Updates from the University Health Institute “Méditerranée Infection”, Marseille

Early treatment with hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin in 10,429 covid-19 outpatients: a monocentric retrospective cohort study — Million et al., May 12, 2021 

Results: Among 10,429 patients (median age, 45 [IQR 32-57] years; 5,597 [53.7%] women), 16 died (0.15%).The median delay from symptoms to day hospital was 4 days [IQR 2-6],and that fromapositive PCR test to day hospital was 1 day [1-3]. The infectionfatality rate was 0.06% among the 8,315 patients treated with HCQ+AZ. No deaths occurred among the 8,414 patients younger than 60 years. Older age and male sex were associated with a higher risk of death, ICU transfer, and hospitalization. Treatment with HCQ+AZ (0.17 [0.06–0.48]) was associated with a lower risk of death, independently of age, sexand epidemic period. Meta-analysis evidenced consistency with 4 previous outpatient studies (32,124 patients – odds ratio 0.31 [0.20–0.47], I² = 0%). Conclusions: Early ambulatory treatment of COVID-19 with HCQ+AZ as a standard of care is associated with very low mortality, and HCQ+AZ improve COVID-19 survival compared to other regimens. Zinc and anticoagulants are likely to further improve outcomes. Most COVID-19–associated deaths are preventable with early detection and outpatient treatment.

Outcomes of 2,111 covid-19 hospitalised patients treated with hydroxychloroquine/azithromycin and other regimens in Marseille, France: a monocentric retrospective analysis — Lagier et al., June 4, 2021

Results: Of the 2,111 hospitalised patients (median age, 67 [IQR 55-79] years; 1,154 [54.7%] men), 271 were transferred to the intensive care unit (12.8%) and 239 died (11.3%; the mean age of patients who died was 81.2 (±9.9)). Treatment with HCQ-AZ, used in 1,270 patients, was an independent protective factor against death (0.68 [0.52–0.88]). Zinc was independently protective against death (0.39 [0.23–0.67]) in a subgroup analysis of patients treated with HCQ-AZ. Dexamethasone was an independent factor associated with death for patients with C-reactive protein <100 mg/L (3.36 [2.09–5.40]) while no difference was observed for patients with CRP >100 mg/L. The use of high-flow oxygen therapy in elderly patients who were noneligible for intensive care unit transfer saved 19 patients (33.9%). Conclusions: Treating COVID-19 with HCQ-AZ is associated with lower mortality. The quality of care over time and analysed in large monocentric studies remains more valuable than randomised multicentric trials during new epidemics.

Evolution of the management of covid-19 — Lagier et al., February 8, 2021

Since February 2020, in IHU Méditerranée Infection, Marseille, France, we managed more than 11,000 patients in our day-care hospital and more than 2,000 in our complete hospitalization wards. From day 1, we have been offering early massive PCR screening for patients suspected of having COVID-19 and for their contacts. Here, we propose a brief review of the therapeutic management of COVID-19 including literature data as well as our personal experience based on the observation of our cohort and our previous reports. We systematically proposed to evaluate patientsin our day-care hospital (clinical examination, SpO₂, standardized biological assessment including D-dimers ± low dose CT-scan). We advised outpatients to buy pulse oximeters to detect “happy” hypoxemia, and proposed hospitalization if SpO₂ <95%. Treatment was proposed using hydroxychloroquine (200 mg, 3 times a day, 10 days), azithromycin (500 mg day 1 then 250 mg during 4 days) after eliminating the contraindications, and elemental zinc (15 mg, 3 times a day, 10 days). For patients with a NEWS-2 score >5, broad-spectrum antibiotic therapy was prescribed (ceftriaxone or ertapenem). Anticoagulation treatment was considered depending on risk factors and D-dimer levels. After a couple of months, low dose of dexamethasone was prescribed (avoiding early stages of high viral load infection) for patients who had an increase in inflammatory parameters and a worsening of oxygen dependence. Finally, we recently used high-flow oxygen therapy devices for patients not eligible for intensive care unit transfer because of their age and/or comorbidities. This step-by-step strategy allowed us to obtain one of the worldwide lower mortality rates of COVID-19. Long-term follow-up will be the next challenge of COVID-19 management.

Important message from the boss re COVID-19

Passing on this message from our betters, who know what’s best for us:

OK, we admit that it may have escaped from the coronavirus lab in Wuhan. In fact, that’s why we were so concerned, because we knew that the lab in question alters natural viruses to make them more infectious and more virulent “for research purposes” (because that’s exactly what we pay them to do). So please forgive us for not being forthright and causing even more panic as we shut down your lives until we were sure it was OK. Oh yeah, and then to get rid of Trump! And to scapegoat as anti-science – white supremacist even! – those who insisted on any sense of perspective other than the one they were being sold (cf gleichschaltung).

So you see, we had no choice but to manufacture the appearance of a deadly pandemic like no other in history, because we knew that it might happen. And then when it didn’t, when the hospitals weren’t overwhelmed at all, well, it looked like it would not only get rid of Trump and his antiglobalist hordes, but also allow us to install any mannequin we wanted to further protect and strengthen our control. So it had to continue. And as a bonus, now you’re ready for whatever “pandemic” we come up with in the future: scared into getting your annual covid jab just like for the flu (except now required by law!), ready to mask up and shut down, and to shame and shun the skeptics. So to continue to stay safe, and unless you want to be branded (literally, as you’ll see; you’ll be branded, too, of course, but to grant rather than deny you privileges) as one of those antisocial Trump-worshipping white supremacist misogynist and selfish science-haters, we trust you will continue to ignore (as you have commendably done for more than a year now):

• the ostracizing of physicians who successfully prevented illness and treated those who got sick,

• the redefinition of “case” to include perfectly healthy people who

• tested positive for coronavirus-2019 in PCR tests using cycle numbers way above the recommended, guaranteeing false positives,

• with that defining “covid hospitalization” as well, no matter what you actually went to the hospital for, and

• “covid death”, to include any cause (gunshot, even!) in a person who had one of those likely false positive test results within the preceding 4 weeks (because we paid extra for "covid hospitalizations and death"), and

• (now that we continued to turn what was supposed to have been a crisis into opportunity by forcing (or rather enticing, if you ever want to be free again, which, frankly, most actually don’t, and hah, too late! but again, you don’t want to be mistaken for a Trumposaur so line right up – don’t stand out!), um, coercing 100s of millions of people to “willingly” enroll in trials of never-before-used DNA and mRNA vaccines) the redefining of “herd immunity” as attainable only via vaccines, even for a virus that turned out not to be all that virulent in the overwhelming majority of people (and to be treatable with cheap generic drugs (hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin), not to mention largely manageable by keeping your vitamin D₃ and zinc levels up), and

• revoking the above means of exaggerating the numbers after someone is vaccinated, showing how well the vaccines work!

And keep hiding your faces, because you can never be too careful. The self-abasement is necessary evidence of good discipline, your belief in “science” (wink), literal self-effacement in the name of community (and keeping the body politic cleansed of Trump-mad insurrectionist disease-spreading racist murderers!). We love you.

UPDATE, 4 January 2022:

You may have heard some reports of, may even know of some, vaccinated community members getting sick with covid. Don’t believe it! They weren’t keeping up: You need BOOSTERS, because those homophobic nondiverse Trumpophiliacs – don’t let anyone tell you they’re not! – are manufacturing mutations of the virus that sneak past our first vaccines. Too many of those people are pretending not to get sick, let alone dying, from covid and are instead just passing it on to good citizens who are vaccinated. Get tested every day! Test your kids! (It’s fun!)

IT IS YOUR DUTY.

AVOID THE UNCLEAN! Bar them from your lives, your businesses, your towns!

And KEEP YOUR MASKS ON! As long as there is one nonvaccinated (racist, misogynistic) person – of any age! – out there, you, we, are in danger. That includes those whose last vaccination was more than 6 months ago. Or 4. Or 3. We are always learning.

Not that the mRNA and DNA vaccines don't actually prevent you from contracting and transmitting the virus. Or that the limited effectiveness of the antibodies they produce facilitate mutations of the virus. And that if the antibodies are nonneutralizing, they can actually facilitate infection of – instead of destruction by – white blood cells (antibody-dependent enhancement is fake news!). Or that programming your own cells to produce a version of the coronavirus spike protein might cause your immune system to attack your own cells, in your heart, for example ... Or that wearing face masks all the time and avoiding people eventually makes you less able to cope with infection – in a spiraling cycle requiring you to continue doing what’s causing you to need to do it.

That would be treason, sedition, and questioning of Science. Science says to continue doing what We tell you to do. Better Safe than Sorry (and you know what we mean by the latter). You need it. You want it. No community without compliance!

You’re all doing very well! We love you.

Definitely a cult

Paul Joseph Watson sez:

From gamergate to orange man bad to russia gate to muh white supremacists to corona, the infantilised permajuveniles have been drunk on moral panics and rampant hysteria since at least 2014. …

Right from the very start, while you constantly droned on about it not being a political symbol, it always was and still is a political symbol. …

It’s a high status symbol, a way to differentiate yourself from the eat filthy unmasked, a way to feel superior, a way to feel smug and self-satisfied while wallowing in your saviour complex delusion. As Revolver news summarises, ‘mask cultists believe they were devotees of science, but … the only thing they were devoted to was the mask, and the regime.‘

‘The obedient always think of themselves as virtuous rather than cowardly’ [Robert Anton Wilson].

The “Unvaccinated” Question

By CJ Hopkins, March 29, 2021 

So, the New Normals are discussing the Unvaccinated Question. What is to be done with us? No, not those who haven’t been “vaccinated” yet. Us. The “Covidiots.” The “Covid deniers.” The “science deniers.” The “reality deniers.” Those who refuse to get “vaccinated,” ever.

There is no place for us in New Normal society. The New Normals know this and so do we. To them, we are a suspicious, alien tribe of people. We do not share their ideological beliefs. We do not perform their loyalty rituals, or we do so only grudgingly, because they force us to do so. We traffic in arcane “conspiracy theories,” like “pre-March-2020 science,” “natural herd immunity,” “population-adjusted death rates,” “Sweden,” “Florida,” and other heresies.

They do not trust us. We are strangers among them. They suspect we feel superior to them. They believe we are conspiring against them, that we want to deceive them, confuse them, cheat them, pervert their culture, abuse their children, contaminate their precious bodily fluids, and perpetrate God knows what other horrors.

So they are discussing the need to segregate us, how to segregate us, when to segregate us, in order to protect society from us. In their eyes, we are no more than criminals, or, worse, a plague, an infestation. In the words of someone (I can’t quite recall who), “getting rid of the Unvaccinated is not a question of ideology. It is a question of cleanliness,” or something like that. (I’ll have to hunt down and fact-check that quote. I might have taken it out of context.)

In Israel, Estonia, Denmark, Germany, the USA, and other New Normal countries, they have already begun the segregation process. In the UK, it’s just a matter of time. The WEF, WHO, EU, and other transnational entities are helping to streamline the new segregation system, which, according to the WEF, “will need to be harmonized by a normative body, such as the WHO, to ensure that is ethical.”

Here in Germany, the government is considering banning us from working outside our homes. We are already banned from flying on commercial airlines. (We can still use the trains, if we dress up like New Normals.) In the village of Potsdam, just down the road from Wannsee (which name you might recall from your 20th-Century history lessons), we are banned from entering shops and restaurants. (I’m not sure whether we can still use the sidewalks, or whether we have to walk in the gutters.) In Saxony, we are forbidden from attending schools. At the Berliner Ensemble (the theater founded by Bertolt Brecht and Helene Weigel, lifelong opponents of totalitarianism and fascism), we are banned from attending New Normal performances.

In the USA, we are being banned by universities. Our children are being banned from public schools. In New York, the new “Excelsior Pass” will allow New Normals to attend cultural and sports events (and patronize bars and restaurants, eventually) secure in the knowledge that the Unvaccinated have been prevented from entering or segregated in an “Unvaccinated Only” section. The pass system, designed by IBM, which, if history is any guide, is pretty good at designing such systems (OK, technically, it was Deutsche Hollerith Maschinen Gesellschaft, IBM’s Nazi-Germany subsidiary), was launched this past weekend to considerable fanfare.

And this is only the very beginning.

Israel’s “Green Pass” is the model for the future, which makes sense, in a sick, fascistic kind of way. When you’re already an apartheid state, what’s a little more apartheid? Here’s a peek at what that looks like …

OK, I know what the New Normals are thinking. They’re thinking I’m “misleading” people again. That I’m exaggerating. That this isn’t really segregation, and certainly nothing like “medical apartheid.”

After all (as the New Normals will sternly remind me), no one is forcing us to get “vaccinated.” If we choose not to, or can’t for medical reasons, all we have to do is submit to a “test” — you know, the one where they ram that 9-inch swab up into your sinus cavities — within 24 hours before we want to go out to dinner, or attend the theater or a sports event, or visit a museum, or attend a university, or take our children to school or a playground, and our test results will serve as our “vaccine passports!” We just present them to the appropriate Covid Compliance Officer, and (assuming the results are negative, of course) we will be allowed to take part in New Normal society just as if we’d been “vaccinated.”

Either way, “vaccine” or “test,” the New Normal officials will be satisfied, because the tests and passes are really just stage props. The point is the display of mindless obedience. Even if you take the New Normals at their word, if you are under 65 and in relatively good health, getting “vaccinated” is more or less pointless, except as a public display of compliance and belief in the official Covid-19 narrative (the foundation stone of the New Normal ideology). Even the high priests of their “Science” confess that it doesn’t prevent you spreading the “plague.” And the PCR tests are virtually meaningless, as even the WHO finally admitted. (You can positive-PCR-test a pawpaw fruit … but you might want to be careful who you tell if you do that.)

In contrast to the “vaccine” and the “test” themselves, the forced choice between them is not at all meaningless. It is no accident that both alternatives involve the violation of our bodies, literally the penetration of our bodies. It doesn’t really matter what is in the “vaccines” or what “results” the “tests” produce. The ritual is a demonstration of power, the power of the New Normals (i.e., global capitalism’s new face) to control our bodies, to dominate them, to violate them, psychologically and physically. …

Being forced to repeat a physical action which only makes sense within a specific ideology reifies that ideology within us. There is nothing inherently diabolical about this. It is a basic socialization technology. It is how we socialize our children. It is why we conduct weddings, baptisms, and bar mitzvahs. It is how we turn young men and women into soldiers. It is how actors learn their blocking and their lines. It is why the Nazis held all those rallies. It is why our “democracies” hold elections. It is also basic ceremonial magic … but that’s a topic for a different column.

The issue, at the moment, is the Unvaccinated Question, and the public rituals that are being performed to make the New Normal ideology “reality,” and what to do about those of us who refuse to participate in those rituals, who refuse to forswear “old normal” reality and convert to New Normalism so that we can function in society without being segregated, criminalized, or “diagnosed” as “sociopathic” or otherwise psychiatrically disordered.

For us “conspiracy-theorizing reality deniers,” there is no getting around this dilemma. This isn’t Europe in the 1930s. There isn’t anywhere to emigrate to … OK, there is, temporarily, in some of the US states that have been staging rebellions, and other such “old normal” oases, but how long do you think that will last? They’re already rolling out the “mutant variants,” and God only knows what will happen when the long-term effects of the “vaccines” kick in.

No, for most of us denizens of the global capitalist empire, it looks like the New Normal is here to stay. So, unless we are prepared to become New Normals, we are going to have to stand and fight. It is going to get rather ugly, and personal, but there isn’t any way to avoid that. Given that many New Normals are our friends and colleagues, or even members of our families, it is tempting to believe that they will “come to their senses,” that “this is all just a hysterical overreaction,” and that “everything will go back to normal soon.”

This would be a monumental error on our parts … very possibly a fatal error.

Totalitarian movements, when they reach this stage, do not simply stop on their own. They continue to advance toward their full expressions, ultimately transforming entire societies into monstrous mirror-images of themselves, unless they are opposed by serious resistance. There is a window at the beginning when such resistance has a chance. That window is still open, but it is closing, fast. I can’t tell you how best to resist, but I can tell you it starts with seeing things clearly, and calling things, and people, exactly what they are.

Let’s not make the same mistake that other minorities have made throughout history when confronted with a new totalitarian ideology. See the New Normals for what they are, maybe not deep down in their hearts, but what they have collectively become a part of, because it is the movement that is in control now, not the rational individuals they used to be. Above all, recognize where this is headed, where totalitarian movements are always headed. (See. e.g., Milton Mayer’s They Thought They Were Free: The Germans 1933-45.)

No, the Unvaccinated are not the Jews and the New Normals are not flying big Swastika flags, but totalitarianism is totalitarianism, regardless of which Goebbelsian Big Lies, and ideology, and official enemies it is selling. The historical context and costumes change, but its ruthless trajectory remains the same.

Today, the New Normals are presenting us with a “choice,” (a) conform to their New Normal ideology or (b) social segregation. What do you imagine they have planned for us tomorrow?

‘a sacrificial lamb to the gods of fear-mongering’ — a letter from Japan

Respected Colleagues,

Last month on the 23rd, a young female nurse from Fukuoka, aged 26, was found dead on her sofa. Her lunch box was seen packed and ready near the front door. But, she was lying in rigor mortis on her sofa, foaming at the mouth, bleeding at the nose, the food from her stomach lying all around.

She died two days after receiving the experimental gene therapy that she took on our behalf. Part of the reason for her death may have been the experimental therapy (although nobody seems to die after a vaccination these days). But, there is a deeper reason.

She died on the altar of fear, a sacrificial lamb to the gods of fear-mongering who, refusing to leave from our lives every day since March 2020, shout at us through the television, smart media platforms, and announcements at work.

Hardly any day goes by without hearing the number of infections, clusters, and dead people, and admonitions to wash your hands, wear a mask, and keep a safe distance from others.

When a staff member receives a positive test, we panic and start splashing the alcohol, and line up contacts for more testing. We do all that with a test whose manufacturers and drug regulatory agencies clearly state that it does not actually detect an infection.

I apologize to the two staff members who had to pass by my class to check whether I was wearing a mask or not. It seems that we are in a war-like situation and have to keep an eye on dissidents all the time. It is ironic that this happened inside a center of higher learning.

Let me state that I am not opposing the wearing of masks. I also wore them when I got sick with the flu a few years ago. I remember forcing my 3 little children to wear them outdoors when the nuclear explosion on March 2011 sent radioactive dust to our region. I did that out of tremendous concern for the ill effects of inhaling radioactive particles into their bodies. I forced them to do that for a full three months till I personally verified that the situation was safe. I do have sympathy and understanding for the people who chose to wear masks.

However, the situation we face today is not because of a deadly pathogen, but because of misinformation. When incomplete information is relentlessly pushed day and night, it receives a name most befitting — propaganda.

My job as an academic is to critically assess information. It is the academic who provides society with a primary defense against the adverse impacts of misinformation, and it is for this reason that academic freedom is treasured in all democratic societies. But, with academic freedom also comes the responsibility to evaluate a situation from multiple aspects.

I am carrying out this responsibility and am continuing at it everyday. I have not seen any evidence that we are facing a life-threatening situation that needs us to maintain this state of fear.

It seemed at first that we could all be fearful for two weeks till the curve flattened, then it was going to be just for three months more. Without noticing it, fear now has become our New Normal, and receives an upgrade every festive season.

I feel very lucky to live in Japan, but the situation in other developed countries involve severe restrictions on personal freedoms including medical freedoms. I am deeply grateful that the Japanese Constitution protects society against unreasonable threats to liberties.

I am not alone in my opinion, which you may dismiss as quirky and unqualified. Thousands of scientists worldwide are fighting this misinformation, which is resulting in a human medical experiment on a scale we have not witnessed in our lives before.

These include Nobel prize winner Michael Levitt of Stanford University, Luc Montagnier the Nobel laureate virologist from France. These include professors from prestigious universities all around the world such as Martin Kulldorff, Jay Bhattacharya, and John Ioannidis of Stanford University, Carl Heneghan, Tom Jefferson, and Sunetra Gupta of Oxford University, and Sucharit Bhakdi and Karin Moelling from Germany.

Even the gentle giants of the Japanese science community have warned about the dangers of rushing to conclusions based on incomplete analysis, and about the dangers of poorly tested medical interventions.

Should we not wonder why we are not hearing such voices more often, from expert immunologists such as Japanese Nobel Laureate Tasuku Honjo or from expert virologists such as Masayuki Miyasaka?

Why have the voices of leading scientists that offer alternative perspectives suddenly become anti-scientific? Why are social media giants censoring the voices of these prominent scientists? These are the questions we must be asking, instead of silently accepting the messages of fear and the contortions to our perfectly all right Normal.

Karin Moelling received the highest honour of the German state, the "Order of Merit of Berlin" for her contributions to virology. But, now she is an outcast, because she criticizes the fear-based approach that we adopted since 2020. Sucharit Bhakdi has an h-index of 84, John Ioannidis has an h-index of 214. Carl Heneghan and Tom Jefferson are leaders in the Evidence-Based Medicine movement. Why are they all of a sudden anti-scientific?

My conscience does not allow me to take part in a fear campaign that is bringing severe consequences to most living people on Earth. … I am opposing the fear, because the costs of maintaining this fear are much more than being in our Old Normal. In Japan, the number of suicides among young women and school students have become staggeringly high in the New Normal. Why can't we see that we are killing the young, while claiming to save the old?

Most of us working in the university have a steady salary, but pretty much every small- to medium-scale commercial operation is seriously suffering. How long can we close our eyes to this communal harakiri, because we don't feel the pinch? Do we think that economies run on printed money, and not on commerical activities?

Japan’s closest friend, the USA has 22 out of its 50 states not imposing any mask mandates. Yet, why is it that a constitutionally illegal mandate has been brought into existence at a small university located in a rural corner of Japan?

Is itt because a 60–140 nano meter long virus, smaller in dimension than the wavelength of UV radiation (100–400 nano meter) is miraculously confined by a cloth mask?

Or is it because we have found some empirical evidence that the masks are working?

There is hardly any Japanese person, including elementary school children who does not wear a mask. Sincerity is a hallmark of the Japanese personality, and most people religiously follow the sanitation measures, even outdoors in the hottest weather of the Japanese summer. Then, why is the curve never flattening?

If the masks are indeed working, then why are the positive testing rates in US states that mandate masks not different from states that do not mandate masks?

The answer seems to be that, regardless of what we do or not do, the PCR tests are going to keep at its games of fear-mongering. My not wearing a mask or others wearing one does not seem to make any difference. … [P]erhaps the most important life saving measure would be for all of us, the stakeholders of the Normal life, to allow free and fair public and scientific discourse into the conditions that have brought us into this dystopian nightmare.

Most sincerely yours,
saji

Pandemania

A Critical Analysis of the Covid Response
Eine kritische Analyse der Covid-Strategie
Un análisis crítico de la respuesta al Covid

by Dr R. Iván Iriarte, MD, MS
29 March 2021

Since the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the COVID-19 global pandemic, many issues have arisen that run contrary to historical precedents and known and practiced public health principles of the last century. This article discusses some of these issues: assumptions made without evidence, the incorrect case definition, PCR diagnostic test problems, the impact of these two factors on morbidity and mortality estimates, school closures, facemasks, lockdowns and their effects on children.

Assumptions about SARS-CoV-2 made without evidence – the creation of panic

Panic has been spread among the general population since the beginning of the pandemic, based on the idea of “asymptomatic transmission”. This idea was strongly influenced by a case report in Germany, in which an infection was attributed to contact with an asymptomatic person. Further investigation revealed that this person had actually been sick and had been suppressing her symptoms with medication. The original misleading paper was never rectified. Based on this, and limited case reports from China, the “experts” began to promote the idea that this virus behaves differently to other respiratory viruses. All prior knowledge indicates that epidemics are not driven by asymptomatic individuals. However, the decision-makers in this epidemic determined that this does not apply to COVID-19 and every single individual we encounter could be an infectious person capable of killing us. This is contrary to conventional reasoning in medicine and public health. Decisions have always been based on prior knowledge, until there is compelling evidence to disprove what we thought we knew. Articles in the literature have found that secondary transmission by asymptomatic individuals is very low. In a cohort study with a very large sample size, no one became infected among 1,174 contacts of 300 asymptomatic subjects who had tested positive for SARS-CoV-2.

Another assumption promoted by the “experts” in this epidemic is the idea that the general population would be immunologically “naive” to this virus and thus 100% susceptible to develop the disease. This is again not consistent with previous knowledge about human immunity to viral agents. Cross-immunity is a well-known fact. It is not reasonable to assume that the entire population is immunologically susceptible to SARS-CoV-2, when in fact it is very likely that many individuals have at least partial immunity to the virus due to prior infection with similar viruses or agents with similar antigenic properties. There are several studies showing that individuals have immunity to SARS-CoV-2 by T-cell mediated mechanisms.

Problems with the “case” definition

Over centuries of epidemic management, a case always constituted a sick individual who presented a series of established clinical criteria, confirmed – if deemed necessary – by a laboratory test. In the COVID-19 pandemic, a “case” has been redefined as anyone with a positive PCR test result, independent of clinical signs and symptoms. There is no historical precedent for defining a symptomless infection with a respiratory virus as a medical case.

The practice has been to report “new cases” every day based on positive test results and including asymptomatic individuals. Any person with even a rudimentary understanding of epidemiology knows that this is not how the incidence (new cases) of an illness is measured. Only the prevalence of positive test results is being measured every day. As we will see below, these results do not necessarily relate to infectiousness. The number of reported positive test results depends on the number of tests administered. When a high volume of tests are being administered, there will be a high number of positives. These positive test results are not “new medical cases” with the disease.

The correct way to estimate the disease incidence is to have doctors count and report subjects who are ill with characteristic symptoms and are then confirmed as COVID-19 cases through a positive test result. Incidence of hospitalizations should be reported in the same manner.

Problems with the PCR test

There are serious problems with the use of the PCR test on asymptomatic individuals. There is extensive literature that shows that the PCR test is not a “gold standard” for defining a case of disease and that it can have a high percentage of false positive results. It remains a well-known epidemiological principle that even with a highly sensitive and specific test, if the test is administered in a population with low disease or infection prevalence, there will be a relatively high percentage of false positive results.

This becomes even more problematic in light of the studies showing that at a high number of amplification cycles (as have been used during this pandemic) the PCR test detects RNA fragments that do not represent a viable virus. Authorities managing this epidemic have been identifying individuals who are healthy and do not present a risk to the community.

The research paper used by WHO at the beginning of 2020 to establish the PCR test as the primary criterion to diagnose COVID-19 was written by Corman, Drosten and several others. An independent panel of scientists found this work to contain a large number of flaws in its methodology and in the validity of the results. In addition, it was accepted for publication in a most irregular manner without the standard peer-review.

In a notice written on January 13, 2021, and published on January 20, 2021, WHO confirmed that PCR tests should not be used as the sole method of diagnosing COVID-19; they should only be used where clinical signs and symptoms are present; and they can yield false positive results at high amplification cycles. The package inserts accompanying PCR test kits state that the test should be administered only to patients with signs and symptoms suggestive of COVID-19.

Problems with estimates of morbidity and mortality indicators

It is evident that COVID-19 “cases” are being defined incorrectly. The logical conclusion is that there may be major errors in all reports of incidence, deaths and hospitalizations attributed to this disease. In the United States, anyone who dies with a recent positive PCR test for SARS-CoV-2 (up to 30 days prior to death) is counted as a COVID-19 death. CDC guidelines published in April 2020 encourage the reporting of COVID-19 as the underlying cause of death in circumstances where it played a role in the death, even without laboratory confirmation. It is unclear to what extent this was done in other countries as well. It is very important to investigate this matter, as the reported number of deaths attributed to COVID-19 is likely to be inflated.

Mitigation measures

World leaders believe – without evidence – that the way to mitigate the effects of the epidemic consists of imposing confinement measures, the generalized use of masks, restrictions on social activities, restrictions on mobility, business closures, curfews, school closures and more, including contact tracing and the quarantining of asymptomatic individuals. In the past the WHO established that the latter two measures should not be used under any circumstances. These measures were theorised to be effective without any evidence, and the potential harms caused by these policies were not calculated or taken into account. This goes against the fundamental principles of public health and medicine, which require the implementation of any intervention to be supported by evidence of its effectiveness. Any intervention should attempt to minimize the impact on the population’s daily life. The stated goal of all public health policy is to reduce total harm to the population, while considering a wide range of health, economic and social factors. The goal is not to reduce harm from a single disease only.

School closures – children are “granny killers”

The impact the epidemic response has had on children is one of the greatest disgraces in history. At the beginning of the COVID-19 epidemic, it was established that children mostly have a mild or asymptomatic presentation of the disease. However, decision-makers relentlessly promoted the idea that children, although they rarely get sick, are capable of infecting others. This unsupported idea was enough to order school closures and keep children away from their grandparents, as if they were potential “granny killers”. Studies show that children do not significantly transmit infection. Yet we already see the adverse effects that confinement and school closures have had on the mental health of children and adolescents. Sweden’s experience demonstrates that keeping schools open does not result in any excess morbidity or mortality in children or teachers. A recent article found that adults living in households with children actually have a lower risk of getting sick with COVID-19 than adults who live in households without children.

Mask use

There are many studies that show that masking is not effective in preventing infection transmission, except possibly in settings where there are sick individuals. A recent document published by WHO – in December 2020 – states that there is very inconsistent evidence proving the effectiveness of mask-wearing in the community for the prevention of respiratory virus infections, including COVID-19. When we compare the epidemic curves in places with and without mask mandates, the curves look similar. In fact, we observe a higher number of infections per 100,000 of the population in places with mask mandates.

The most important argument against the compulsory use of masks is simply the lack of evidence that anyone without symptoms walking around the community will be a contagious person. In public health management, sometimes it is appropriate to impose a certain measure upon an individual, for the common good, when there is evidence that the individual represents a major risk to the rest of the population. It is not acceptable, however, to restrict or impose a behavior on individuals without evidence that the individual represents a significant risk to the community, and that this measure will not harm the individual. It is very unlikely that an asymptomatic person is infectious. Therefore, it is unjustified to require everyone to wear a mask in the community, even if masks have shown some benefit when worn by individuals with symptoms. This argument becomes even stronger when we take the potential adverse effects of masks into consideration. These include symptoms such as headaches, dizziness, shortness of breath and other problems including psychological impact, acne, respiratory infections and dental problems.

Lockdowns

“Without lockdowns, the situation would have been worse”. This is the claim of lockdown advocates. However, this is the equivalent of administering treatment to a patient and claiming that despite a negative outcome the treatment is effective, because without the treatment the patient’s condition would have been even worse. Never in past epidemics or pandemics have lockdowns been imposed as a mitigation strategy over a large area or for a long period of time. Studies have shown that lockdowns cause unintended negative consequences to social well-being, mental health, physical health, mobility, employment, education, and the economy at large while undermining fundamental rights. Lockdown-induced deaths occur in younger people, causing an increase in total years of life lost. The comparison of epidemic curves in places with strict lockdowns and those with less stringent measures shows no significant differences in COVID-19 indicators. A simple cost-benefit analysis would clearly show that lockdown harms greatly outweigh any claimed benefits.

Summary

It is inexplicable that world governments and the “experts” advising them have chosen to completely ignore this information as if it did not exist, and persist in doing the following:

1. Reporting “new cases” on a daily basis, using only PCR test results.
2. Doing mass PCR testing, including asymptomatic individuals.
3. Imposing quarantines on asymptomatic individuals based on a positive test result or history of exposure.
4. Requiring the use of masks despite lack of evidence to support this mandate.
5. Insisting that lockdowns are the way to mitigate the pandemic.

A course-correction in the management of this epidemic is urgently needed. The response to the COVID-19 epidemic should be based on reliable data and sound public health principles that have been practiced successfully for over a century. The following measures should be adopted immediately:

1. Provide the public with accurate information about COVID-19 risk in order to reduce the fear.
2. Cease the mass administration of diagnostic tests on asymptomatic individuals.
3. Define cases according to clinical criteria – confirmed by laboratory tests. The determination of a case should be the decision of a duly licensed medical doctor.
4. Use the case definition listed above to determine indicators such as new cases (incidence), hospitalizations and mortality.
5. Establish measures to protect vulnerable individuals.
6. Encourage the population to take hygiene measures such as hand washing, covering the mouth when coughing and staying at home when sick.
7. Open schools, businesses and travel.

These measures are described in a published document by Pandemics Data & Analytics titled: “Protocol for Reopening Society”.

[References are available at the original.]

Covid, fetishism, fear → hatred

I am so sick of the masking charade. I am not diseased. You are not diseased. (No more than usual.) It’s like people just learned about the germ theory and something they've lived with forever is now seen as a deadly threat. It's pathetic and idiotic. The people pushing it are simply evil: manipulative psychopaths insisting that people fear each other. And demonize those who don't play along.

It’s particularly appalling that so much of the health care industry has participated in the panic. They have destroyed any good reputation they have had.

Even if Covid-19 were an especial threat, masking and distancing are almost completely useless. But after a few weeks in 2020, it was clear that it was not a threat at all for most of the population – particularly the young – and effective prevention and treatment were soon established for the rest, though denied and still denigrated by the opportunistic psychopaths who prefer to keep people living in fear. The mask is today’s version of a string of garlic. It is a fetish, a talisman.

And now the vaccines (of unknown efficacy, for just one of the thousands of viruses we live – yes, live – with) are clinching the whole charade’s purpose of separating an imagined unclean class from the clean, the blessed, those who walk in grace. The vaccine is another fetish. Instead of determining actual need – like, maybe you’re at virtually no serious risk if you contract the virus, or maybe you’ve already carried the virus and therefore already have the antibodies that the vaccine is supposed to stimulate production of (and a reminder here that asymptomatic people don’t spread it, and that even symptomatic people don’t spread it except with longer close contact than passing someone in the grocery aisle or even chatting with them for a few minutes) – instead of determining actual need, or weighing risk vs theoretical benefit, for each potential recipient, the vaccine has become a salvatory elixir. And those who refuse to take it will be pariahs, shunned from society, barred from jobs, shopping, dining and drinking and entertainment, travel, etc, life itself.

It’s all so sickening: the barriers both literal and figurative that have been thrown up between us all.

FÁSACH: waste, desert; deserted place; luxuriant growth

Fás, -áis, pl.id. m., act of growing, increasing, becoming; springing or resulting from (ó, de); growth, cinrease; a plant, a rod; a growth; an dara f., second- or after-growth; f. (na h-) aon oidhche, mushroom, al. the name of an ancient monument near Dundalk; ní’l aon fh. fé, it (he) is not growing well; d’éirigh an f. leis, he has grown considerably; tá f. gach uile shóirt ann, everything grows there; tá sé ag f. geal, fuar, ⁊c., it is grwoing white, cold, etc.; dims. fásán, -óg. See fáis.

Fáis, a., gs. of fás, growing; flasraidhe f., growing vegetables, greens.

Fás, a., empty, void, vain; go follamh, f., quite empty; in compds. fás-buille, a missed stroke; fás-bholg, an empty bag; fás-chogaint, empty chewing; fás-bhruchtghail, empty belching.

Fás, -áis, m., a void, a waste, a vacuum.

Fásach, -aigh, pl. -aighe, m., a precedent.

Fásach, -aighe, a., desolate, desert, overgrown with grass.

Fásach, -aigh, pl. id., -aighe, and -atha, m., a desert, a wilderness, a prairie, a wast; paster land, a field, luxuriant grass, pasture ungrazed for a long time; the grass headland of an unploughed field; a deserted place or house. f. coille, a grove; tá f. ag na buaibh ’san pháirc sin, the cows have prairie pasture in that field; ní féar atá ann acht f., that is not ordiinary grass but something more luxuriant; ag tabhairt an fhásaigh, lit. growing grass, i.e., dead and buried; bhí an gnó ’na fh. air, he got into business difficulties; beidh an teach so ’na fh. ort, you will not be allowed to enter this house; dearg-fh., sheer wilderness; flaitheas na naomh ar Shéamas ’na dhearg-fh., may heaven be completely closed against James (McD.). See fásaigh.

Fásachadh, -chta, m., desolation, act of depopulating.

Fásaidheacht, -a, f., act of devastating or turning into a desert.

Fásaigh, gs. of fásach, a., wild, overgrown with vegetation, ruined; teampall f., a deserted church yeard; biolar f., wild cress.

Fásaim, vl. fás, v. intr. I grow, increase; I am born, sprung from (ó); I rise, as a river from its source; I come constantly, as an income or a periodical allowance; tá an t-airgead ag fás chuige, he has a constant income; ar fhás eadrainn, those of our stock, those who grew up with us; there is a mod. tr. use.

—Foclóir Gaedhilge agus Béarla, 1927, by Patrick Dinneen

Bealach na Spáinneach le Liam Mac Cóil

Is grástúil é an leabhar seo, an triú cheann sraithe. Agus grástúil atá a laoch óg, Lúcás Ó Bhriain, pionsóir den scoth, léannta, fiosrach, machnamhach, múinte, agus saonta. Giota beag mar Parsifal mar laoch. Tá sé gafa istigh plota mór casta, spiaireachta agus polaitíochta, agus creidimh i gceist freisin – bhíothas siocháin ar bun in Eoraip sa bhliain 1612, ach tá gabháil níos crua ar bun in Éirinn faoin rí nua Sasanach. Le linn a thurais ó Ghaillimh go dtí an Róimh, tá níos lú ina thuiscint an níos mó ina fhios air.

Tar éis a éalamh Sasana le báid go dtí na tIsilthíortha ag an deireadh dara leabhar, dúisíonn Lúcás ag tús an cheann seo i bhFrainc, baile beag cois fharraige san Bhríotáin. Bhí stoirm ar muir agus bhualadh a chloigean le crann scóide (.i. búm) an bháid. Tar éis an oiread sin gníobh i Sasana, bhí sé anois ina scíth, an t-aoi amháin in óstán leis an bhean tí agus a hiníon déagach aisteach, ag fanacht a neart a fhilleadh.

Ansin bád eile go hOstainn agus eachtraí nua ina hiarraidh a bhealach a dhéanamh go Róimh an litir diamhair a sheachadadh cuig an lámh Aoidh Mhór Uí Néill. Go fírinneach tá an cuid is mó den eachtraí i dtaobh an turas fada seachas an tóir Sasanach chun Lúcás a dunmháradh agus an litir a gabhail as: tríd na tíortha éagsula, na cathreacha mhúrtha, na bailte ar an mbóthar, agus na daoine go hairithe.

Is é bealach na Spáinneach an bóthar mileata idir Milano agus Bruiséil. Ó Lobháin taistealaíonn Lúcás le buíon de triúr shiúr agus triúr saighdiúir agus a ngiollaí mar tionlacán, Éirinneach siúd uile. Tá na saighdiúirí i seirbhís Uí Néill, agus bhí aithne ag an ceannaire ar an athair Lúcáis. (Faoin am seo, tá a bfhios ag roinnt na hÉireannaigh i ndeoraíocht i Lobháin ar an litir agus cé hé Lúcás féin.)

Ní gá a rá, baineann Lúcás Róimh amach agus criochnaíonn sé an scéal i seomra i mbarr páláis fad a bheith an t-amhránaí cáiliúil Girolamo ag canadh amhráin John Dowland i gcóisir i mbun.

“Dúradh liom gur litir thábhachtach í agus go gcaithfinn í a leagan isteach i lámha Uí Néill agus ina lámha seisean amháin. Rinne mé sin.” Thóg sé 1,262 leathanach (agus cló níos lú ná an cinn eile sa sé chéad leathanach an triú leabhar seo), gach uile acu suimiúil, beoga, tochtmhar go minic le gliondar agus iontas nó cumha agus brón, go hálainn i gcónaí.

[Bhí an leabhar foilsithe ag Leabhar Breac]
[An chéad leabhar sa tsraith: An Litir]
[An dara leabhar sa tsraith: I dTír Strainséartha]

How the Left Hijacked Civil Rights

Robert Woodson and Joshua Mitchell write in the Wall Street Journal, Jan. 16, 2021:

The civil-rights movement, led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., helped deliver America from the historic sins of slavery and Jim Crow by forcing the nation to confront the full humanity of its black citizens. King’s words and actions glorified America by transfiguring its racial wound and revealing its redemptive promise. Yet today many black leaders have lost sight of King altogether and are aiding and abetting the crucifixion of their own people. Rather than hope, they see despair; rather than the Easter Sunday of true liberation, they offer the bleak Good Friday of never-ending misery.

The history of black American responses to slavery and Jim Crow generally followed three paths. They were hotly debated, but all emphasized human agency, sought liberation, and rejected despair.

First, there were the recolonization or “back to Africa” movements championed by the likes of Marcus Garvey. These movements sought an exit from America.

Second, there were the insurrectionists of the 19th century, who believed that black Americans should engage in armed rebellion or vocal opposition so that they might find a home in this country. Here lie Nat Turner and, later, W.E.B. Du Bois. They wanted to have their resistant voice heard in America.

Third, there were accommodationist movements of the sort undertaken by Booker T. Washington, who thought that loyalty to America was the best course.

Exit, voice, loyalty—however different these strategies were, each supposed that human agency mattered, that oppression wasn’t destiny. That is why, even amid great struggle, black Americans responded by building their own institutions and businesses. Great universities, medical schools, hotels, restaurants, movie companies and even a flight school sprung up. All of this was self-financed—and made possible by two-parent families, churches and other cultural institutions that provided shelter against the outside storm of racism.

In the 20th century, that same creative conflict between these three schools of thought reappeared. Debaters included the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Black Panther Party and the Republic of New Africa, which sought to establish a separate black state within our borders as an exit strategy.

King offered an inspiring combination of the strategies of loyalty and voice. In 1960, when students in Greensboro, N.C., became frustrated with the slow pace of legal action favored by Thurgood Marshall, King was sent to discourage them from engaging in civil disobedience. The students told King to lead, follow or get out of the way. They were determined to liberate themselves. They understood the difficulties and were undeterred by the obstacles. Like King, they were willing to persevere toward justice even when it was inconvenient, and to suffer the consequences of their actions. Hope, not hopelessness, animated all that they did.

King paid a heavy personal price for his hope that America was redeemable. Twice his home was bombed; once, his wife and daughter were nearly killed. Surrounded by hundreds of angry, armed black men after that bombing, he discouraged retaliatory violence. He was assaulted several times, and jailed as well, but he remained steadfast in his commitment to nonviolence. He united black Americans behind the proposition that racism is evil in itself, not simply because white people visited it upon blacks, and that all must unite to combat evil. He warned us about the self-destructive path of violence, not only for blacks but for the whole nation.

One of the original arguments to justify slavery was that blacks were morally inferior and thus incapable of self-government. John C. Calhoun famously asserted: “There is no instance of any civilized colored race of any shade being found equal to the establishment and maintenance of free government.” Black efforts at self-liberation in the 19th and 20th centuries were based on the opposite assumption.

Today many black leaders defer to angry white progressives who make the same arguments about blacks’ lack of moral agency, reject the country’s founding principles, and seek to undermine its institutions. For months, the radical left has been exploiting the country’s genuine concern for fairness to keep blacks in a constant state of agitation, anger and grievance, urging them toward behavior that lives down to the slanderous stereotypes of white supremacists. The leaders of these movements insist that every inequity suffered by blacks is caused by institutional and structural racism, that they have no power to liberate themselves, and that they will remain oppressed until white people change. Even to raise the issue of what role self-determination plays for blacks earns you the label of “racist.”

Civil-rights organizations and their leadership, as well as the Congressional Black Caucus, need to wake up before it’s too late. A faction of black leaders has been silent about, or complicit in, the takeover of the civil-rights movement by the radical left. The effect of this is not to glorify black achievement but to crucify low-income blacks, who are represented in national media outlets by their worst-behaved members, and bear the brunt of the attacks by the woke radical left on the cities where they live.

“Justice” for black America cannot be achieved by framing it solely through the distorted lens of the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and others in fatal police encounters. For every unarmed black American killed by the police, hundreds are killed in neighborhood homicides.

Those who call for the defunding of police departments, such as leaders of the official Black Lives Matter organization, are silent about this inconvenient truth. They have a narrative and cannot let the facts get in the way. Their story is that the whole of American history is stained and the whole of America must be overthrown. When citizens declare that they support Black Lives Matter, do they share its opposition to the nuclear family, its objective of abolishing the police, and its view that the Christian cross is a symbol of white supremacy? These positions of the organization—language that has largely been scrubbed from its website—in no way improve the lives of black Americans. They give up on black America and encourage its needless suffering.

Like all Americans, blacks have triumphed over their circumstances only when they have adopted bourgeois virtues such as hard work, respect for learning, self-discipline, faith and personal responsibility. In the 19th century, Frederick Douglass found reading to be the key to his own personal liberation amid slavery, and he understood that whites deliberately withheld literacy from blacks precisely because it was so valuable. Bourgeois values drove blacks to build the powerful religious, fraternal, and other voluntary associations that helped them thrive in the worst days of Jim Crow and cultivated the essential virtues in the next generation.

There would have been no civil-rights movement without this. But radical progressives now insist that such virtues are the legacy of white supremacy, colonialist values that reflect the continuing bondage of blacks to oppressive Western culture. The only “authentic” expression of blackness in America, they claim, is the opposite of bourgeois self-restraint and discipline—indulging in the passions of the moment, whether anarchic rioting, insulting teachers or other unsalutary forms of expression. The radical left—disdaining exhortations toward work, family and faith as “respectability politics”—argues that blacks should feel free to indulge their “true” nature, echoing the age-old white-supremacist notion that said nature is violent, lascivious and incapable of self-restraint.

The slave masters’ trick of old was to dissuade blacks from adopting bourgeois values precisely so they could be kept in servitude. Marriage was forbidden and families were split apart. Douglass observed that slaves were encouraged to indulge in drink and debauchery during the holidays so they would be “led to think that there was little to choose between liberty and slavery. We felt, and very properly too, that we had almost as well be slaves to man as to rum. So, when the holidays ended, we staggered up from the filth of our wallowing, took a long breath, and marched to the field—feeling, upon the whole, rather glad to go, from what our master had deceived us into a belief was freedom, back to the arms of slavery.”

But there were always those who saw through the trick and used the holidays to hunt, make items for sale, visit distant family members, and hire out their own labor. Some of these were even able—eventually—to purchase their freedom.

Tellingly, leftist elites teach their own children the values of working and studying hard even as they encourage behavior among blacks that will make sure they remain uncompetitive but “authentic.” By the time young blacks today discover, as did the slaves of Douglass’s time, that freedom understood as “do whatever you feel like” is no way to build a worthwhile life, it will be too late. The fruits of the civil-rights movement’s hard labor—teaching the young to be so self-disciplined that they were able to resist responding in kind to hatred and abuse from whites—will have been lost.

We must turn away from the present course, which preaches despair rather than hope. Black achievement must be glorified. The crucifixion of black America by the radical left must halt. There is a grander, more fruitful future for us all.

Mr. Woodson, a veteran of the civil-rights movement, is founder and president of the Woodson Center and author, most recently, of “Lessons From the Least of These: The Woodson Principles.” Mr. Mitchell is a Washington Fellow at the Claremont Center for the American Way of Life and author of “American Awakening: Identity Politics and Other Afflictions of Our Time.”

Presidential Inaugural Address, January 20, 2017

Every four years, we gather on these steps to carry out the orderly and peaceful transfer of power, and we are grateful to President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama for their gracious aid throughout this transition. They have been magnificent.

Today’s ceremony, however, has very special meaning. Because today we are not merely transferring power from one Administration to another, or from one party to another – but we are transferring power from Washington, D.C. and giving it back to you, the American People.

For too long, a small group in our nation’s Capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost.

Washington flourished – but the people did not share in its wealth.

Politicians prospered – but the jobs left, and the factories closed.

The establishment protected itself, but not the citizens of our country.

Their victories have not been your victories; their triumphs have not been your triumphs; and while they celebrated in our nation’s Capital, there was little to celebrate for struggling families all across our land.

That all changes – starting right here, and right now, because this moment is your moment: it belongs to you. ...

What truly matters is not which party controls our government, but whether our government is controlled by the people.

January 20th 2017, will be remembered as the day the people became the rulers of this nation again. ...

Americans want great schools for their children, safe neighborhoods for their families, and good jobs for themselves.

These are the just and reasonable demands of a righteous public.

But for too many of our citizens, a different reality exists: Mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities; rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation; an education system, flush with cash, but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of knowledge; and the crime and gangs and drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential.

This American carnage stops right here and stops right now.

We are one nation – and their pain is our pain. Their dreams are our dreams; and their success will be our success. We share one heart, one home, and one glorious destiny.

The oath of office I take today is an oath of allegiance to all Americans.

For many decades, we’ve enriched foreign industry at the expense of American industry;

Subsidized the armies of other countries while allowing for the very sad depletion of our military;

We’ve defended other nation’s borders while refusing to defend our own;

And spent trillions of dollars overseas while America’s infrastructure has fallen into disrepair and decay.

We’ve made other countries rich while the wealth, strength, and confidence of our country has disappeared over the horizon.

One by one, the factories shuttered and left our shores, with not even a thought about the millions upon millions of American workers left behind.

The wealth of our middle class has been ripped from their homes and then redistributed across the entire world.

But that is the past. And now we are looking only to the future.

We assembled here today are issuing a new decree to be heard in every city, in every foreign capital, and in every hall of power.

From this day forward, a new vision will govern our land.

From this moment on, it’s going to be America First.

Every decision on trade, on taxes, on immigration, on foreign affairs, will be made to benefit American workers and American families. ...

At the bedrock of our politics will be a total allegiance to the United States of America, and through our loyalty to our country, we will rediscover our loyalty to each other.

When you open your heart to patriotism, there is no room for prejudice. ...

It is time to remember that old wisdom our soldiers will never forget: that whether we are black or brown or white, we all bleed the same red blood of patriots, we all enjoy the same glorious freedoms, and we all salute the same great American Flag.

And whether a child is born in the urban sprawl of Detroit or the windswept plains of Nebraska, they look up at the same night sky, they fill their heart with the same dreams, and they are infused with the breath of life by the same almighty Creator.

So to all Americans, in every city near and far, small and large, from mountain to mountain, and from ocean to ocean, hear these words:

You will never be ignored again.

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.

Together, We Will Make America Strong Again.

We Will Make America Wealthy Again.

We Will Make America Proud Again.

We Will Make America Safe Again.

And, Yes, Together, We Will Make America Great Again. Thank you, God Bless You, And God Bless America.

[source: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/the-inaugural-address/]

More Salem than Thanksgiving: Coronavirus panic has set America back hundreds of years

Heather Mac Donald, The Spectator US, November 24, 2020 [excerpts]:

Nearly half the 102 occupants of the Mayflower died in their first year of settlement at Plymouth, sometimes at a rate of three a day. Such a mortality rate was predictable. The earlier outpost at Jamestown, founded in 1607, lost 66 of its original 104 settlers in its first nine months. ...

And yet the voyagers kept coming, driven by something beyond safetyism — religious zeal, ambition, passion for discovery, the desire for greater freedom. Those Americans who later spread across the continent, whether as solo explorers or in wagon trains, likewise eschewed a ‘stay safe’ philosophy.

Today, we are strangling American society in order to avoid a risk of death so infinitesimal — roughly 0.001 percent — for the majority of Americans that it would not have registered in any possible cost-benefit analysis governing both notable American endeavors and quotidian activities over the last four centuries. Our current Thanksgiving Day mantras — ‘Stay within your pod. Stay within your bubble. Stay within your household’ (in the words of a University of California, San Francisco, epidemiologist); don’t travel, don’t share food, don’t touch your family members or friends, speak only in hushed tones — make a mockery of the spirit that creates a country and sustains human life.

This present moment is less like that first Thanksgiving celebration and more like the Salem witch frenzy of 1692. To be sure, the coronavirus is real; witches were not. The virus has cost thousands of lives; witches did not. But the fear that has gripped much of the population over the last year, whipped up by sundry experts and authorities, is as disconnected from reason as that emblematic burst of hysteria in colonial Massachusetts and other such panics throughout medieval and early modern Europe. The shared features of all such contagious fear events include the following:

The belief in ubiquitous threat

Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti has advised Los Angelenos to ‘assume that everyone you encounter is infected’. Under even the most liberal assumptions of undetected community spread, however, only a small fraction of Los Angeles’s population would be infected and currently contagious.

As for the threat of death, most of the population faces none from the virus. The average age of coronavirus decedents is 80, which is four years higher than the average life expectancy for US males in 2018 and just a year under the average life expectancy of females. Most decedents have underlying co-morbities. Up to two-thirds of coronavirus casualties may have died of other causes by the end of 2020. Forty percent of US coronavirus deaths have occurred in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities. Sadly, death is already the fate of virtually all residents of such facilities, however much we may understandably try to defer it.

Scapegoats and stigma

Public officials have piled onto those intransigents who do not wear masks in the great outdoors, blaming them for the spread. Outdoor mask refuseniks have been screamed at and shamed by citizen enforcers of the outdoor mask dogma. The media imply false causal connections ... But there is no evidence for open-air transmission, absent highly unusual packed settings and prolonged contact. Transmission, per the CDC’s own contact tracing guidelines, requires a cumulative 15 minutes of close contact with an infected person, overwhelmingly in poorly ventilated, cramped indoor settings. In the outdoors, circulating air disperses any possible viral dose to the point of non-existence, even if most outdoor encounters were not too fleeting to be of concern.

People who have recovered from the virus are shunned as pariahs, despite their lack of infectious status.

Amulets and ritualistic gestures

The mask is believed to possess totemic power, even though there is little evidence that its use correlates inversely with community spread or that it protects wearers from infection. ...

Magical formulas and the arbitrary exercise of government power

Once hysteria takes over, any expectation that public officials will act according to reason is discarded. New York’s Mayor Bill de Blasio has long set a metric for re-closing the city’s schools: a three percent infection rate among the tested population. He arrived at the number in conjunction with the teacher’s union. How did the mayor and union come up with it? We don’t know. Is it related to anything real? By definition, no. The evidence is by now overwhelming that children have virtually no risk of dying from the virus, nor do they spread it to adults. A random sample of 16,000 students and staff in New York City schools yielded only 28 positive tests; none of those cases resulted in serious illness or death. The New York City school system, were it a free-standing community, would be among the nation’s safest places to reside. ...

Virginia requires that children from age two onwards wear masks. Such a practice, lacking any grounding in actual science, will likely have crippling psychological consequences.

The rising caseload and the oncoming Thanksgiving holiday have triggered a new explosion of arbitrary government dictates. Oregon’s governor is limiting social gatherings to no more than six people. How did she arrive at that number? By no known body of evidence. If it existed, presumably the six-person ceiling would be universal. But Yolo County, California (where Sacramento is located), has a 16-person cap on Thanksgiving and other gatherings, while Kentucky is limiting Thanksgiving to eight people from two different households. The state of California magnanimously allows a grand total of three households. Before celebrating such relative liberality, note that California requires that the lucky three social units (whose members must of course all be masked) disperse after two hours. That three-household, two-hour ceiling applies even if the gathering occurs in a public park, where the chance of transmission is at its lowest ebb.

Without any advance warning, Los Angeles County shut down all outdoor dining on November 23, signing the death warrant for thousands of restaurants and casting thousands of workers back into unemployment. Restaurant owners had invested thousands of dollars into outdoor heat lamps and other outdoor dining equipment; they will have to throw out thousands of dollars of food.

Los Angeles County has no evidence of any transmission among outdoor diners. It is reacting blindly to a rising case count, even though more than 72 percent of the new cases reported on November 21 were in the lowest risk category — people under 50 — and nearly half of the 34 county residents who died of COVID-19 on November 21 (per the usual over-inclusive count methodology) were over 80. Protecting those octogenarians does not require wholesale business destruction.

The experts are so confident in their fear-induced hold over the popular mind that they feel no compunction about self-contradiction. The CDC has acknowledged that there is little surface transmission of the virus. Yet it recommends that should someone be so rash as to attend a Thanksgiving gathering outside his home, he must bring his own food and utensils so as to avoid touching his host’s kitchenware. We are regressing further back along the civilizational path to medieval times, when everyone carried around his own spoon on his belt. At least those medieval trenchermen followed the environmentally sound practice of reusing their spoons. The CDC advises that all utensils and plates be thrown out after the Thanksgiving meal, showing yet again that environmentalism is usually just empty virtue-signaling.

The experts fear no rebellion over rules that destroy the very thing that they purport to regulate. Bringing your own meal to Thanksgiving and not even sharing it cancels the spirit of holiday. Thanksgiving becomes indistinguishable from those cheerless ‘family dinners’ where every teenager microwaves his own chosen frozen food and then slinks back with it to the privacy of his bedroom and smartphone.

Fetishes

Case counts have been the object of veneration for months, despite their near meaninglessness. The obsession with the case count is an implicit admission that the death rates have been a disappointment, for they are falling rather than increasing. Currently, infections among the young make up the lion’s share of new cases; in Ann Arbor, Michigan, for example, 61 percent of confirmed and probable cases are connected to the university there. Most of these cases among the young are asymptomatic: the infection is so mild that the infected person is unaware he even has it. These infections are being picked up thanks to mandatory testing in college and school settings. It is not just the young, however, that are frequently asymptomatic. Across the entire population, a whopping 40-45 percent of cases are initially unknown to their bearer before a test comes in positive.

A rising case count among the least at-risk population is not something to be feared, since it heralds the approach of herd immunity. Males in the 20-29 age bracket without underlying conditions have 99.9997 chance of surviving a coronavirus infection; females in that age bracket have a 99.9998 survival rate. ...

Yet since the start of the pandemic, the media and their bevy of public health sources have histrionically covered case counts, usually on an hourly basis, as if they signaled imminent doom. ...

And despite today’s raging headlines, the current crisis is still largely anticipatory. Los Angeles County’s director of public health, Barbara Ferrer, has been leaning heavily on the promise of future disaster. ‘This much of an increase in cases may very well result in tremendous suffering and tragic deaths down the road,’ she told the Los Angeles Times on November 12. For now, however, the number of hospitals that are severely burdened nationally is small; at least a quarter of all cases now being labeled as coronavirus hospitalizations in the daily media count were likely admitted for other problems and only retroactively classified as coronavirus cases following a positive test. California governor Gavin Newsom has put 94 percent of the states’ residents under another stay-at-home order. But only six percent of the state’s hospital beds are occupied by COVID-19 patients, up from four percent in early November.

Nationally, the case fatality rate and presumed infection fatality rate continue to drop.

Human sacrifice

Almost all the businesses being sacrificed on the altar of coronavirus fear are as innocent as the vestal virgins of old. The public health authorities have no idea what is driving the current spread. They have no hard evidence that outdoor or indoor restaurant meals are responsible; they certainly have no evidence that shopping is responsible. And yet millions of livelihoods are being destroyed in the exercise of inebriating, limitless power. ‘We don’t want you going into restaurants and sitting and eating outside, and we don’t want you going into retail establishments either,’ Los Angeles’s ubiquitous Barbara Ferrer pronounced recently. Ferrer has no basis for stigmatizing retail establishments.

The shaming of heretics and dissenters

Neuroradiologist Stanford scientist Scott Atlas and the physician scientists who signed the Great Barrington Declaration have been denounced for challenging the efficacy of economic lockdowns, school shutdowns, and outdoor mask requirements. Their heresies have been borne out by the evidence.

False agency

The director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, a major purveyor of pandemic panic, claimed in the Wall Street Journal that the pandemic was threatening ‘jobs and businesses’. It is not the pandemic that is threatening jobs and businesses, however; political decision-making is. COVID is also ascribed a power that it does not likely have. The New York Times has dedicated a special section to ‘those we’ve lost’ from COVID (ignoring the many more people we lose each day to cancer and heart disease). One alleged COVID casualty was a 101-year-old veteran. We are to believe that without COVID, he would have lived an indefinite number of further years.

An advanced civilization builds towards the future, as the Pilgrims and other New World settlers understood. It accumulates social and economic capital to be drawn on by individual discoverers and entrepreneurs for further progress. Now, however, we are cannibalizing our economic inheritance, in the fantastical belief that government transfer payments, generated from ever increased debt, can substitute for private economic activity. Our capital, now being recklessly destroyed by arbitrary government fiat, will take generations to rebuild. We take for granted everything that hard-won prosperity has provided us — well-functioning services (compared to Third World disorder), dependable maintenance, the luxury of choice. We will miss such prosperity when it follows the fate of those millions of businesses whose loss is causing despair, substance abuse, and suicide.

A mature civilization understands that risk is part of life and that there are higher purposes — even mere sociability — than avoiding death at all costs. No great venture can be accomplished if staying safe is life’s only guiding principle. Now, however, our elites mock courage and perseverance, explicitly repudiating the virtues that built this country. President Trump, upon leaving the hospital after a coronavirus infection, admonished the country to not ‘be afraid’ of the virus, in the Washington Post’s words, and to not ‘allow it to dominate’ our lives. That imminently reasonable exhortation, once expected in a leader, is still being denounced by public health experts and the media nearly two months later. If Americans do not repudiate this ethic of fear, future Thanksgivings will be even bleaker than this year’s.

Preventing IP leaks with a VPN and torrent client

There’s a good article from November 7, 2020, at vpnuniversity.com/learn/how-to-fix-every-vpn-ip-leak, though it doesn’t mention torrent client leaks. A good testing site is ipleak.net. It would be good practice to visit ipleak.net every time you use a VPN and before downloading a torrent.

To prevent your torrent client from revealing your home IP address as it tries to maximize your connections, you have to specifically bind it to the VPN network interface. With qbittorrent, for example, in Preferences > Advanced > “Network interface”, choose, on a Mac, e.g., utun1 or, if present, utun2 or ipsec0. When your VPN is connected, select its network address in “Optional IP address to bind to” (just below “Network interface”). On the Mac, that address should be specified in System Preferences > Network or VPN. Or it is given in the VPN application. Also on the Mac, running the ifconfig command in Terminal will show what network interface the VPN is using.

As mentioned above, it would be good practice to check this, i.e., open your torrent client, before downloading a torrent. Then test your setup at ipleak.net.

Other steps to prevent IP leaks while using a VPN:

1. Turn on your VPN’s kill switch, so that it will stop activity if the VPN disconnects. In PureVPN, e.g., this is in Preferences > Advanced options.

2. If your VPN is not using DNS servers from the virtual server it’s using – and instead using your ISP’s DNS servers, or even the DNS servers you’ve otherwise specified (although many ISPs force you to their own) – then you need a new VPN.

3. IPv6 leaks. The new IP address system (because IPv4 addresses ran out in 2011) is still rarely used outside of local networks. It can be disabled on the Mac in System Preferences > Network > WiFi > TCP/IP > “Configure IPv6” → Off. If ”Off” is not an available option, set it to ”Link-local only”, which will use it only on your local network. Or try the Terminal command “sudo networksetup ‑setv6off 'Wi‑Fi' ” (include the straight quotemarks around “Wi-Fi”) (or “Ethernet”) to turn it off completely. Disable IPv6 in Firefox at about:config > “network.dns.disableIPv6” → false (double-click). Alternatively, one of the advanced options in the Windows version of PureVPN is IPv6 leak prevention.

4. WebRTC leaks. This is more a potential security vulnerability while you’re in your browser. It can be disabled, e.g., in Firefox at about:config > “media.peerconnection.enabled” → false (double-click). Ipleak.net describes how to disable it in Chrome and Opera.

As also suggested in a comment to the above-cited article, you can disable location requests, which could reveal your precise location. In Firefox Preferences > Privacy & Security > Permissions > Location, check “Block new requests asking to access your location”. And in about:config, set “geo.enabled” to false.

Finally, use the privacy mode of your browser so no record of your activity (cookies, cache, etc.) is saved.

PS:  In qbittorrent, if a download isn’t starting, try pausing and then resuming it.

PPS:  On a Mac, the torrent client likely requires “full disc access”. Make sure that it is added to the list in System Preferences under Privacy & Security.

PPPS:  When choosing a location in your VPN, be sure it is a “P2P” server.

Tucker Carlson Tonight, November 6, 2020

Who exactly is Joe Biden, the man who may be our president come Jan. 20? The truth is, as of right now, we don’t really know.

We have no clue what Joe Biden actually thinks, or even if he’s capable of thinking. He hasn’t told us and no one’s made him tell us for a full year. In fact, it’s becoming clear, there is no Joe Biden. The man you may remember from the 1980s is gone.

What remains is a projection of sorts, a hologram designed to mimic the behavior of a non-threatening political candidate: “Relax, Joe Biden’s here. He smiles a lot. Everything’s fine.” That’s the message from the vapor candidate.

So who’s running the projector here? Well, the first thing you should know is that the people behind Joe Biden aren’t liberals. We’ve often incorrectly called them that. A liberal believes in the right of all Americans to speak freely, to make a living, to worship their God, to defend their own families, and to do all of that regardless of what political party they belong to or what race they happen to be born into or how far from midtown Manhattan they currently live.

A liberal believes in universal principles, fairly applied. And the funny thing is, all of that describes most of the 70 million people who just voted for Donald Trump this week. Most of them don’t want to hurt or control anyone. They have no interest in silencing the opposition on Facebook or anywhere else. They just want to live their lives in the country they were born in, and it doesn’t seem like a lot to ask. So by any traditional definition, they are liberal.

However, our language has become so politicized and so distorted that you would never know it. What you do know for certain is that the people behind Joe Biden are not like that at all. They don’t believe in dissent. “You think one thing? I think another. That’s OK.” No, that’s not them at all. They demand obedience to diversity, which is to say, legitimate differences between people is the last thing they want. These people seek absolute sameness, total uniformity. You’re happy with your corner coffee shop? They want to make you drink Starbucks every day from now until forever, no matter how it tastes. That’s the future.

Now, if these seem like corporate values to you, then you’re catching on to what’s happening. The Joe Biden for President campaign is a purely corporate enterprise. It’s the first one in American history to come this close to the presidency. If a multinational corporation decided to create a presidential candidate, he would be a former credit card shill from Wilmington, Del., and that’s exactly what they got. What’s good for Google is good for the Biden campaign and vice versa. We have never seen a more soulless project. They literally picked Kamala Harris as Biden’s running mate, someone who can’t even pronounce her own name. Not that it matters, because it’s purely an advertising gimmick.

We watched all of this come together in real time. We stood slack-jawed in total disbelief as a man with no discernible constituency of any kind rose to the very top of our political system, as if by magic. It’s possible in the end that Joe Biden himself never convinced a single voter of anything over the entire duration of the presidential campaign, but he didn’t have to. Joe Biden won the Democratic nomination because he wasn’t Bernie Sanders. He came to where he is today because he isn’t Donald Trump. It’s the shortest political story ever written.

Now, whatever you may think of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, they did it the traditional way. Each one of them had the support of actual voters. Living, breathing people loved them, believed in them, vested their hope in them, and, by the way, agreed with their ideas, which they articulated clearly. But corporate America hated them both. They couldn’t be controlled, particularly Donald Trump, whose complete unwillingness to submit made him the greatest possible threat. That’s why they hate Donald Trump, because he won’t obey.

It’s insulting to say that Joseph R. Biden won this election, if that is what comes to pass. The tech companies will have won. The big banks will have won. The government of China, the media establishment, the permanent bureaucracy, the billionaire class – they will have won, and not in the way that democracy promises. If a single person equaled a single vote, a coalition like that could never win anything. There aren’t enough of them.

But as a group, they have something that Donald Trump’s voters sadly do not have, and that is power. They have lots of power and they plan to wield that power, whether you like it or not. It’s all starting to look a lot like oligarchy at this point. The people who believe they should have been in charge all along now may actually be in charge.

So what does that mean for the rest of us? Will corporate America declare victory and back off? Can we speak freely again? Will they take the boot from our necks? Can we have America back now that the Great Orange Emergency has passed? Will the mandatory lying orders finally be lifted?

Those are the questions we’ll be paying attention to, since we plan to stay in this country. And one other thing while we’re at it, who’s excited to greet our new corporate overlords? Who plans to collaborate, particularly of those on the right side, the Republican side, the side that said it was defending you? Who’s happy about all of this? That seems worth keeping track of, just so we know who we’re dealing with here.

(via foxnews.com)

Donald Trump, Grand Rapids, Michigan, November 2, 2020

(excerpts)

(01:32:30)
We’ve had so many things that ... the witch hunt, I call it the witch hunt. And it turned out to be a phony witch hunt, and they should have known it the first day. They did know it the first day. But it’s the deep state, it’s whatever you want to call it, but it should have never happened. Think of it. They spied on our campaign. They got caught. They tried to take down a duly elected president of the United States. They got caught. And you know who knew all about it? Barack Hussein Obama and sleepy Joe Biden. They knew all about it. They knew all about it.

And then I watch the fake news back there, look at all of them. Look at all of the fake news, isn’t that nice. It’s a lot of fake news. Then I watch the fake news saying, “You know, his attitude is a very tough attitude. He’s not very nice, he’s a very nasty person.” No no. We’re defending ourselves, and we’re defending all of these people that voted for us.

And then what happens? It turns out to be that it was them that were guilty of all of these horrible crimes. Including the crime of treason, because when you try and take down a duly elected president, you know, it’s called treason. It’s big stuff. So we’re going to see how that all works out. ...

(02:04:28)
Every corrupt force in American life that betrayed you and hurt you is supporting Joe Biden. The failed establishment that started the disastrous foreign wars that hurt our country so badly and hurt our young people so badly, they support Sleepy Joe Biden. The career politicians that offshored your industries and decimated your factories and sent your jobs away, they support Biden. The open border lobbyists that killed our fellow citizens with illegal drugs and gangs and crime, they support Biden. The far left Democrats that ruined our public schools, depleted our inner cities, defunded our police, and demeaned your sacred faith and values, they support Biden. The anti-American radicals defaming our noble history, heritage, and heroes, they support Sleepy Joe Biden. Antifa, and the rioters, looters, Marxists, and left-wing extremists, they all support Biden.

This election comes down to a very simple choice. Do you want to be ruled by the corrupt and selfless political maniacs that you’re dealing with? Or do you want to be ruled by the American people? You’re supposed to be ruled by the American people. Do you want to be represented by a career politician who actually doesn’t like you, or by an outsider who will defend you like you have never been defended before? That’s what I’m doing. And it’s not easy, but there’s nothing I’ve ever enjoyed more in my life, because we are making so much progress. We have to now finish the progress. A vote for Biden is a vote to hand the keys of government over to people who don’t like you, don’t respect you, and who want to rob your children of their American dream. We have a great American dream. We’re not going to let it happen. We’re not going to let that happen. We’re going to keep our great American dream. A vote for Biden is a vote to give control of government over to the globalists, and communists, and socialists, and wealthy liberal hypocrites, and all of those that want to silence, censor, cancel, and punish you.

If you want your children to be safe, if you want your values to be honored, if you want your life to be treated with dignity and respect, then I am asking you to go to the poll tomorrow and vote, vote, vote. Remember what I said four years ago. I am your voice, and we will make America great again, and that’s what we’re doing. For the last four years, the depraved swamp has tried everything to stop me and to stop you, because they know I don’t answer to them. I answer to you. That’s why we’re here. That’s why we’re here. Together we will defeat the corrupt establishment. We will dethrone the failed political class, and we will drain the Washington swamp. And we will save that American dream. That beautiful, beautiful American dream. ...

This election is a choice between a deadly Biden lockdown or a safe vaccine that ends the pandemic and leads to the greatest economy in the history of the world. That’s where we’re going. We were there, and we’re going to get it back very quickly. And that’s going to bring our whole country together, because success brings it together, and it was happening. Before that plague came in, it was happening. People were calling me that you would least suspect, and it was all happening. And then we had to close it down and now build it up, and it’s building … It’s not a V. It’s a super V. It’s a super V. ...

Joe Biden is promising to delay the vaccine and turn America into a prison state. He’s looking you in the face and he’s locking you in your home while letting rioters, Antifa, the radical left, run down your streets, riot in your streets, burn down your stores, beat you over the head, and they’re allowed to do that. But you can’t go to your church. You can’t have dinner with your family, but you’re allowed to protest and riot. That’s why I call all of these protests, because we’re allowed to protest. You’re not allowed to meet and you’re not allowed to pray together, but you’re allowed to protest, so I call everything that we do a protest. The Biden lockdown will mean no school, no graduations, no weddings, no Thanksgivings, no Easters, no Christmas, no 4th of July, no future for the youth. Other than that, it’s actually quite good.

A vote for Sleepy Joe Biden is a vote for lockdowns, lay-offs, and misery. ...

(02:32:27)
We inherit the legacy of American patriots who gave their blood, sweat, and tears to defend our country, our families, and our freedom. We stand on the shoulders of American heroes who crossed the ocean, settled the continent, tamed the wilderness, laid down the railroads, raised up the great skyscrapers, won two world wars, defeated fascism and communism, and made America into the single greatest nation in the history of the world. And the best is yet to come. The best is yet to come.

Proud citizens like you, who helped build this country, together we will take back our country. We’re taking it back at a level that nobody has believed. We are taking it back and we are winning and we’re going to win tomorrow. We are returning power to you, the American people. With your help, your devotion and your drive, we are going to keep on working, we are going to keep on fighting, and we are going to keep on winning, winning, winning. We are one movement, one people, one family, and one glorious nation under God, and together with the incredible people of Michigan, we have made America powerful again. Our military, it’s never been like this. We have made America wealthy again. We have made America strong again. We have made America proud again. We have made America safe again, and we will make America great again. Thank you, Michigan. Go out and vote. Thank you very much. Thank you.

(via rev.com)