Fact Check on a Fact Check – Associated Press re Coronavirus drug test

Posted on by April 26, 2020

So many of the so-called “Fact checkers” are politicised apologists for left wing (liberal) causes, targeted at conservatives and often need fact checking themselves. So, it’s no surprise to see an example in the Coronavirus age, but rather new to see it camouflaged as a “fact check”, when basically all it contains is the attack on a comment by the Secretary of the US Veterans Administration study on a Coronavirus drug test. 

An essential introduction must be to highlight that the obvious and open battle to condemn a possibly effective therapeutic drug for Coronavirus treatment as ineffective or even “dangerous” needs exposure and it is getting it. Hydroxychloriquine (used in combination with an antibiotic azithromycin) is the drug concerned and whilst it has been promising enough when used in various reported cases around the world, it is a given that more testing is needed. However, there is a persistent campaign against it from more than just the usual leftist media (for which media, President Trump advocating for it was probably all it needed anyway). Further opposition comes from sections of the medical community and on the surface, that is enough reason for investigation to be conducted.

The Veterans Administration Study

The anti-Hydroxychloriquine group got a boost when a sudden announcement in mid-April was made that a Veterans Administration  study had shown poor results for Hydroxychloriquine, a Daily Mail review of which can be found here. The media went wild and are still quoting it as a nail in the coffin for Hydroxychloriquine. Of course it always takes a while – these days only a few hours if that- for these studies to be dissected and the facts as well as assumptions analysed and published. So the “more people died with it than without it” seems quite an insufficient description of the test conditions .

VA Secretary Robert Wilkie and his comments.

“That’s an observational study. It’s not a clinical study. It was done on a small number of veterans. Sadly, those of whom were in the last stages of life. And the drug was given to them. And I have to also say that the drug — we know the drug has been working on middle-age and younger veterans … working in stopping the progression of the disease.”

The comments of the Fact Check author Hope Yen are stark

“Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie is taking advocacy of an unproven drug for the coronavirus even farther than President Donald Trump, claiming without evidence that it’s safe and that it has been effective for young and middle-aged veterans in particular.”     

Analysis: “Unproven” is misleading. “FDA approved” for use normally involves

“Double-blind randomised controlled trials (RCT) are the gold standard of clinical research” and whilst Hydroxychloriquine isn’t qualified by the FDA on that lengthy time frame, the fact checker claim could be put into the category of “Misleading” because she doesn’t say anything about the VA study in that context.

 “claiming without evidence” is just a modern addition to commentary only since the advent of Trump, many times there being  no “evidence” published in much of the media since opinion took over a lot of “fact reporting”.

Wilkie not only had his own evidence from the VA itself (unchallenged in any detail by Hope Yen OR co-author Marilynn Marchione) but he supposedly.

 mischaracterized the study’s findings as he delved into an area of speculation by amateurs that his own agency has called “inaccurate and irresponsible.”

Mischaracterised the study’s findings? Speculation by amateurs? Not so in either case. Observational Study? Not a clinical study? Done on a small number of veterans? Those of whom were in the last stages of life? All correct as the study and true reporting shows!

The author herself did not mention that to have participants to whom only Hydroxychloriquine  was given surely invalidated the VA results from the beginning. Only with other named drugs was Hydroxychloriquine  recommended (or even tested) in other studies. None of these statements are able to be credibly “fact” challenged by Hope Yen. In the report her comment of “(it) was not a rigorous experiment” alone is shown to be close to the mark. The study was not peer reviewed and is not considered valid to determine clinical effect of this drug.

Criticisms of the VA study but which were not mentioned

The greatest attack on the study which Yen and her co-author did not mention was that of the other major advocate for the Hydroxychloriquine combination treatments,  French Dr.Didier Raoult. Now this clinic has become famous/ notorious for being one of the first in the world to mention Hydroxychloriquine as a possible therapeutic part-answer to Coronavirus, but his comments on the actual VA test deserve to be looked at closely. His comments on the incidence of Lymphopenia being twice as common in the HCQ groups and that it correlates to fatality is one thing to note. So is the lateness of administering the HCQ treatment (post-intubation), even extremely late or “unreasonable” in fact. Finally, he notes that 

“Incomprehensibly, the ‘untreated group’ actually received azithromycin in 30% of cases, without this group being analyzed in any distinct way. Azithromycin is also a proposed treatment for COVID-19 (Gautret 2020) with in-vitro efficacy.”

So there you have it. A Fact Check that raised more issues than it was supposed to solve and none of these issues, I submit, were dealt with appropriately. However, the peculiarities of this severely anti-Hydroxychloriquine campaign, especially when there is a (new) rival Gilead drug in testing, the starkly different media, political and medical bureaucratic treatments of nearly identical trial hiccups stand out. The reasons for that should be studied.

A study of an American Guardian article in the Coronavirus age

Posted on by April 24, 2020

The Trump era American political media was always going to be affected by the Coronavirus era. National Interest to finally bring a stop to the 90%-plus unfavourable coverage of the Trump administration?  Not on your life.

This article from the Guardian USA was begging to be exposed as a highly-politicised Coronavirus narrative. Such a minor piece, minor subject, yet highly politicised as is the way of things these days. Neverending.

It was meant to praise a Democrat Kentucky Governor Beshear for his efforts but then compare him favourably with a neighbouring Republican Governor. Sounds easy enough, get the facts and statistics, interview a few people to show how well Kentucky was (and is) doing compared with neighbouring Tennessee and that’s it, write it up. This was the heading.

Guardian USA 23 April 2020

The problem with this particular plan is that you had better get the statistics onside before you claim so boldly what you think you have found.

The whole article can be found here and its evidence in praise of the Democrat Governor of Kentucky is pretty basic and found early on. A “Man of the People” descrfiption, his calling of a Coronavirus emergency on 6 March, getting schools to close from March 16 and on that day closing bars and restaurants. Further, as the Guardian puts it:

“on the 19th he banned all mass gatherings, including church services; and on the 22nd he announced the closure of all businesses that were not “life sustaining”

Andrew Cuomo-like conferences early on, with a lot of good talks to Kentucky people about what they had to do, describe what the danger was etc. Many governors would do that I suspect, but these were the moves and times the Kentucky governor chose.

The nominated “rival” Governor of Tennessee, Bill Lee wasn’t so sure such actions were needed as early as in Kentucky and he held off with sweeping bans for a week. Yes a week later. His reasoning was described this way,

While Lee issued recommendations for Tennesseans to avoid crowds, he said no mandates were necessary to keep them apart, that the state’s residents could be trusted to do their part without government interference.

What is only mentioned later is that the capital Nashville, Memphis and Knoxville had their own health departments and they made decisions about closures on health grounds and didn’t have to get Governor Lee’s approval. That makes a lot of the supposed comparisons re the actual “changes”, less stark, I suggest.

A “defence” of Tennessee is this

Tennessee has conducted more testing and has a higher population and Winter, the epidemiologist, says it’s more useful to look at hospitalizations, though that data is harder to acquire

Hospitalisations are compared at the end of this article.

Tennessee is reopening and closures will not extend beyond April 30, joining other neighbouring (Republican) states Georgia and South Carolina

Comparisons with results of each state

Yes, what of those results? A valuable site for checking Coronavirus results in US States is The Covid Tracking Project and another where States can be checked is Worldometers.com.

Did Kentucky do any better? Obviously not under most categories.

From the Corona Tracking Project we see the following statistics

Total testing:                         Hospitalisation (Culmative)                        Deaths

Kentucky 42,844                  1115                                                               191

Tennessee 123,100              793                                                                 170

Worldometer statistics

                                                Cases per Mil            Deaths p/m                Tests p/m

Kentucky                               784                             43                                9.649

Tennessee                            1,243                          28                                18,508

So, do these statistics show backing for the headline? Hardly. Kentucky might have acted earlier and the opinions of the state citizens might be favourable to Governor Beshear. However, while statistics show more cases per million for Tennessee (1,243 v 784) the testing is nearly 2-to-one to Tennessee (18, 508 v 9649). Deaths are also lower in Tennessee.

Note, not that any of this matters. This was just a partisan article, perhaps a neighbouring states partisanship, but the effort of each state is no doubt done in good faith by those governors. If the Guardian article was as political as it seems, it was so shoddy that it fell apart at first analysis. For the immediate future, take note of this Cuomo reference about antibody tests. It just might (and possibly will) have historians arguing how wasteful was this shutdown policy

US Coronavirus statistics. What do they say, including states readiness for reopening

Posted on by April 13, 2020

This is a post on the often vastly-different opinions about reopening economies even while Coronavirus statistics show the threats from it have a “down slope“ (even with the dreadfully inaccurate models being used so far).

Following the Covid Tracking Project and depending on the accuracy of its figures, much information can be gained to question various public statements by officials and the media.

So, for what it’s worth, here are some summations made from my personal analysis of the figures I am seeing. Note that all figures can be checked from the constantly updated website of the Covid Tracking Project itself.

What they tell us about the emergency needs as constantly shown in media.

New York

New York has been in the news constantly, often, it seems to me, because it highlights the media wish for President Donald Trump to be (negatively?) compared to the future media favourite, Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York. In truth, Trump and the federal government gave overwhelming assistance to New York and just as well, too, because these statistics for New York (from anywhere and everywhere you look) showed that New York was the bottomless pit of bad statistics – and still is. Massive infection numbers, deaths, ICU and ventilator use and, by its statistics being over-emphasised in the terrible IMHE virus model used to drive federal policy, these terrible NY stats actually led to poor policy responses in many other states.

Looking at the actual statistics, New York is still badly hit, with 758 dying overnight and a total of 9,385 deaths so far. However, while its hospitalisation is extremely high at 18,707, the broken/useless IMHE model had predicted that it would have needed over 60,000 nearly a week ago! Going on the Cuomo-claimed demand for “40,000” extra ventilators, NY has 5,198 people in ICU now, far less ventilators required, even if every single patient in ICU needed them. In other words, if every hospital in New York was full (and they are not) probably just the stored ventilators plus the ones Trump and the government sent would easily cover that.

Comparable US States of Note re virus

California is the largest state in America by population and it has over 12,000 homeless on the streets, with typhus and other diseases prevalent among them. It seemed ready to be badly affected by this virus. Washington (and Seattle) had also been affected early, both states having a large Chinese working and university population with many travel links to China. Washington and California were both hit as early as New York yet their statistics have never been anything like New York and are flat-lining while NY is still aiming for the stars. Note that California has more than twice the population of New York,

                        Hospitalisation        ICU                             Deaths

New York       18,707                       5,198                          9,385 

New Jersey   7,604                          1,914                          2,350

California      5,234                          1,539                          651

Washington    642                           191                             491

Other major industrial states had relatively high figures also, such as Michigan  1487 deaths (1582 ICU), Illinois 3680 in hospital (1166 in ICU). In all of these other states, they have not only enough equipment but some are offloading it to other States (California, Washington).

Special Case Florida

Florida is the 3rd largest state in the USA and has a conservative governor Ron DeSantis. He kept the state open for a long time, defying all the experts, official and unofficial (ie media) . I am not sure if he was trying for “herd immunity” whereby you protect the extremely vulnerable but allow a virus to go through a society. This entails “accepting” casualties at the start until a joint immunity comes into the population and operations get back to normal without an economy having to be closed or a people generally isolated. At this “end”, total casualties are assumed to be far less and time taken much less than with the shut-down policy. Sweden is one of the only nations trying this and it is keenly watched.

Florida Governor DeSantis only ordered a state-wide shutdown from April 2 and the test of this in his state will come within days. At the moment deaths and statistics are relatively low, wit 465 deaths and a cumulative total of hospitalisations of a comparative few of 2,772. 

States, statistics and the possibility of reopening of the economy  

It isn’t only the USA where controversy around reopening the economy is sometimes about politics. The US election on November 3 is a vital date and many people have said openly they would wish for a recession if it would stop Trump, Bill Maher for one. With the flimsy impeachment and the travesty of the Russiagate enquiry for two years, anything is possible. The Cloward-Piven strategy to destroy the US economy prior to its rebuilding under the new plan is still in evidence everywhere, but controversy about reopening isn’t confined to the USA so there are legitimate grounds for disagreement on if/when economies can restart.

As always “too early” could mean a flare up of the virus and horrendous figures are passed around, often from models which, while they might have been discredited on their total predictions, some still show a creditable direction of a possible revival of the virus. I note how most negative surveys allow for a complete reopening with no restrictions of anyone or no restrictions of the vulnerable segment of the population, neither of which are proposed in any of the touted reopening plans.

Naming US states to look at

Considering losses caused to States through the mere closure of numerous small businesses and also consider that a number of states are virtually virus-free anyway. Taking the no- shutdown states (and I am still curious why the media and some politicos demanded Pres Trump order them to shut down – unless it was to blame him *for* the shutdowns), but they seem to be relatively unaffected. Utah, Nebraska, Arkansas, North and South Dakota and zero-deaths Wyoming might not be the heavy industry heartland, but with multiples of other states with under 30 fatalities and virtually minuscule hospitalisations, surely that will allow consideration of a careful, targeted reopening of parts of their economies. Other States such as West Virginia, Alaska, Hawaii, Vermont, Nebraska, Idaho, Maine, Montana, New Hampshire and even New Mexico, having very low deaths and hospitalisations, many businesses of varying sizes could get a start. If these states and various cities within them carefully protected the vulnerable elderly or those with co-morbidities that, added to increased testing, especially antibody testing allowing authorities to be able to name “safe” workers, there seems no need to shut down and possibly kill parts of the economies of many states.

White House Coronavirus task force briefing answered a lot of questions – and supported some Trump positions

Posted on by April 1, 2020
White House Virus briefing 31 March 2020

The White House briefing on 31 March Washington time was invaluable.

It cleared up much controversy, dealt with medical and modelling confusion and took a good hard look at the way their stated death and infection rates have been used in the political media. In so doing it also, in the course of the briefing, brought into focus – and answered -some of the most important political attacks on President Donald Trump and his handling of this Coronavirus emergency.

Models:

Ever since Donald Trump announced emphatically on 23 March  that he would like to restart the economy sooner rather than have “the cure be worse than the problem itself”, much controversy rose about whether that was the right or wrong decision One of the major weapons against that decision was a series of models showing huge death figures unless the status quo of shut down measures was maintained.

The virus taskforce led by the two pre-eminent medical leaders Drs Fauci and  Birx based their advice to President Trump on those models, done by a number of outside institutes.  It included a controversial one from Imperial in London but relied on a key one, by Chris Murray and his Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation from University of Washington, which was said by Dr Birx on a number of occasions to be basing calculations on all current detail and updated constantly. This fact was repeated at this briefing on 31 March.

The Trump administration decision to extend their preventative measures for another 30 days was based on advice which quoted the 100,000-200,000 deaths calculated on the basis of the Washington model. But it had problems, such problems being laid out at todays briefing for all to see.

Washington model not representative of the whole USA at all.

The model being used to calculate an America-wide response and America wide prediction of infection and deaths was calculated after being heavily skewed towards the New York, New Jersey and Connecticut figures which, according to the graph presented, were very high compared to all others. This included a very large state (California) and states which had a very early incidence of the virus and deaths (California and Washington State). Talks showed that New York and its large numbers and deaths were not readily relatable to or to be used as a basis for calculations in the other states. The other states and the USA as a whole, could trend in a different direction to either New York or the graph! It was noted that while the New York and New Jersey figures were on a steep trajectory, those of California and Washington State were so low as to be almost flat lining in comparison.

New York and New Jersey on top

One truism from Dr Fauci today was that the models were only as good as the assumptions put into them.

New York late starting.

New York was also shown to have started late tackling the virus problem and there is evidence that the Mayor’s staff and Dept of Health leader in early February encouraged much attendance at crowded places, such as Chinese New Year celebrations where there were many thousands of people. And the mayor as recently as March 6, was on TV recommending New Yorkers to go out to dinner as normal!

New York Governor as rival to President Trump in 2020

This has been mentioned many times, not only because Joe Biden is not a strong candidate, but because Governor Cuomo, as is President Trump himself, gaining popularity because they are controlling their individual responses to the virus emergency and are on TV every day.

The Democratic press have been giving Cuomo very favourable publicity and that was seen as boosting him. The corresponding definitely bad publicity to Trump – blaming him for shortages – e.g. ventilators, when thousands were already stored in NY and later, Cuomo having to admit when pressed, that he was holding some back because they were not yet needed.

This negative to Cuomo was added to in this briefing when the comparisons to Washington State and California showed that New York was late to the fight against the virus and that it cannot be blamed on Trump. Whether or not Trump and his administration might have erred in some way, the results for other states with large populations or large and early deaths show that they are nothing like New York.

Anti-Trump narratives severely countered by the health specialists

Was Trump late in starting to close down movement in answer to the virus outbreak?

The health experts Fauci and Birx stated that in the early days when first Chinese figures of 50,000 affected came in it was, as Dr Birx put it, the “medical community” saw it as just a SARs like outbreak, or flu-like and not a pandemic. So a pandemic was not on their horizon at that early stage.

Should Trump have been into mitigation measures earlier than he did so (ie the travel bans on Jan 31)?

Dr Birx said that whether or not the virus was in the USA at that time is unable to be gauged until antibody tests are done much later when all the old blood tests of that time are analysed. In any case, mitigation would have been useless without such information. ( Note: Could they have got away with a close down on that little information I wonder?).

Trump was asked directly should he have acted earlier and he replied that his move for travel bans in spite of opposition everywhere did a huge amount to stop the virus being imported. And he again stated how much opposition he had received from the media and politicians to his move. The move to stop visitors was backed by the health experts at the briefing.

FBI corruption or incompetence? Ignored direct evidence of no collusion

Posted on by March 8, 2020

It has been terrible to see how the world-famous law enforcement/crime heart of the organisation has been dragged low down by the counter intelligence section, exposed by the whole Trump/Russia saga. As the days of reckoning come closer and Nemesis approaches for the guilty, worrying examples of the FBI’s fall are in evidence everywhere. As the documents continue to be released from where they have been hidden, the anger will grow, but those of us who knew the FBI and loved its institutions and former integrity mourn for what the world has lost.

FISA Court Criminality and gross negligence passed off as “accidents”? .

The latest hammer blows to the integrity of the FBI came with the Inspector Generals report into the FISA court abuse. The FISA Court (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court) was used and abused by the FBI leadership and every underling who was part of the process. The huge powers of the FISA court were used to put the Trump campaign under surveillance through now-discredited documents, the infamous “dossier” by former MI6 agent Christopher Steele.

The FBI was excoriated by that OIG report and it’s dishonesty in at least the case where false information was intentionally provided to the court to gain one of the two discredited FISA applications against Carter Page,

As professor Margaret Cleveland showed in The Federalist:-

The IG’s report on the U.S. Department of Justice and FBI’s handling of the Carter Page surveillance applications established 17 significant inaccuracies and omissions in the FISA application and renewals.

 All “accidents”? One could doubt that.

Dossier was doubtful very early

Thanks to the OIG report we also know that within a few weeks of the inauguration of President Trump the FBI knew that the dossier information on which the first FISA applications were made were discredited. By the very person who was alleged to have given that information to the dossier author Steele!

The OIG report itself shows that and, by implication, any worthwhile, half-competent law enforcement body would have picked up on the weakness, not go on to continue an operation against a then-sitting president of the United States! Pp 186 & 7 are enough to show it but to continue it on for over 2 years in spite of that?

Page 187 OIG Report

Trump Tower Meeting June 2016 was a similar disgrace for the FBI

So much was made of the Trump Tower meeting between Donald Trump Jr, the then campaign director Paul Manafort, the Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner and various Russians, one of whom ( Natalia Veselnitskaya) had been working for Fusion GPS the entity which employed Steele who had created the discredited dossier. Meeting with Glen Simpson head of Fusion GPS before and after the meeting with Trump and Co, was the Russian lawyer Veselnitskaya.

While there were many doubts and the Trump camp always insisted that the bulk of the meeting was about the Magnitsky Act and adoption of Russian children (the Russians lobbying for some time to get the Magnitsky Act repealed), the allegation in all the legacy media and Democrats was that the meeting was an attempt to get dirt on Hillary Clinton. “Opposition Research” on a campaign is an old tactic and not illegal, but it was from a supposed tie to the Russian government through Veselnitskaya that over two years of official investigation, leaks and innuendo were splashed all over the Trump administration. Note: not once did any comment come from the FBI or any of its media favourites that there was anything but suspicion attached to this meeting.

More documents showing the truth about the false “investigation”.

Everyone is onto this now, but the whole analysis was first printed by an expert online investigator, going by the screen name of Undercover Huber (@JohnWHuber). This is a parody of the real-life mystery man Huber, the prosecutor who hasn’t been much heard of in the years since he was supposed to be investigating the Clinton Foundation.

Undercover Huber has analysed documents, the release of FBI 302 documents (documents which are meant to record the actual detail of FBI interviews with suspects and others when in a formal setting) through the FBI Vault system. In this case the actual documents are available here.

Huber noted that in the FBI Vault release, evidence was provided that the FBI knew a mere four days after the Trump Tower meeting that there was no collusion between the Russian parties present and the Trump campaign members. This evidence was not from some mere member of either “side” where the credit of the witness could be put in doubt by that fact. This informant was the interpreter but one who had contracted for the US State Department for years, named Anatoli Samochornov, and whose wife actually worked for them during the Hillary time there!

The 302 showing his comments are basic, stark – and final. There was no collusion.

FBI going on from here

While my personal view is that the law enforcement side should be split from the counter intelligence and every other section and retain the name “FBI”, this worrying episode needs more than basic structural or cosmetic change. This needs reform root and branch because what we see and hear (all over social media, at least) is “don’t trust the FBI as it is now constituted”. This is intolerable.

For the FBI to know the falsity of allegations so soon to the time they were made, to continue years of investigations and surveillance – even on a president and his administration – years before anything was announced or the investigations ceased is a massive scandal.

It is too important to the world to lose what we had in an FBI which was respected everywhere. That ‘respect can never be retained (or regained) while these issues are unresolved through major reform

As US Democrats decide, desperation and big money come to surface

Posted on by March 3, 2020

Not the $250 million wasted by Tom Steyer, the failed hedge fund coal billionaire, nor the half a billion spent so far by Mike Bloomberg. No, a lot more, “trillions” perhaps,  are at stake and all of it relying on whether Trump can be defeated in 2020. It is that important to his opponents.

Moves where the candidates are just happening to drop out at the same time and endorsing Joe Biden, aren’t any accident. To help understand what power is behind such moves, some basic information is needed as essential background.

Above all, Donald J Trump is and always will be an existential threat to the power and wealth of very powerful forces in commerce, politics and the so-called Deep State apparatus, the permanent bureaucracy.

The Conservative Tree House is a website for investigative journalism par excellence, one I have been praising for many months as one to follow. In the age of the current political revolution underway through the injection of a president Trump into the formerly unshakeable monolith which is Washington DC, many new investigative journalists and commentators have come to the fore. The Conservative Tree House is the home of one of the best and, if not infallible, along with others has proven invaluable for his/her insights.

To Sundance of the CTH, I add Jeff Carlson as another of real, ongoing value. There are many others but it is what the CTH offers by way of introduction that I present here, in order to prepare any reader for what is to come in the presidential race of 2020.

Remember, no matter how big the changes, how much money is spent, to what depths the politics of character assassination, smear or attack sinks, what is at stake is probably the cause of much of the heat.

Background

Most remember that when the 1200-page Obamacare legislation was before the US Congress, then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi famously stated “You will have to pass it to see what’s in it” and even her apologists admit that she was at the very least claiming that the good things were there but that the public wouldn’t hear of them until after it passed. Whether Pelosi ever knew what was in it (she never said what it was apart from generalities), you can rest assured that most of the Congress voting for it never knew what it was. Not only was the time allowed to look at it too short, but as was indicated in an early post, it was likely that it was written by unelected vested interests, and then sold to congress by their lobbyists.

Corporations (special interest group) writes the law.  Lobbyists take the law and go find politician(s) to support it.  Politicians get support from their peers using tenure and status etc.  Eventually, if things go according to norm, the legislation gets a vote.

The whole article should be read, but fairly recently I posted material showing that whole Main Street v Wall Street divide in the US economy and, by implication, in other countries economies also.

It covered important issues, but the main one and the one most relevant to the Trump America, covered the push against the globalist economy which had been created over the past 30 years and through both Republican and Democrat administrations.

I quoted the key point of the time by the Clinton man Robert Reich (but he was speaking for more than just Clinton Democrats):-

 “…there will be no national products  or technologies, no national corporations, no national industries. There will no longer be national economies, at least as we have come to understand that concept..” and so on.

Relevance to the Democrat Primaries tactics

The Conservative Tree House has released a timely review of the whole issue again just as the obviously organised moves against Bernie Sanders have been signalled by the Democrat Party elite. That this will take in the organised attacks on Donald Trump is a given (and probably for the same underlying reasons of the self-interest of the elites and their donor class associates, their media arm etc).

Their overarching imperative is that Trump must be defeated. They cannot wait until he is finally out of power in, say, 2025. Their whole edifice could be wrecked by then. Enough damage has been done to the old model already that it might well be unrecognisable in a few years time. Worse, the established order might be gone forever. It is the Trump factor that governs everything and just in case some might believe that they don’t like his manner, this article is very welcome.

I will leave this with the four bullet points from the article which lay out the 30-year process which has destroyed jobs in every supposedly independent trading nation.

Bulletpoint #1: ? Multinational corporations purchase controlling interests in various national elements of developed industrial western nations.

“…in the modern global world, it’s not just oil; the resource and product procurement extends to virtually every possible commodity and industry. From the very visible (wheat/corn) to the obscure (small minerals, and even flowers)”.

Bulletpoint #2 ? The Multinational Corporations making the purchases are underwritten by massive global financial institutions, multinational banks.

Bulletpoint #3 ?The Multinational Banks and the Multinational Corporations then utilize lobbying interests to manipulate the internal political policy of the targeted nation state(s).

“Instead of the traditional ‘supply/demand’ equation determining prices, the corporations look to see what nations can afford what prices. The supply of the controlled product is then distributed to the country according to their ability to afford the price. This is essentially the bastardized and politicized function of the World Trade Organization (WTO).”

Bulletpoint #4 ? With control over the targeted national industry or interest, the multinationals then leverage export of the national asset (exfiltration) through trade agreements structured to the benefit of lesser developed nation states – where they have previously established a proactive financial footprint.

“Agriculturally, multinational corporate Monsanto says: ‘all your harvests are belong to us‘. Contract with us, or you lose because we can control the market price of your end product. Downside is that once you sign that contract, you agree to terms that are entirely created by the financial interests of the larger corporation; not your farm….“

This is essential background needed to have when viewing and analysing the move within the US Democrats up to and until the election in November. Sudden drop outs, secret/sudden “new” candidates, coordinated anti-Trump (or before that, anti-Sanders) narratives out of nowhere? This background is necessary.

Former Prime Minister Turnbull attacking government on climate (again)

Posted on by February 26, 2020

It was set out on this blog how, in this Australian bushfire summer, the green and vested “green energy:” interests were milking it for all it was worth, desperate to use it to persuade a reluctant Australian government to turn its economy upside down. This in an effort to chain Australia to a crippling state of no energy from fossil fuels, even though Australia was awash with them. In a follow up post, after intense rains came to change the dynamic (and douse the panic too), that political and financial campaign to continue the climate scares went on, together with all the usual political and green energy suspects associated with it.

Prominent at all times was one particular figure, the former Australia Prime Minster Malcolm Turnbull. Always seeming to be a climate crank, he changed his (public) views on climate change priority from time to time, but his personal animosity for the man who succeeded him, PM Morrison, was never ever hidden from public view. In his very public claims for purity in pushing Australia to surrender to the climate alarmist/renewal energy investor class is where we see most of it.

It seems that there is no extreme on “climate action” that Turnbull will not advocate now, especially as it seems to be accompanied with direct or indirect criticism of his successor, Morrison. With a supine political press in Australia, his every utterance seems to be relayed far and wide and obvious reasons for pushback does not get the same attention.

Latest attacks

Now he is at it again, demanding that Australia move to zero admissions by 2050 in a highly emotive claim about a “catastrophic’ future if we don’t move to net zero” and he tried to use the recent bushfires as a factor when he claimed,

“The fires of this last summer will seem like a very, very mild experience compared to what a 3 degrees Celsius [warmer] world will look like.”

It is very interesting that alarmists are reviving this totally unsubstantiated claim of a 3 degrees Celsius rise in temperature now. It was dropped years ago once the 20 year temperature rise pause caused that modelled claim to lose all traction with the very public they try to influence. That said, Turnbull also revives the “bushfires from climate change”  argument which was dispelled by both the common heavy rain and numerous facts about fuel loads being the cause and not “climate change”.

Such a claim isn’t new for Turnbull and inconsistency is a hallmark of him when it comes to his public statements. A recent example is very relevant to his claims today

”Turnbull has been caught out trying to re-write history by penning an article in US media claiming he was the Prime Minister who held back the “climate-denying political right in Australia”.

His hypocrisy is so huge that a decent quote of him saying the opposite is appropriate to show here (the videotape of the actual words is available):-

It is almost as if you overlooked your response to the horror bushfire which tore through Tathra, wiping out 69 homes in 2018…

 “I’m disappointed that the Greens would try to politicise an event like this,” (Turnbull)  said during a televised press conference at the time. “You can’t attribute any particular event, whether it’s a flood or fire or a drought or a storm, to climate change. “But clearly this is an environment, we have an environment, which has extremes.

Bushfires are part of Australia, as indeed are droughts and floods.”

Others are also catering for changes in emission levels.

Turnbull is not alone in proposing some radical scheme to destroy the Australian economy whilst catering for the climate alarmists and financial interests investing in a renewable energy sector. This comes with its heavy government subsidies. Both the leftist Australian Labor Party and a supposed conservative state government are also claiming to be working towards a “zero emissions by 2050” policy. The absolute chaos coming out of competing plans of Australians governments of every political persuasion to deal with “climate” are that diabolical that they deserve their separate article. Politicians cannot be prepared for the political and social revolutions which might come from these so-called “plans”.

Other Turnbull connections – Family and Finances

There is nothing to say that Malcolm Turnbull or his family financially benefitting from this push for renewables was in any way responsible for any of their decisions when in power. That said, the fact that anyone might financially benefit from a policy does not prevent an observer from pointing it out as a factor possibly affecting their enthusiasm for a policy if out of power. In fact a financial benefit might actually “colour” their view of its value to the community. Okay, that’s enough nuance about these Turnbull investments. Now to it.  That brings us to the case of Alex Turnbull, the son of Malcolm.

Since Malcolm Turnbull lost power, not only has Malcolm been speaking out constantly about his party and its current leader Morrison, so has the son, Alex Turnbull. Alex, a hedge fund operator based in Singapore (Keshik Capital) has been very bitter about the Liberal Party once it replaced his father as leader. He has spoken out, funded opposition candidates to run against that Liberal Party and so on. But he has also been very vocal about the lack of action on climate change and that the party’s lack of action necessitated opposition to it.

One thing that has not been mentioned recently, is that young Alex Turnbull was heavily invested in renewable energy, namely wind power and this was prominently reported back in 2017. It certainly was fortuitous for his company Infigen Energy that Malcolm Turnbull policies on renewable energy mandates had an effect on the share price just as would future mandates of that nature by ANY government. Similarly, withdrawals of mandates would adversely affect prices and profits. One further link might advise readers of the dynamics of these changes and what they do to investors and investments, but it must always be noted that all government decisions affect investment decisions and are meant to in many cases.

CNN competing with New York Times to spin their Trump/Russia 2.0 mistakes

Posted on by February 25, 2020

A hard-to-miss example of what media can do to spin political news. This time CNN in the USA.

The previous post noted how the New York Times started the latest Russia 2.0 off with its article of 20 February, with Russia unsurprisingly meddling in the 2020 election but allegedly on behalf of Donald Trump. It was immediately attacked as untrue and it became clear that there was no specific – printable – intelligence to that effect, with the National Security Adviser Robert O/Brien actually saying so.

However, with a highly-politicised media these days, nuanced responses to the pushback was not expected – or actually received.

The New York Times effort to sort-of walk these stories back was picked up quickly enough and clearly noted by a well-known  Twitter investigator/analyst known as Shem Horne

CNN has an example too and this is what we will highlight. Whilst NYT or CNN now, it could be any of the mainstream political media later. They have to be covered on a case by case basis but, importantly, always note risk when reading their “facts” in such a highly-politicised media age.

In the article dated 23 February, 20, CNN stated fairly clearly and unambiguously in its headline this following walk back of the previous Times and CNN stories about intelligence of Russia aiming to assist Trump in the 2020 election:-

US intelligence briefer appears to have overstated assessment of 2020 Russian interference
By Jeremy Diamond, Jake Tapper and Zachary Cohen, CNN.

The US “intelligence top election security official”  Shelby Pierson had been assessed to be “omitting important nuance during a briefing with lawmakers earlier this month…” when saying that  that “Russia is interfering in the 2020 election with the goal of helping President Donald Trump get reelected”. It followed this up by concluding, “But the US does not have evidence that Russia’s interference this cycle is aimed at reelecting Trump, the officials said”.

So much for the “correction” supposedly. But there was more and it is worth looking at how the rest of the article was presented.

Material to attack Trump on Russia anyway

The 3-year claims of Russia/Trump collusion finally seemed to be put to rest after the Mueller Report finished 2 plus years into the Trump administration. Not that this stopped it being revived – “without evidence”,  as left media like to say – and so it was with this article which piled on with heavy Trump /Russia collusion anyway:-

Russia interfered in the 2016 election with the aim of helping Trump get elected and damaging then-Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s campaign, the intelligence community concluded

Not mentioning that this conclusion was not of the full 17 agencies of intelligence community, but merely the opinion of three agencies only, two of which were led by John Brennan and James Clapper and the opinions were written by their hand-picked choices, some of those choices being dismissed from the intelligence community since then.

In a clear case of smear (again “without evidence”) is this:-

And while it is not inconceivable that Russia is once again looking to boost Trump’s candidacy, three national security officials said the US intelligence community does not yet have the evidence to make that assessment.

Note again the “once again”, presumptuously claiming previous “boosting of Trump” (highly contested) and the “not yet” as if it was there, just not found yet (it has got that intelligence assessment,  “MWD are in Iraq” feel about it).

For one-sided, no- balance treatment comes this long quote from Senator Chris Murphy from Connecticut:-

Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, argued Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that Russia would like to see Trump reelected “because he has been a gift to Russia.”

“He has essentially ceded the Middle East to Russian interests. He has accomplished more in the undermining of NATO than Russia has in the last 20 years,” Murphy said. “And he continues to effectively deny that they have an ongoing political operation here in the United States that, by and large, is intended to support Donald Trump and his allies.”

Again, it must be noted that there was no pushback in this supposed “news” article to counter alternative views to Murphy’s claims. For example, that far from being any real help to Russia, Trump has been its strongest opponent in years. Certainly since the start of the Obama administration, competing with it in Ukraine (lethal weaponry rather than the blankets given by Obama), sanctions increased, fighting it on oil pipelines etc. While the exact nature of “support” in the middle east is always questionable and maybe even changeable, far from “ceding” the middle east to Russia he has done the exact opposite, changing the dynamics of the ME from increasingly Iran-centred (Russia’s great ally) to reviving the old allies of the past (including Israel) to hold Iran at Bay (while better hindering Iran from its nuclear program). For the massive change from the Obama policy in the middle east just look to numerous in-depth studies.

Trumps hounding of NATO to fund itself properly is well known and “undermining” is just a nonsense word to describe the Trump policy. Finally, the alleged “ intended to support Donald Trump and his allies.” Starts the circle going back to the beginning as if no change to the reporting was made at all.

This is just a simple look at one published piece from a major cable channel in the USA. Such political work in media reports said to be “news” are increasingly common and I am not going to single out CNN as the only offender, it is not only in left media. It is just more information to put with the rest which should show to observers that any inherent “trust” of what used to be “All the News that’s Fit to Print” should be backed up with a mental qualification of “Verify too”.

United States is facing historic political change but it is not alone

Posted on by February 23, 2020

It is time for a rethink as to where we are all going in the light of the United States melt down over the course of the four years leading up to this 2020 presidential election campaign. It is more important than ever right now because the icons of the American political idea seem to be in serious danger and at risk of collapse. The reckoning will probably come on election day, 3 November, 2020. That might be all the time we have left.

In countries such as Australia and the Brexit-facing United Kingdom, economic and social self-harm is reaching peak stupidity and linked to a fracturing of the people into increasingly irreconcilable groups, a phenomenon seen elsewhere in the west. In the foreseeable future, in any serious confrontation, the chances are that Australia and others also will be changed forever.

Flash point: the US and dangerous nature of this internal turmoil

The most important failures are in the US right now, but these also pose huge, flow-on dangers to the rest of the western world. In the nearly 250 year history of the most famous constitutional republic the world has, apart from the Civil War never before has its very structure, its foundational building blocks been under such internal attack or seemed so vulnerable as it does right now.

This is why the attention of the world should be firmly directed towards the USA and to how the attacks on it affect its example to lovers of freedom everywhere. We must also look towards our own countries in the face of inevitable turning of those sinister forces against us too. As always, it is the People facing up to forces which would take away our freedoms, not only of personal liberty to act freely if not harming others, but of our liberty in speech, religion and choice of beliefs. The danger of a potentially tyrannical future has always been on the minds of the great American thinkers from the earliest days, but the potential collapse in confidence of the people to believe in the American ideal is new, but real for all that.

It is not Trump this time and then back to a supposed “normal” This could be the new Normal

This day, this minute, the self-admitted parallel government acting at variance to the will of the people as expressed in voting, is pre-emptively acting in a way which might subvert the free exercise of that vote in late 2020. It was long claimed to be the work of Russia but looking to internal forces and actors is more realistic.

If any proof of that was wanted, the supposedly new Russia 3.0, claiming that Russia was interfering in the US election campaign to assist Donald Trump, began with a deliberately misleading and clumsy set of attacks from the usual suspects. A report of an intelligence briefing about Russian interference had seen falsely altered details to harm Trump, instantly promoted breathlessly by the political media enablers. Starting in a NYT article, headlined:

Lawmakers Are Warned That Russia Is Meddling to Re-elect Trump

Rep. Devin Nunes of California, a close Trump ally, told the President about the election meddling briefing afterward, according to a person familiar with the matter.

This was later angrily denied by Nunes who countered with a law suit against the media outlet which first published it.

Probably because the planted Russia 3.0 “scandal” was being quickly demolished as false or a gross exaggeration, the political media also came out with the idea that the unwanted Democrat front runner Bernie Sanders was another target for Russia. While Sanders might seem to be a person Russia could live with, there was zero proof that he was targeted either. It did, however, come at a most convenient time for the political class and media. For such a Democrat party and political media, their in-truth unwanted Bernie Sanders having huge momentum leading up to the imminent Las Vegas caucus was terrible timing. Especially as Michael Bloomberg had crashed and burned during the Democrat debate a night beforehand.

Sanders himself called out the precise timing, but the media and the political class soon got onto the “Russia wants Bernie to assist Trump in having a weak opponent”  narrative. However, that in itself reminded political players of the media pushing of Trump in 2015/16 in the hope of Hillary Clinton having a supposedly weak opponent.

The future

The insidiousness of this media smear, the partial success of the so-called  Deep State actors undermining of the American political system, is shown in world-wide response to the original claim. In the US mainstream or legacy media – especially the complicit media – the narrative has nothing to do with nuance, nothing to do with actually reporting. It hasn’t got anything to do with Journalism either. The only message, the only headline, the only takeaway is “Russians interfering to help Trump” – and maybe to help Bernie Sanders too. In Britain and Australia too it’s the same narrative. The fact that there is nothing in hard intelligence to say so, nothing to mention that the spokesperson doing the briefing got hit with plenty of blow back to which she had no response.

From a leading CNN media player came this walk-back:-

So, it’s a (typical) case of go with the damaging story that fits the desired narrative. It can be walked back later.

Late addition came a day later through Catherine Herridge of CBS News. The National Security Advisor to the President, Robert O’Brien – who has access to everything – says it all (to back up Tapper for once) “I haven’t seen any intelligence to support the reports that were leaked out.”

Political Media getting it wrong on Trump impeachment: an Australian case study

Posted on by February 11, 2020

The Australian political media isn’t any different from political media elsewhere in the west. Leaning left or right in opinion journalism has been the norm for decades. Only the blurring of fact and opinion is relatively new, as is the reluctance of editors to cut it out. An earlier case study was based on local political issues, but for Australia it seems that Donald Trump can be negatively misinterpreted by journalists, whereas Barrack Obama whilst also narrowly covered in his day, nearly always positively in his case. Even those Australian journalists who live in America as “Washington Correspondents” of Australian media outlets have flawed coverage at times.

Troy Bramston is a well-known Australian journalist, a former aide to a Labor Party PM Kevin Rudd over 10 years ago, but seemingly a fair journalist when he took up writing for the Murdoch paper The Australian. He has interviewed people from all over the political spectrum, written well-received books on political figures and been a commentator on many TV politics shows without standing out as a hardline partisan. He is not considered a hack by any means.

Until the Trump impeachment, that is, when a Bramston article hit the pages of the Australian newspaper and brought criticism. This article had many questionable arguments/statements and while it is behind a paywall, I will try and analyse a fair reading of it.

From the article:-

Despite being impeached by the US House of Representatives, and the case for his removal from ­office having been met based on evidence and testimony, Donald Trump will be acquitted by the Senate and run for re-election as president in November.

The case for his removal from ­office having been met? Hardly. There is room for unbiased observers to come to different opinion as to how evidence can be interpreted, but there should be a duty imposed upon journalists to take account of what the actual evidence was – and, in this case, especially, how it was taken and what was not taken.

Based on whose ”evidence” and “testimony”? Only the House Democrats called witnesses, the Republicans being denied their witnesses. The defence (President Trump) was not allowed even to be represented or to call or to cross examine any witnesses. All such restrictions were the opposite of what was allowed to Bill Clinton at his impeachment.

the transcript of Trump’s phone call …shows quite clearly that he wanted Ukraine to open an investigation into former US vice-president Joe Biden and Biden’s son Hunter… Trump withheld $US391m in military aid to Ukraine as a quid pro quo. This was an abuse of power and it has been confirmed by his closest aides,

It is quite clear from the transcript of the actual conversation that the investigation was of the interference in the 2016 US election (1st paragraph p3 of the transcript) and that the investigation of Ukraine corruption, present all through the conversation by both men was clearly aimed at Burisma, the Hunter Biden company. It was also related to the actions of Joe Biden in pressuring the Ukraine to dismiss the man who was leading the investigation into the company or else lose one Billion dollars in US aid. (pages 3 & 4 of transcript)

As for the quid pro quo, no direct evidence is available anywhere to show that withheld aid was part of a quid pro quo at all. All the direct evidence says it wasn’t. 

The fact of aid being withheld wasn’t even known to the Ukrainians at the time of the call and while nothing was done by the Ukrainians, the funds were released  before the leaks about the call were even made known. There was no meeting, no investigation, no announcements. On top of that, not only Trump, but also the Ukrainian president repeatedly said there was no pressure in the call.

An abuse of power and it has been confirmed by his closest aides? No, not “his” aides at all. Every so-called “aide” witness was hostile to him and the Trump chief of staff Mick Mulvaney in his “Get Over it” press conference, was referencing “politics in foreign policy” (a truism if ever there was one). Talking about withholding aid money to have some or other action to be done by a foreign country was common but he stressed that this investigation was about interference in the 2016 US election was a policy matter of the administration, a perfectly legal matter. The vital parts of the press conference are here.

   

Of the witnesses allowed by the Democrats, all but one had their evidence on the call as total hearsay. The one witness who did hear the call, Lt Colonel Vindman, could not and did not claim any specific words of such intent at all, but talked about an impression that it was wrong. Highlighted parts of his testimony can be seen here.  

Yet Alan Dershowitz, Trump’s lawyer, told the Senate pressuring Ukraine was not illegal or impeachable if the President thought it would help his re-election.

He called it “absurd and dangerous” , This was way over the top. Bramston seems to fail to mention or account for the context of his words, which clearly show Bramston to be wrong. Perhaps he didn’t hear the words himself, but the reader can hear (from 2.00).

many polls show that most voters think he did abuse his power and obstruct congress — the two articles of impeachment — and should be removed from office.

As if that, even if true, was a justification for this supreme action against a president! Many don’t show that and the Trump popularity increased all through the impeachment process..

The majority vote not to call witnesses — as the Senate did in the impeachment trials of Andrew Johnson (1868) and Bill Clinton (1998) — was a disgrace

This is one of the most egregious errors of the whole work, not least because Bramston claims it was a “disgrace”, adding scorn to his mistaken opinion. There was a well-argued constitutional issues about the calling of witnesses by both the House and the Senate and Bramston has missed them completely. They have been well-publicised and were even argued publicly by the brilliant Deputy Counsel for Trump, Patrick Philbin, at the Senate impeachment trial.

Remember these facts: The Democrats, at least nominally under the direction of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, bypassed the constitutional provisions relating to the creation of an impeachment hearing and did note authorise an impeachment investigation/enquiry by a vote of the whole House. She bypassed the Judiciary Committee which had historically controlled impeachment enquiries and she merely announced an Impeachment Investigation at a press conference. Thus they did not give themselves true subpoena power and, rather than test their faux “subpoenas – in reality “demand letters” – refused to call those witnesses who were prepared to challenge in court their appearance before the Intelligence committee or were temporarily forbidden to testify on the basis of presidential privilege (which was also challengeable in court if the House had wished/dared to do so).

The Democrats were attempting to changer the historic impeachment and not in any way following tradition. In previous impeachments there had been witnesses called in the Senate but they had all been called in the House impeachment enquiry.

The whole legal and political issues of “witnesses” can be reviewed in this link (and it includes Patrick Philbin’s clear explanation of the law).  It was always available to Troy Bramston or anyone else to view.

General criticisms (political) included

pledged to eliminate debt but it has increased…promised to balance the budget…promises to repeal the Affordable Care Act…build a border wall

Had Troy not seen the wall being built, the trouble Trump had with organised congressional opposition? So obvious I am not going to bother mentioning it further. As for matters which need Congress to approve, as a  keen reader and supposed expert on the USA Troy well knows about the US House and money bills or budgets, knows about the US Senate where they need  a vote of 60 Senators to stop a filibuster and push through any legislation which is opposed. And “opposition” has a new meaning with US Democrats and Trump.

I have spent probably too much time on this, but as I had respect for Troy Bramston as an even handed journalist, though left-leaning, it was a real shock to see an article like this with so many factual errors or, as still might be the case, errors due to lack of research.

One certain thing is that nobody, not in America or Australia or anywhere else can ever allow him or herself to rely on the word of opinion journalists and hardly ever to supposed reports of fact. Other media, independent media, new media. All must be observed and checked against facts. We are approaching a critical time in the west. The USA is under a challenge so serious that the US election of November 2020 will be a turning point, one way or the other. Journalism must fight to tell the truth, fight for true analysis, for full analysis.