Archive for 2020

CHICOM HOUSE ORGAN GLOBAL TIMES: New Chinese study indicates novel coronavirus did not originate in Huanan seafood market.

Flashback: Did coronavirus originate in Chinese government laboratory? Scientists believe killer disease may have begun in research facility 300 yards from Wuhan wet fish market.

In response to the above London Daily Mail headline, Bari Weiss of the New York Times asks: “So…@zerohedge was right?”

As this ZDNet article from February 3rd notes: ZeroHedge banned from Twitter over coronavirus bioweapon claims.

Will Twitter ban Tom Cotton also? Republican senator suggests ‘worse than Chernobyl’ coronavirus could’ve come from Chinese ‘superlaboratory.’

MONICA SHOWALTER: “ALI WATKINS, IT SEEMS, WASN’T THE ONLY ONE.” More sleeping with sources in the swamp: Trump-hating DIA analyst pleads guilty to leaks to honeytrap reporter. “It’s apparently widespread practice in the mainstream media. . . . The Times, for one piously characterizes this whole sorry picture is an issue about the importance of protecting ‘whistleblowers,’ (sound familiar?), the First Amendment, and the press’s right to do its job. The rest of us see lovebird honeytrap journalism becoming more and more the norm as none of these reporters ends up seriously punished. Apparently, the managers up at the top of these organizations see nothing wrong with this news standard other than a little bit of egg on their faces, raising questions as to whether they are now hiring these comely women for just this purpose.”

REMINDER: A Bernie Bro Shot Steve Scalise. And was trying to massacre the entire Republican congressional leadership.

BERNIE HITS JACKPOT IN NEVADA: “It should be an interesting four years. As for me, I look forward to the ‘Draft Hillary’ movement preceding the Democratic convention,” Jon Gabriel writes at Ricochet.

THE CANDIDATES COMPARED: Bernie Sanders may be a disaster for the Democratic Party.  But it isn’t clear that the other candidates are preferable on the crucial issues.  For example, Sander proposes to cut the number of people incarcerated at both the federal and state level by a whopping 50%.  Alas, that’s absurdly unrealistic.  But Pete Buttigieg has made the same proposal.

Since some people have the idea that Buttigieg is a moderate, my friend Barry Latzer’s discussion of the candidate’s criminal justice proposals may be worth a look.

(My own thoughts on crime—and in particular the racial aspect of it—are here.)

NAILED IT, MARKOS:

THE LARGELY FORGOTTEN BOMBARDMENT OF ELLWOOD: On this day in 1942, less than three months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, a Japanese submarine bombarded an oil field near Santa Barbara. Panic ensued.

It’s not surprising that Californians were on edge. In the weeks following Pearl Harbor, a number of Japanese submarines had been patrolling the American West Coast. They had sunk two merchant ships and damaged several more. Although the submarines had left the area, everyone knew they could come back.

In February at least one of them did. The 365-foot long I-17 submarine with a crew of 101 was commanded by Commander Kozo Nishino. Under orders from his superiors, Nishino had his men fire repeatedly. Mercifully, little damage was done. A derrick and pump house were destroyed, but it could have been much worse.

Santa Barbarans had no way of knowing what would come next. Fearing the attack was a prelude to an invasion, hundreds fled.

Some reported that they had seen individuals signaling the submarine (or several submarines) from the shore. This apparently false information caused pressure for the internment of Japanese Americans to mount. But such is war—false information is the norm, not the exception.

The panic didn’t end there. On the next night came the so-called Battle of Los Angeles—an epic false alarm in which a weather balloon was possibly mistaken for an air attack.

AT AMAZON, save on Emergency Foodstuffs.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): People have asked me what I think about MREs, freeze-dried food, etc. My thoughts: If you expect just to be hunkered down at home for a while, just stock up on regular food that will keep: Canned goods, pasta, dry beans and rice, even frozen foods unless you expect an immediate power outage when things go bad. (Which in the case of a coronavirus quarantine, what everyone’s worrying about now, is unlikely).

MREs are mostly for when you may have to travel light and want to be able to eat without cooking — or for if you worry that you may not be able to cook because, say, your house is knocked down by an earthquake. (Or if you think you might be too sick or shocked to cook, I guess). The chief virtue of freeze-dried food is that it keeps for many years, so once you’ve got it you’re covered for quite a while. Also you can get freeze-dried things that will augment whatever other food you have — fruit, vegetables, other things that don’t keep well in ordinary form. You might also want to stockpile things like canned bacon (it’s bacon!) and coffee and other stuff that might help augment whatever food you might be able to come by in bad times. Me, I keep a mix of stuff. I also keep some MREs, canned water, and other short-term essentials (blankets, clothing, medicine) in a shed outside that’s likely to be accessible in the event of an earthquake or similar disaster.

Also, if you’re stocking up, don’t forget about prescription meds — try to get a 90-day supply, which isn’t a bad idea anyway as supply chains from China, which affect a lot of drugs, may be interrupted — as well as nonprescription meds, toothpaste, toilet paper, paper towels, dish and laundry detergent, etc.

ANOTHER UPDATE: People in the comments are talking about water. Probably not an issue in a quarantine situation, but you might want a water filter, or LifeStraws, or a Water Bob. (Bumped).

PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS: Bernie Sanders Again Links Low Wages With Immigration.

At the Chamber of Commerce event in Washington, Mr. Sanders said in response to a reporter’s question, “You’ve got to be careful about defining the word, ‘immigrants.’”

The question is whether there should be “a completely open border, so that anybody can come into the United States of America,” the senator said. “If that were to happen, which I strongly disagree with, there is no question in my mind that that would substantially lower wages in this country.”

Mr. Sanders voted against an immigration overhaul bill in 2007. Since then, the issue has gained support among Democrats, who see Hispanics as a fast-growing voting bloc and a key part of President Obama’s coalition. The topic is one of the few areas where Democrats can position themselves to Mr. Sanders’s left.

“I don’t think there’s any presidential candidate, none, who thinks we should open up the borders,” Mr. Sanders said, adding that the percentages of black and Hispanic people searching for work would only become worse in that case.

That’s from the New York Times in 2015. Fast-forward to the Times this past November: Bernie Sanders Wants to ‘Break Up’ ICE. “Sanders on Thursday called for ending virtually all of the Trump administration’s immigration policies and creating a ‘swift, fair pathway to citizenship’ for undocumented immigrants, including by allowing people who have been in the United States illegally for five years to stay without the risk of deportation.”

FASCISM IS ALWAYS DESCENDING ON TRUMP, YET LANDING ON TRUDEAU: Justin Trudeau’s man crush on Fidel.

Mr. Castro’s people loved him so much that nearly 20 per cent of the population tried to escape, taking off across the ocean in leaky homemade boats. Tens of thousands of them never made it. (The most complete account of the regime’s victims can be found at the Cuba Archive’s Truth and Memory Project.)

It’s hard to single out the worst atrocity committed by the Castro regime. One might surely be the execution of 166 Cubans back in 1966. Before they died, their bodies were drained of blood – an average of seven pints a person. The blood was sold for $50 a pint to Communist Vietnam, in order to support the Viet Cong aggression and gain hard currency for Cuba. After the victims were exsanguinated, their limp bodies were carried off to the firing squad.

Where did Justin Trudeau get his man crush on Fidel? Clearly he inherited it from his dad. Pierre Trudeau had a certain fondness for socialist dictators, of whom Fidel Castro was just one. He was an honorary pallbearer at Pierre’s funeral, which also marked a turning point in Justin’s life. His affecting tribute to his father was his first adult appearance on the public stage.

Like many other left-wing strongmen, Fidel was beloved of public intellectuals. Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre were among his early acolytes. They lionized him as a freedom fighter against American imperialism (but were eventually repelled by his human rights abuses.) This alone has been enough to turn Fidel into a folk hero – especially in Canada, where there’s plenty of sympathy for a small nation struggling to survive in the shadow of a big, bad cultural and economic oppressor.

Related: Bernie Sanders: ‘Very Excited When Fidel Castro Made the Revolution in Cuba.’

FEELIN’ THE BERN IN NEVADA: So at what point does the political establishment realize that it’s not a coincidence that the most popular figures in each of the major parties are the ones the establishment most obviously can’t stand, and start making some adjustments?