Pfizer's demonstrated lifesaver Paxlovid won't be available in robust quantities until April as tens of thousands of Americans continue to drop dead from COVID-19

70,510 deaths last 30 days in 2022 to February 10

90,466 deaths same period in 2021 to February 10

 

Thus far, the federal government has been able to release just 265,000 Paxlovid courses to state health departments, even as the U.S. documented some 20 million Covid cases and 55,000 related deaths in January alone. While cases of omicron are declining nationwide, there are still more than 140,000 hospitalizations, and thousands of people are dying from Covid daily. 

 

More. 

LOL NBC: Boosted Americans home sick with Omicron are "confused"

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/we-have-gone-backwards-covid-confusion-snarls-biden-white-house-n1287282

[Biden] calls it the “pandemic of the unvaccinated,” but that has only confused boosted Americans home sick with the omicron variant.

They're not confused, they're thinking "You said all we needed to do was get vaccinated!"

 

General McKenzie in Qatar told Taliban to stay out of Kabul or he would bomb them: They didn't and he didn't

Kind of hard to have any credibility when your commander in chief has none.

Biden signaled surrender already in early May, much earlier than hitherto reported; that's why the country collapsed like a house of cards.

Defeat in Afghanistan was a CHOICE made by the Democrat president, no different than the Vietnam defeat was a choice, made by the Democrat Congress of the time, of which Biden was also a part, which cut off funding to the government of South Vietnam.

The contractors which were necessary to the mission of the Afghan Army were already pulling out by the time of the May 8 Biden meeting where discussion of evacuating Afghan SIVs was supposedly excluded for fear of destabilizing the Ghani government, much earlier than has been reported until now:

At the time of the May meeting, Taliban forces were engaged in a countrywide offensive and were already capturing key territory in the west and outside Kabul, the nation's capital. U.S.-funded private contractors, meanwhile, were flying out of the country as part of the American troop withdrawal. The Afghan military needed the contractors to keep its air force flying. ... On Aug. 8, McKenzie delivered his findings to Milley, who in turn shared them with Austin. McKenzie warned that Kabul would be encircled in 30-60 days and that the city and the whole country could fall within weeks or a couple of months at most.

Story.

The CDC Follies

First we were told, most publicly by Fauci in February 2020, that masks won't protect you from the COVID virus. Wash your hands, we were told. Fauci lied to us because PPE was in short supply and was needed by hospitals. They were trying to conserve supplies for hospital workers, because masks work in hospitals, you know.

After the first hospitalization wave subsided, masking gradually became cool again. People wanted to get out and about, so wearing a mask and practicing social distancing became the default position. The authorities realized this would help to keep a lid on things while vaccines were developing.

America divided over this politically, to state the obvious.

When the vaccines began to roll out in late December, the same psychology took over. The vaccine, like a mask, became a ticket back to normalcy. At first, however, the CDC had said a mask would still be necessary after vaccination, but eventually bowed to pressure from freedom advocates, and to overcome the vaccine hesitancy into which the advice to keep wearing a mask kept feeding. The authorities finally relented in May after vaccination enthusiasm had peaked in April and declined quickly, and said the vaccinated could in fact retire their masks after all.

 

This was too little, too late.

 

The share of population dosed at least once moved fewer than ten points from mid-May to July 4th, from 47% to 55%. 

The Biden administration severely undershot its goal of 70% vaccinated by July 4th. It completely miscalculated that vaccine enthusiasm would peak in mid-April.

But now, two months since May, the CDC today is back to saying that masking is necessary after vaccination, ostensibly because the India variant is so virulent that even vaccinated people could still catch it and transmit it.

 

Talk about poking the hornets' nest.

 

The real reason is that breakthrough cases at elite levels are calling attention to a wider spread phenomenon everyone knows about anecdotally but can't quantify because the CDC in May conveniently refused to count all the breakthrough cases like it counts cases generally. These vaccines are failing all over the place in the basic sense of preventing illness.

 

Of course, this isn't going to convince anyone to get vaccinated, because vaccines are supposed to prevent illness, and if they aren't, well, why bother?

 

These aren't real vaccines like the childhood vaccines are real vaccines. Their power peters out quickly and people can and do get COVID-19 anyway. At best these are therapeutic medications which might turn out to be appropriate for certain people, but certainly not as a panacea for the whole nation.

 

NBC actually did a pretty good story laying out many of these details, here, draped in the usual propaganda.

 

The future outlook, unfortunately, remains very uncertain.

 

 

 

Supremes rule 7-2 Obamacare stays: Congress set aside the penalty the law requires in 2017, but not the whole law, so no problemo

 Story.

"Since the United States government recognizes this man to be Santa Claus, this court will not dispute it."

It's pretty funny how the media call the race for Biden Saturday morning after the Supremes intervene in Pennsylvania Friday night

 Meanwhile Pennsylvania ain't called nothin'.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/biden-defeats-trump-win-white-house-nbc-news-projects-n1246912

https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/110620zr_g31i.pdf

It's a veritable cornucopia of 2020 Iowa Caucus debacle headlines this morning

Iowa caucus: Biden campaign blasts Democratic Party over reporting meltdown

Iowa caucuses delays revive concerns and conspiracy theories of Bernie Sanders supporters

SANDERS CAMPAIGN’S INTERNAL CAUCUS NUMBERS SHOW THEM WINNING IOWA, WITH BIDEN A DISTANT FOURTH

Frustration, questions as delays hamper Iowa caucuses

‘A Systemwide Disaster’: How the Iowa Caucuses Melted Down

Iowa officially has its first caucus-deciding coin flips of the year

Chaos reigns on Iowa caucus night

Iowa caucuses turnout: Entrance poll shows dip in first-timers

Results for Iowa caucuses delayed as state Democratic Party finds 'inconsistencies'

'It’s a total meltdown': Confusion seizes Iowa as officials struggle to report results

What went wrong: Tech troubles behind delay in Iowa results

Iowa Democrats rush "quality checks" after "inconsistencies"

Iowa Reports No Caucus Winner After ‘Inconsistencies’ Bedevil Count

So much for Democrat energy: Iowa Caucus first-timer share drops to 35%, down from 44% in 2016 and 57% in 2008

The entrance poll showed just about a third of voters — 35 percent — caucusing this year are first-timers, a lower level than in 2016, when first-timers made up 44 percent of the Hawkeye State's Democratic caucusgoers. And this year's level of new participants is well shy of that in 2008, when a whopping 57 percent of Democrats said they had never caucused before.

More.

Move over bread and circuses, Bernie brings beer and music

Story:

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — Fans danced gleefully to music while guzzling beer. Smiles abounded and deafening cheers arose without warning. And, in the restroom, someone was smoking what smelled like marijuana.

Yes, it was a concert. Yes, it was a party. ...

Sanders fans filled the floor and the first level at the U.S. Cellular Center in downtown Cedar Rapids, where the concessions were open and individual vendors walked around selling beer and bottled water. The men’s restroom on the floor level had the distinct odor of marijuana smoke.

Republican wallops Democrat in Texas House District 28 58% to 42% despite massive Beto O'Rourke spending and organizing for the Democrat

Story.

Anal cancer cases and deaths explode in USA 16 years after Supreme Court overturns anti-sodomy laws in Lawrence v. Texas

The United States is experiencing a “dramatic and concerning” rise in the rate of new anal cancer cases and deaths from the disease . . . The incidence of squamous cell carcinoma of the anus — the most common type of anal cancer — rose 2.7 percent PER YEAR over a recent 15-year period, while anal cancer mortality rates increased 3.1 percent PER YEAR during that time [emphasis added]. At this rate, the disease can be considered as one of the fastest accelerating causes of cancer incidence and mortality in the U.S. ... “It’s really hard to understand what might be causing the rise in incidence and mortality,” [the study’s lead author Ashish Deshmukh] added.

Political correctness kills, as does Nemesis. They might actually be the same thing.

More here.

Marianne Williamson was last night's clear winner, and the left immediately goes to DEFCON 1: NBC attacks saying her real name is Marianne Individualism

Marianne Williamson's Democratic debate performance raised eyebrows. But she's no friend of the left. :

The self-help guru’s supposedly empowering rhetoric masks a mean-spirited individualism that would lead to harmful policies if she were somehow elected. ... Williamson is a good illustration of how a creeping hippie Reaganism can actually hurt progressive ideals. ... Williamson's approach is not an accident or an aberration. It's the natural outgrowth of an individualistic, reactionary ideology which calls first for internal spiritual renewal rather than for systemic cultural and political change. There's a direct line from such thinking to blaming poor people for their poverty or insisting that welfare payments corrupt recipients. Neoliberalism, whether of the left or the right, ends up blaming marginalized people for their own oppression. And once you've blamed them for their own suffering, you shuffle off any obligation to change things to help them, or to make the world more just.

It's Creepy Uncle Joe by +23.5 over Sanders, and women are starting to throw themselves at him

Woman tells Biden at rally: 'You can hug and kiss me anytime, Joe' :

Biden laughed nervously as the crowd roared in approval, before making the sign of the cross to suggest a prayer of forgiveness.

 

President Kushner has alternative facts about Florida voter registrations by felons

Florida's ex-felon voting rules slow to impact registration: By some estimates, changes to the Florida state constitution could add as many as 1.4 million new voters to the rolls in Florida:

The Tampa Bay Times and Miami Herald looked at the most recent year of data on citizens who lost their right to vote in the 20 largest counties in the state and found a lot of Democrats. In those counties, which hold more than 80 percent of the state’s voters, 52 percent of those who lost their voting rights because of a conviction were Democrats. Only 14 percent of those who lost their voting rights because of felony convictions were Republicans. The rest had no partisan affiliation. ... Democrats could see a net gain of several hundred thousand votes from the new amendment.

Wow, I missed this one: Michael Morell, former CIA director under Obama, in March 2017 said Chris Steele PAID Russkies for dossier info

Clinton Ally Says Smoke, But No Fire: No Russia-Trump Collusion:

About the dossier, Morell said, "Unless you know the sources, and unless you know how a particular source acquired a particular piece of information, you can’t judge the information — you just can’t." The dossier "doesn’t take you anywhere, I don’t think," he said. He continued: "I had two questions when I first read it. One was, How did Chris talk to these sources? I have subsequently learned that he used intermediaries. "And then I asked myself, why did these guys provide this information, what was their motivation? And I subsequently learned that he paid them. That the intermediaries paid the sources and the intermediaries got the money from Chris. And that kind of worries me a little bit because if you’re paying somebody, particularly former FSB officers, they are going to tell you truth and innuendo and rumor, and they’re going to call you up and say, ‘hey, let’s have another meeting, I have more information for you,’ because they want to get paid some more. "I think you’ve got to take all that into consideration when you consider the dossier." Another former CIA officer in the room pointed out that the CIA also pays its sources. "But we know who the source [i]s and we know how they got the information," Morell responded.

 

Left-wing scam artist set up fake political action committees for Bernie, Beto and kept the dough for himself

California con man set up bogus websites for Bernie Sanders, Beto O'Rourke to defraud donors, prosecutors say:

A notorious California con man has been charged with defrauding donors out of more than $250,000 sent to sham political groups and websites for Beto O'Rourke, Bernie Sanders and other prominent Democrats, prosecutors said Tuesday. ... The court papers say that nearly all of the more than 1,000 donations to the scam PACs and websites were in fact pocketed by Dupont.

 

People foolishly say Trump gave the Norcoms nothing when he's foolishly curtailing joint military exercises with SK

U.S. to end large-scale military drills with South Korea:

Word of the planned announcement comes less than 48 hours after a summit between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un came to an abrupt end with no agreement. Trump said afterward that the annual military drills with South Korea were "very, very expensive" and the government in Seoul should pay more for them. ... “That’s not good alliance management," Klingner said. “We didn’t get anything in return. North Korea did not codify their missile test moratorium, nor do they agree to any constraints on their own military operations.”

Right, that's what we elected Trump to spend his time doing

Trump administration launches global effort to end criminalization of homosexuality

Teen use of marijuana just once or twice interferes with normal sculpting of the brain

But our foolish politics is making marijuana use more likely, not less.

Even a little marijuana may change teen brain, study finds:

“At the age at which we studied these kids (age 14), cortical regions are going through a process of thinning," he said, suggesting that this is a “sculpting” process that makes the brain and its connections more efficient. "So, one possibility is that the cannabis use has disrupted this pruning process, resulting in larger volumes (i.e., a disruption of typical maturation) in the cannabis users. Another possibility is that the cannabis use has led to a growth in neurons and in the connections between them."

It's not the first research to find that cannabis use may cause changes to the teen brain.

A recent study found that teen brains are more vulnerable to the effects of marijuana than alcohol. And in June, University of Pennsylvania scientists discovered that young people who used marijuana frequently were more likely than nonusers to have slightly lower scores on tests of memory, learning new information, and higher-level problem solving and information processing.

One term president waves surrender flag on drug war, signs on to criminal justice reform, no one will be executed

Criminal justice reform finally has a chance in Congress. Here's what the First Step Act would do.:

President Donald Trump’s support has put Congress within reach of passing the most sweeping set of changes to the federal criminal justice system since the 1990s, when fear of crime drove the enactment of draconian sentencing practices that shipped hundreds of thousands of drug offenders to prison.