"Everybody Knows The Fight Was Fixed"

"Everybody Knows The Fight Was Fixed"

by Edward Curtin 

“Yeah, like in a church. Church of the Good Hustler.”

- Fast Eddie Felson (Paul Newman) in The Hustler

"At the end of Henrik Ibsen’s classic play, "A Doll’s House" Nora, the aggrieved wife, leaves her husband’s house and all the illusions that sustained its marriage of lies. She chooses freedom over fantasy. She will no longer be played with like a doll but will try to become a free woman – a singular one. “There is another task I must undertake first. I must try and educate myself,” she tells her husband Torvald, a man completely incapable of understanding the social programming that has made him society’s slave.

When Nora closes the doll’s house door behind her, the sound is like a hammer blow of freedom. For anyone who has seen the play, even when knowing the outcome in advance, that sound is profound. It keeps echoing. It interrogates one’s conscience.

The echo asks: Do you live inside America’s doll house where a vast tapestry of lies, bad faith, and cheap grace keep you caged in comfort, as you repeat the habits that have been drilled into you? In this doll’s house of propaganda into which America has been converted, a great many of our basic assumptions are totally illusory.

Americans who voted for either Trump or Biden in the 2020 election are like Torvald clones. They refuse to open that door so they might close it behind them. They live in the doll’s house – all 146+ million of them. Like Torvald, they are comforted. They are programmed and propagandized, embracing the illusion that the electoral system is not structured and controlled to make sure no significant change can occur, no matter who is president. It is a sad reality promoted as democracy.

They will prattle on and give all sorts of reasons why they voted, and for whom, and how if you don’t vote you have no right to bitch, and how it’s this sacred right to vote that makes democracy great, blah blah blah. It’s all sheer nonsense. For the U.S.A. is not a democracy; it is an oligarchy run by the wealthy for the wealthy.

This is not a big secret. Everybody knows this is true; knows the electoral system is sheer show-business with the presidential extravaganza drawing the big money from corporate lobbyists, investment bankers, credit card companies, lawyers, business and hedge fund executives, Silicon Valley honchos, think tanks, Wall Street gamblers, millionaires, billionaires, et. al. Biden and Trump spent over 3 billion dollars on the election. They are owned by the money people.

Both are old men with long, shameful histories. A quick inquiry will show how the rich have profited immensely from their tenures in office. There is not one hint that they could change and have a miraculous conversion while in future office, like JFK. Neither has the guts or the intelligence. They are nowhere men who fear the fate that John Kennedy faced squarely when he turned against the CIA and the war machine. They join the craven company of Johnson, Ford, Carter, Reagan G.H.W. Bush, Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama. They all got the message that was sent from the streets of Dallas in 1963: You don’t want to die, do you?

Ask yourself: Has the power of the oligarchic, permanent warfare state with its propaganda and spy networks, its vast intelligence apparatus, increased or decreased in the past half century? Who is winning the battle, the people or the ruling elites? The answer is obvious.

It matters not at all whether the president has been Trump or Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush, Barack Obama or George H. W. Bush, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, or Jimmy Carter. The power of the national security state has grown under them all and everyone is left to moan and groan and wonder why.

All the while, the doll’s house has become more and more sophisticated and powerful. It is now essentially an electronic prison that is being “Built Back Better.” The new Cold War now being waged against Russia and China is a bi-partisan affair, as is the confidence game played by the secret government intended to create a fractured consciousness in the population through their corporate mass-media stenographers. Trump and his followers on one side of the coin; liberal Democrats on the other.

Only those backed by the wealthy power brokers get elected in the U.S.A. Then when elected, it’s payback time. Palms are greased. Everybody knows this is true. It’s called corruption. So why would anyone, who opposes a corrupt political oligarchy, vote, unless they were casting a vote of conscience for a doomed third-party candidate?

Leonard Cohen told it true with “Everybody Knows”:

"Everybody knows that the dice are loaded,


Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed.


Everybody knows that the war is over
,

Everybody knows the good guys lost
.

Everybody knows the fight was fixed
,

The poor stay poor, the rich get rich.


That’s how it goes,


Everybody knows.


Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
,

Everybody knows that the captain lied
.

Everybody got this broken feeling
,

Like their father or their dog just died..."

And yet everybody who voted for the two men backed by the super-rich owners of the country knew what they were doing, unless they live under a rock and come out every four years to vote. Perhaps they were out buying stuffing for the Thanksgiving turkey, so they can give thanks for the farce (stuffing: Latin: farcire).

They have their reasons. Now the Biden people celebrate, just as Trump’s supporters did in 2016. I can hear fireworks going off as I write here in a town where 90% + voted for Biden and hate Trump with a passion more intense than what they ever could work up for a spurned lover or spouse. This is mass psychosis. It’s almost funny.

At least we have gotten rid of Trump, they say. No one can be worse. They think this is logic. Like Torvald, they cannot begin to understand why anyone would want to leave the doll’s house, how anyone could refuse to play a game in which the dice are loaded. They will deny they are in the doll’s house while knowing the dice are loaded and still roll the die, not caring that their choice – whether it’s Tweedledee or Tweedledum – will result in the death and impoverishment of so many, that being the end result of oligarchic rule at home and imperialism abroad.

Orwell called this Doublethink: "Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them. To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies – all this is indispensably necessary."

And while in "Nineteen Eighty-Four" Doublethink is learned by all the Party members “and certainly by all who are intelligent as well as orthodox,” today in the USA, it has been mastered even by the so-called unintelligent.

To live in the USA is to live in the Church of the Good Hustler. People often ask: What can we do to make the country better? What is your alternative? A child could answer that one: Don’t vote if you know that both contenders are backed by the super-rich elites, what some call the Deep State. Which of course they are. Everybody knows.

The so-called left and right argue constantly about whom to support. It’s a pseudo-debate constructed to allow people to think their vote counts; that the game isn’t rigged. It’s hammered into kids’ heads from an early age. Be grateful, give thanks that you live in a democracy where voting is allowed and your choice is as important as a billionaire’s such as Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, or Charles Koch. In the voting booth we are all equal.

Myths die hard. This one never does:

"Your voice, your hopes, and your dreams, will define our American destiny. And your courage and goodness and love will forever guide us along the way.”

- Donald Trump, January 20, 2017

"With the campaign over, it’s time to put the anger and the harsh rhetoric behind us and come together as a nation. It’s time for America to unite. And to heal.”

- Joe Biden, November 7, 2020

"Above all else, the time has come for us to renew our faith in ourselves and in America. In recent years, that faith has been challenged.”

- Richard Nixon, January 20, 1973

Your voice – our faith – it’s time to unite and heal. Ask the Vietnamese, the Iraqis, the Syrians, the Afghanis, the Libyans, the Palestinians, et al. They sing a different tune, one not heard In the Church of the Good Hustler.

After campaigning hard for the losing presidential candidate in 1972, I nearly choked when I heard Richard Nixon’s inaugural address in January 1973. Clinging to the American myth the previous year, I had campaigned for a genuine anti-war Democrat, Senator George McGovern.

The war against Vietnam was still raging and Nixon, who had been first elected in 1968 as a “peace candidate,” succeeding the previous “peace candidate” Lyndon Baines Johnson, was nevertheless overwhelmingly elected, despite Watergate allegations appearing in the months preceding the election. Nixon won forty-nine states to McGovern’s one – Massachusetts, where I lived.  It was a landslide. I felt sick, woke up, got up, and left the doll’s house.

“Propaganda is the true remedy for loneliness,” wrote the French sociologist Jacques Ellul in 1965 in Propaganda:

It corresponds to the need to share, to be a member of a community, to lose oneself in a group, to embrace a collective ideology that will end loneliness. It also corresponds to deep and constant needs, more developed today, perhaps, than ever before: the need to believe and obey, to create and hear fables, to communicate in the language of myths.

In a country where loneliness is widespread, the will to believe and the power of positive thinking are far more powerful than the will to truth. Unlike Nora, who knew that when she left the doll’s house she was choosing the loneliness of the solitary soul, Americans prefer myths that induce them to act out of habit so they can lose themselves in the group.

This is so despite the fact that In the Church of the Good Hustler, when you play the game, you lose. We are all Americans and your vote counts and George Washington never told a lie."

- https://www.zerohedge.com/

Gregory Mannarino, "The Economic Collapse Is Getting Worse"

Gregory Mannarino, 

"The Economic Collapse Is Getting Worse"

- https://traderschoice.net/

"Don't Blame Covid: The Economy is Imploding from Over-Capacity and Corrupt Cartels"

"Don't Blame Covid: The Economy is Imploding 

from Over-Capacity and Corrupt Cartels"

by Charles Hugh Smiith

"Here's the fantasy: if we stop the shutdowns, the economy will naturally bounce back to its oh-so wunnerful perfection of Q3 2019. This is a double-dose of magical thinking and denial. The U.S. economy was unraveling in 2019 from 11 long years of Fed-induced over-capacity in almost everything (except integrity, competition, transparency and social cohesion) and the bone-crushing burden of corrupt, greedy cartels that have the nation by the throat.

The reality nobody dares mention is that thanks to 20 years of the Federal Reserve's easy money, there's rampant over-capacity everywhere you look: there's too many cafes, bistros, restaurants, fast-food outlets, hotels, resorts, AirBnBs, unprofitable Tech Unicorns, airline flights, Tech startups, office towers, retail space, malls, absurdly overpriced apartments for rent, storage facilities, delivery services, office sublets, colleges, attorneys, unemployed workers with multiple credentials--the list of too much, too many is endless.

Thanks to the Fed, the most profitable venture was borrowing to increase capacity, then borrow some more to extract the phantom value created by the greater capacity. Nobody cared if the office tower remained mostly empty; the money was made in building it and extracting its "value" via debt, not operating a legitimate enterprise.

This Fed-created house of cards was never sustainable, or healthy, as all the incentives to add capacity were perverse. The illusion that every mall, office tower, retail space, college, apartment building, etc. would be filled was only plausible as long as consumers and zombie corporations were borrowing and spending more than they earned.

That was never sustainable, but rather than look at the systemic set-up of an insanely predatory, fragile debt bubble resting precariously on over-capacity, the status quo is blaming Covid and lockdowns. The problem isn't the pin, it's the bubble that was begging to be popped by something, anything. Recall that bubbles pop on their own, even without a pin. Japan's debt / stock / real estate bubble popped in 1989 without a pin; prices just stopped going up and then started falling, all by themselves.

The other reality no one dares mention is the stranglehold of corrupt cartels that have long outlived their purpose, and now exist solely to enrich insiders and lenders and the wealthy few who own the student loan debt, mortgages, etc.

The entire higher-education cartel was an unaffordable, unsustainable racket eight years ago when I wrote my book "The Nearly Free University." Now the racket is finally unraveling, and the insane over-capacity, insanely high costs and lack of value in the credentials are coming home to roost.

The healthcare system is another example of a sprawling system of cartels that's long overdue for a reckoning/unraveling. The fortunes being minted bought more than enough political power to keep the corrupt, predatory machine well-greased with federal money, but that doesn't mean the system is actually providing healthcare effectively or efficiently or in a sustainable fashion.

Now we have multiple Big Tech monopolies bleeding the nation dry, and Big Tech is rushing to flood Washington D.C. with lobbyists and campaign contributions so nobody messes with its parasitic, destructive layers of monopoly.

The entire American economy was a gigantic bubble of corrupt Fed-funded skims, scams, rackets, monopolies and cartels, and it was finally bursting in 2019. The Fed, oh-so protective of its ever-greater and more destructive bubbles, rushed to mask the rot by inflating the greatest bubble of all time: "Forget GOAT, Look at GBOAT: The Greatest Bubble Of All Time" (November 6, 2020).

Now that the bubble has burst, the hope is that removing the pin will magically restore the burst bubble. Sorry, it doesn't work that way. The bubble has already burst and cannot be magically made whole and re-inflated. It was never sustainable or healthy, and its collapse was inevitable. The way forward is obvious: stop the Fed from blowing ever-larger bubbles and eliminate cartels and monopolies. But that will require ending the absurd farce of pay-to-play "democracy" that enables the debt / asset bubbles and cartels/monopolies."

- https://www.oftwominds.com/

"The Great Reset Already Happened: No Escape From 

Digital Cash & New World Monetary Order

by Epic Economist

"For some, The Great Reset may sound like a conspiracy, for others as a very distant reality. But when it comes to money, the time-loop works differently: the reset has already happened, it is still happening right now and it will continue to develop whether people decide to see it or not.

All along we've been inevitably and unconsciously marching towards the elite's dystopian delirium of infinite money. For that reason, experts have been repeatedly warning that the shift to digital cash is merely the final strike for their ultimate plan to take over the world. In this video, we explain how the whole monetary system has been built for this moment - when the perfect crisis is creating the leverage they long-wished to finally impose the New World Monetary Order - one of which no one will be able to escape.

The 1929 market crash broke through the financial system, transforming what had been a roaring boom into a massive collapse. Governments used to fear that in the absence of a strong financial anchor like gold, the public wouldn't trust in a piece of worthless colorful paper as a trade currency. In those days, the price of gold was at $20/ounce. However, everything changed when President Nixon closed the gold window in August 1971, ending the convertibility of the dollar to gold, and prompting all currencies to become fiat.

It didn't take long for sellers and buyers to trade gold at whatever prices they saw fit. By 1980 gold prices hit a high of $875/ounce. Today, gold trades at $1,889/ounce. While hard-money advocates argue that the abandonment of the gold standard was the Original Sin that triggered a perpetual downfall for the dollar and the U.S. economy, others defend that it was necessary to maintain hegemony on the markets.

The event of the broad adoption of fiat currencies has marked the beginning of a new era, in which several dynamics have changed in many different segments. However, economically, the main catalyst for this new monetary era was the decline of labor's share of the economy in favor of capital. In other words, those who had only their labor to sell lost their purchasing power, while those who could borrow or access capital had benefited enormously. 

This "capital-friendly era" was boosted by financialization in the 1980s, technology in the 1990s, and globalization in the early 21st century. The polarity between financialization and globalization has generated and continuously inflated the 2008 bubble, and its burst almost took down the entire global capital house of cards. 

The Fed's response to the dotcom collapse was to finance central banks to the tune of $29 trillion. Evidently, they justified their decision under the typical pretext that it would be an "emergency measure", but such reckless policies have become permanent a long time ago. This is why several analysts have been arguing that the global elites' techno-fantasy of a completely centralized future isn't actually a future plan. The Great Reset already happened in 2008-09. 

When central banks joined efforts to issue unprecedented amounts of printed money and created policies to induce financial repression, including zero-interest-rate policies to avert the debt-bubble from popping, the global elites had confirmation that their hyper-centralization plan to control the global economy's money was quietly and smoothly running.

The unsustainable demand for more liquidity has exhausted the economy, in a way that can only be fixed through the optimal solution they've thoroughly manufactured over decades: digital currencies. With virtual money, the potential to expand their wealth is infinite. But that of course, that wouldn't happen without controlling everyone's access to these currencies by an enhanced use of surveillance, as well as stimulating mistrust amongst the population in relation to the fiat currency. In a nutshell, the paper dollar collapse is a crucial part of this scheme.

Now, they have rebranded The Great Reset as the ultimate opportunity for the masses to have a Universal Basic Income, some of their debt wiped out, and receive some other foolish perks in exchange for their financial freedom. The timing couldn't be more appropriate: the dollar is continuously losing its purchasing power, millions keep falling into poverty due to the inherent effects of the current health and economic crisis, the wave of American businesses bankruptcies and foreclosures never ceases to crash, and the nation has accumulated a trillion-dollar debt-burden. This was the final blow to our collective notion of money as something real. This is the establishment's supreme power-hungry hysteria, and apparently, that's what we have to fight against. Are you ready for this epic battle?

- https://www.epiceconomist.com

Musical Interlude: Moby, "Love Of Strings"

Moby, "Love Of Strings"

Full screen mode!

Musical Interlude: Mike Oldfield, "Tubular Bells Finale"

Mike Oldfield, "Tubular Bells Finale"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“Here is one of the largest objects that anyone will ever see on the sky. Each of these fuzzy blobs is a galaxy, together making up the Perseus Cluster, one of the closest clusters of galaxies. The cluster is seen through a foreground of faint stars in our own Milky Way Galaxy.

 Click image for larger size.

Near the cluster center, roughly 250 million light-years away, is the cluster's dominant galaxy NGC 1275, seen above as a large galaxy on the image left. A prodigious source of x-rays and radio emission, NGC 1275 accretes matter as gas and galaxies fall into it. The Perseus Cluster of Galaxies, also cataloged as Abell 426, is part of the Pisces-Perseus supercluster spanning over 15 degrees and containing over 1,000 galaxies. At the distance of NGC 1275, this view covers about 15 million light-years.”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110712.html

"What If..."

"What if when you die they ask, "How was Heaven?"

~ Author Unknown

A truly terrifying thought...

"To Others And To Ourselves: Obligations"

"To Others And To Ourselves: Obligations"

by Madisyn Taylor, The DailyOM

"When we schedule too much in our lives trying to meet our obligations, we only end up draining our energy. We all encounter obligations in life, from spending time with family and friends to being present at important functions in the lives of the people who form our community. Many times, the obligations are actually fun and fulfilling, and we want to be there. At the same time, we all sometimes experience resistance to meeting these obligations, especially when they pile up all at once and we begin to feel exhausted, longing for nothing so much as a quiet evening at home. At times like these, we may want to say no but feel too guilty at the idea of not being there. Still, our primary obligation is to take care of ourselves, and if saying no to someone else is what we have to do, then we do not need to feel bad about it.

There is a skill to balancing our obligations, and it starts with simply becoming aware of our schedule. We may notice that three invitations have arisen in one weekend, and we know that we will pay energetically if we attempt to fulfill all three. At this point, we can take the time to weigh the repercussions of not going to each event, considering how we will feel if we miss it and how our absence might affect other people. Most of the time, it will be clear which obligation we can most easily let go and which one we simply can’t miss. Sometimes we have to miss something really important to us, and that can be painful for everyone concerned. At times like this, reaching out with a phone call, a thoughtful card, or a gift lets people know that you are there in spirit and that your absence is by no means a result of you not caring.

Meeting our obligations to others is an important part of being human and not one to take lightly. At the same time, we cannot meet every obligation without neglecting our primary duty to take care of ourselves. We can navigate this quandary by being conscious of what we choose to do and not do and by finding concrete ways to extend our caring when we are not able to be there in person."

- http://www.dailyom.com/

"Is Not What You Know..."

"Place yourself among those who carry on their lives with passion, and true learning will take place, no matter how humble or exalted the setting. But no matter what path you follow, do not be ashamed of your learning. In some corner of your life, you know more about something than anyone else on earth. The true measure of your education is not what you know, but how you share what you know with others."

- Kent Nerburn

The Poet: Robert Bly, "Things to Think"

"Things to Think"

"Think in ways you've never thought before.

If the phone rings, think of it as carrying a message

Larger than anything you've ever heard,

Vaster than a hundred lines of Yeats.

Think that someone may bring a bear to your door,

Maybe wounded and deranged; or think that a moose

Has risen out of the lake, and he's carrying on his antlers

A child of your own whom you've never seen.

When someone knocks on the door,

Think that he's about

To give you something large: tell you you're forgiven,

Or that it's not necessary to work all the time,

Or that it's been decided that if you lie down no one will die."

- Robert Bly, “Morning Poems”

The Daily "Near You?"

 
Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"For The Most Part..."

"Human beings never think for themselves, they find it too uncomfortable. For the most part, members of our species simply repeat what they are told- and become upset if they are exposed to any different view. The characteristic human trait is not awareness but conformity, and the characteristic result is religious warfare. Other animals fight for territory or food; but, uniquely in the animal kingdom, human beings fight for their 'beliefs.' The reason is that beliefs guide behavior, which has evolutionary importance among human beings. But at a time when our behavior may well lead us to extinction, I see no reason to assume we have any awareness at all. We are stubborn, self-destructive conformists. Any other view of our species is just a self-congratulatory delusion."

- Michael Crichton, "The Lost World"

"Illegitimate President"

"Illegitimate President"

by Jim Quinn

“Every normal man must be tempted, at times, 

to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.”

 – H.L. Mencken

"It’s now almost two weeks since the most crooked, rigged, fraudulent election in U.S. history. The engineered elevation of a handsy, sniffy, senile, empty portal, trojan horse by billionaire oligarchs, their Silicon Valley techno-geek social media censorship police, and the corporate media propaganda mouthpieces looks like it might succeed. Republican cucks like Romney and even the pliable Fox News talking heads have acquiesced to this third attempt during this ongoing coup like obedient lapdogs positioning themselves to profit from doing the bidding of their global oligarch masters.

Make no mistake. There was a master plan implemented by dark forces to steal this election, overriding the will of the American people. The anger of 70 million Americans is perfectly captured in the above quote from Mencken. If Trump and his allies are unable to prove fraud and overturn this sham of an election, myself and millions more will treat the Kamala Harris administration as illegitimate and do everything in our power to resist and insure its failure.

The level of fake news media propaganda about the “most secure fairest election in history”, and the vociferous blatant systematic censorship by Twitter, Facebook, and Google of anyone who dares to question the approved narrative of “a mostly fraud free election” on their social media platforms is all the proof a critical thinking person needs to realize this election was stolen by left wing oligarchs. Trump was too erratic, uncontrollable and resistant to their new world order agenda of climate extremism, population control through fear, communist economics, cash elimination, and ruling through a technocratic Big Brother surveillance state.

Trump, through naivety, foolishness or carelessness, allowed enemies of his administration to wield power and influence for the last four years. He chose swamp creature after swamp creature for key cabinet positions and seemed surprised when they stabbed him in the back. He failed to purge Obama loyalists holding middle level positions in the FBI, CIA, Dept of Defense, and numerous other agencies. They actively worked to subvert everything he tried to accomplish.

The military industrial complex apparatchiks are cackling like hyenas about how they misled him about troop levels in Syria and continue to ignore his orders to bring the troops home from Afghanistan. Obama and his gang of traitorous thieves conspired to bring Trump down before he assumed office and continued for the entire four years, assisted by a feckless mainstream media of faux journalists peddling fake news and disinformation fed to them by the Deep State coup collaborators.

It was creepy Joe Biden who suggested using the Logan Act to entrap General Flynn and derail the Trump presidency before it began. He was part of the plot, along with Obama, Clinton, Comey, Brennan, Clapper, and a myriad of other slimy toadies doing the bidding of their treacherous back-stabbing superiors. Joe Biden, in addition to being a senile old pervert and the father of coke addict son who slept with his dead brother’s wife, is a racist and a traitor to this country.

Along with his dishonorably discharged deviant son and his gold-digging brother, he shook down foreign leaders and sold his influence for millions of dollars. This was all revealed on Hunter’s laptop, and completely memory-holed by Jake Tapper and the contingent of Deep State media hacks pretending to be journalists. Biden was selected by the shadowy billionaires constituting the invisible government, who really run the show, as a pretend viable candidate for president – whose job was to shut up, stay in the basement, and let them do the vote rigging to hand him the presidency. So now Mencken has been proven right once again.

“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” – H.L. Mencken

The “resistance”, also known as left-wing Deep State corporate fascists, have been conducting an ongoing coup since before Trump took the oath of office and it has continued through this rigged election. It has been a planned, coordinated and well-funded coup d’état against a duly elected president and the wishes of the American people. The Steele Dossier was a ploy by Hillary Clinton and her minions to undermine Trump. The accusations of Russian collusion were false and promulgated by CNN, MSNBC, NYT and Washington Post because they were active participants in attempting to undermine the Trump presidency, in collusion with Obama, the FBI, CIA and State Dept.

The Mueller investigation was a complete fraud and nothing more than a diversionary tactic from the true criminality of Obama, Clinton, Comey, Clapper and Brennan. The impeachment scheme engineered by pandemic Pelosi and bug-eyed Schiff head was based upon the fact that Joe Biden illegally interfered in the investigation of a foreign country to protect his crackhead son’s multi-million-dollar Burisma scam. It failed so miserably, not a word was spoken about the sham during the election.

Then, like manna from heaven for down in the dumps left wing billionaires, the Wu-flu was released upon the world by Biden’s communist pals in China. With the unemployment rate at 3.5%, the economy growing strongly, the stock market at all-time highs, the failed impeachment farce over, and a Democrat slate of losers, nutjobs, and communists competing for their nomination, Trump was a shoe-in to win re-election.

Hanoi Jane Fonda told the truth shortly before the election, “I just think Covid is God’s gift to the left.” As Obama’s best buddy Rahm Emmanuel once said, the left never lets a good crisis go to waste. The billionaire oligarchs Soros, Bloomberg, Gates, Bezos, Zuckerberg, and Dorsey, along with the Deep State democrats and Never-Trumpers, and their propaganda media mouthpieces hatched a plan to weaponize a flu that has a 99.7% survival rate.

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.” – H.L. Mencken

The anti-Trump coalition was reinvigorated by the opportunity to use the pandemic to wrestle power away from Trump by any means necessary. Under the cover of Covid, the Constitution was shredded and Democrat governors, mayors and bureaucrat drones in swing states changed the rules of the game to encourage and sanction voter fraud. The fix was in. Even though Americans could “safely” stand in long lines at Wal-Mart, Target, and Home Depot, our left-wing Governors across the land declared it unsafe to vote in person.

They had to save lives by instituting mass mail-in voting with absolutely no safeguards against fraud. Matching signatures was racist. Requiring ID verification was racist. Their voter rolls were filled with dead people and people who had moved years ago. They all received ballots. Biden received 100% of the dead vote. Over the summer, BLM and ANTIFA terrorists were encouraged to “peacefully protest” in large groups while looting and burning left wing run cities in swing states. Looting and rioting was safe, but going to church, school or voting in person was too dangerous.

You could see the plan to dispose of Trump developing as we approached Fall. Soros, Bloomberg, and their ilk poured hundreds of millions into key states to influence the vote, but the real work was being done behind the curtain. Left wing Secretaries of State in the key battleground states were issuing edicts without legislature approval to insure a Biden victory. While Hiden Biden took long naps in his basement bunker, his handlers took care of laying the groundwork for a successful election embezzlement.

When Pelosi wasn’t breaking her own lockdown rules by getting her hair did, she was blocking any bill that would help the economy recover before the election. Fauci, the CDC, and the medical industrial complex Trump haters then pushed the Covid fear into overdrive. They rolled-out mass testing with a faulty PCR test to drive up cases to all-time highs just before the election.

The MSM talking heads then did their part to hyperventilate about the coming mass death event unless sleepy Joe was put in charge. His brilliant plan of more masking and more lockdowns would surely work this time, just like they worked so well in Europe. The billionaire oligarchs propping up their corpse of a candidate understood Mencken’s truths about the ignorance of the masses.

“Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance. No one in this world, so far as I know - and I have researched the records for years, and employed agents to help me - has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby.” – H.L. Mencken

The entire Deep State apparatus was working in coordination to steal this election and override the wishes of the majority of Americans, because they know what is best for our country – government control of every aspect of our lives and a Great Reset to a new world order run by global elite oligarchs.

The hobgoblin of Covid cases has been the cudgel used to beat the masses into submission and invoke fear into those incapable of independent thought, who have been so dumbed down by the government education system they can’t understand the data right in front of their faces. If you conduct a record number of highly faulty tests, you will get a record number of false cases – not sicknesses. Elon Musk took the exact same test four times in one day and tested positive twice and negative twice.

The chart below is so scary if you can’t add, subtract, multiply or divide. The only thing that should matter to people are deaths “FROM” Covid. The fact is only 6% of the 245,000 deaths were from Covid. The other 94% died from something else, while they had Covid. We know the average age of death is 80, higher than the overall average age of death. They should have a death classification of “FROM Cuomo”. We know for a fact 50% of the deaths were in nursing homes where Cuomo, Murphy, Wolf, and Whitmer sentenced senior citizens to death by sending infected patients into the nursing homes.

We know virtually no one under the age of 50 dies from this over-hyped flu, but government school teacher unions refuse to teach children in person. Only 450 deaths between 5 and 24 years old is far less than the annual flu deaths in this age group. Anything to help derail Trump’s re-election chances has been implemented.

Back to the chart. In April the deaths per case was 7%. Two months-ago the deaths per case was 2.1%. Today the deaths per case is 0.8%. For the math challenged, the death rate has plunged by 88% since April. Have you heard that great news from Fredo on CNN or Madcow on MSNBC?  It’s pretty clear approximately 8% of the U.S. population has been infected by this flu. That’s 26 million people. The 245,000 deaths are less than 1%. Shockingly, that is the exact same death rate of the annual flu, as documented by our beloved CDC:

"CDC estimates that influenza was associated with more than 35.5 million illnesses, more than 16.5 million medical visits, 490,600 hospitalizations, and 34,200 deaths during the 2018–2019 influenza season."

It’s the flu bro! – And you have a 99.7% chance of not dying from this scary virus.

Does anyone really think it was a coincidence Fauci and Pfizer withheld the results of their vaccination trial until a few days after the election? Do you think that news would have swayed some votes? What I have realized is there are no coincidences. This is all part of the plan. Is it a coincidence that Nancy Pelosi’s former chief of staff is a lobbyist for Dominion or that Feinstein’s husband was a major investor? Is it a coincidence Dominion voting machines were rolled out in every swing state, even though Democrat Senators in December 2019 questioned the security of these machines?

Despite the rigged polls purporting to show a Biden landslide and a blue wave, utilized to depress the Trump vote, and the hundreds of millions spent by the billionaire elitists, it was clear Trump was going to win on election night at 2:00 am. Dorsey and Zuckerberg had been working like madmen during the last week before the election suppressing and censoring the truth about Hunter Biden and the Biden crime family adventures around the globe. But it looked like all that money and effort was going to fail.

Then another non-coincidence occurred in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia and Wisconsin, as they all simultaneously stopped counting votes for a few hours, when Trump had commanding leads in all four states. Mysteriously, as soon as counting resumed, an avalanche of Biden votes began pouring in. Republican poll watchers were given the boot or not allowed access to witness the vote counting. Machines “accidentally” switched thousands of Trump votes to Biden in Michigan. Bins of votes arrived in the wee hours of the morning under cover of darkness.

Data experts analyzing the vote counts show the chances of such a one-sided distribution in Biden’s favor was mathematically impossible. The results in Philadelphia, Detroit, Milwaukee and Atlanta are skewed so far out of line with the rest of their states and the country, the only explanation is massive fraud. The frantic level of pushback from the corporate media and social media censorship police is proof the claims are true. Trump was right when he said “Bad things happen in Philadelphia”. Was the CIA Hammer program used against Trump? We know the CIA brass hates him. Were the Dominion machines programmed to switch votes from Trump to Biden? We may never find out.

Trump’s only hope at this point is for his lawyers and data analysts to prove this level of fraud occurred. As Mencken profoundly stated: “The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, and intolerable.” – H.L. Mencken

I’ve come to the conclusion those who run our government from the shadows are dishonest, insane, intolerable and evil. If the American people allow this coup to succeed and continue to believe the lies they are being told about Covid and the communist agenda of the left, they will deserve to get it good and hard, as Mencken predicted when pondering democracy. Honoring thieves and liars, while detesting those who tell them the truth, is where we find ourselves today.

Those on the verge of gaining power want to rule over you. Freedom, liberty, free speech, and the 2nd Amendment are considered dangerous by these tyrants. These elitists want a global reset where you are nothing but a serf who will be given what they decide and told to shut up and obey. Otherwise they will destroy your ability to earn a living and will publicly shame you. If they can steal the two Georgia senate seats, and they will use any means necessary to do so, they will fundamentally attempt to destroy this country. For those who don’t believe these left-wing communist radicals would ever go as far as they bloviate on social media, heed the words of someone who experienced it first-hand in a gulag.

“All of the Communist Parties, upon attaining power, have become completely merciless. But at the stage before they achieve power, it is necessary to use disguises.” – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

We have arrived at a key juncture in this Fourth Turning. In my October article "Fourth Turning Election Year Crisis" I anticipated the current state of affairs. “I do not believe either side will accept the outcome of the election and will treat the victor as illegitimate. Once that mindset gains control, only violent conflict can result.”

Based on my observations of fraud, I will not consider Biden a legitimate president if he is appointed by the oligarchs in January. If Trump is able to overturn this blatant fraudulent outcome, the left and their BLM and ANTIFA mercenaries will lose their minds – burning, looting, rioting and attacking defenseless white people. The violence kicked off at the Washington DC March for Trump, with the low-life left wing terrorists sucker punching old people, women and families with kids.

When they picked the wrong victim, they got the shit kicked out of them. This was only a prelude to what is coming. As the intensity of hatred between the 70 million Trump supporters and the 70 million AOC, Sanders, Pelosi, Harris, Soros contingent ratchets up to war level, this will become a shooting conflict. Assassination of politicians, bankers, and oligarchs is a likely next step. The intensity of conflict will only ramp up from here.

I’ve been wondering how Trump could be the Grey Champion if he was to lose the election. As he refuses to concede and continues to fight against this election fraud chapter of this four-year long coup, it becomes clear that even if he is forcibly removed from office, he will become the real resistance. This Fourth Turning is resembling our first Civil War. Both sides were led by men from the Prophet generation (Lincoln & Davis), so both could be classified as Grey Champions. Biden is Silent Generation and Harris is Gen X, so Trump remains the Grey Champion.

With his bully pulpit, Twitter account, mass rallies, a potential for TNN (Trump News Network), and 70 million dedicated followers who believe he was robbed, Trump can essentially create an alternative presidency. Every decision or policy from Harris/Biden will be contested by Trump. Imagine the fireworks if he chooses to hold a counter rally in DC on inauguration day. The pussy hat wearing lefties did so in 2017. Paybacks are a bitch.

I see two potential triggers for the coming violent upheaval. If the Supreme Court rules in favor of Trump regarding the coordinated election fraud, the left will go berserk, but this time the Trump supporters will fight back. If Trump is unsuccessful and the wizards of fraud are able to steal the two Georgia Senate seats, the left will try to implement their radical takeover of the country by packing the Supreme Court and adding Puerto Rico and Washington D.C. as states.

If they successfully seize power, they have no intention of ever relinquishing it. They will work with their global elite brotherhood to institute their desired global reset. The right will either surrender and accept their fate as slaves or violently fight back. Trump will be provoking conflict and leading the resistance to the illegitimate Harris/Biden regime. Since Harris/Biden is controlled by warmongering statists, one cannot rule out a foreign conflict added to the mix. This civic chaos and global disorder will be exacerbated by the financial collapse caused by the toppling of the global debt Ponzi scheme.

This four-year coup attempt has radicalized millions of liberty-loving, critical thinking people who love their country, but now hate those hijacking their government. We are tired of seeing our country debauched. Good people who are driven to despair and feel they are backed into a corner are dangerous, and heavily armed.

If you are not armed, it is time to do so. Starve the beast. Do business with locals using cash. Reduce your footprint. Get out of debt. Become anti-fragile. Resist every mandate issued by dictatorial politicians and low IQ government drones. Figure out who you can depend upon and know your enemy. Do not associate with anyone who voted for Harris/Biden. Only tough choices await. Mencken’s time for slitting throats seems to be rapidly approaching. This is how Fourth Turnings roll.

“The notion that a radical is one who hates his country is naïve and usually idiotic. He is, more likely, one who likes his country more than the rest of us, and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it debauched. He is not a bad citizen turning to crime; he is a good citizen driven to despair.” – H.L. Mencken

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

The corrupt establishment will do anything to suppress sites like the Burning Platform from revealing the truth. The corporate media does this by demonetizing sites like mine by blackballing the site from advertising revenue. If you get value from this site, please keep it running with a donation. [Jim Quinn - PO Box 1520 Kulpsville, PA 19443] or Paypal at the website.

Musical Interlude: Leonard Cohen, “Everybody Knows”

Leonard Cohen, “Everybody Knows”

"How It Really Is"

 

Related:

NOV 16, 2020 1:40 PM: "Illinois Confirms Another 11,600 Cases, Germany Announces More COVID Restrictions: Live Updates"

"Our COVID Police State Wants To Take Thanksgiving And Christmas Away From You Too"

"Our COVID Police State Wants To Take 

Thanksgiving And Christmas Away From You Too"

by Michael Snyder

"Haven’t they taken enough away from us already? The deeply oppressive lockdowns that were instituted earlier this year plunged us into the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s, caused the cancellation of thousands upon thousands of important events, and sent the suicide rate absolutely skyrocketing. Once those lockdowns were lifted the American people were greatly relieved, but now our COVID police state is back for more. As I have been documenting over the last several days, new lockdowns are being instituted all over the country right now, and even our most cherished holidays are being targeted.

Let me start by discussing an interview that CNN’s Jake Tapper just conducted with Anthony Fauci. Most Americans had assumed that once a vaccine was widely distributed that we wouldn’t need masks or social distancing anymore. Well, according to Fauci that is not the case at all:

Jake Tapper said, “Once somebody has been immunized, once the process is complete, does that mean they can take off their mask, don’t have to social distance, and go about their lives as before?”

Fauci said, “I would recommend that is not the case. I would recommend you have an added area of protection. Obviously, with 90 plus percent effective vaccine, you could feel much more confident, but I would recommend to people to not abandon all public health measures just because you’ve been vaccinated.”

As I have repeatedly warned my readers, they intend to change the way that we live permanently.

During that same interview, they were discussing a timeline for vaccine distribution, and Tapper blurted this out: “Christmas is probably not gonna be possible.” In other words, Americans should not plan to have a normal Christmas this year because we are going to be expected to stay home, wear masks and keep members of our extended family away.

Of course Thanksgiving is a lot closer than Christmas, and our COVID overlords are telling us that we can’t have a normal Thanksgiving either. For example, this is what the head of the CDC is saying: "U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield held a call with the nation’s governors on Tuesday. CNN obtained audio of the chat, in which Redfield said: “What we’re seeing as the increasing threat right now is actually acquisition of infection through small household gatherings. Particularly with Thanksgiving coming up, we think it’s really important to stress the vigilance of these continued mitigation steps in the household setting.”

Needless to say, many of our top politicians are going to fall right in line with the directives that our “health authorities” have issued. For example, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has issued new restrictions for the city of Chicago which begin on Monday: "The order, which begins Monday, extends through Thanksgiving festivities. Residents are “strongly advised” to not have guests in their homes outside of essential workers - even family and close friends.

“Chicago has reached a critical point in the second surge of COVID-19, demanding that we undertake this multi-faceted and comprehensive effort to stop the virus in its tracks,” said Mayor Lori Lightfoot in the release.

At least Lightfoot’s order is not as draconian as the mandate that California Governor Gavin Newsom has ordered all Californians to follow this Thanksgiving. If you can believe it, Newsom has decided to limit Thanksgiving to a two hour “outdoor event”: "Celebrities have taken to social media to slam California Governor Gavin Newsom’s ‘ridiculously unenforceable’ Thanksgiving crackdown that bans singing and shouting and limits the holiday to a two-hour outdoor event. ‘If my Aunt comes over, can I throw her a slice of turkey from the window?’ mocked actor Rob Schneider as he blasted the ‘Emperor Newsom’.

The good news is that the American people are sick and tired of having their rights taken away and are starting to push back against absurd restrictions such as these. The bad news is that the new lockdowns that are being instituted all over the U.S. will inevitably crash our economy again.

If they last long enough, some industries may be almost entirely destroyed. For example, even before these new lockdowns we were being told that it would be a miracle if half of the hotels in New York City survive this pandemic: "According to Vijay Dandapani, chief executive of the Hotel Association of New York City, if half the city’s 640 hotels survive it will be a “great” outcome. While occupancy rates have recovered from their worst point in April where occupancy was down more than 60% year on year, they remain 20% lower than for the same month in 2019, a level which means much of the debt backing the properties will be impaired (i.e., default). Should New York impose a new round of draconian lockdowns, it will only get worse."

But of course there are some businesses that are booming during this time. For instance, psychologists and therapists are extremely busy treating those that are “feeling lonely and depressed”: "Business is booming for Maria Mir. Under normal circumstances, she takes little time off in November and December; the holidays are her busy season. But this is 2020. Nothing is normal. And everyone seems to need her at once. Mir is a licensed marriage and family therapist. She’s used to patients feeling lonely and depressed as Thanksgiving and Christmas near. But “this particular time is different,” she says. “Even people who haven’t felt lonely in the past are now feeling that isolation.”

This is yet another example that shows that elections really matter. For years, the American people have been voting for psychotic control freaks all over the nation, and so now we shouldn’t be surprised that they are actually acting like psychotic control freaks during a major crisis.

We are being told that this is going to be a very “dark winter”, and just like we witnessed earlier this year many Americans are feverishly stocking up on food and other basic goods: "Concerns that rising cases will encourage people to buy in bulk and stock up on basic goods has prompted major grocery chains to take pre-emptive action and limit purchases. Kroger, the largest grocery chain in the U.S., has imposed purchase limits on essential goods like bath tissue, paper towels, disinfecting wipes and hand soap, according to Fox Business."

If you have not done so already, I would very much encourage you to get stocked up as well. These are such uncertain times, and I have a feeling that things are going to get even crazier in the weeks ahead. If the case numbers keep rising, the restrictions placed upon us are just going to become even more cumbersome, and it definitely appears that we are in for a very rough start in 2021."

- http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

"Prepare for Winter"

"Prepare for Winter"

by Charles Hugh Smith

"
It's time to prepare materially and psychologically for a winter unlike any other in our lifetimes.

Here's the view from 30,000 feet:



1. The stock market and the general zeitgeist of optimism have soared based on expectations that the real-world economy and efforts to suppress Covid would also track a V-shaped recovery.



While GDP did make a V-shaped recovery, GDP (gross domestic product) is a measure of flows and consumption, not a measure of the socio-economic "balance sheet." GDP measures the money flowing through accounts but not the "assets" of a functioning society: functional institutions and infrastructure and the well-being and security of the citizenry.

 Thus GDP soars while the real-world economy and society are hollowed out by economic inequality, declining health, financial insecurity, rising prices for essentials, dysfunctional institutions and decaying infrastructure.

Simply put, 

GDP doesn't measure what's important; it creates destructive incentives to squander resources and borrow staggering sums to support more consumption. This systemic flaw in what we measure has long been recognized by mainstream economists such as Joseph Stiglitz. "Measuring What Counts: The Global Movement for Well-Being" (Joseph E. Stiglitz et al.)



So the recovery of GDP doesn't mean the real-world economy has been restored to pre-Covid settings. GDP is a deceptive metric that's masking a free-fall in our well-being, security and social cohesion.



2. Just as GDP is a deceptive measure of the economy, counting Covid fatalities is equally deceptive: a declining death count is good news, of course, but that ignores the other effects of Covid, particularly organ damage and "Long-Covid" debilitation, not just in people with pre-existing conditions and the elderly but in healthy middle-aged and even some young people.



As this article from the University of California - San Francisco (UCSF) - one of the world's top healthcare research centers - explains, this is the result of Covid being a hybrid virus. Initially it was thought to be a respiratory virus like influenza, but it is now clear that Covid infects and disrupts many other systems in the body - endothelial, digestive, the heart and other organs. "We Thought It Was Just a Respiratory Virus: We Were Wrong."



"What We Know So Far about How COVID Affects the Nervous System"



"Risk for In-Hospital Complications Associated with COVID-19 and Influenza" (CDC). "Patients with COVID-19 had almost 19 times the risk for acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) than did patients with influenza. The percentage of COVID-19 patients who died while hospitalized (21.0%) was more than five times that of influenza patients (3.8%), and the duration of hospitalization was almost three times longer for COVID-19 patients.

"

The precise pathways and mechanisms of these long-term consequences are under intense study. Initial estimates are that about 1 in 20 people who came down with Covid are suffering some long-term consequences. These consequences - for example, damage to the heart - are typically only identifiable by exams and tests: superficially, the damage is not visible.

What is known is that Long-Covid affects females more than males, it affects otherwise healthy people who were previously fit and active, and tens of thousands of people have reported long-term symptoms of extreme fatigue, brain fog, etc.



There are no treatments yet and the prognosis is cloudy. There is no clarity yet on how long these problems may last or if damage to organs is permanent.

So the percentage of people dying from complications of Covid may not be the number that most accurately reflects the disease's toll: the number of people with Long-Covid might be the more accurate reflection of the toll and the seriousness of the challenges ahead.

 

"At 12, She's a Covid 'Long Hauler'

"

3. Many see herd immunity as the eventual solution to Covid. History suggests this isn't as neat and tidy as many expect. The first wave of a novel pathogen may appear to reach herd immunity, only to re-emerge a few years later with renewed contagious vigor.

While it's far too early to reach any definitive conclusions, preliminary evidence suggests natural immunity might decay within 6 months. This is supported by documented cases of re-infection, and in some cases the second infection is much worse than the initial infection. "What Reinfections Mean for COVID-19" (The Lancet)



This evidence suggests herd immunity might not be the solution many expect.

 Herd immunity is reached around 60% or higher, which suggests 200 million Americans would need to be infected to reach herd immunity.



4. The death rate for Covid is low for the entire populace, but it rises sharply for those with pre-existing conditions such as metabolic disorders (diabetes, pre-diabetes, etc.) and age (over 65).

A recent study on at-risk patients (ages 60 to 72) in 38 hospitals found about 30% had died within 60 days. 

"Sixty-Day Outcomes Among Patients Hospitalized With COVID-19" (Annals of Internal Medicine)



The problem is these at-risk populations are not small. There are 34 million people with diabetes, and an estimated 88 million Americans are pre-diabetic. 53 million Americans are 65 or older, and roughly 7 million are 80 and over.

There is obvious overlap in these categories--people may be diabetic at age 70 - but even with the overlap, these at-risk populations are roughly half the entire population (165 million people).



As this article from Nature.com explains, the infection fatality ratio (IFR) rises from near-zero for young people to 3.1% for 65-74 year olds and 11.6% for those 75 and older. "The coronavirus is most deadly if you are older and male, new data reveal the risks" (Nature.com)



According to this report from the American Diabetes Association, the data from early reporting indicates the death rate for those with diabetes was 7.3%.



"COVID-19 in People With Diabetes: Urgently Needed Lessons From Early Reports" (American Diabetes Association)



As a thought experiment, let's apply these death rates to at-risk populations at the "herd immunity" minimum of 60% of the populace:



A. 34 million diabetics X 60% = 20 million X 7% = 1.4 million deaths



B. 65-74 age group (28.6 million) X 60% = 17 million X 3.1% = 553,000 deaths



C. 75-84 group (14.2 million) + 85+ group (6.4 million) = 20.6 million X 60% = 12.4 million X 11.6% = 1.4 million deaths



This adds up to 3.3 million deaths without even counting any deaths in the populace younger than 65 or among the 88 million people with metabolic disorders.

The data suggests that 200 million infected people (60% of the U.S. population) would lead to about 3 million deaths and 10 million cases of Long-Covid.



Let's say better treatments and self-isolation will cut the deaths to 2.5 million. That would be extremely positive, but what about the Long-Covid cases? The system has yet to even start collecting comprehensive data. Thus many of the eventual consequences and costs will remain unknown.



5. Hospitalizations and treatments are rising rapidly. Hospitalizations and deaths are trending upward.

 Yet experts warn that the variability may simply end with the virus resurging to high levels across the entire country. "I don't see any location in the United States that's going to be free of a major increase in cases," he said. "And I think we're just getting started."



When high case counts emerge in communities, the spillover to surrounding populations is rapid, Dr. Osterholm said. The situation, he noted, can be likened to a "coronavirus forest fire."

"A forest fire never burns evenly everywhere," he said. "But if the embers are still around, they ignite again and then that area does burn eventually. And I think that that's what we're seeing here."

 "We're going to see much less evidence of regionalization of this virus over the course of the next several weeks," said Dr. Michael Osterholm, an infectious diseases expert at the University of Minnesota. "I think this is going to ultimately end up being an entire country on fire."



6. If you look at the chart of hospitalizations, the healthcare system in many locales was experiencing extreme stress at 60,000 hospitalizations, and so the rise above this level could trigger second-order effects which could cascade into a breakdown.

 As this report from the CDC explains, a significant number of healthcare workers have been infected and hospitalized, and many died. Should the number of healthcare workers who contract the disease or burn out due to extended shifts and exhaustion rise beyond a certain point, the ability to provide care from everyone who is seriously ill may become severely impaired.

So there are two limiting factors on care as the number of hospitalizations soars: the number of beds available in Covid-secure wards and the number of healthcare workers available to provide care.

If either of these limits are reached, death rates may rise as patients are unable to get all the care they would have received had cases and hospitalizations not exceeded the capacity of the system.



7. There are lag times in effects and reporting:


• 3 weeks: infection-to-death
.

• 4 weeks: deaths reporting.


• 4 weeks: propagation to older age groups.

• 8 weeks: infection, partial recovery/discharged from ICU, death.



Note the almost exponential rise in cases being reported. We can anticipate a surge in hospitalizations, deaths and spread to older populations in the weeks and months ahead.



8. Vaccines: I provided an analysis and numerous links on the many uncertainties surrounding vaccines in "Everything You Don't Want to Know About Covid Vaccines (Because You Can't Be Bullish Anymore)" (November 11, 2020). 



"Covid-19 Vaccine Protocols Reveal That Trials Are Designed To Succeed" (Forbes.com) by William A. Haseltine



9. The virus remains highly contagious. "Wedding and Birthday Party Infect 56, Leaving Nearly 300 in Quarantine" (New York Times)

. The projections presented here are basic math, yet few seem to have done the simple math, perhaps because the results are sobering and don't fit the desired "optimism."



Realism must precede optimism or the optimism will collapse as the tsunami of reality comes ashore.

No one knows the future, but current trends suggest all the euphoric expectations of a fast, painless recovery were tragically misplaced.

Here is the chart I prepared a week after Covid-19 hit the news in late January. Reality has been tracking my first-out-of-the-gate projection with remarkable coherence.

- https://www.oftwominds.com/

Gregory Mannarino, "AM 11/16/20: Important Updates"

Gregory Mannarino, "AM 11/16/20: Important Updates"

- https://traderschoice.net/

"Trump Lawyer Sidney Powell: 'We're Getting Ready To Overturn Election Results In Multiple States'"

"Trump Lawyer Sidney Powell: 

'We're Getting Ready To Overturn Election Results In Multiple States'"

by Jack Phillips 

"Former federal prosecutor Sidney Powell, a Trump campaign lawyer, suggested in a Sunday interview that there is still more evidence coming out in President Donald Trump’s claims of voter fraud and irregularities.

“We’re getting ready to overturn election results in multiple states,” Powell said, saying that she has enough evidence of election fraud to launch a widespread criminal investigation. “I don’t make comments without having the evidence to back it up,” she added, saying that elections software switched “millions of votes” from Trump to Democratic nominee Joe Biden. Powell notably provided legal counsel to Gen. Michael Flynn in 2019. She was named to Trump’s legal team in the past several days.

Powell said a whistleblower came forward and said the elections software was designed to “rig elections,” saying that “he saw it happen in other countries,” referring to voting systems Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic, or perhaps other software and machines.

“We have so much evidence, I feel like it’s coming in through a fire hose,” Powell said, while noting that she won’t reveal the evidence that she has. “They can stick a thumb drive in the [voting] machine, they can upload software to it even from the Internet… from Germany or Venezuela even,” she said, adding that operations “can watch votes in real-time” and “can shift votes in real-time,” or alleged bad actors can “remote access anything.”

“We’ve identified mathematically the exact algorithm they’ve used - and planned to use from the beginning” that allegedly switched votes to Biden, Powell remarked.

Powell also made reference to a 2019 investigation from Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), as well as other Democratic lawmakers into Dominion Voting Systems, Election Systems & Software, and Hart InterCivic. The senators had expressed concerns about the security of the voting systems. “We have concerns about the spread and effect of private equity investment in many sectors of the economy, including the election technology industry - an integral part of our nation’s democratic process,” wrote the lawmakers in their letters to the firms about a year ago.

“These problems threaten the integrity of our elections and demonstrate the importance of election systems that are strong, durable, and not vulnerable to attack.” Later in the Sunday morning interview, Powell said that her team has “detected voting irregularities that are inexplicable” in states where officials believe they have valid systems.

During the election, Republicans in the House were able to flip at least 11 seats while the GOP is poised to maintain control of the Senate. Some conservatives have questioned how such a voting pattern is possible for Biden to win the presidential election, let alone receive more votes than any other presidential candidate in American history, including President Barack Obama’s victory in 2008.

Companies Respond: The Department of Homeland Security’s cybersecurity agency issued a statement on Thursday calling the 2020 general election the “most secure in American history,” despite multiple legal challenges alleging a variety of alleged voting irregularities across a number of battleground states.

“The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history. Right now, across the country, election officials are reviewing and double-checking the entire election process prior to finalizing the result,” read the statement released by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).

Smartmatic, in a statement on Saturday, said that it has no ties with Dominion Voting Systems. Powell suggested that Smartmatic is operated by Dominion in the interview. Dominion, over the past several weeks, has repeatedly denied its systems were compromised in some way. “In the aftermath of the 2020 general election, there has been a great deal of misinformation being circulated about Smartmatic and other companies that provide election technology to voting jurisdictions in the US. We would like to dispel these incorrect statements with facts,” the firm wrote, adding that it “has never owned any shares or had any financial stake in Dominion Voting Systems.”

Dominion also refuted allegations that its machines changed votes from Trump to Biden on Election Day and beyond. “Dominion Voting Systems categorically denies any claims about any vote switching or alleged software issues with our voting systems,” a company spokesperson said in a statement to The Denver Post. “Our systems continue to reliably and accurately count ballots, and state and local election authorities have publicly confirmed the integrity of the process.”

- https://www.zerohedge.com/political/

Must Watch! “Ominous FED Message; Financial Crisis Imminent; Get Survival Skills Now; Living Standards Fall”

Jeremiah Babe,

“Ominous FED Message; Financial Crisis Imminent; 

Get Survival Skills Now; Living Standards Fall”

"Keep Away..."