Article 43
Wednesday, April 28, 2021
Political Scapegoating
The modern world has witnessed a dramatic breakthrough of the dark, negative forces of human nature. The old ethic, which pursued an illusory perfection by repressing the dark side, has lost its power to deal with contemporary problems. Erich Neumann was convinced that the deadliest peril now confronting humanity lay in the scapegoat psychology associated with the old ethic. We are in the grip of this psychology when we project our own dark shadow onto an individual or group identified as our enemy, failing to see it in ourselves. The only effective alternative to this dangerous shadow projection is shadow recognition, acknowledgement, and integration into the totality of the self. Wholeness, not perfection, is the goal of the new ethic.
- Erich Neumann, Depth Psychology and a New Ethic
By Ross Stiene
Citizen Truth
April 14, 2017
Political scapegoating is a common tactic employed by politicians to distract the general population. We see it now with the increased focus on and finger pointing towards immigrants, Russia, and Syria.
Usually, when politicians use this technique, it is accompanied by support from the US mainstream media; note 90% OF MEDIA is owned by just SIX COMPANIES. The media’s purpose is to push the same message as mainstream politicians.
The media uses their status and built up trust as established news organizations to effectively manufacture consent. The people genuinely trust these sources and never question them.
We see this in COLIN POWELL’S UN SPEECH IN 2003 ABUT WMDS. The Washington Post reported “Powell left no room to argue seriously that Iraq has accepted the Security Council’s offer of a ‘final opportunity’ to disarm. And he offered a powerful new case that Saddam Hussein’s regime is cooperating with a branch of the al Qaeda organization that is trying to acquire chemical weapons and stage attacks in Europe.”
Why didn’t the Post question this narrative more? So what’s the point of this media backed scapegoating? It is to divert attention away from the real issues and place the blame on something or someone else.
Those who want to hold politicians accountable need to be aware of this technique. If we are constantly distracted and our attention is diverted from the real problems we can not hold power in check and we can not progress as a nation. Democrats are blaming Russians, Trump is blaming immigrants and the Western world is blaming Syria, but it is all just our modern day version of scapegoating.
An earlier example of scapegoating is seen in our invasion of Iraq in 2003. Let’s remember it is the CIA AND US GOVERNMENT WHO ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR HUSSEIN’S RISE TO POWER IN IRAQ. In the 1980s the US armed and supplied Hussein with weapons with the intention of taking out Iran in the Iran-Iraq war. Hussein was put in power for the purpose of taking out Iran, a country with the 4 largest oil reserves in the world. In the Iran-Iraq war, HUSSEIN USED CHEMICAL WEAPONS on the Iranian forces and the Kurdish population of northern Iraq. In a famous event called the “Halabja” event Iraq used chemical weapons on the Kurdish population in northern Iraq.
It was Hussein’s attempt to counter-attack Kurdish and Iranian opposition forces who had taken over the area. Foreign Policy Magazine and the New York Times reported that THE US GOVERNMENT KNEW HUSSEIN WAS USING CHEMICAL WEAPONS but looked the other way. The US government EVEN HELPED SUPPLY Saddam Hussein’s chemical weapons. On June 9, 1992, TED KOPPEL REPORTED on ABC’s Nightline that the Reagan/Bush administrations permitted - and frequently encouraged - the flow of money, agricultural credits, dual-use technology, chemicals, and weapons to Iraq.ה Bruce Riedel, a expert on U.S. SECURITY, SOUTH ASIA, AFFAIRS AND COUNTER-TERRORISM said The Reagan administration feared that Iran’s army might slice through Iraq to the oilfields of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
The official justification for the US getting involved in the Iraq-Iran war was the portrayal of a doomsday scenario where if IRAN DEFEATED IQAQ, Iran would head straight for Israel. However we now know that the real reason was to prevent oil fields in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia from possibly being taken over by Iran.
Fast forward to 2003 and suddenly we are upset about Hussein’s use of chemical weapons, which the US helped supply. Interestingly, HUSSEIN STOPPED SELLING OIL IN US DOLLARS in October of 2000 and switched to selling oil in euros. This netted Iraq a nice profit for his country and might not have pleased the US. The US started building a propaganda campaign to take down the Iraqi government just a year later and after the September 11th attacks. There was STRONG EVIDENCE POINTING TO THE REASON FOR DOING SO WAS FOR OIL, with even the US military drawing up detailed plans to secure and protect Iraq’s oilfields.
Now in 2017 we see the neo liberal left blaming Russia for interfering in the US election of 2016. The NEO-CONSERVATIVE RIGHT DOES THIS AS WELL. In reality, Russia is a scapegoat to deflect attention away from the real issue of corporate influence in politics. However, of course news organizations and politicians don’t talk about the influence of corporations in our elections and our government.
Look at Goldman Sachs; a corporation that ALWAYS HAS FORMER EMPLOYEES ON BOTH SIDES OF THE DEMOCRATIC AND REPUBLICAN PARTIES WORKING IN THE GOVERNMENT.
Goldman Sachs was the main beneficiary of the bailouts after the 2008 housing crisis. Some of these former Goldman employees are Henry Paulson under the Bush Administration and Timothy Geithner of the Obama Administration. Many other former Goldman employees have worked in government at various times including Robert Rubin, Stephen Friedman (who chaired the New York Federal Reserve from 2008-2009), William C. Dudley and Larry Summers. In the current administration Steve Mnuchin, Gary Cohn and Stephen Bannon are all former or current Goldman Sachs employees. Rubin, a Goldman employee, helped to arrange the REPEAL OF THE GLASS-STEAGALL ACT, which is considered to be one of the main causes of the 2008 financial crisis as the repeal lead to reckless activities in the financial industry. IN THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION THEE WERE OVER 12 FORMER OR CURRENT GOLDMAN SACHS EMPLOYEES. This is of course just one of the many examples of corporate influence in government.
For a striking example of corporate influence just look at Rex Tillerson, the former CEO of Exxonmobil. Tillerson has no experience in politics at all and is now in charge of the secretary of state position. As Secretary of State he manages foreign relations and foreign affairs, given he comes from the oil industry his appointment suggests that oil is behind all of our foreign relations.
After a supposed chemical attack by Assad, he BECAME ONE OF THE DRIVING FORCES FOR A WAR IN SYRIA. It’s ironic that there are TWO COMPETING PIPELINES vying to run through Syria and our Secretary of State is an oil man. The pipeline rejected by Syria was the pipeline proposed by U.S. allies, all of whom now support the Syrian opposition forces. Of course we don’t hear much about this from mainstream media.
Lastly, look at Christopher Dodd, the former chief of the (MPAA) Motion Picture Association of America. Dodd was the DRIVING FORCE BEHIND BILLS LIKE SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and the PIPA (Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act). Bills that would directly benefit the MPAA which coincidentally, Dodd works for.
Russia’s influence in our election and our government is up for debate. But, unlike the uncertainty of Russia’s influence on the US government, it is clear that certain industries and corporations directly impact US foreign and domestic policy. The policies that these former corporate employees enact always benefit their old companies and industries, often at the expense of the people. Our government is not democracy in action that responds to the will of the people, instead it responds to the will of corporate interests. Unfortunately, this is consistently overshadowed by Russia being blamed for corrupting our election and possibly having behind the scenes influence in our government.
Why do I call attention to political scapegoating? That is simple. The people are purposely being mislead. Our government hides the real truth behind its motives. If the people knew the real motive behind many of our governments actions it would threaten the credibility of the people and organizations that are committing these acts. Delusion, is the lifeblood of politics and it always has been. The more ignorant people are to the truth, the easier it is to manipulate and control them. The solution is to question more and be more skeptical of the mainstream media and our politicians. Know what you are being distracted from and you will lay the groundwork to taking your power back. Wake up and see the truth.
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Monday, April 26, 2021
The Next Depression Part 64 - Half of America In or Near Poverty
2021 Update: Half of America In or Near Poverty
We need Guaranteed Jobs. President Biden’s proposed Civilian Climate Corps is a positive step in this direction.
By Paul Buchheit
Common Dreams
February 22, 2021
Poverty, as DEFINED BY THE WORLD BANK, is a “pronounced deprivation in well-being.” This describes the millions of Americans who are UNABLE TO PAY for medical treatment; who suffer the stress of delinquent RENT and MORTGAGE payments; who see a steady decline of jobs that pay enough to support a family; and who are victims of the surge in drug and alcohol and suicide DEATHS OF DESPAIR that continue to increase among poor Americans during the COVID-19 crisis.
The facts and numbers from numerous sources reflect the reality of deprivation in America, and help to CONFIRM what has been CALLED the “sharpest rise in the U.S. poverty rate since the 1960s.”
The Majority of American Households Are Living Paycheck-to-Paycheck During the Pandemic
The Washington Post SUMMARIZES: “According to Nielsen data, the American Payroll Association, CareerBuilder and the National Endowment for Financial Education, somewhere between 50 percent and 78 percent of employees earn just enough money to pay their bills each month....[this was] before the coronavirus pandemic....[since then] the number of first-time unemployment claims has exceeded 1 million per week, an unprecedented number in U.S. history.”
There’s much more evidence of Americans in trouble. An NPR REVIEW states that “survey after survey for years has found that most people in the U.S. live paycheck to paycheck.” One of these is a SURVEY REPORTED BY CNBC, which concluded that “63% of Americans have been living paycheck to paycheck since Covid hit.” Both SCHWAB’S 2020 MODERN WEALTH SURVEY and a recent HARRIS POLL found that a sizable majority of Americans are suffering financial stress during the pandemic. The AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION concurs. In BANKRATE’S LATEST POLLING NUMBERS, 6 out of 10 Americans would be unable to afford an unexpected $1,000 expense.
With month-to-month survival preoccupying most Americans, retirement savings are far beyond reach. SCHWAB’S WEALTH SURVEY found that Americans need a net worth of $655,000 to be “financially comfortable.” According to CREDIT SUISSE, NOBODY in the bottom half of North America has more than about ONE-TENTH of that retirement amount.
Half of American Households Were Even Uncertain about FOOD for the Holidays. And Soon the Rent is Coming Due..
Not enough food! ACCORDING to the Census Bureau’s HOUSEHOLD PULSE SURVEY for October 14-26, 2020, 56% of households with children reported that they were “not very confident” that they would be able to be able to afford food for the holidays. BROOKINGS REPORTS that two in five households with mothers with pre-teen children were food insecure, meaning that “a household has difficulty providing enough food due to a lack of resources.”
And not enough money for rent! Thankfully, RENT and MORTGAGE moratoriums have been extended through the end of March and June, respectively. But then what? Twelve million renters owe an average of $5,600 in back RENT and utilities. A $1,400 stimulus paymentor even $5,600 for a family of fourחwill keep them housed for just a few months.
Over Half of Black and Latino Families Lack the Funds to Sustain Them for Three Months at a Poverty Level
According to RESEARCH AT DUKE UNIVERSITY, 57 percent of Black families with children and 50 percent of Latino families with children were poor in terms of net worth in 2019. By comparison, the rate for white families was 24 PERCENT. Said Christina Gibson-Davis, co-author of the study, “Their savings are virtually nil, and they have no financial cushion to provide the basics for their children.”
A STUDY conducted in part by the Universities of Chicago and Notre Dame found that the poverty rate for Blacks rose over 5 percent in just six months.
Almost Half of America’s Children Live in Households that Can’t Meet Basic Expenses
This is the greatest shame of all. By late October, 2020 ONE OUT OF EVERY FIVE American kids was living in poverty conditions. And it’s much worse for Black and Latino families. Incredibly, TWO OUT OF THREE Black children (and slightly less for Latinos) live in households that “have trouble covering usual expenses,” according to a Census Bureau Household Pulse Survey conducted in early 2021.
According to One Careful Study, Over Half of Americans Are Trying to Survive Without Full-Time Living-Wage Jobs
Official unemployment figures inspire skepticism when ‘employed’ is defined as working just ONE HOUR per week. A REALISTIC PORTRAYAL OF LIVING WAGE EMPLOYMENT is provided by the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity, which considers part-time workers, those working full-time but earning too little to climb above the poverty line, and discouraged workers who’ve stopped looking for unemployment. As of December 2020, a full 53.9 percent of working-age Americans did not have living-wage full-time jobs.
As further evidence of underemployment, BROOKINGS NOTES that “Fifty-three million Americans, 44 percent of the labor force, earn low wages.” For these underpaid workers, the MEDIAN HOURLY WAGE in 2019 was $10.22, the median annual income was $18,000. Poverty level.
Half of America has to scramble for second and third jobs, gig jobs, short-term and temporary jobs, to make ends meet. A stunning 62% of survey respondents plan to work a second job in 2021 to sustain their families.
And on top of all this, MCKINSEY JUST REPORTED that “Households with less than $30,000 in annual income faced double the unemployment rates of higher-income households.”
Glimmers of Hope
Researchers at Columbia University ESTIMATED that the support provided by the CARES Act maintained the U.S. poverty rate at a level about 30 percent lower than otherwise expected. STIMULUS payments have kept us afloat. An overwhelming MAJORITY of Americans are in favor of further relief, and the Biden Administration is preparing a massive STIMULUS BILL to accommodate a troubled populace.
But for most Americans, stimulus checks will NOT SUSTAIN family needs for more than a few months. We need GUARANTEED JOBS. President Biden’s proposed CIVILIAN CLIMATE CORPS is a positive step in this direction.
There is plenty of POTENTIAL WORK out there. Biden’s website describes a national investment to “create millions of good, union jobs rebuilding America’s crumbling infrastructure from roads and bridges to green spaces and water systems to electricity grids and universal broadband..” Just as with FDR’s Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s, young Americans would have the opportunity to improve themselves, make money, and serve their country. A recent Gallup poll FOUND that nearly 70% of workers don’t feel ‘engaged’ (enthusiastic and committed) in their jobs. A Guaranteed Jobs program could change that. With half of America facing poverty conditions, we can’t afford to wait.
Paul Buchheit is an advocate for social and economic justice, and the author of numerous papers on economic inequality and cognitive science. He was recently named one of 300 Living Peace and Justice Leaders and Models. He is the author of “American Wars: Illusions and Realities” (2008) and “Disposable Americans: Extreme Capitalism and the Case for a Guaranteed Income” (2017). Contact email: paul (at) youdeservefacts.org.
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Down Skilling
I think it’s great if companies stop complaining that we’re TOO STUPID for the jobs out there, stop INSISTING ON DEGREES to apply for jobs pouring coffee, or insinuate that we’re LAZY BUMS that would rather starve than work.
It BEATS THE USUAL threats of outsourcing, offshoring, REPLACING AMERICAN WORKERS with robots or H1-B visas, or the lie we’ve been hearing for years about a SKILLS MISMATCH.
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Employers Eager to Hire Try a New Policy: No Experience Necessary
Inexperienced job applicants face better odds in the labor market as more companies drop work-history and degree requirements
By Kelsey Gee
Wall Street Journal
July 29, 2018
Americans looking to land a first job or break into a dream career face their best odds of success in years.
Employers say they are abandoning preferences for college degrees and specific skill sets to speed up hiring and broaden the pool of job candidates. Many companies added requirements to job postings after the recession, when millions were out of work and human-resources departments were stacked with resumes.
Across incomes and industries, the lower bar to getting hired is helping self-taught programmers attain software engineering roles at Intel Corp. INTC 0.63% and GitHub Inc., the coding platform, and improving the odds for high-school graduates who aspire to be branch managers at Bank of America Corp. BAC 1.20% and Terminix pest control.
“Candidates have so many options today, said Amy Glaser, senior vice president of Adecco Group, a staffing agency with about 10,000 company clients in search of employees. “If a company requires a degree, two rounds of interviews and a test for hard SKILLS, candidates can go down the street to another employer who will make them an offer that day.”
Ms. Glaser estimates one in four of the agency’s employer clients have made drastic changes to their recruiting process since the start of the year, such as skipping drug tests or criminal background checks, or removing preferences for a higher degree or high-school diploma.
Cutting job-credential requirements is more common in cities such as Dallas and Louisville, where unemployment is lowest, Ms. Glaser said, as well as in recruiting for roles at call centers and warehouses within logistics operations of retailers such as Walmart Inc. and Amazon.com Inc.
In the first half of 2018, the share of job postings requesting a college degree fell to 30% from 32% in 2017, according to an analysis by labor-market research firm Burning Glass Technologies of 15 million ads on websites such as Indeed and Craigslist. Minimum qualifications have been drifting lower since 2012, when companies sought college graduates for 34% of those positions.
Long work-history requirements have also relaxed: Only 23% of entry-level jobs now ask applicants for three or more years of experience, compared with 29% back in 2012, putting an additional 1.2 million jobs in closer reach of more applicants, Burning Glass data show. Through the end of last year, a further one million new jobs were opened up to candidates with no experience necessary,Ӕ making occupations such as e-commerce analyst, purchasing assistant and preschool teacher available to novices and those without a degree.
It all marks a sharp reversal from the immediate aftermath of the financial crisis, when employers could be pickier. Economists say job requirements were harder to track then, because many companies didn’t post positions publicly and many resums werent delivered electronically.
Now, recruiters say, the tightest job market in decades has left employers looking to tamp down hiring costs with three options: Offer more money upfront, lower their standards or retrain current staff in coding, procurement or other necessary skills.
Rodney Apple, president of SCM Talent Group LLC in Asheville, N.C., said if companies won’t budge on compensation, experience or education requirements, he walks away.
We tell them,"I’m sorry, but we can’t help you fish for the few underpaid or unaware applicants left out there,” he said. SCM finds workers for dozens of small and midsize companies seeking supply-chain managers and logistics and warehouse operators across the U.S. Mr. Apple said talent shortages are more extreme than he has seen in nearly 20 years of recruiting.
Average wages have climbed steadily in the past year, but rising prices of household goods have made those pay raises less valuable to workers, keeping pressure on employers to increase salaries or re-evaluate their target hire.
To attract more entry-level employees, toy maker Hasbro Inc. HAS -1.20% divided four marketing jobs, which it previously designed for business-school graduates with M.B.A.s, into eight lower-level positions. The new full-time roles included a marketing coordinator, retail-planning analyst and trade merchandiser, all involving more routine activities supporting higher-level staff in the division.
Hasbro hiring managers originally sought candidates with a two-year degree for the jobs but ultimately dropped any college requirement, a spokeswoman said. The Pawtucket, R.I. company received more than 100 applications and hired nine people.
The new shift, called down skilling, bolsters a theory articulated by Alicia Modestino, a Northeastern University economist: When more people are looking for work, companies can afford to inflate job requirements to find the best fitand did so as unemployment spiked in 2008.
As college graduates and midcareer professionals raised their hands for jobs as hotel managers and bookkeepers after the recession, hires with more qualifications took a larger share of positions normally filled by the 75 million U.S. workers who lack a college degree.
After the recession, Terminix raised the bar for over 1,000 pest-control branch- and service-manager positions to require a two-year degree or a bachelor’s degree. In January, it reversed course and made degrees “preferred” but not mandatory, said Betsy Vincent, senior director of talent acquisition.
Anthony Whitehead worked for five years as a Terminix branch manager in Florida before he was promoted to regional director in early July. That position now accepts candidates with college degrees or equivalent experience, helping Mr. Whitehead clinch the role despite his earlier decision to enter the military instead of college.
Mr. Whitehead, 35 years old, said his approach to jobs requiring a degree has been apply anyways if I have the right experience, and then have the education conversation “if I need to,” he said, acknowledging his luck in working for companies like Terminix with flexible requirements.
A lot of employers are loosening college requirements even as the proportion of Americans with a bachelors degree continues to rise. Bank of America Corp. currently has 7,500 job openings world-wide and fewer than 10% require a degree, said spokesman Andy Aldridge. Mr. Aldridge said a surprising number of jobs could be filled by nongraduates, including most of the bank’s tellers and employees handling customer-service and fraud-protection calls from cardholders.
In June, the bank unveiled plans to hire 10,000 more retail workers from low-income neighborhoods over the next five years, with or without degrees, said Chris Payton, head of talent acquisition.
Not every company is relaxing requirements: Economists say positions that require high levels of technical expertise, such as information security, still need advanced knowledge.
The tech industry has been quick to dismiss credentials like a bachelor of arts degree as irrelevant, especially in emerging fields such as data analytics, where demand for talent has risen faster than universities can churn out new graduates.
GitHub, recently acquired by Microsoft Corp., said it hasn’t required college degrees for most positions in years. Degrees are optional for many ‘experienced’ hire positions at chip maker Intel, which also has a ‘tech’ grad job category the company describes as fitting candidates with relevant classroom or work experience from technical programs, such as coding boot camps.
Intel’s career website advertises roles, including a lab employee testing experimental devices in Santa Clara, Calif., and a components researcher improving the semiconductor process in Hillsboro, Ore., as available to candidates with a two-year degree, military training or other nondegree certifications.
Write to Kelsey Gee at kelsey dot gee at wsj dot com
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Employers toss out degree requirements as college costs rise
By Stephanie Ruhle
MSNBC
April 26, 2021
The price tag on a college degree continues to rise, and more companies say the cost isn’t worth it to have a successful career. Stephanie Ruhle reports on employers’ recent moves to abandon degree requirements and even pay to train workers without college educations. Northeastern University Executive Professor of Educational Policy Sean Gallagher and Vice President of Grow with Google Lisa Gevelber join to discuss the shift.
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Grow With Google
Indeed
Updated April 26, 2021
GROW WITH GOOGLE offers classes online only. This school offers training in 2 qualifications, with the most reviewed qualifications being Google IT Support Professional and Google IT Support Professional Certification. Time to complete this education training ranges from 2 months to 2 months depending on the qualification, with a median time to complete of 1 year. The cost to attend Grow with Google is $49. When asked how they paid for their training, most reviewers responded, “I paid for it myself”.
The most commonly reported benefits of attending Grow with Google are “Flexible class hours” and “Affordable”, but respondents also mentioned “Good teachers” and “Helpful career services” as notable benefits. Grow with Google has been reviewed 2 times, with an average rating of 4 out of 5. 100% of reviewers would recommend Grow with Google to a friend.
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Friday, April 23, 2021
NWO - Lockdowns a Year Later
Texas Ended Lockdowns and Mask Mandates.
Now Locked-Down States Are Where COVID Is Growing Most
By Ryan McMaken
Mises Wire
April 21, 2021
Early last month, Texas governor Greg Abbott announced he would end the states mask mandate and allow most businesses to function at 100 percent capacity.
The response from the corporate media and the Left was predictable. California governor Gavin Newsom declared the move “absolutely reckless.” Beto O’Rourke called the GOP a “cult of death.” Joe Biden called the move “Neanderthal thinking.” Keith Olbermann insisted, Texas has decided to join the “side of the virus” AND SUGGESTED Texans shouldn’t be allowed to take the covid vaccine. Vanity Fair ran an article with the title ”REPUBLICAN GOVERNORS CELEBRATE COVID ANNIVERSARY WITH BOLD PLAN TO KILL ANOTHER 5000,000 AMERICANS.”
Other states have followed in Texas’ wake, and Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, and Georgia are now all states where covid restrictions range from weak to nonexistent.
Georgia and Florida, of course, are both notable for ending lockdowns and restriction much earlier than many other states. And in those cases as well, the state governments were criticized for their policies, which were said to be reckless and sure to lead to unprecedented death. Georgia’s policy was denounced as an experiment in “human sacrifice.”
Yet in recent weeks, these predictions about Texas’ fate have proven to be spectacularly wrong. Moreover, many of the states with the worst growth in covid cases - and the worst track records in overall death counts - have been states that have had some of the harshest lockdowns. The failure of the lockdown narrative in this case has been so overwhelming that last week, when asked about the Texas situation, Anthony Fauci could only suggest a few unconvincing lines about how maybe Texans are voluntarily wearing masks and locking down more strenuously than people in other states. In Fauci’s weak-sauce explanation we see a narrative that simply fails to explain the actual facts of the matter.
Texas vs. Michigan
The Texas situation is just one piece of a state-by-state picture that is devastating for the lockdowns-save-lives narrative.
For example, letגs look at covid case numbers as of April 20.
Case numbers are a favorite metric for advocates of stay-at-home orders, business closures, mask mandates, and repressive measures in the name of disease control.
In Texas, the total new cases (SEVEN DAY MOVING AVERAGE) on April 20 was 3,004. That comes out to approximately 103 per million.
Now, lets look at Michigan, where a variety of strict mask mandates and partial lockdowns continue. Restaurant capacity remains at 50 percent, and the state continues to issue edicts about how many people one is allowed to have over for dinner.
In Michigan, the seven-day moving average for new infections as of April 20 was 790 per million = nearly eight times worse than Texas.
By the logic of lockdown advocates, states with harsh lockdowns should have far fewer cases and less growth in cases.
This, however, is most certainly not the case. In New Jersey, for example, where lockdowns have been long and harsh, case growth is nearly four times what it is in Texas. And then there are Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Maine, and New York, all of which have new case growth rates of more than double whats going on Texas.
Indeed, the only state with notably lax covid policies thatҒs in the top ten of case growth is Florida, which nonetheless is experiencing growth rates that are slower than in states run by lockdown fetishists like Andrew Cuomo and Phil Murphy.
Moreover, Florida’s covid-19 overall outbreak has been far less deadly than those in the states that embraced lockdowns long and hard. New Jersey, for example, has the worst covid death rate in the nation at 2,838 per million as of April 20. Right behind are New York and Massachusetts with total deaths per million at 2,672 and 2,537, respectively.
Florida, on the other hand, is twenty-eighth in the nation in terms of covid deaths, at 1,608. Texas has total deaths per million at 1,721.
In other words, Florida isn’t likely to catch up to New York or New Jersey any time soon, and it’s certainly not going to soon catch up with Michigan, which is leaving other states in the dust in terms of case growth. For those who are scared to death of covid, they’d be better off in Florida or Texas or Georgia than in the states that have long embraced lockdowns and claim to be “following” the science.
So how can this be explained?
The lockdown advocates don’t seem to have an explanation at all.
Last week, Anthony Fauci, head of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) struggled to come up with an explanation as he testified to Congress.
In previous weeks, Fauci tended to rely on the old tried-and-true claim that if we only wait two to four more weeks, cases will explode wherever covid restrictions are lessened or eliminated. Lockdown advocates tried this for months after Georgia ended its stay-at-home order, although Georgia consistently performed better than many states that continued their lockdowns.
But now that were six weeks out from the end of Texas’s mask mandate and partial lockdowns, Fauci could offer no plausible explanation. Rather, when pressed on the matter by Representative Jim Jordan, Fauci insisted that what really matters is compliance rather than the existence of mask mandates and lockdown mandates:
There’s a difference between lockdown and the people obeying the lockdown… You know you could have a situation where they say, We’re going to lock down, and yet you have people doing exactly what they want/
Jordan asked if this explains the situation in Michigan and New Jersey (and other states with quickly growing covid case rates). Fauci THEN CLAMIED HE COULDN’T HEAR THE QUESTION, and Jordan was cut off by the committee chairman.
No one who is familiar with the situation in states like Texas, Florida, and Georgia, however, would find it plausible that the spread of covid has been lessened in those areas by more militant use of masks and social distancing. Fauci’s testimony was clearly just a case of a government expert grasping about for an explanation.
But don’t expect Fauci and his supporters to give up on insisting that New York and Michigan are doing “the right thing” while Texas and Florida are embracing ?human sacrifice” as a part of a “death cult.”
The actual numbers paint a very different picture, and even casual observers can now see that the old narrative was very, very wrong.
Jordan asked if this explains the situation in Michigan and New Jersey (and other states with quickly growing covid case rates). Fauci then claimed he couldn’t hear the question, and Jordan was cut off by the committee chairman.
No one who is familiar with the situation in states like Texas, Florida, and Georgia, however, would find it plausible that the spread of covid has been lessened in those areas by more militant use of masks and social distancing. FauciҒs testimony was clearly just a case of a government expertӔ grasping about for an explanation.
But dont expect Fauci and his supporters to give up on insisting that New York and Michigan are doing ғthe right thing while Texas and Florida are embracing ԓhuman sacrifice as a part of a ԓdeath cult.
The actual numbers paint a very different picture, and even casual observers can now see that the old narrative was very, very wrong.
Ryan McMaken (@ryanmcmaken) is a senior editor at the Mises Institute. Send him your article submissions for the Mises Wire and Power&Market, but read article guidelines first. Ryan has degrees in economics and political science from the University of Colorado and was a housing economist for the State of Colorado. He is the author of Commie Cowboys: The Bourgeoisie and the Nation-State in the Western Genre.
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Thursday, April 22, 2021
Legalized Hacking 2
Judge Rules FBI Can Hack Into Exchange Servers
By Trevor Collins
Security Simplified
April 21, 2021
For the last few months, we have seen Exchange Servers fall to vulnerabilities from the HAFNIUN attacks. Even after Microsoft released patches for the serious flaws, we continue to see attacks on Exchange Servers and hear of more Exchange Servers becoming compromised. This shouldnt be news as many publications including our own have covered these vulnerabilities extensively. Additionally, Microsoft released their patches over a month ago. Yet in a recent report the FBI has found many compromised Exchange servers that still have various threat actor’s webshells installed.
Last week though, THE FBI took it a step further. In a court-approved action, the FBI identified compromised servers, connected to the servers through the webshell, and removed the malicious webshell left behind by the original threat actors. We can easily criticize the administrators who have allowed their exchange servers to stay compromised for so long, but it doesn’t excuse the FBI from connecting into these exchange servers. They don’t need individual warrants to connect to these devices according to the previously SEALED COURT DOCUMENT. This gives precedent for the FBI to access any server and make changes on these servers with just a blanket warrant. I see this as a clear violation of property rights. One could argue that the FBI helped fix the server, but property rights don’t have a stipulation that the government can access your property if they intend to help you. For example, if somebody put graffiti on the side of a business, the FBI does not have the right to cover over the graffiti without the owner’s permission.
Administrators choose their software based on the features and security it provides. A Microsoft Exchange Server and the host operating system protects the server from any unauthorized change. When we buy the software, we expect that only authorized users can make changes on the servers and unauthorized users cannot. This creates a requirement for explicit permission for access. If you must bypass the normal expected route to make changes on the Exchange Server, then you do not have explicit permission to make these changes from the owner. The FBI has performed similar attacks in the past with the Coreflood botnet. This time though, it looks like they connected directly into the Exchange Server to delete the webshell where in comparison they removed Coreflood by sending a command to delete itself from the command and control infrastructure they had previously taken over.
Ultimately the court did not agree with me and gave an excessively wide warrant to the FBI. They could have asked for a warrant to identify the owners of the servers, but they didnt do this as far as we know. We have no way of knowing exactly how the FBI did this or what IP addresses they used.
The good news is, you can protect yourself from this happening to you by keeping your infrastructure secure in the first place. Protect your servers by ensuring they are updated. More importantly though, the FBI shouldn’t access servers they don’t own and haven’t actually committed a crime.
Section Privacy And Rights • Section Microsoft And Windows •
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