It is given to few countries to face a future without any bright sides. Those that have done so in the past, have usually confronted overwhelming external challenges, perhaps compounded by internal difficulties. In the case of the United States today, that is not the case. To be sure, there are external challenges with both allies and competitors. But in a very real sense, America today - like so many Western countries - is its own worst enemy, and it may well portend the death of our Constitutional order if not the country itself.
The general election of 2020 will be the stuff of argument and analysis for many years to come, here and abroad. Suffice to say here that a panicky over-reaction to the onset of the COVID-19 virus produced economic hardship and social disorder, compounded by months of riots, looting and arson afflicting hundreds of cities (almost all Democrat-governed) beginning in late May 2020. All of this set the stage for an election won overwhelmingly on November 3rd by President Donald Trump and lost by him in the following weeks to his Democrat opponent. Joseph Biden, as dumps of hundreds of thousands of mail-in ballots appeared in dubious circumstances amidst widespread allegations of fraud and lawsuits challenging the outcome.
The Paths to Dystopia
At this point, only an anarchist or a radical (both of which seem to abound in the modern Democrat party) believing that from chaos arises their utopia would view the future with a sense of satisfaction. I am neither, and while I am not inherently a pessimist, I simply see no way forward that does not present one form or another of disaster - a true dystopia, differing only in type and degree of violence.
Comment: The US is on the fast-track to self-destruction, and the more individuals who understand this, and why - and who can prepare themselves (and others) for the future - the better off humanity will be as a whole when the opportunity avails itself to re-form and re-strengthen.
We, also, will have become much stronger souls for the experience.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
We report a simple yet powerful statistical model of county-level voter behavior in the November 2020 presidential election using two main types of data:
- County-specific voting data from the five previous presidential elections.
- Selected demographic variables (race and education) plotting how different national voter groups voted differently in 2020 overall.
These two types of predictors allow us to explain over 95% of the variation in county-level votes, and therefore allow us identify which counties (and consequently, states) look substantially anomalous in the 2020 election.
The model provides substantial support for the allegation that the outcome of the election was affected by fraud in multiple states. Specifically, the model's predictions match the reported results in all other states, i.e. states where no fraud has been alleged, but predicts Trump won majorities in five disputed states (AZ, GA, NV, PA and WI) and 49.68% of the vote in the sixth (MI).
In other words, the reported Biden margin of victory in at least five of the six contested states cannot be explained by any patterns in voter preference consistent with national demographic trends.
© Twitter/Aametsoc
General view after heavy snowfall in Sappada, Italy, Jan. 3, 2021, in this still image obtained from a social media video.
European weather forecasters say about 2 meters (over 6 feet) of snow fell early Monday in parts of northern Italy's alpine region, blocking roads and burying cars and houses in some areas.
From its Twitter account, the Alpine-Adriatic Meteorological Society posted video from Italy's northeastern area of Comelico, near the border with Austria.
Snow blocked the entrances to homes and buildings, with more snow falling in the small village of Sappada, in the region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia.
Italian firefighters said they carried out more than 100 operations to clear roads of snow.
RTMon, 04 Jan 2021 22:05 UTC
One report among many that supports the Chinese hypothesis
Research suggests that the coronavirus pandemic
was likely the result of outbreaks in many places around the globe, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has said, adding that Beijing will resist any attempts at "stigmatization."
"We raced against time and were the first country to report cases to the world," Wang said in an
interview with Chinese media published on Friday. He argued that, contrary to prevailing opinion, China's own outbreak of the disease was not exclusively to blame for the global pandemic.
More and more research suggests that the pandemic was likely to have been caused by separate outbreaks in multiple places in the world.
The first cluster of Covid-19 cases was reported in the Chinese city of Wuhan on December 31, 2019; and over the next year the highly contagious virus spread to the rest of the world, resulting in 84.1 million confirmed cases and more than 1.83 million deaths so far.
Despite the fact that the precise origins of the coronavirus remain unclear, the outgoing President Donald Trump administration has been blaming the pandemic on China. Accusations leveled against Beijing have ranged from a cover-up of the initial outbreak to claims that the virus was human-made and somehow
leaked from a Chinese laboratory.
Comment: That'll be another point for Sott.net, thank you very much.
We said as much at the beginning of all this, that the Wuhan outbreak was just one cluster among many that developed (almost) simultaneously in
Italy,
Iran,
Israel,
France, the
UK, and the
US (that we know of - it was probably spreading elsewhere too but it just wasn't noticed and thus reported by the given country's press).
China's 'fault' is apparently that it cared enough to actually zoom in and look at what was happening, discover a coronavirus they'd never seen before, and crack its genome to see that it contained sequences from HIV and other viruses, thus realizing it was man-made.
This apparently made them freak out that 'the Americans are attacking us', so they pioneered 'lockdown' in one of its provinces (to
psychologically calm its 1.5 billion people, NOT to literally 'contain the virus', which its experts would have known full well is scientifically impossible with an aerosolized coronavirus like this).
Then, many weeks later, Western countries began -
in lockstep with one another, as if according to some prearranged model or plan - to '
use the Chinese model' and shutter their countries,
also for political purposes and NOT to 'contain the virus' - thereby bringing civilization to a halt and ushering in totalitarian hell for many.
And with gene-editing vaccines being rolled out to compound what was already an immune system-distorting genetically modified vaccine virus, the worst is yet to come. So people had better
get busy protecting themselves from the coming cytokine storm, or get busy dyin'...
RTMon, 04 Jan 2021 11:59 UTC
© REUTERS/Charles Platiau
(FILE PHOTO)
The head of the French health authority has justified their slow progress in immunizing people against Covid-19 and suggested that there are still things we don't know about the Pfizer vaccine.
Speaking on Monday,
Dominique Le Guludec, president of the High Authority of Health (HAS), admitted that the vaccination campaign had started too slowly but defended her strategy.
The medical chief said that they didn't know if the jab would stop transmission and therefore the program must be focused on those who are at most risk.
Malcolm Kendrick
RTMon, 04 Jan 2021 20:31 UTC
© Pexels / Andrea Piacquadio
One year since it began, there are still more questions than answers about Covid-19. Just about the only reliable data on it are the mortality rates for various countries. In a murky world, they give us clarity.
I've not written much about Covid-19 recently. What can be said? In my opinion, the world has simply gone bonkers. The best description can be found in
Dante's Inferno, written back in the 14th century.
In it, Dante describes the outcasts, who took no side in the rebellion of angels. They live in the vestibule. Not in heaven, not in hell, forever unclassified. Naked and futile, they race around through a hellish mist in eternal pursuit of an elusive, wavering banner, symbolic of their pursuit of ever-shifting self-interest.
Rachael Kennedy
euronewsMon, 04 Jan 2021 12:53 UTC
© Matt Dunham/AP
Julian Assange spent seven years in the Ecuadorian Embassy to avoid another extradition request, but has been in Belmarsh prison since 2019.
Delivering her decision at the Old Bailey on Monday, District Judge Vanessa Baraitser upheld many of the arguments from lawyers representing the US, but ultimately found in favour of the Wikileaks founder due to concerns over his mental health.
The 49-year-old is said to have experienced suicidal ideation while detained in London's Belmarsh prison and has been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder and depression.
© Peter Byrne/PAPA Media
HOSPITALS had almost fifteen percent fewer patients this December compared with 2019
A freedom of information request to NHS England revealed that on December 22, three days after Boris Johnson introduced tier four for millions,
more than 13,000 fewer beds were occupied than the same date in 2019.
The new data suggests a key reason hospitals are struggling is this lack of capacity.
The NHS is meant to keep a tenth of its beds free to create flexibility to admit patients and cope with sudden surges in demand - usually seen in winter.
Over the years this spare capacity has been used each winter and the NHS has been forced to treat patients in trolleys and in ambulances as ward beds have filled.
Comment: There you have it, the NHS isn't overwhelmed because of the coronavirus, it's suffering from decades of budget cuts, staff shortages, and the final straw was the excessive 'coronavirus measures' that removed any potential extra capacity that it had. Note that even with
less admissions to hospitals the system still couldn't cope.
While the UK's population has increased by 14% over the last 20 years, there's been a massive 33% decrease in hospital beds. And, as is clear from
The Guardian headlines below, this issue, that has been ongoing for well over a decade, was well known:
See also:
And check out SOTT radio's:
© Ramsdell/AP
John R. Lott, Jr.
An analysis of the 2020 presidential vote suggests that there were 289,000 "excess" votes for Joe Biden in states his victory over President Trump was small, and that differences in votes by neighbors were "suspicious."
The study by economist John R. Lott Jr., noted for his statistical analysis of guns in America,
called into question the victories declared for Biden in Pennsylvania and Georgia and cast a cloud over those in Nevada, Arizona, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
Comment: So that's mass vote fraud - enough to flip the overall result from Biden to Trump - proven from yet ANOTHER angle.
RTSat, 02 Jan 2021 18:25 UTC
© REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
A man exits the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn, New York, US, December 8, 2020.
A New York state lawmaker has introduced a bill that would allow the government to detain people deemed a potential public health risk, amid concerns that the Covid-19 crisis is being allegedly used to usher in authoritarianism.
Authored by a Democratic member of the New York State Assembly N. Nick Perry, Bill A416
calls for the
"removal and/or detention" of individuals who are identified as a
"case, contact or carrier" of a contagious disease.
Such person or group of persons shall be detained in a medical facility or other appropriate facility or premises.
Comment: The bill is all of a piece with Cuomo's previous actions. Unfortunately he has imitators all over the globe.
Comment: The US is on the fast-track to self-destruction, and the more individuals who understand this, and why - and who can prepare themselves (and others) for the future - the better off humanity will be as a whole when the opportunity avails itself to re-form and re-strengthen.
We, also, will have become much stronger souls for the experience.