16	As I See It - World
	This page has been set up to comment on world affairs, notably those influenced by POTUS Donald Trump. It also includes short comments on other matters. Donald Trump's part in the Coronavirus pandemic. - see here! Solo recital from Milan. Andrea Bocelli. Superb! Boris Johnson after Covid-19 Frank Taylor on "gas" prices in USA "Bidenflation" a fake GOP claim.

	See here re charges against trump
FBI search of Mar-a-Lago	The Federal Bureau of Investigation executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago, the residence of former U.S. president Donald Trump in Palm Beach, Florida, on August 8, 2022. This was perfectly legal, despite Trumpster and Trump rantings, and was NOT initiated by the White House. He took and held documents illegally and claimed he had returned all.
	The "special master" he has argued for is a delaying tactic, intended to push any decision up to or beyond the mid terms.

This is war, plain and simple.	Warmonger Putin and Ukraine.
	Vladimir Putin has broken International Law in my opinion by "recognising" two parts of Ukraine where he has been supporting who are basically insurgents fighting against the legitimate forces of a separate country. His "peacekeeping" claims are spurious and will be shown to be if his troops begin to expand the areas held by his separatist stooges to the borders of the two regions he claims to have "recognised".
Alleged NATO threat.	His claims that NATO was forcing the issue and a threat to Russian security is also at least questionable. Ex Soviet countries have opted to join NATO partly because of the way Russia has behaved in the past. Putin has demonstrably been behaving in the same way.
Special military operation. What a load of rubbish. It's war Putin. Withdraw your war machine now.	Spetsial'naya voyennaya operatsiya. Kakaya kucha musora. Eto voyna Putin. Uberite svoyu voyennuyu mashinu seychas zhe.
You are bombing civilians and non military areas. Even the Babi Yar memorial.	Vy bombite mirnykh zhiteley i nevoyennyye rayony. Dazhe memorial Babiy Yar.

State of the Union.

Filibuster - Beneficial or just plain stupid AND Unconstitutional!

Yet again, we are debating the filibuster. The majority party, which does not have the supermajority—60 votes—it needs to legislate, argues that the filibuster impedes majority rule and precludes effective legislation, while the minority party argues that the filibuster promotes bipartisanship and avoids hasty decision-making. When the parties reverse their relative positions in the Senate, their arguments predictably reverse as well.

These debates ignore the most important argument of all: all of this was considered by the framers in drafting the U.S. Constitution, and the Constitution comes down squarely on one side of the issue. The Constitution is governed by the principle of majority rule. The filibuster—which appears nowhere in the Constitution—violates that principle. Unfortunately, only the U.S. Senate, and not the courts, can correct that.

The Filibuster "supermajority" is unconstitutional. As long as the filibuster is intact, Senate Republicans could keep the Senate in gridlock, and then run in the 2022 midterms on Democrats’ failure to get anything done. by Robert Reich senate-democrats-can-and-must-abolish-filibuster-now Senema and Manchin are just plain stupid. Throwing an opportunity to get things done to the Trumpian GOP at Mid-Term. Crazy!

Analysis of his actions	Donald John Trump - The Big Lie.
My comment re Facebook etc ban on EX President Trump. Liz Cheney is RIGHT about him! He is a deluded loser.	I take this from the entry below. Donald J Trump is a total disgrace and an embarrassment to our Country. He must never again be allowed to destroy and decimate our Electoral Process. He began months before the election by claiming repeatedly, lying "The only way we could lose the election is by election fraud." He followed this up by lying "absentee postal voting is open to fraudulent entry of thousands of votes" before a single vote had been cast, despite the fact that it is the method already entirely used with NO evidence of fraud in several stares. After the election he ranted on, lying about thousands of votes being "found" after the polls had closed.
Trump's comment in full here. His reference to "Free Speech" refers to his repeated LIES.	Trump responded to the board's ruling, saying in a statement, "What Facebook, Twitter, and Google have done is a total disgrace and an embarrassment to our Country. Free Speech has been taken away from the President of the United States because the Radical Left Lunatics are afraid of the truth, but the truth will come out anyway, bigger and stronger than ever before. The People of our Country will not stand for it! These corrupt social media companies must pay a political price, and must never again be allowed to destroy and decimate our Electoral Process."

Russia	Building up troops etc on the Ukraine border and neglecting Navalny.
China	Threatening and sanctioning anyone who criticises their policy towards minorities who have different views to those of the CCP. There is no way that the actions are acceptable. They are also breaking agreements in Hong Kong and claiming vast areas of sea they are not entitled to. Threats against Taiwan are also unacceptable.

Astra-Zeneca vaccine - an "Andrew Wakefield" moment?

The health minister of Canada’s most populous province says Ontario seniors won’t receive the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine since "there’s limited data on its effectiveness in older populations." That is simply NOT true. Since seniors in UK got the vaccine the infection rates and fatalities have collapsed here to very low levels. Also the "blood clots" argument in Europe is without foundation. The clot rates in vaccinated people are virtually identical - in fact marginally less in those vaccinated. The UK has used more of it than anywhere else and has not seen any adverse data for the vaccine.

USA S. Border situation. GOP lies are the main cause!

Trumpsters are blaming this on Biden, but they ran down border infrastructure in favour of "the wall" and they are repeating the lie that Biden has "opened the border" over and over again. It is hardly surprising that, as the border is NOT open and that migrants have heard the Republican lies, more migrants are arriving at the border and are being held up there.

https://www.salon.com/2021/02/12/in-2021-alone-gop-introduces-100-voter-suppression-bills-in-28-states_partner/

The Jan 6th insurrection. This was instigated by previous deranged rhetoric and finally triggered on that day by Trump Junior, Giuliani and Trump himself. Even McConnell accepts this (after engineering the timing of the impeachment so he could vote against it!)

Trump legacy.	Why have so many Americans fallen for the crazy rhetoric of sore loser Donald? The way he and others caused the incident at the Capitol shows, sadly how his deranged rantings have been accepted. The FBI report of "armed protests" to be set up at all the state Capitols shows the utter craziness he has encouraged. To carry guns to ANY protest is a crazy idea. Will Trump speak out against it? Somehow I doubt it.
Trump's deranged comments on the election.	Firstly his comment that "The only way we could lose the election is by election fraud". In a free voting democracy people can vote against ANY candidate they feel has lost their support. That applies to you, Donald John Trump!
	Secondly his argument that voting by post is open to fraudulent votes. This argument fails as several states already use it and have had hardly any issues.
His argument that results should be known on election day or shortly thereafter.	"On election day we were winning, but votes were found and cut down or wiped out our lead". "Late votes were added and votes modified by election machines".  Counting of paper based votes was not begun till after polls closed and takes longer. The USPS was not working as well as it should to deliver date stamped postal votes. The same applies to overseas military votes.
His request that Georgia "find more votes"	Georgia votes were counted THREE times, yet he still called them demanding they find over 11,000 votes for him and threatening to prosecute if they didn't. TOTAL DISGRACE!
Press charges or apply the 14th amendment - see section 3	Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

The disease.   Early evidence? China delayed warning by 6 days.	There was no natural immunity to this disease as the virus is completely new. It is one of the coronavirus group which includes Influenza. Initially there was no understanding of the virulence, the incubation period or of its ability to survive outside a host and the duration of survival if any. The fact that virulence was an unknown factor led to the initial lockdown un the Hubei province of China and particularly in Wuhan. With hindsight, this should have included TOTAL restriction of air travel from there or at least quarantining any persons travelling from there for the incubation period of 14 days once this became known. The rigid lockdown in China appears to have eliminated the virus in the environment. Also in New Zealand the blocking of entry to the country without quarantine has had the same result.
Tolerance of different age groups to the virus.	Testing for the infection itself was possible and it became evident that different levels of illness was present in individuals and in age groups. It also seemed possible that some people were asymptomatic, but at the same time carriers of the disease. Accurate testing for these individuals is still not widely available if at all. This is VITAL for ongoing strategy, not as total tests, but as tests per 100,000 of a population. Donald Trump doesn't seem to know the difference!
What to do next? FIND OUT who has had the virus and act accordingly. A point to consider as that there are 3 virus strains according to Cambridge research. ( see next panel)	The clearest strategy is to test the bulk of the population to find out how many have been affected with a mild case, or without showing symptoms. Several sources in the USA are advocating lifting isolation without this evidence, but claiming there is already a high enough number infected with mild or asymptomatic cases. VERY DANGEROUS! Children and younger age groups appear to be much less affected. Testing all children for antibody and/or antigen presence would seem a good idea. Similarly for teachers, support staff and childcare personnel. If they prove to have had the disease, then schooling could resume (preferably without the school run though) Similarly test the up to 20 or 30 age groups next, and again if the majority (over 90%) have had it, consider releasing them from the lockdowns. This could then be carried on to other age groups.
The different strains. Does that mean different vaccines or tests? New Scientist.	The Cambridge Study. The team used data from virus genomes sampled from across the world between 24 December 2019 and 4 March 2020. The research revealed three distinct “variants” of COVID-19, consisting of clusters of closely related lineages, which they label ‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘C’.

Boris.	It seems to me that once he realised that his symptoms were not clearing he should have hospitalised earlier and taken an MRI scan. It lost time. I wish him all the best for a rapid recovery, but he must NOT overdo it.
UK Lockdown	This has to be done more thoroughly. Too many absolute plonkers are flouting it too often. The rates are coming down, but those breaking social distancing are undermining it. A medical centre is opening on the Middleton TESCO EXPRESS car park, less than 2 miles from me.
Wuhan success.	The city of Wuhan and the region were first to be infected and first to be locked down. China has been far more ruthless in lockdown than any Western country, including the UK where a number of idiots are flouting it. It is now clear, as I said, that the virus CANNOT survive where its host population is absent. We MUST do the lockdown better. To hit 100 % for about 2 weeks should kill off the virus almost totally.

WHO on the pandemic.

What was said in China in early January.

Corona virus (Covid-19) outbreak.

This would appear to have originated, as in the case of HIV, from the consumption of wild animals, in this case Pangolins. China has an unfortunate reputation for eating virtually anything, sourced from illegal markets, as in Wuhan. This market, if indeed it was illegal, should have been closed down. This epidemic is the result of lax authorities not taking action. China has since banned such markets - no doubt driving some of it underground. The severe restrictions in Wuhan appear to have worked.

David Sponheim of the ATP channel has begun describing this as a "bioweapon", which is a crazy idea. He says the images of deserted Wuhan are faked and the new hospitals were just empty shells or something even more sinister. I'm now unable to comment in his channel thanks to a troll there called "Jarjardinks" (and a lot of similar names!) who attacked me last night (March 14th). He said I attack ATP. Well when someone rants on about totally FALSE "Conspiracy theory" bullshit, much of it dangerous, they deserve to be taken to task.

This situation is worsened by the long incubation period this has without symptoms and the apparent mutation which allows infection transfer. Extensive air travel is another factor. How long does the virus persist outside a host person? It could affect planes for a considerable period.

Trump strikes again!

The World Trade Organization is set to plunge into the biggest crisis in its 25-year history later this week as the climax to a long-running and bitter dispute means the Geneva-based body will cease to be able to settle disputes between its member states.

Unless Donald Trump backs off at the last minute and agrees to a peace plan, Washington’s protracted battle to safeguard US sovereignty will lead to the neutering of the WTO’s ability to police global trade.

This could affect UK trade negotiating with the EU next year.

However, hopes are fading that the US will agree to a blueprint drawn up by a senior diplomat in Geneva that would keep the WTO’s appellate body – the ultimate arbiter of trade disputes – operating beyond the 11 December deadline.

Note the map shows areas where Kurds are the ethnic majority. These are the ones (in Syria and Iraq) the Kurds fought to clear DAESH. Erdouan wants to create a "safe zone" (In an area which was ALREADY quiet) in order to return millions of Syrians to Syria. The problem is, these Syrians are NOT Kurds, they are Arabs. What he is proposing is effectively Ethnic Cleansing. This is what Dozy Donald has unleashed. The withdrawal is all to do with a promise he made to his electorate last time round and to Hell with the consequences!

The Turkish move has already displaced 100,000 Kurds into a different area where they won't be popular and will create yet more problems in Syria.

Study the second map. UK paid late, but in full. What did the USA do?

"Chemtrails" are totally fake news. There are, and have been some very small experiments, but to suggest anything else on a widespread scale is utter bolony

"Vaxxers" are totally misled by Andrew Wakefield, Robert Kennedy and others. There is NO proved link to autism (MMR) or to cancer (HPV). Both MMR and HPV vaccines are major successes, and scare tactics on social media are causing both Mumps and Measles cases to rise considerably.

Another shooting tragedy in Texas and an attack after a "football" game show yet again the dangers of having firearms too freely available. There have been over 300 such attacks this year! To claim more guns are needed is a ludicrous argument!

Deinstitutionalization is a government policy that moved mental health patients out of state-run "insane asylums" into federally funded community mental health centers. It began in the 1960s as a way to improve treatment of the mentally ill while also cutting government budgets.

JsaP: Between 1955 and 1994, roughly 487,000 mentally ill patients were discharged from state hospitals JsaP: More than 300,000 are in jails and prisons. Sixteen percent of all inmates are severely mentally ill

Page created October 13th 2019 Most recent edit March 12th 2022.