Elections are never far away from our mind in this democratic Republic of ours that Thank God, still holds elections rather regularly, and we all know that a major presidential election is coming up this fall … without fail.
And of course, the message from all the fearful Media harpies is simple: “We all must vote by mail—or we die.”
Apparently, there is really no other safe choice in the minds of the scared shitless. As if they don’t go out to shop and buy food at the small bodegas and the super big supermarkets alike…
But there is so much fear, especially for minority and young voters, that we are likely to lose all of them through the switch to all-mail voting —- unless our broken absentee ballot system is fixed.
However, what the “Go Postal” crowd doesn’t tell you is the truth that looks a little bit asymmetrical to their false narrative because back in 2016, more than 512,696 mail-in ballots (over half a million) were simply rejected, and not even counted whatsoever.
And that is an official count, from the federal Elections Assistance Commission (EAC) that describes many other such wasted ballots because of the absentee Mail-In system of balloting.
And that is just the tip of the “ballotberg” of uncounted mail-in votes, bease much like an iceberg, we only see the tip of it, and the remaining 90% of the giant problem remains hidden under the surface of the water. Cue in a scientific study by MIT on electoral reforms, that puts the “losing votes by mail” total loss amongst all the mail-in votes at a breathtaking 22% of all the mailed-in ballots…
Imagine that…
It follows that if we move all of our systems to an approximate 80% to be done via mail-in ballots — upward of 25 million people will lose their vote.
And that is not just anyone’s mail-in ballots that will be dumped in the electoral trashcan, but it shall be revealed that these ballots that are overwhelmingly junked — are the very ballots mailed by the poorer, the younger, and by the non-white Americans, who need their voices to be heard more than anyone else’s.
Because these are the people amongst our brethren, who suffer the brunt of poverty and underrepresentation, more than anyone else.
Now, many people attempt to fix this, such as Senator Amy Klobuchar who has proposed a new bill tahat initially takes some tentative baby steps towards expanding vote-by-mail protection — yet in all reality, it will barely bite into the 22% loss of mail-in-ballot votes, especially amongst the ethnic minorities and the poorest segment of Citizens of this country.
Here is Columbia Law professor Barbara Arnwine, founder of the Transformative Justice Coalition, who says, that a move to mail-in voting is: “really, really dangerous to the Black & brown vote, since millions of low-income voters who rarely vote by absentee ballots, will now have to fill-out multi-step forms, for the first time in their lives, which in the face of things, will lead to disaster.”
Indeed, “vote-by-mail” is not as simple as “pick and lick” whereby the Citizen can start by picking candidates and then simply licking the envelope and placing it in his mailbox…
Eight states, including the swing states of Wisconsin, North Carolina and Klobuchar’s Minnesota, require mail-in voters to have the ballot signed by a witness. The required double-verification is a nightmare —- as it requires breaking the social distancing lock-down, and is also a serious invitation to ballot challenges, after the fact…
Three states, including swing state Missouri, require the ballot to be notarized. And to the extremis, the State of Alabama requires a notary or two witnesses.
All but six states “verify” your signature against your registration signature. Partisan officials decide if there is a “match.” No less than 141,000 ballots were rejected as “unmatched” in 2016.
Why?
They were rejected in order to prevent vote fraud, such as someone stealing your ballot and voting in your name — a thing that happens far too often already…
Even President Trump warned us by saying this: “Mail ballots are very dangerous for this country, because of cheaters.”
Anyway enough about “Elections in The Age Of The Plague” and let us now talk about the current Plague itself…
So, here are some major points about the progress of the Wuhan Coronavirus Pandemic that threatens to scupper the United States economy, and the World’s total balance. Indeed as of now — the United States health Care system has now completed 4.18 million Coronavirus tests, and that figure represents far more than France, the United Kingdom, South Korea, Japan, Singapore, Austria, Australia, India, Sweden and Canada combined.
Please let that sink in for a moment, and forget what the news harpies are blabbering about.
Aside from that, within the United States — the Wuhan CoronaVirus testing is further expanding at a rapid clip.
So now, we have made lots of progress on two out of the three pillars of combating this disease, namely on the provision of protective gear such as masks and also on tracing the contact lists of those infected and infectious…
The face masks went from a discussion of their merits and thew different kinds of N95 types to the simpler hospital patient masks, VS the masks that need to be worn by Nurses & Doctor’s, and even the Orderlies’ and Support Health Personnel masks, to the State of Masks today being mandatory to be worn in public in San Francisco and all cities of East bay, all the way to Seattle, New Orleans, New York and also several other Cities and whole States like the State of Washington.
As for tracing — it went from a hodgepodge of approaches to an API supported by both Google and Apple that tracks easily and in an obvious Orwellian way reminiscent of 1984, to today’s nasty state of affairs as far as Liberty s concerned.
Yet, on the third pillar of testing — we are a little bit behind the curve and certainly behind the Eight Ball.
Because it is by now well understood that the virus is transmittable for several days before the appearance of symptoms, and for very many of us, it is also transmittable for a few days after the 14 days of self isolation and well after the cure of most of us…
That simply means for the businesses that need to be able to reopen without immediately heading back into a steep infection curve that would once again overwhelm hospital capacity, and our limited Intensive Care units — we must ramp up the testing facility and our homemade testing capacity quite rapidly & dramatically within a target of several millions (teens) of *daily* tests that will give results instantly in a Mobile App of most smart phones type of scenario…
And of course, ideally people could test themselves at home and/or at work several times a week with results given in minutes, much like Diabetics do today, several times per day or per week…
Is that just crazy or can we get there?
Indeed, it is not just Crazy Talking of an Innovation Master, but it is the coming reality, mainly because the required technology already exists.
And yes, we just need to approve it and manufacture it at scale.
Here are just two examples of machines, the MicrosensDx and the Accula. There are many more startups and established companies that have tests and there are fascinating proposals for super high throughput cheap testing.
We need to take three steps right now: (1) approve lots of these test immediately and (2) manufacture at scale and (3) monitor ongoing results. Here is how to accomplish this
Step 1: Approval
The regular FDA approval process needs to be completely sidestepped. Instead we either go a decentralized route, allowing states to approve their own tests, or we put together an approval task force recruited from the leading test scientists. The goals for that group should be to greenlight dozens of tests within the span of days and to then define follow-up reporting requirements to enable ongoing monitoring (step 3 below).
Step 2: Manufacturing
There are lots of components to these tests and they are not so easy to manufacture. But there is definitely manufacturing capacity that could be repurposed. To do so quickly I believe we will have to invoke the Defense Production Act as well as be willing to spend a lot of money. Every dollar spend on testing will unlock a multiple in economic activity so this is among the best money we can spend, even if some of the tests we buy don’t work well (or maybe not even at all). Having more different tests approved (Step 1) means that we can lean into manufacturing much harder, with a portfolio approach.
Step 3: Monitoring
Finally we need to set up a reporting and stats infrastructure to monitor the performance of the tests as they are deployed so that we can hone in on the ones with the best sensitivity and specificity. With the right reporting protocols we will rapidly learn what works well.
Essentially this amounts to reversing the normal approval process which takes a long time with the goal of having only high quality tests in market. Here we want to optimize for speed and massively over allow, then pull back later. Because this is so essentially a 180 from the FDA’s normal operations we need a special one-time panel on this.
Governors should be exerting public pressure right now calling for this and if it has not been put in place by end of next week they should proceed on their own.
On other interesting Covid-19 news, William Barr, and the Department of Justice, authorize all American drug companies to distribute HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE TO all CORONAVIRUS patients.
This is huge…
The U.S. Department of Justice on Monday cited “extreme urgency” in clearing U.S. pharmaceutical distributors from legal hurdles in order to provide the controversial anti-malaria drug to coronavirus patients.
The Justice Department penned a response letter Monday notifying one of the country’s largest wholesale drug distribution companies, AmerisourceBergen, that antitrust hurdles have been removed as part of an “expedited, temporary review procedure.” The DOJ letter dated April 20 says the drug corporation is now set to work with federal government agencies and health care providers to distribute hydroxychloroquine to patients with coronavirus symptoms. The anti-malaria drug has been controversially touted by President Donald Trump as a “treatment” for COVID-19, the illness caused by the novel coronavirus, despite reports from organizations including the American Heart Association that the medication exacerbates fatal heart problems and has not faced U.S. clinical trials.
But the Monday DOJ letter indicates the drug’s distribution is now being fast-tracked and allows AmerisourceBergen, which was sued in 2017 for allegedly worsening the opioid drug crisis, to temporarily “act as the U.S. Government’s hydroxychloroquine distribution agents” without legal concern over antitrust violations as they address supply chain shortages.
“One initiative is the distribution of hydroxychloroquine from the Stockpile to health care providers in areas of greatest need,” reads the Justice Department letter from Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim. “In this distribution initiative, AmerisourceBergen and other distributors act as the U.S. Government’s distribution agents. The U.S. Government will instruct AmerisourceBergen on the amount of hydroxychloroquine it will receive and where the hydroxychloroquine is to be sent.”
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted emergency use approval late last month for millions of doses of hydroxychloroquine to be distributed to hospitals across the country for the express purpose of treating COVID-19 patients. During a White House Coronavirus Task Force press briefing earlier this month, the president touted hydroxychloroquine, saying the U.S. has stockpiled 29 million pills despite a lack of scientific evidence it works against COVID-19.
“What do you have to lose?” Trump asked coronavirus patients earlier this month.
The Justice Department letter to the corporation Monday continued, “The U.S. Government does not inform AmerisourceBergen of its instructions to other distributors. The hydroxychloroquine is donated, meaning the U.S. Government does not charge AmerisourceBergen or other distributors for it. Furthermore, AmerisourceBergen does not charge the U.S. Government for its distribution services, nor does the corporation charge the health care providers for the medicines that they receive.”
A 2017 opioid crisis lawsuit out of West Virginia names the same drug companies – AmerisourceBergen, McKesson Corp and Cardinal Health – which were given the go-ahead for hydroxychloroquine’s distribution in the Monday DOJ letter.
The Monday DOJ letter cites the Stafford Act and Trump declaring a national emergency on March 13 as reason for AmerisourceBergen being allowed to temporarily side-step antitrust laws in order to “use your industry expertise and contacts to address supply chain shortages.”
Despite hydroxychloroquine’s anecdotal COVID-19 “treatment” benefits being touted by figures ranging from syndicated talk show host Dr. Mehmet Oz to right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh, the malaria drug – working in tandem with an antibiotic Z-pack – has been blamed for allegedly causing fatal heart attacks in patients with coronavirus symptoms. This week, the Swiss drug manufacturer Novartis came to an agreement with U.S. regulators to conduct studies of how the anti-malaria drug works against COVID-19.
AmerisourceBergen CEO Steven Collis told Yahoo! Finance last Friday the company ships more than 3 million medications to over 100,000 facilities and their revenues “are over $180 billion.” Collis also noted that 30 percent of U.S. prescriptions go through their warehouses.
The letter says AmerisourceBergen will work with collaboration and “at the direction of FEMA, HHS and other government entities to identify global supply opportunities, ensure product quality, and facilitate product distribution of medication and other healthcare supplies to treat COVID-19 patients under much of the same framework as that which applied to the PPE Distributors.”
The President’s briefing this weekend of course also included an opening for the release of hydroxychloroquine by DOJ, totally bypassing the FDA and it’s slo-mo procedural systems, as he offered many charts showing the rise and fall of Wuhan Coronavirus infection cases, in the different states and in the various Metro areas of the biggest cities of our country, and the good news is that regardless of the media claims — we do not lead the world in Covid-19 deaths that are caused by the CoronaVirus infection.
True enough: We are not Number One in Covid-19 deaths, amongst the many other claimants to the pole position in this awful epidemic.
So, please chill out — the Zombie Apocalypse has been cancelled.
Believe You — me.
😉
In the briefing this Saturday, President Trump also referred to an article in the Wall Street Journal by Christopher DeMuth titled: “Trump Rewrites the Book on Emergencies” where the author argues that while all other Presidents have dealt with emergencies by expanding federal power and control — Trump has gone the opposite way by letting state and local authorities deal with the disease on their levels while he sticks to things that are federal duties, like allocating resources to the states and restricting foreign travel. For this, his critics have alternately attacked him for not doing enough, then turned on a dime and accused him of being a dictator when they thought he was doing too much.
Trump said in his Saturday briefing that a deal was close with Democrats to stop holding up a bill to provide more funding for loans to struggling small businesses.
However, late on Sunday, the Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said he hoped the bill would be voted on in the Senate today and pass the House on Tuesday, but the Speaker of the House, Mrs Nancy Pelosi is holding the bill up, from her home, where she recently filmed a message in front of her two refrigerators that are full to the brim with many flavors of a $13-a-pint artisanal ice cream, that is just fine for her chillers (two fancy refrigerations that cost $12,000 apiece)…
How’s that for Marie Antoinette at the helm of Congress, refusing to help the the small businesses and their employees, by holding up this pivotal bill of funding for all of the small businesses like the neighborhood bodegas that provide food for all of us, in this time of great need and tribulation amongst all of our people…
“Qu’ils mangent de la brioche” –Marie Antoinette 1789
“Let them eat Cake” –Marie Antoinette, 1789
Later that same year…
After the “Let the peasants eat cake” fiasco of course, came Marie Antoinette’s headless performance at the stage…
Today we have a new Marie Antoinette disguised as the Speaker of the United States Congress who unashamedly has the most tone deaf appeal to the Citizens of America suffering the effects of Covid-19 while she denies them succor and relief…
“Let them eat Ice Cream” –Nancy Pelosi, 2020
Nancy — please stop hurting yourself and the rest of us.
Shut the F… up.
Yours,
Dr Churchill
PS:
For shame Nancy — stop holding up this bill for your personal gratification — for shame…
The rest we are gonna figure it out by ourselves…
Trust me on that.
See for yourself below the aggregate voice of Americans of different stripes…
Dr Churchill
Bleeding Edge 
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