.
''Actions in relation to freedom of speech in schools in Rotterdam and Den Bosch have led to unrest and even threats,'' two Dutch education ministers wrote in a letter to Parliament to register their dismay. ''To intimidate and threaten teachers cannot be tolerated in any way,'' the ministers, Arie Slob and Ingrid van Engelshoven, wrote.
At the center of the incident at the Emmauscollege high school in Rotterdam was a picture of a cartoon posted on a classroom wall by a teacher several years ago that was shared on social media. The cartoon depicted a decapitated person wearing a shirt labeled ''Charlie Hebdo'' sticking out his tongue at a bearded man holding a sword, with the word ''immortal'' below it, according to the Dutch newspaper NRC.
Joep Bertrams, a Dutch political cartoonist, drew the cartoon in January 2015, when Charlie Hebdo was targeted by assailants angered by its caricatures of Muhammad in a terrorist attack in Paris that killed 12 people.
Pictures of the cartoon in the Rotterdam classroom were posted on Instagram and Snapchat, and circulated among students, attracting some angry attention. ''If this isn't removed quickly then we're going to deal with this differently,'' read a caption under one picture that showed the cartoon in the classroom on Instagram.
It was not clear if this comment involved the 18-year-old woman who was arrested, but not named, as the authorities did not specify the nature of the threat she is accused of making. The post has been deleted, but was pictured as a screengrab in the Dutch media.
The woman was arrested on suspicion of having posted a message on social media that ''incited others to commit criminal offenses against the school and teacher,'' the police said.
The incident came after Dutch schools held memorials on Monday for Samuel Paty, the teacher who was killed in France last month.
Image The school in France where Samuel Paty taught. Credit... Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York Times The incidents in France and the Netherlands underline the growing tensions between governments in the region that are taking a hard line on issues such as free speech, and their many citizens of Muslim faith who have found material like the caricatures produced by Charlie Hebdo and the language used to defend them deeply offensive.
After Mr. Paty's killing, French authorities waged a crackdown against Muslim individuals and groups that has unsettled many in the community. President Emmanuel Macron's interior minister, a hard-line right-wing politician who once suggested that Islam needed to be ''totally assimilated to the Republic,'' has been the leading figure in that effort.
In a letter to parents on Tuesday, Emmauscollege high school said ''the context around the cartoon completely disappeared'' as it was circulated on social media. NRC reported that some students at the school, which includes a large number of Muslims, mistakenly believed that the cartoon depicted Muhammad.
''The consequence is that threats were made,'' the letter said. ''We find these threats unacceptable.''
In an interview, Mr. Bertrams, the Dutch cartoonist, said his drawings depicted a terrorist, not Muhammad.
''I act against fanatics within a religion that do things that I don't agree with,'' Mr. Bertrams said about his cartoons. ''I never drew cartoons of the prophet, and I suppose I will never do, even if I could, because I respect religion.''
In Rotterdam, the police increased surveillance around Emmauscollege, and Dutch officials urged teachers to report any threats or intimidation.
The threats have alarmed officials in the Netherlands for their similarities with the events that took a deadly turn in France last month.
Mr. Paty, a 47-year-old history teacher, faced a backlash from offended students after he showed the Charlie Hebdo caricatures in a class on freedom of expression. Mr. Paty later apologized, but an angry father complained about him in videos he uploaded on social media. An 18-year-old teenager who saw the videos went on Oct. 16 to the middle school where Mr. Paty taught, and killed him in the street after he left school.
''What happened in France has gathered a lot of attention, we are taking these threats very seriously,'' said Lillian van Duijvenbode, a spokeswoman for the Rotterdam police.
Dutch media and Mr. Slob, one of the education ministers who wrote a letter to Parliament, said the teacher in Rotterdam, who has not been named, had gone into hiding. Emmauscollege refused to comment on the teacher, and the police declined to comment on his whereabouts.
Officials in France said a core pillar of the country, its public education system, had been targeted by the attack on Mr. Paty. And authorities there as well as in the Netherlands and other countries have vowed to defend freedom of expression, encouraging teachers to discuss the killing of Mr. Paty with their students.
Since the attack, French authorities have reported several other related incidents. Jean-Michel Blanquer, the French education minister, said a minute of silence held in memory of Mr. Paty in French schools on Monday had been disturbed on a number of occasions. And earlier this week, a teacher in a Paris suburb filed a complaint after she said she heard a man threatening to ''avenge the Prophet'' and target teachers near a primary school.
Rens Goedknegt, a history teacher at a high school in the Dutch city of Haarlem, said Mr. Paty's killing and the incident in Rotterdam had been discussed widely at his school.
He said that he had talked about Mr. Paty's murder with his students and that a lot of them found ''it hard to understand why such a cartoon would be hurtful.'' But, he added, ''it was a good view into how other kids would have found it offensive.''
Mr. Bertram, the cartoonist, said caricatures needed to be contextualized when showed to students. The attacker he represented in 2015, he said, was covered in black, a clothing reminiscent of those worn by Islamic State fighters who were making headlines at the time.
''A cartoon is very useful to explain problems in societies, because its simplicity makes it very easy to understand it,'' Mr. Bertrams said. ''The danger is, because of the simplicity, misunderstanding can also happen very easily.''
Constant M(C)heut contributed reporting from Paris.
BLM
NBA Players, Owners Agree to 72-Game 2020-21 Season Starting Dec. 22
Fri, 06 Nov 2020 04:46
The NBA will be back before the year is over.
On Thursday, the National Basketball Players Association confirmed its representatives tentatively approved a 72-game season that will begin Dec. 22.
Shams Charania of The Athletic and Stadium first reported the sides had agreed to a deal.
Charania and ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski provided more details:
This news was widely expected. The New York Times' Marc Stein reported Wednesday that "a ll the momentum on the player side" pointed toward training camps on Dec. 1 ahead of the regular season three weeks later.
The Athletic's David Aldridge also spoke to an agent who referenced the potential consequences of eschewing the tabled proposal:
With the COVID-19 pandemic putting the 2019-20 season on hold, one question among many was how it would disrupt the league's calendar going forward. The NBA Finals didn't conclude until Oct. 11, which made the traditional mid-to-late October start for the next year all but impossible.
One line of thinking was that the NBA would stand by until the development of a COVID vaccine allowed for fans to return to arenas in big numbers again. Some stadiums have admitted fans in other leagues, albeit well below capacity.
The drawback to that approach is that it's unclear when a vaccine will be forthcoming.
In a September interview with Bob Costas for CNN, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said that January was his "best guess" on a start date. He added that one goal would be to play games in home arenas with fans but that a number of logistical issues needed to be resolved on that front.
However, Charania reported on Oct. 23 that the NBA league office told its board of governors Dec. 22 was the new tentative target.
ESPN's Wojnarowski and Brian Windhorst provided some more context. The plan would see the regular season shortened from 82 games to 72 and the 2021 All-Star Game canceled. The report stated the NBA was " abandoning plans to delay the opening with hopes of incorporating fans back into arenas."
Windhorst explained one reason behind Dec. 22 specifically during the Oct. 26 episode of his Hoop Collective podcast. TNT would be able to air the Los Angeles Lakers' season opener, when their players will collect their NBA championship rings, and ESPN would have its regular slate of Christmas Day games.
Wojnarowski and Zach Lowe provided the possible financial ramifications: "The league believes that a Dec. 22 start that includes Christmas Day games on television and allows for a 72-game schedule that finishes before the Summer Olympics in mid-July is worth between $500 million and $1 billion in short- and long-term revenues to the league and players, sources said."
Any proposal from the league needed the players' approval, and Charania noted how a Christmas-time opening was " quicker than expected," alluding to a level of resistance that could grow.
Lakers swingman Danny Green posited on The Ringer NBA Show that some of his teammates, including LeBron James, might choose to sit out for an extended period to allow themselves a little extra rest:
Not every team was in the same position as the Lakers and Eastern Conference champion Miami Heat, though. The eight franchises that didn't travel to the Walt Disney World Resort bubble haven't played since March, and those that didn't make deep postseason runs will have had a slightly more traditional offseason in terms of length.
Without a further reduction in the number of games, a December start was arguably the only alternative if the NBA wanted to revert back to its regular October-April regular-season calendar for 2021-22.
QFS
Ben Carson's claim that the U.S. owes $211 trillion beyond the reported federal debt - The Washington Post
Sat, 07 Nov 2020 14:02
The previous page is sending you to
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/05/13/ben-carsons-claim-that-the-u-s-owes-211-trillion-beyond-the-reported-federal-debt/.
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A National Debt Of $14 Trillion? Try $211 Trillion : NPR
Sat, 07 Nov 2020 14:05
When Standard & Poor's reduced the nation's credit rating from AAA to AA-plus, the United States suffered the first downgrade to its credit rating ever. S&P took this action despite the plan Congress passed this past week to raise the debt limit.
The downgrade, S&P said, "reflects our opinion that the fiscal consolidation plan that Congress and the administration recently agreed to falls short of what, in our view, would be necessary to stabilize the government's medium-term debt dynamics."
It's those medium- and long-term debt problems that also worry economics professor Laurence J. Kotlikoff, who served as a senior economist on President Reagan's Council of Economic Advisers. He says the national debt, which the U.S. Treasury has accounted at about $14 trillion, is just the tip of the iceberg.
"We have all these unofficial debts that are massive compared to the official debt," Kotlikoff tells David Greene, guest host of weekends on All Things Considered. "We're focused just on the official debt, so we're trying to balance the wrong books."
Kotlikoff explains that America's "unofficial" payment obligations '-- like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits '-- jack up the debt figure substantially.
Laurence J. Kotlikoff served as a senior economist on President Ronald Reagan's Council of Economic Advisers and is a professor of economics at Boston University. Courtesy of Boston University hide caption
toggle caption Courtesy of Boston University Laurence J. Kotlikoff served as a senior economist on President Ronald Reagan's Council of Economic Advisers and is a professor of economics at Boston University.
Courtesy of Boston University "If you add up all the promises that have been made for spending obligations, including defense expenditures, and you subtract all the taxes that we expect to collect, the difference is $211 trillion. That's the fiscal gap," he says. "That's our true indebtedness."
We don't hear more about this enormous number, Kotlikoff says, because politicians have chosen their language carefully to keep most of the problem off the books.
"Why are these guys thinking about balancing the budget?" he says. "They should try and think about our long-term fiscal problems."
According to Kotlikoff, one of the biggest fiscal problems Congress should focus on is America's obligation to make Social Security payments to future generations of the elderly.
"We've got 78 million baby boomers who are poised to collect, in about 15 to 20 years, about $40,000 per person. Multiply 78 million by $40,000 '-- you're talking about more than $3 trillion a year just to give to a portion of the population," he says. "That's an enormous bill that's overhanging our heads, and Congress isn't focused on it."
"We've consistently done too little too late, looked too short-term, said the future would take care of itself, we'll deal with that tomorrow," he says. "Well, guess what? You can't keep putting off these problems."
To eliminate the fiscal gap, Kotlikoff says, the U.S. would have to have tax increases and spending reductions far beyond what's being negotiated right now in Washington.
"What you have to do is either immediately and permanently raise taxes by about two-thirds, or immediately and permanently cut every dollar of spending by 40 percent forever. The [Congressional Budget Office's] numbers say we have an absolutely enormous problem facing us."
Go Podcasting!
Spotify hints at subscription podcast service - The Verge
Sat, 07 Nov 2020 12:51
Spotify appears to be interested in launching a subscription podcast service that would offer access to original shows or exclusive episodes for a monthly fee. The potential service was described in a survey sent out through Spotify's app, which was reported on by Andrew Wallenstein, president of Variety's Intelligence Platform.
The survey describes at least four possible subscription podcast plans, ranging from $3 to $8 per month. The cheapest plan would include ''access to exclusive interviews and episodes,'' but would still include ads. The most expensive plan would include access to ''high quality original content,'' early access to some episodes, and no platform-inserted ads. None of these plans would include access to Spotify's premium music subscription.
A spokesperson for Spotify indicated that the survey should not be taken as concrete product plans. ''At Spotify, we routinely conduct a number of surveys in an effort to improve our user experience. Some of those end up paving the path for our broader user experience and others serve only as important learnings,'' the spokesperson said. ''We have no further news to share on future plans at this time.''
Looks like the premium podcast plan would be ad-free and some mix of exclusive extra content at price points somewhere between $3-$8. pic.twitter.com/ArK8xYg0CM
'-- Andrew Wallenstein (@awallenstein) November 6, 2020That means there's no guarantee that Spotify will follow through with launching any of the described services. Companies often survey customers about potential new products and may shape their plans based on the results. But the fact that Spotify is surveying users means that it's likely considering launching some sort of subscription podcast plan, even if it doesn't necessarily end up taking any of the exact forms described here.
Spotify has been making big investments into podcasting over the past two years. The company acquired several major podcast producers, including Gimlet, Parcast, and The Ringer; signed exclusive podcast deals with Michelle Obama, Kim Kardashian West, and Joe Rogan; and has increasingly promoted podcasts inside its app. Podcasts offer a lucrative opportunity for Spotify because it doesn't have to pay licensing fees and royalties to stream them, but it can still make money on subscriptions and app-inserted ads played around them.
Eventually, Spotify is going to want to make money off of the huge sums it has sunk into podcasting '-- and it seems we may have an early look at what that'll be like. Whether Spotify can pull it off is another question, though. The podcast service Luminary signed a splashy roster of talent to make podcasts for its subscription service, but it frustrated the podcast industry in the process and seems to have struggled to get listeners to sign up.
How Adam Curry uses the Lightning network for his new podcast platform - BTC21
Sat, 07 Nov 2020 18:59
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VIDEO - (1586) CNN's Van Jones brought to tears as Joe Biden wins US election - YouTube
VIDEO-Brennan: 'Outrageous' Republican's Are Not Quelling Trump's 'Fascist Tendencies'
Sun, 08 Nov 2020 13:22
Former CIA Director John Brennan said Friday on MSNBC's ''Deadline'' that it was ''outrageous'' Republicans were not telling President Donald Trump to stop claiming ''wide-scale fraud.''
Brennan said, ''I am just very concerned that Donald Trump right now is thinking and talking with his advisers and his inner circle of people, to see what he can do to try to derail, what I think is the inevitable inauguration of Joe Biden. And so it is up to people like William Barr now, the attorney general who has demonstrated he's willing to be Donald Trump's personal lawyer, to stand up and to refuse any type of direction that he may get. Presidents have some emergency authorities that they could try to exercise. And I'm hoping that he's not going to resort to this of the things that could create havoc in the streets. But more concerning is he going to fuel the anger, the animus of his base and encourage them to take matters in their own hands. That is something that I'm hoping and praying is not going to happen. But Donald Trump seems to only be concerned about himself and not about the country. He has no respect for the law, no respect for the office of the presidency. He only wants to do what is going to benefit Donald Trump.''
He continued, ''I think there are too few people in the Republican Party these days who have that spine and intestinal fortitude and the love of country they need in order to push back against somebody who clearly has these fascist tendencies and is clearly trampling the tenants of our democracy. The people in the White House, Mark Meadows and others who need to stop what Mr. Trump is doing. Of course, he could call for recounts. That is a legitimate request. But to continue to claim fraud and wide-scale fraud about these dedicated election officials, this is something that goes way way beyond the pale.''
He added, ''The fact that Republican senators in Congress are not speaking out loudly and continuously against Donald Trump is outrageous.''
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
VIDEO-Curtis Houck on Twitter: "On ABC, Rahm Emanuel literally says a Biden White House should tell people laid off from retail stores like JC Penney to learn to code. He actually said this. Amazing. https://t.co/xlSnVi7445" / Twitter
Sun, 08 Nov 2020 13:06
Curtis Houck : On ABC, Rahm Emanuel literally says a Biden White House should tell people laid off from retail stores like JC Penn'... https://t.co/JTQu2OfmeC
Sat Nov 07 02:09:10 +0000 2020
George Bailey : @CurtisHouck total failure, from the former mayor of the most corrupt big city in America, where Obama came from, Chicago
Sun Nov 08 13:04:46 +0000 2020
Alyson Frost : @CurtisHouck @MattRooneyNJ (not until they learn to count change!)
Sun Nov 08 12:49:50 +0000 2020
Alyson Frost : @CurtisHouck @MattRooneyNJ And that is how your ekection software "glitches"
Sun Nov 08 12:44:18 +0000 2020
VIDEO-Trump Team reports sheriff refuses to enforce court order - YouTube
VIDEO-Robby Starbuck on Twitter: "One Michigan county clerk caught a glitch in tabulation software so they hand counted votes and found the glitch caused 6,000 votes to go to Biden + Democrats that were meant for Trump and Republicans. 47 MI counties used
Sun, 08 Nov 2020 13:03
Robby Starbuck : One Michigan county clerk caught a glitch in tabulation software so they hand counted votes and found the glitch ca'... https://t.co/blLEpDd87C
Fri Nov 06 18:39:41 +0000 2020
classe 2 opposant 2526 #Z : @robbystarbuck Fraude or FRAUDE the only question now
Sun Nov 08 13:00:42 +0000 2020
Lord Moore : @robbystarbuck @DarkKitty89x
Sun Nov 08 12:51:03 +0000 2020
VIDEO-VOTER FRAUD DOG VOTES IN 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. UNBELIEVABLE!!!! - YouTube
VIDEO-Whole Foods bans employees from wearing poppies '-- immediately reverses decision after backlash - YouTube
VIDEO-Democrat Vernon Jones Exposes His Own Party in Georgia for Election Fraud - YouTube
VIDEO-Dave Chappelle's SNL monologue was shrewd and political '-- but chill - Vox
Sun, 08 Nov 2020 12:22
Faced with the daunting task of delivering Saturday Night Live's post-election opening monologue, Dave Chappelle opted for a tone atypical of his brand of comedy: muted rather than scathing.
Chappelle appeared following a lackluster but earnest cold open, which parodied the victory speech that President-elect Joe Biden gave earlier Saturday evening. The majority of mainstream media outlets finally declared Biden the winner of the 2020 presidential election on Saturday afternoon after five days of seemingly endless vote-counting.
While many at-home viewers seemed to be anticipating a night of searing political comedy aimed at this exhausting election week, Chappelle's monologue veered away from the biting tone you might expect from the incisive, no-holds-barred comic.
Wearing a great suit and apparently smoking a cigarette onstage '-- in his defense, this was the kind of week where a performer of Chappelle's stature could probably get away with smoking on an NBC soundstage in front of a studio audience '-- Chappelle's set kept with his ongoing themes of calling out racist double standards in the US.
Chappelle started out the monologue by talking about his great-grandfather, a slave Chappelle has brought up before, most notably in his sober commentary on the death of George Floyd earlier in 2020. But rather than using his great-grandfather's story to begin a commentary on the many racial and social issues of America today, Chappelle veered into the unexpected, pivoting to a self-deprecating joke about his current Netflix and HBO specials that set the tone for the rest of the set '-- and arguably for the rest of the show, which seemed determined to skew toward the calm, even apolitical end of the spectrum.
He was quick to remind viewers, however, that ousting Trump doesn't mean the country is magically safer, despite liberals' undoubted feelings of relief. ''You ask what life was like before Covid,'' he noted. ''A mass shooting every week. Anyone remember that? Thank god for Covid.''
Chapelle also got in a few digs at the white working-class Trump voter '-- ''I don't know why poor white people don't like wearing masks. What is the problem? Wear masks at the Klan rally, wear it at the Walmart too.'' '-- as well as Trump himself, pointing out that the president took a helicopter to Walter-Reed hospital when he contracted Covid-19 even though it was just a few blocks away.
He also argued that Trump's selfishness was indicative of larger problems with the way white Americans view times of crisis.
''Don't even want to wear your mask because it's oppressive? Try wearing the mask I been wearing all these years,'' he said. ''You're not ready for this. You don't know how to survive yourselves. Black people, we're the only ones that know how to survive this. Whites come, hurry, quick, come get your [n-word] lessons. You need us. You need our eyes to save you from yourselves.''
But if Chappelle dug his heels in on his typically trenchant humor, he delivered it with a style that felt atypically disengaged, which might explain why many of his jokes met with an ambivalent studio audience. ''Trump getting coronavirus was like when Freddie Mercury got AIDS,'' he joked at one point. ''Nobody was like, how did he get it?'' True. But nobody laughed, either. Chappelle also chastised the audience for being too woke, a theme he's harped on repeatedly, and ended his monologue by suggesting that one of the other ''lessons'' that SNL's presumably left-leaning audience needs to learn is one of forgiveness and reconciliation '-- certainly not an idea to which many people are receptive in the wake of a polarizing election.
Despite the inherent tension in that message, Chappelle made it sound almost like neighborly advice, well worn, rather than an admonishment. ''I know how that feels. I promise you, I know how that feels,'' he said.
''Everyone knows how that feels. But here's the difference between me and you. You guys hate each other for it. And I don't hate anybody. I just hate that feeling. That's what I fight through. That's what I suggest you fight through. You got to find a way to live your life. Got to find a way to forgive each other. Got to find a way to find joy in your existence in spite of that feeling.''
Perhaps not the message everyone wanted to hear at the end of this election week '-- and not necessarily the burn that many SNL viewers wanted. But, perhaps, it was the one we needed.
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VIDEO-President-Elect Joe Biden & Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris Address the Nation - YouTube
VIDEO-VIDEO: CNN's Van Jones Cries After Joe Biden Called Election Winner
Sat, 07 Nov 2020 23:42
Van Jones broke down on air just after CNN called former Vice President Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 election.
In a powerful, candid broadcast moment, the CNN commentator delivered an emotional two-minute commentary when asked for his thoughts on Biden having been declared the victor, and President Donald Trump having been defeated.
''It's easier to be a parent this morning, it's easier to be a dad,'' Jones said '-- choking up from the outset. ''It's easier to tell your kids character matters, it matters. Tell them the truth matters. Being a good person matters.''
At this point, Jones began to fully break down.
''And it's easier for a lot of people. If you're Muslim in this country, you don't have to worry if the president doesn't want you here,'' he said. ''If you're an immigrant, you don't have to worry about your babies being snatched away or send DREAMers back for no reason. It's vindication for a lot of people who have really suffered.''
'''I can't breathe,' that wasn't just George Floyd. A lot of people have felt they couldn't breathe. Every day you're waking up and getting tweets, and you're going to the store and people who have been afraid to show their racism are getting nastier and nastier to you. And you're worried about your kids, and you're worried about your sister, can she just go to Walmart and get back into her car without somebody saying something to her. And you've spent so much of your life energy just trying to hold it together.''
Jones concluded by directing the message to his sons.
''I just want my sons to look at this,'' Jones said. ''It's easy to do it the cheap way, and get away with stuff. But it comes back around. It comes back around. And this is a good day for this country.''
Watch above, via CNN.
Have a tip we should know? [email protected]
VIDEO-Rahm Emanuel to Fired Retail Workers: You Can Learn to Code!
Sat, 07 Nov 2020 23:41
Laid-off retail workers should learn to code for new software jobs, says Democrat heavyweight Rahm Emanuel.
''There's going to be people, like at J.C. Penney and other retail [outlets]. Those jobs are not coming back,'' Emanuel told ABC News November 6.
''Give them the tools, six months, you're going to become a computer coder. We'll pay for it, and you'll get millions of people to sign up for that,'' Emanuel said. ''They are not going back to parts of the retail economy, and we need to give them a lifeline to what's the next chapter.''
On ABC, Rahm Emanuel literally says a Biden White House should tell people laid off from retail stores like JC Penney to learn to code.
He actually said this. Amazing. pic.twitter.com/xlSnVi7445
'-- Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) November 7, 2020
Even if older American retail workers can learn the skills, Emanuel's plan would likely fail because Fortune 500 companies prefer to hire foreign visa workers instead of hiring the existing supply of American young software professionals.
And the government quietly delivers this resident army of at least 1.5 million white-collar visa workers via the Optional Practical Training program, the H-1B visa program, as well as via the J-1, L-1, H4EAD, E-3, Curricular Practical Training, TN, and B-1/B-2 programs.
Emanuel may not know about this huge labor policy, even though he is a former chief of staff to former President Barack Obama and also a former mayor of Chicago.
Most of these foreign workers are imported from low-tier universities in India and work for many years at low wages in mid-skill jobs in the hope of getting green cards and citizenship delivered via a current or future employer. Some work as H-1B contractors at brand name companies, like Facebook and Amazon, but most compliantly serve as gig workers for little-known subcontractors in the hope of getting the huge deferred bonus of green cards.
CEOs at Fortune 500 companies quietly outsource many of their full-time jobs to this huge ''Green Card Workforce,'' so cutting their payroll costs and boosting their near-term stock values for shareholders and C-suite executives.
This green card outsourcing prevents many American graduates from getting paid jobs where they can use the degrees they earned with borrowed tuition money. This outsourcing also pushes many experienced American professionals from mid-career jobs, while millions more face lower salaries and persistent job insecurity.
Corporate diversity reports, university reports, and census data show that large slices of the nation's technology workforce consist of ill-paid, ill-treated foreign workers who have the same job security and professional authority as migrant stoop workers in U.S. fields.
The foreigners' limited skills and lack of workplace rights help to reduce productivity, lower the quality of software, and slow research. But those losses are acceptable because the foreign workers successfully minimize U.S. professionals' role in the sector, so minimizing the formation of innovative rival companies.
So this labor policy delivers workplace stability, cheaper graduates, and higher stock values to the current executives and leading shareholders of the Fortune 500 companies.
However, President Trump has begun to reform this green card workforce to steer many of these white-collar jobs back to Americans.
In contrast, Joe Biden's 2020 plan would import many foreign workers for jobs that retail workers can accomplish with pride.
He promised to ''reassert America's commitment to asylum-seekers and refugees,'' to wipe out Trump's asylum reforms, bar any deportations for 100 days, and end migration enforcement against illegal aliens unless they commit a felony.
Biden also promised to let companies import more visa workers, let mayors import temporary workers, and allow an unlimited flow of foreign graduates through U.S. universities into white-collar jobs. He would ''exempt from any cap [the] recent graduates of Ph.D. programs in STEM fields.''
Biden also wants to accelerate the inflow of chain migration migrants and dramatically accelerate the inflow of poor refugees to at least 125,000 per year.
A trade group for many universities is lobbying vs. a Trump reform that would help their indebted American grads get better jobs at higher wages. Huh? B/c the reform would cut the $ billions they get for sneaking foreign grads into Americans' jobs. #H1Bhttps://t.co/yehkjIxp6m
'-- Neil Munro (@NeilMunroDC) November 3, 2020
VIDEO-Media Announces Biden Victory...Then Rudy Giuliani Takes the Mic With Bomb About What's to Come - YouTube
VIDEO-Joe Rogan Experience #1559 - Steven Rinella - YouTube
VIDEO-Lou Dobbs on Twitter: "Democracy at Stake: @SidneyPowell1 @TomFitton discuss the potential for nationwide voter irregularities & whether state legislatures and courts will uphold the rule of law. #MAGA #AmericaFirst #Dobbs https://t.co/srJFNAaVA
Sat, 07 Nov 2020 05:06
Lou Dobbs : Democracy at Stake: @SidneyPowell1 @TomFitton discuss the potential for nationwide voter irregularities & whether s'... https://t.co/OsmOYPFj7T
Fri Nov 06 23:14:41 +0000 2020
Baby Trump : @LouDobbs @SidneyPowell1 @TomFitton This whole segment...batshit crazy...and downright deceitful... https://t.co/VGn02Tn3m6
Sat Nov 07 05:06:22 +0000 2020
Jack Ewing : @LouDobbs @SidneyPowell1 @TomFitton Time to put up or shut up. Time for Trump to produce arrests or CONCEDE.
Sat Nov 07 05:06:00 +0000 2020
VIDEO-Jamie on Twitter: "Sidney Powell just said they have evidence that HAMMER and SCORECARD were used to change voting numbers. https://t.co/czRyms8CKG" / Twitter
Sat, 07 Nov 2020 05:00
Jamie : Sidney Powell just said they have evidence that HAMMER and SCORECARD were used to change voting numbers. https://t.co/czRyms8CKG
Fri Nov 06 23:15:03 +0000 2020
MONA : @Gribbs7 Fox News is corrupt now
Sat Nov 07 04:58:58 +0000 2020
delta dawn : @Gribbs7 @bcrider77 Is Fox Business where are the real reporting happens? Bc its not on regular FOX news. Have I be'... https://t.co/6izWu4wESw
Sat Nov 07 04:56:06 +0000 2020
VIDEO-Ian Miles Cheong on Twitter: "This is big. The software used to tabulate the votes in one county sent at least 6,000 Trump votes to Biden. 47 counties used the software. Other states may have, too. Was it a glitch or a "feature"? https://t.co/eeV4Ve
Fri, 06 Nov 2020 21:51
Ian Miles Cheong : This is big. The software used to tabulate the votes in one county sent at least 6,000 Trump votes to Biden. 47 cou'... https://t.co/opOtyUOYY7
Fri Nov 06 19:20:53 +0000 2020
Rick Scott : @stillgray @Truth67968705 IF this happened you will win in court. Stop trying to stir the pot and get someone killed.
Fri Nov 06 21:51:45 +0000 2020
Muhammad Was A Filthy Pedophile : @stillgray It won't be hard to strip that software program down and find out if it was an intentional 'function' of the software.
Fri Nov 06 21:51:45 +0000 2020
ð¥Mindy Chase Joye : @stillgray @TheDamaniFelder Keep praying, don't lose faith.
Fri Nov 06 21:51:38 +0000 2020
RandomConnecticutResident : @stillgray Just want to throw it out there that the same software vendor that caused this glitch in Michigan also c'... https://t.co/k8IQeLqUpT
Fri Nov 06 21:51:37 +0000 2020
Gordo : @stillgray A glitch in Ivanka's voting machine software?
Fri Nov 06 21:51:36 +0000 2020
Truth '¯¸ ' : @stillgray Was it one of Ivanka's machines? Was the software supposed to glitch the other way?
Fri Nov 06 21:51:33 +0000 2020
PaLopez : @stillgray False
Fri Nov 06 21:51:28 +0000 2020
VIDEO-Newsmax on Twitter: "It's all starting to make sense, says Greg Kelly... are certain 'traitors' allowing Joe Biden's 'plan' to unfold? @gregkellyusa https://t.co/VlT7z8drtO https://t.co/zx8m0szdhB" / Twitter
Fri, 06 Nov 2020 15:20
Newsmax : It's all starting to make sense, says Greg Kelly... are certain 'traitors' allowing Joe Biden's 'plan' to unfold?'... https://t.co/dUnFqXvebL
Fri Nov 06 01:45:46 +0000 2020
VIDEO-Ian Miles Cheong on Twitter: "Vernon Jones: "We are not going to stand for it, we are not going to back down. We are going to fight. This is a battle cry." "I just want to say to the press, we ain't bullshitting." https://t.co/aZfvOpmcVX" / Twitter
Fri, 06 Nov 2020 01:30
Ian Miles Cheong : Vernon Jones: "We are not going to stand for it, we are not going to back down. We are going to fight. This is a ba'... https://t.co/d7QDutwN3I
Fri Nov 06 00:48:43 +0000 2020
tcorpstexas : @stillgray #VernonJones2024
Fri Nov 06 01:28:03 +0000 2020
Peaches : @stillgray YES!!!!!!!
Fri Nov 06 01:27:58 +0000 2020
WestCoast_Life : @stillgray @DA_Memes1 This democrat has more balls than the spineless gop
Fri Nov 06 01:27:50 +0000 2020
