'Toontime: Hysterical Flu

credit: Bob Englehart

US Person's advice: don't panic, carry on, and stop hording toilet paper!  Yes, the pandemic is bad; yes, Il Douche, the science denier, under-performed again; and yes, stay home if you are ill.  But it is not the flu pandemic of 1918 that killed an estimated 50,000,000 world wide, nor even the swine flu of 2009 that killed 18,000.  If all you watch on your screens is the nervous news, you will make yourself sick.

credit: David Fitzsimmons, Arizona Star 
BC Idonwanna sez: Wash mouth with soap!

Colorado Votes On Wolves

art credit: Amy Hamilton

The last known wolf died in Colorado in 1945; its death was long and tormented, the victim of a steel-jawed trap set by federal agents bent on killing another alleged sheep killer.  Some things have changed in the last half century.  Many Coloradans now support wolf reintroduction to the state as a valued member of healthy, wild ecosystems. Recent polls are evidence of this sea change in public opinion.  Seizing the opportunity to protect the wolf, wolf advocates succeeded in collecting more than 200,000 signatures to put the issue of wolf reintroduction on the November ballot.  Initiative 107 has generated action on both sides of the wolf divide.  Legislation has been introduced in the state senate to make wolf management a subject of legislatiive control.  State wildlife officials have been reluctant to act due to the public controversy surrounding wolf recovery.

While the humans debate, the wolves have acted on their own. Colorado Parks and Wildlife reports that a pack of at least six wolves now resides in northwest Colorado.  Initiative 107 raises a fundamental question about species reintroduction.  Should science decide the issue or should the public, which has to live with the consequences of returning an apex predator to a region from which it has been absent for 70 years?  The reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone National Park in 1995 is generally seen as a conservation success story; preliminary data showed a beneficial trophic cascade {11.5.17} as a result of wolves preying on too numerous elk browsing the landscape.  But since then the effect of wolves on the Yellowstone ecosystem is not considered so clearly beneficial by the scientific community.

Colorado is not Yellowstone.  It is steadily growing in population, especially along the Front Range, but growth is also occurring on the once rural western slope of the Rockies, driven by the shale oil boom.  There are a lot of human hunters at large too.  Whether the reintroduction of wolves in the state would be a good idea from a biological stand point is a question not easily answered. Science is not adept at answering questions of moral value, but the Endangered Species Act of 1973 does speak of intangible values--according to the act endangered species provide “esthetic, ecological, educational, historical, recreational, and scientific value to the Nation.”   The people of Colorado will get a chance to decide whether the welcome mat is out for a once feared and loathed predator.  Perhaps this is as it should be in what remains of democracy in the United States. If voters give the green light, the first few wolves will be released to the San Juan Mountains in 2023.

COTW: Pandemic Blues

The recent stock market gyrations may have induced vertigo, if not nausea. Radical US Person suggests: gold.  Why?  Look at these charts courtesy of Marketoracle.co.uk

 

The shaded area are financial crises, the last two being the dotcom meltdown and the Great Recession of 2008  Obviously gold is considered to be a good investment when the stock market is tanking.  The next crises, call it the debt crisis, is coming.  The recent shock to the markets was triggered by the pandemic, but is more a symptom of the weakness of the global economy fueled by massive amounts of debt, both public and private.  So which would you rather hold during a financial crises, cash or gold?  The answer provided by the next charts is: gold.

With the rise in global economic insecurity, investors are flocking to gold as the strong correlation between an insecurity index and gold flows shows in the left hand chart.  The fact that investors are choosing gold bullion instead of gold based securities is shown in the right hand chart. Even central banks are making massive gold bullion purchases, and they usually know more than Joe Blow.  The reason for their preference is clear:

Since the turn of the 20th century the dollar has witnessed a massive decline in purchasing power indicated by the green line.  Since Tricky D took the US off the gold standard of $35 an ounce the value of gold increase fifty times.

More Repugnant Dirty Tricks

Haunted by the undeniable fact that they represent a declining minority of "Mericans, the GOP (Greedy Old Plutocrats) has regularly resorted to dirty tricks to influence election results, perhaps the most famous being the burglary of the DNC's Watergate office. Fast forward to today* and the news is of Eric Prince, the GOP operative and brother of Betsy De Vos the Education Secretary. He was also the head of Blackwater Worldwide, the infamous security ops firm that was responsible for the massacre of Iranian civilians in Nasour Square during the US occupation of that country (2007).

New York Times reports that Prince helped recruit former spies for secret infiltration operations against labor organizations, Democratic congressional campaigns and other groups hostile to the Antichrist's regime.  An individual Prince recruited is a former MI-6 (British Foreign Intelligence) spy named Richard Seddon who ran an operation to infiltrate and copy documents at the American Federation of Teachers, one of the nation's largest teachers' unions in 2917.  That same year, the congressional campaign of Abigail Spanberger,a former CIA agent herself was targeted for infiltration.  The agent was discovered and fired.  Both operations were funded by the infamous Project Veritas, a right wing organization which received notoriety for its sting operations against news organizations.  The latest revelations come from lawsuit discovery between the teachers' union and Veritas. Both Veritas and Prince have close ties to the Trump camp. Prince worked with former national security advisor Michael J. Flynn during the regime's transition period.  He also advocated privatizing the war in Afghanistan by deploying mercenaries instead of US soldiers.  The idea was rejected by the then Secretary of Defense, Gen. Jim Mattis.

Prince reportedly wanted to use former professional spies to train Veritas personnel in surreptitious data collection and recruiting sources against perceived enemies. Prince is supposedly under investigation by the Department of Barr for lying about meeting a Russian banker in the Seychelles Islands in January, 2017.  Veritas has gone from a shoestring operation to more than $8.6 million in contributions according to its latest available tax return (2018).  The Trump Foundation gave the group $20,000 in 2015, the year Don Trumpillini began his improbable presidential election campaign.  In 2018 the head of the organization, James O'Keefe, stated in a book he wrote that Trumpillini wanted his organization to infiltrate Columbia University to obtain records of Barack Obama, who was once a student there.

The operation inside the Michigan teachers' union, code named Liberty U after the undercover intern's alma mater, apparently netted a lot of documents.  These included statements by a local union leader about Betsy De Vos, who is ardently opposed to teachers' unions.  Prince and De Vos grew up in Michigan were there father made a fortune in the auto parts industry.  Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, said in a statement: “Let’s be clear who the wrongdoer is here: Project Veritas used a fake intern to lie her way into our Michigan office, to steal documents and to spy — and they got caught. We’re just trying to hold them accountable for this industrial espionage.”  Veritas claims its activities are protected under the First Admendment.  The union has asked for more than $3 million in damages.

*Massive voter suppression took place in the 2019 Democratic primary in Texas.  Texas is run by Repugnants, and hundreds of polling places were closed down for this primary resulting in "punishingly" long lines to vote. Voting estimates in Harris County (Houston) and Dallas County show that Democratic turnout rose about 45 percent.

'Toontime: Will History Repeat Itself?

credit:Steve Kelly 
Wackydoodle sez: Repeat after me, O-B-A-M-A, O-B-A-M-A...

Answer: Possibly. Two definitive developments: Elizabeth Warren needs to prove she is a real progressive by endorsing Bernie Sanders.  She came third in her own state. Bloomberg failed to buy the nomination; but he impressed American Samoans.  Michigan will be the litmus test for the two remaining male septuagenarians.

The Democratic Party establishment coalesced quickly this week to endorse its candidate for the nomination, former Vice President Joe Biden. Both establishment alternatives, Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttegieg, conveniently withdrew from the presidential race just before South Carolina voted; the effect was predictable. They were reluctant to endorse Biden until Bernie Sanders won three straight primaries. Biden finally broke through in the South Carolina contest with older black voters, who fondly recall his support for the nation's first black president. Propping up Joe 'Gramps' was the party's play call, and it worked

Sanders is taking on the plutocracy full bore at this point.  His call for radical change is resonating with the 99%; the need for more social equity has never been more apparent since the days of the Gilded Age.  Contrary to what Biden claims, Senator Sanders has put forward a plan--a modern Omaha Platform--paying for his ambitious social agenda including Medicare for All: a combination of increased taxes on the ultra-wealthy, Wall Street speculation, and spending cuts for a bloated military-industrial complex that is the largest in the world.

This social revolution can only work if masses of people support the candidate that has been promoting the same policies for most of his adult political life, not just a campaign meme written by a campaign aide.  A democratic mass movement has happened before in the history of this nation in the form of the Populist Movement, which appeared in the last quarter of 19th century.  By the end of the Democratic convention in 1896 the agrarian revolt represented by the Peoples' Party expired in the arms of the Democratic Party led by "free silver" advocate William Jennings Bryant, who was funded by western state silver magnates in favor of bimetallic currency.  The Peoples' Party was ultimately not successful in resting control from the plutocracy, but was co-opted by it. Only you can prevent history from repeating itself.

credit: S. Kelly BC 
Idonwanna sez: Ol' Joe dog face pony soldier!

COTW: Corona Virus Spreads Further

The WHO declared its second highest level of warning for the corona virus epidemic, just below the level of pandemic. So far the CoVID-19 appears to be more deadly than influenza, but less deadly that the Asian swine flu (H1N1) that killed more than twelve thousand in the United States alone (equivalent to 1 in 5 infections).  Health officials still hope to contain the virus' spread which is aided by international travel to zones of high infection [map]  The disease is already having an economic effect.  The OECD has cut its forecast for 2020 global economic output.  Worst case scenarios put Europe into recession and the US into zero growth.  Normally pro-private market pundits are calling on world governments to take aggressive action to contain the disease. It will take a lot more intelligent action than just pious prayers to do that.*

Meanwhile, the state of Washington reported four more deaths at the Kirkland nursing home facility bringing the US death total to six.  King County (Seattle) has declared a state of emergency. Globally, 85,000 people have been infected as of Saturday, according to a tracker maintained by Johns Hopkins University, and more than 2,900 infected people have died (3.4%).

*In fact, VP Pence botched a public health emergency when he was the governor of Indiana.  Faced with an HIV outbreak in a rural Indiana county, he refused at first to make hygienic needles freely available to control infection by intravenous means.  Pence has a record as a science denier.  In 2000 he wrote an op-ed saying smoking does not kill. Yet he was named by the Antichrist in Office to lead the government's response to the corona virus epidemic. Reactionary talking head are accusing the Democrats of 'weaponizing' news about the epidemic's spread in an effort to bring down Der Leader.  There is a chaotic effort to control information by the regime. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, denied that he'd been muzzled.  Dr. Fauci was scheduled to appear on the five Sunday morning talk shows and canceled them all. Mike Pence showed up instead.

Virus Spreads to Stock Market

Latest: The US recorded its first two fatalities from the corona virus spreading through the country over the weekend. Both cases were older adults with underlying health issues.  The number of reported cases is now 91, but experts think that is an underestimate due to restrictive testing criteria.  Those criteria have since be replaced with wide spread testing protocols.  Some testing kits were also discovered to be defective.  Over the weekend 15,000 kits were released by the federal government, and a spokesperson said it was working with a private provider to make 50,000 more available soon.  The states of New York, Florida and Rhode Island each reported their first cases, all linked to recent foreign travel.

A genetic analysis of cases at a Kirkland, WA nursing home where an outbreak hotspot occurred indicates that the virus could have been spreading in the community for six weeks prior to being detected by testing. Officials estimate as many 1500 people may be infected.  One resident has died and three more are in critical condition.  An epidemiologist with the Washington State Department of Health said he knows of doctors who suspected coronovirus infection that were unable to get patients tested prior to the change in testing criteria. For example, a Seattle physician presented with low grade fever and coughing in a patient who had traveled to China, was unable to obtain corona virus testing for her because she had returned more than two weeks ago. The state is now ramping up to 200 tests per day to obtain more accurate sampling of the disease spread.  

{25.02.20} A Harvard epidemiologist, Dr. Marc Lipstich, interviewed by The Atlantic magazine, says the COVID-19 epidemic has probably infected about 200 people in the US.  Confirmed cases are reported as 35.  He predicts that worldwide about 40-70% will be infected with the corona virus that causes COVID-19.  Fortunately, the fatality rate is estimated less than 2%, but the virus has already killed more people than SARS and MERS to which it is related. Many infected humans will be asymptomatic or have only mild, flu-like responses. The emerging consensus among epidemiologists is that COVID-19 will become an endemic, seasonal disease like the other four that regularly afflict humanity. Humans apparently do not develop long lasting immunity to diseases like colds and flu.

Despite misleading media reports, there is no available vaccine.  A company has replicated a portion of the virus' RNA in the laboratory, but that is only a first step to producing a vaccine, which must be tested before widespread administration.  The trick to producing an effective, safe vaccine is to find the right position on an RNA molecule, or gene sequence, that produces immunity and not acute inflammation.  That takes time, money and a bit of art.  During the SARS outbreak in 2003, researchers needed 20 months from isolating a genome sequence to developing a vaccine ready for phase I clinical trials. Allowing for improvements in the process, it still could be 12 months before a vaccine is ready for widespread use. No giant pharma company has committed to producing a COVID-19 vaccine, and the current regime has recently proposed cutting funding for pandemic preparedness in its budget documents. Don Trumpellini is reportedly furious with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention over briefings given to the public and the resultant drop in the market due to panicking investors. He apparently intends to rely on propaganda instead of science in his response to a possible pandemic

{25.02.20} The coronovirus epidemic has got Wall Streek spooked. Stocks dropped again with the Street of Dreams posting the largest decline in two years for the S&P index. The ten year Treasury note is headed for a record low too.  Midst the angst, the Center for Disease Control warned that a coronovirus outbreak will occur in the US. The Center warned that an outbreak here is a matter of time, and it could be severe.  So far the fatality rate globally is less than 3%, much less than SARS, which is caused by a variety of the same virus family.  Respiratory viruses like these can travel through the air, enveloped in tiny droplets that are produced when a sick person breathes, talks, coughs or sneezes. More than 80,000 people have caught the virus and nearly 2,700 of them have died, mostly in China. A vaccine for the virus is more than a year away. Health officials advise washing hands frequently, and if you are sick, stay away from work or school.