Political Health – The Motives of a Very, Very, Political Dr. Fauci

There’s been a debate about possible political motives surrounding the panic he has created; the massive economic damage he has inflicted; and the conflicting assertions of National Institute of Allergy and Infections Diseases (NIAID) Director Dr. Anthony Fauci.

CTH identifies the motives as sketchy.  He appears to use his position to advance theories and yet position himself to avoid scrutiny.

Sometimes within a 24 hour period Fauci will make a statement, then contradict the initial assertion, then attempt to cloud his own conflict with obtuse and wordy explanations.  After watching for several weeks, we called it out HERE.

Perhaps one way to help see through the professional obfuscation, and identify just exactly how political Dr. Fauci is, would be to: compare and contrast Dr. Fauci under President Obama in September 2009 after 3,000 to 4,000 H1N1 deaths in the USA  -vs- Dr. Fauci under President Trump in March 2020 after 200 to 300 COVID-19 deaths.  WATCH:

Now, to better absorb the information…. According to the CDC final estimate of 2009 U.S. H1N1 cases (published in 2011): from April 12, 2009 to April 10, 2010 approximately 60.8 million U.S. cases, 274,304 U.S. hospitalizations, and 12,469 U.S. deaths occurred due to H1N1. That’s the empirical data.

After: (1) watching that 2009 video; and (2) comparing the 2009 H1N1 response to the current 2020 COVID-19 response; and (3) reviewing the empirical data; we must admit to ourselves there is a VERY BIG difference.  So now, with the baseline established, we look for why such a big difference; and to do that we (4) evaluate the politics:

(LINK)

A few months later:

(LINK)

Now, pause for a moment – reread that again – don’t skip past it.  Think about what type of mindset would send such a letter and communication.  Apply common sense.  Trust your instincts…

Would a person of reasonable disposition send such a letter or email to anyone in their professional network?  Would you ever consider writing a letter to your employer, or the family of your employer, declaring your undying love and devotion toward them?

“rarely does a speech bring me to tears”?… “please tell her I love her more than ever”?.. “please tell her that we all love her”… etc.

Seriously…. think about it.   If you have ever engaged in a large system, large business, or large network of professionals, how would you react to a person inside that organization who was sending such non-professional communication?  What exactly does that say about the emotional stability of such a person?

And this person, right now, with this inherent sensibility, has the most consequential and direct influence over the decision-making for the worlds most powerful nation.  Stunning.

Now reconsider:

The concept of “flattening” the virus curve; the presumptive reason for social distancing and shutting down the U.S. economy; is based on a theory to extend the spread of COVID-19 to a lesser incident rate over a longer duration, thereby lessening the burden on the U.S. healthcare system.  Hence, ‘flatten’ the spike in infections.

Put another way: “Flattening” means the same number of people eventually contract the virus, only they do so over a longer period of time, and the healthcare system can treat everyone because the numbers do not rise to level where the system is overloaded.  In theory that seems to make sense.

However, no-one is asking: what is the current stress level on the healthcare system right now?  Where are we in that capacity?… and what is normal capacity level during a high-level flu outbreak?… and Where are we when compared against that baseline?

♦ Remember in 2009 there were over 61 million cases of H1N1, more than 274,000 hospitalizations and 12,469 additional deathsspecifically attributed to that strain of flu virus in the U.S.  [DATA HERE]

The premise to extend the virus duration in an effort to lower the infection rate and spread the virus over a longer period of time needs to measured against: (a) where the healthcare system is at any given moment; and (b) under traditional high-flu seasons where are we during those historic events.

♦ STRESS LEVEL – The healthcare ‘system’ per se, is expending an awful lot of time on mitigation efforts.  As Dr. Birx noted: the current negative test rate for coronavirus among those showing symptoms who are tested is 94 to 98 percent.  That means of all the people taking coronavirus tests, 94/98 out of 100 are symptomatic (they are sick) but they are not infected with coronavirus.  They are normal flu cases.

Our healthcare “system” is expending an incredible amount of resources on a mitigation effort.  According to Dr. Birx and the current U.S. test results, 94 to 98 percent of those mitigation efforts are not engaging with coronavirus.  They are dealing with regular flu (perhaps a strong flu).

If you extract the mitigation effort from the overall effort, the current stress level on the healthcare system doesn’t seem to be overwhelming.  What is stressing the system is a coronavirus mitigation effort with a rate of 94 to 98 percent testing negative.

♦ Dr. Fauci’s theory is self-fulfilling.

If the viral spread never exceeds the capacity of the healthcare system to deal with it, he can claim success.  Look, our flattened curve worked.

However, when contrast against flu outbreaks, no-one knows what the COVID-19 capacity threshold is within the healthcare system.  There’s no way to disprove Fauci’s theory.

Given the nature of the baseline for overall U.S. sanitation and hygiene, which is significantly higher than Italy, S-Korea and China; and given the higher standards of food safety (U.S. is the world leader); again significantly higher than Italy, S-Korea and China; and given the nature of the U.S. healthcare system (more capacity per person); is it really a fair comparison to overlay a COVID-19 outbreak, without also overlaying a traditional flu outbreak?

Any theory that cannot be scientifically tested; and is simultaneously self-fulfilling; is, by its nature, a false theory.

This is not to say that Dr. Anthony Fauci is intentionally misleading anyone; however, it is absolutely true that no-one will be able to quantify if trillions of dollars of economic wealth lost; and trillions more in economic activity lost; and trillions more in deficit spending; and that might all be done just to follow the fantastical whims of a doctor who is directing the mitigation of an ordinary flu-virus/season, and appears to be quite full of his own sense of self-importance.

You decide….

I think I already have.

America Needs to Protect Our Shores

Protectionism is not the right word for preventing authoritarian nations from using ill-gotten wealth to gain influence. The right word is patriotism.

Ernest Istook for American Greatness

In the age of the Internet, we often forget basic truths about commerce and prosperity. Behemoths of trade like Amazon succeed only because they can deliver goods to the right place at the right time. Delivery services like FedEx, UPS, and the Postal Service are what make online trade possible.

We should remember that goods don’t deliver themselves. A little-appreciated fact is that 90 percent of world trade goes by ship. Maritime routes are the great conduits making global markets work. As Themistocles of Athens said back in 500 B.C. or so, “He who controls the sea controls everything.”

So if other nations control the seas, then America’s greatness suffers.

Sadly, some are claiming that we should let China and others dominate the waterways because they can offer lower prices. The Chinese can—but only because they  are using every scheme possible to undercut competition from the free world.

They’re applying another quote, this one from Vladimir Lenin, who taught that capitalists would sell the rope with which Communists would hang them.

Perhaps money is all that matters—for those satisfied with China’s Communism and human rights records. For those of us who cherish America’s values and imperfect-yet-great system of government, other issues are paramount.

At stake are the domestic waterways of the United States, which currently are closed to foreign competition due to the Jones Act, part of the Merchant Marine Act of 1920. Essentially, the law requires vessels sailing within our borders or between U.S. ports to be American-built, American-owned, and American-crewed.

Big interests are pushing to repeal or weaken the Jones Act, claiming it would be cheaper to rent out domestic shipping to foreign interests. If they succeed, our shorelines and rivers could resemble the situation on the world’s oceans.

Thanks to subsidies, Asian nations today control the fleets that carry 90 percent of the world’s cargo. The U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics reports that a mere 182 of 41,000 ocean-going cargo ships are American. The other 99.6 percent increasingly are from China or other highly subsidized shipyards in South Korea or Japan.

The impact of these subsidies on global shipbuilding is seen in the hard fact that of 2,995 new ocean-going vessels now under construction (as tracked by the shipbrokers BRS Group),China, Japan, and South Korea are responsible for nearly 83 percent of the outstanding order book. The United States? Only eight (ships, not percent).

It’s not accidental and it’s not due to free enterprise. China’s dominance is built on massive subsidies and the use of state-run enterprises. Beijing’s plan is to dominate the strategic area of ocean trade.

Years ago, China announced its “Belt and Road Initiative.” The country spends billions each year to subsidize shipbuilding and also to control ports all over the globe. The Chinese are slowly closing in on all the major global shipping lanes, taking over port facilities in Europe, South America, Africa, the Middle East, the Indian Ocean and of course the South China Sea. Their sole setback was when the Trump Administration forced China to divest itself of a major shipping terminal in Long Beach.

A Harvard study found that since 2006, “Chinese subsidies dramatically altered the geography of production and countries’ market shares,” giving them an estimated 13-20 percent advantage in ship construction costs. That advantage is widened further by lower wages and fewer regulations, as well as subsidies provided by the shipbuilder to offset the operating costs of these ships.

Without the Jones Act, China would be free to jump into the valuable U.S. domestic market, which now has 40,000 vessels like ore carriers on the Great Lakes, giant barges on the Mississippi and other rivers, and ships moving goods along our inland waterways. Their aggressive expansion in the rest of the world illustrates how eagerly they would move in on America’s domestic shipping.

Protectionism is not the right word for preventing authoritarian nations from using ill-gotten wealth to gain influence. The right word is patriotism.

In The Wealth of Nations, the father of capitalism, Adam Smith, wrote that his native United Kingdom was right to protect its maritime trade from unfair foreign competition. Americans today would do well to heed Smith’s counsel.

#BeAnAstronaut: NASA Seeks Applicants to Explore Moon, Mars

For the first time in more than four years, NASA began accepting applications Monday for future astronauts. Aspiring Moon to Mars explorers have until 11:59 p.m. EDT Tuesday, March 31, to apply.
The call for more astronauts comes at a time when the agency is preparing to send the first woman and next man to the Moon with the Artemis program. Exploring the Moon during this decade will help prepare humanity for its next giant leap – sending astronauts to Mars.

“America is closer than any other time in history since the Apollo program to returning astronauts to the Moon. We will send the first woman and next man to the lunar South Pole by 2024, and we need more astronauts to follow suit on the Moon, and then Mars,” said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. “We’re looking for talented men and women from diverse backgrounds and every walk of life to join us in this new era of human exploration that begins with the Artemis program to the Moon. If you have always dreamed of being an astronaut, apply now.”
NASA expects to select final astronaut candidates in mid-2021 to begin training as the next class of Artemis Generation astronauts. When the agency last sought astronaut candidates, in late 2015, a record-breaking 18,300 people applied. After more than two years of intensive training, 11 new astronauts selected from that pool graduated earlier this year in the first public graduation ceremony the agency has hosted.
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/beanastronaut-nasa-seeks-applicants-to-explore-moon-mars

Obama, whose administration prosecuted and spied on reporters, claims Trump is very bad for criticizing newsrooms

Becket Adams opinion at Washington Examiner

Former President Barack Obama is right when he says his administration’s attacks on the press can't be compared to President Trump's current crusade against the news media.

The Obama White House was far worse for press freedoms. 

The former president spoke Friday afternoon at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, urging students to get involved in the November midterm elections. He dedicated a good deal of his address to drawing contrasts between his administration and the administration of President Trump. It was the regular sort of material from Obama. There was a lot about optimism, hope, change, etc.

The real whopper of a lie didn’t come until later in his address when he criticized Trump for routinely attacking the press. 

“It shouldn’t be Democratic or Republican to say that we don’t threaten the freedom of the press because they say things or publish stories we don’t like,” the former president said. “I complained plenty about Fox News, but you never heard me threaten to shut them down or call them enemies of the people.”

This is some grade-A, primo historical revisionism.

When it comes to being anti-media, Trump only talks a big game. And, boy, does he talk. Obama, on the other hand, is a man of action. As president, he did much more than complain about Fox News. His administration spent eight long years curbing the press freedoms of journalists of every stripe. Obama was a pro at this. 

Trump’s war against the press is indeed ugly and often over-the-top. But let that criticism come from someone who’s not guilty of far worse.

In 2009, for example, the Obama White House intentionally excluded Fox News’ Chris Wallace from participating in a round of interviews pertaining to the president’s push for healthcare reform. Later that same year, the administration officials tried to block Fox reporters from interviewing “pay czar” Kenneth Feinberg. The White House initially lied about this, and many in the press went along with it. It wasn’t until 2011 that the public learned the truth of the Feinberg episode. An internal email dated Oct. 22, 2009, showed the White House director of broadcast media told Treasury officials specifically, “We’d prefer if you skip Fox please.”

The bigger point is that Feinberg was not the only administration official to have his network appearances limited by the White House.

The Obama White House communications director, Anita Dunn, said at the time, “We’re going to treat them the way we would treat an opponent. As they are undertaking a war against Barack Obama and the White House, we don’t need to pretend that this is the way that legitimate news organizations behave.”

That language about "legitimate news organizations" and "opponents" is only different from the things Trump says by degree, not by kind.

In 2010, the Obama administration renewed the bogus Bush-era subpoenaagainst the New York Times' James Risen in a prolonged attempt to determine whether the reporter was the recipient of leaked CIA information. In February 2011, federal investigators were revealed to have spied on Risen. Federal investigators pored over Risen's credit reports and his personal bank records. The feds even tracked his phone logs and movements.

Later, in 2012, Fox was mysteriously excluded from a White House conference call pertaining to the terrorist attacks on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Fox was also excluded from an all-network CIA briefing regarding the attacks.

In 2013, the Obama Justice Department labeled then-Fox News reporter James Rosen a “criminal co-conspirator” under the Espionage Act of 1917. And all because the reporter used a State Department contractor as a source for a story. Rosen was also labeled a "flight risk." 

The Justice Department seized the records of at least five phone lines connected to Fox News. The federal law enforcement agency even seized the phone records of Rosen’s parents. The FBI also got a warrant to search Rosen's emails from 2010. 

In May 2013, the Associated Press revealed that the Justice Department had secretly collected two months' worth of personal and work-related phone calls made by AP reporters and editors. 

Federal officials secretly obtained records on incoming and outgoing calls made by specific AP journalists, as well as general news staff, the news group reported, potentially compromising many sources totally unrelated to the investigation. Federal investigators even collected data on calls made by AP reporters in the House of Representatives press gallery.

In 2014, the Obama administration set the record for denying the most Freedom of Information Act requests of any administration. It topped this feat in 2015.

There are only two actions that the Trump administration has taken that can be compared to the Obama-era war on the press. First, the Trump White House barred a CNN reporter in July from a Rose Garden event. Second, the Trump Justice Department seized electronic correspondences between New York Times reporter Ali Watkins and her ex-lover, former Senate Intelligence Committee aide James Wolfe.

Other than the fact that Obama has an extraordinarily ugly legacy of anti-press behavior, he made some great points Friday. He never actually called the news media the “enemy of the people.” He and his lieutenants simply prosecuted and spied on reporters, all while claiming Fox is "an opponent" and not “ really a news station.”

Obama is right to draw a contrast between himself and Trump. One of them has been an actual clear and grave threat to the press, and the other one has an orange tan.

The United States Needs Better Data Immediately Before We Make Stupid Decisions About Coronavirus

The lack of data is not necessary. It is a matter of prioritizing data collection, being willing to share data, and then doing the right kind of analytical modelling.

Eline van den Broek-Altenburg and Adam Atherly at The Federalist

Only a week ago, President Trump announced a ban on European flights to reduce the spread of coronavirus. In the seven days that followed, the media have been reporting garden-variety statistics and decision-making based on infographics rather than reliable and nationally representative data. It is time for accurate, unbiased data to redo the math.

So, what data has been reported in the past seven days and what do we know? Here’s a short overview:

• Number of reported/confirmed COVID-19 cases. Per city, state, country, region, and worldwide.
• Reported deaths from COVID-19. Per city, state, country, region, and worldwide.
• Number of countries reporting cases.
• Data from China on infection rates and deaths.
• Images of overwhelmed hospitals in northern Italy.
• The defining graphic of the COVID-19 pandemic, “Flatten the Curve.”

The first three bullets can be summarized by the words “reported/confirmed.” In the last seven days, we’ve seen a snowball of news messages pop up reporting things like “200 new cases,” “total 1,900 cases,” and “two more die of coronavirus.”

We also see popups like “State x could have 16 more infections than officially reported,” “Coronavirus death rate still uncertain as mild cases go unreported,” “Limited data on coronavirus may be skewing assumptions,” and “Country x may be underreporting coronavirus numbers.”

Yet how does the number of cases compare to current influenza cases, for example? We don’t know. Are numbers adjusted for population to make comparisons easier and meaningful? The media simply reports new cases without context and warns the public to stay home to stop the spread of the virus.

Our Current Narrative Lacks Crucial Data

We do have data, to some extent, from China and Italy. Yet there are many questions about the accuracy of the data from China, particularly given the Chinese government’s initial denial of the illness. Yet data from China has been provided and was swiftly reported in academic journals.

Papers that normally take months to be carefully vetted, accepted, and published are now being published with remarkable speed. Less than a year ago, BMC Public Health published an article concluding that because there are several methods used to calculate the key measures, comparisons between studies and countries is difficult. Yet statisticians are still doing the precise comparisons warned against because in the COVID-19 era, everything is permitted because the baseline understanding of the disease is so limited.

In Italy, it appears that the crisis (for now) is localized in the Northern Italy, mostly in the Lombardy region. Why? Why aren’t patients being transferred to other regions? Are other regions in Italy also in crisis?

There have been explanations as for why Lombardy has been hit harder than other regions, but these have not been the focus of reporting. In Italy, the media reports heartrending stories about providers forced to condemn patients to die because of a lack of intensive care beds, but little else beyond raw numbers of cases and deaths.

It’s this image of people dying that drives decisions. Northern Italy’s “hospital meltdown” is shocking and upsetting, but should not necessarily be alarming for the rest of the world. Northern Italy has been hit hard, but the rest of Italy is largely waiting at home like the rest of us.

The Idea of ‘Flatten The Curve’

The curve that went viral last week is based on an idea, not data. The idea is simple and intuitive: “Washing your hands or staying home if you’re sick can slow down new cases of illness, so the finite resources of our health-care system can handle a more steady flow of sick patients rather than a sudden deluge.” So we do it.

Then suddenly we find ourselves at home following news reports about “stocks tumbled nearly 13 percent on Monday,” the “downturn now set to be deeper than the financial crisis,” and “This Is How the Coronavirus Will Destroy the Economy.” Simultaneously, the media sends videos of “overwhelmed hospitals in Italy” into our family rooms, creating a multiplier effect for the “Stay home—it could save lives” movement, which leaves us thinking we are doing the right thing.

Simulation Modeling

The New York Times reports that in the United States and United Kingdom, national quarantine decisions were strongly influenced by a report from Imperial College that simulated the possible courses of the pandemic and the impact on each country’s health-care system. The simulation was done based using the best available data—from Italy and China—but it was necessary to make many assumptions because there are so many unknowns.

We counted approximately 20 such assumptions that have yet to be proven.The key unknown factors were:

• How infectious the disease will be in the United States and United Kingdom.
• The length of the incubation time.
• Whether individuals are immune to re-infection in the short term.
• The number of people who will require critical care.
• The proportion of people in critical care who will die of the disease.

This modelling exercise assumes the rates from China and Italy a) reported accurately and b) applicable to the United States. But it is unknown how country specific factors like population density, use of public transportation, waste treatment, smoking rates, population age distribution, and others affect the applicability of the data to the United States.

Even if reported accurately, the rates from Italy and China will not precisely reflect what will happen in the United States. But are they close enough that our current decisions based on that data are correct?

That is an empirical question that can and should be quickly answered. Indeed, recent evidence from Germany suggests key model inputs may not be applicable in Germany, as Germany has lower death rate than other countries. Does the virus behave differently in Germany? No, more likely the denominator of the death rates is different since Germany has been testing more aggressively.

Huge Need for More Accurate Data

So, what data do we need in the next seven days? If the past seven and more days were the “do the math” era, the next seven and more days should be about “redo the math.” Is it possible? Yes, it is. Epidemiology, statistics, health economics are all based on data. With the right data we can make better decisions.

Better data would give us:

• Number of actual COVID-19 cases, per city, state, country, region, and worldwide.
• Actual deaths from COVID-19, per city, state, country, region, and worldwide.
• Curves and graphics based on actual data—how much does the curve need to be flattened to avoid Northern Italy’s fate?

This does not require massive country-wide testing, as Germany did. In the United States we could either quickly draw new samples from across the nation or use one of the many large representative samples of the population covered in ongoing surveys like the Current Population Survey (CPS) or the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey.

It should be possible to use these standing panels and do COVID-19 testing with representative samples of the population. Researchers can stratify or oversample in metropolitan areas or specific region if needed.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention could do tests with representative samples and repeat it every three days in the coming weeks. The relatively small number of tests diverted to gather data wouldn’t meaningfully detract from ongoing treatment. Given the trillion-dollar relief package proposed in Congress, it is reasonable to spend some tax dollars on testing and gather valuable data.

We Need to Redo the Math

With better data, it will be easy to redo the math accurately. We could draw curves based on actual data, calculate incidence rates on actual data, and most of all it would be data drawn from a representative sample of the U.S. population.

Therefore, we could better analyze risk factors and individual characteristics based on people who live in our country and use our health-care system. If we are smart enough to use the same methodology in different countries and compare notes across the world, we may actually get to a place where better decision-making is possible, and quickly. European countries have equivalents of the Centers for Disease Control, and most of them have ongoing surveys with nationally representative samples.

The lack of data is not necessary. It is a matter of prioritizing data collection, being willing to share data, and then doing the right kind of analytical modelling. Finally, we need the media to report based on data rather than the narrative.

“Without data you’re just another person with an opinion.” These are the words of W. Edwards Deming, who helped develop the sampling techniques still used by the U.S. Department of the Census and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

His words emphasize the kind of damage that societal naiveté and opinions can do. It is time for statisticians, health economists, data scientists, epidemiologists, and other scientists to unite and say “It’s time for better data so we can redo the math.”

Eline van den Broek-Altenburg has served as a health policy advisor in the Dutch and European parliaments and is currently an assistant professor at the Larner College of Medicine at the University of Vermont. Follow her on Twitter at @E_line and #ReDoTheMath. Adam Atherly, PhD, is a professor and director of the Center for Health Services Research at the Larner College of Medicine at the University of Vermont.

Inside The Military's Top Secret Plans If Coronavirus Cripples the Government

 
 Article by William M. Arkin in "Newsweek":

Even as President Trump says he tested negative for coronavirus, the COVID-19 pandemic raises the fear that huge swaths of the executive branch or even Congress and the Supreme Court could also be disabled, forcing the implementation of "continuity of government" plans that include evacuating Washington and "devolving" leadership to second-tier officials in remote and quarantined locations.

But Coronavirus is also new territory, where the military itself is vulnerable and the disaster scenarios being contemplated -- including the possibility of widespread domestic violence as a result of food shortages -- are forcing planners to look at what are called "extraordinary circumstances".

Above-Top Secret contingency plans already exist for what the military is supposed to do if all the Constitutional successors are incapacitated. Standby orders were issued more than three weeks ago to ready these plans, not just to protect Washington but also to prepare for the possibility of some form of martial law.

According to new documents and interviews with military experts, the various plans – codenamed Octagon, Freejack and Zodiac – are the underground laws to ensure government continuity. They are so secret that under these extraordinary plans, "devolution" could circumvent the normal Constitutional provisions for government succession, and military commanders could be placed in control around America.

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"We're in new territory," says one senior officer, the entire post-9/11 paradigm of emergency planning thrown out the window. The officer jokes, in the kind of morbid humor characteristic of this slow-moving disaster, that America had better learn who Gen. Terrence J. O'Shaughnessy is.

He is the "combatant commander" for the United States and would in theory be in charge if Washington were eviscerated. That is, until a new civilian leader could be installed.


'We're in territory we've never been in before'

What happens, government expert Norman Ornstein asked last week, if so many members of Congress come down with the coronavirus that the legislature cannot meet or cannot muster a quorum? After 9/11, Ornstein and others, alarmed by how little Washington had prepared for such possibilities, created a bipartisan Continuity of Government Commission to examine precisely these and other possibilities.

It has been a two-decade long futile effort, Ornstein says, with Congress uninterested or unable to either pass new laws or create working procedures that would allow emergency and remote operations. The rest of the federal government equally is unprepared to operate if a pandemic were to hit the very people called upon to lead in an emergency. That is why for the first time, other than planning for the aftermath of a nuclear war, extraordinary procedures are being contemplated.

In the past, almost every imagined contingency associated with emergency preparedness has assumed civil and military assistance coming from the outside. One military officer involved in continuity planning calls it a "cavalry" mentality: that military assistance is requested or ordered after local civil authority has been exhausted.

"There might not be an outside," the officer says, asking that she not be named because she is speaking about sensitive matters.

In recognition of the equal vulnerability of military forces, the Pentagon has instituted unprecedented restrictions on off-base travel. Last Wednesday it restricted most overseas travel for 60 days, and then on Friday issued supplemental domestic guidance that essentially keeps all uniformed personnel on or near military bases. There are exceptions, including travel that is "mission-essential," the Pentagon says.

Mission essential in this regard applies to the maze of more than a dozen different secret assignments, most of them falling under three larger contingency plans:

• CONPLAN 3400, or the military's plan for "homeland defense," if America itself is a battlefield.
• CONPLAN 3500, "defense support of civil authorities," where the military assists in an emergency short of armed attack on the nation.
• CONPLAN 3600, military operations in the National Capital Region and continuation of government, under which the most-secret plans to support continuity are nested.
•  

All of these plans are the responsibility of U.S. Northern Command (or NORTHCOM), the homeland defense military authority created after 9/11. Air Force General O'Shaughnessy is NORTHCOM's Colorado Springs-based commander.

On February 1, Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper signed orders directing NORTHCOM to execute nationwide pandemic plans.

Secretly, he signed Warning Orders (the WARNORD as it's called) alerting NORTHCOM and a host of east coast units to "prepare to deploy" in support of potential extraordinary missions.

Seven secret plans – some highly compartmented – exist to prepare for these extraordinary missions. Three are transportation related, just to move and support the White House and the federal government as it evacuates and operates from alternate sites. The first is called the Rescue & Evacuation of the Occupants of the Executive Mansion (or RESEM) plan, responsible for protecting President Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, and their families--whether that means moving them at the direction of the Secret Service or, in a catastrophe, digging them out of the rubble of the White House.

The second is called the Joint Emergency Evacuation Plan (or JEEP), and it organizes transportation for the Secretary of Defense and other national security leaders so that they can leave the Washington area. The Atlas Plan is a third, moving non-military leaders – Congressional leadership, the Supreme Court and other important figures – to their emergency relocation sites. Under Atlas, a still- secret bunker would be activated and cordoned, with government operations shifting to Maryland.

The three most compartmented contingencies – Octagon, Freejack, and Zodiac – call upon various military units in Washington DC, North Carolina and eastern Maryland to defend government operations if there is a total breakdown. The seventh plan – codenamed Granite Shadow – lays out the playbook for extraordinary domestic missions that involve weapons of mass destruction. (I disclosed the existence of this plan in 2005, and its associated "national mission force"--a force that is on alert at all times, even in peacetime, to respond to a terrorist attack or threat with the nuclear weapon.)

Most of these plans have been quietly activated during presidential inaugurals and State of the Union addresses, the centrality of the weapons of mass destruction scenario seen in the annual Capital Shield exercise in Washington. Last year's exercise posited a WMD attack on Metro Station. Military sources say that only the massive destruction caused by a nuclear device – or the enormous loss of life that could be caused by a biological agent – present catastrophic pressure great enough to justify movement into extra-Constitutional actions and extraordinary circumstances plans.

"WMD is such an important scenario," a former NORTHCOM commander told me, "not because it is the greatest risk, but because it stresses the system most severely."

According to another senior retired officer, who told me about Granite Shadow and is now working as a defense contractor, the national mission force goes out on its missions with "special authorities" pre-delegated by the president and the attorney general. These special authorities are needed because under regulations and the law, federal military forces can supplant civil authority or engage in law enforcement only under the strictest conditions.

When might the military's "emergency authority" be needed? Traditionally, it's thought of after a nuclear device goes off in an American city. But now, planners are looking at military response to urban violence as people seek protection and fight over food. And, according to one senior officer, in the contingency of the complete evacuation of Washington.

Under Defense department regulations, military commanders are authorized to take action on their own – in extraordinary circumstances – where "duly constituted local authorities are unable to control the situation." The conditions include "large-scale, unexpected civil disturbances" involving "significant loss of life or wanton destruction of property." The Joint Chiefs of Staff codified these rules in October 2018, reminding commanders that they could decide, on their own authority, to "engage temporarily" in military control in circumstances "where prior authorization by the President is impossible" or where local authorities "are unable to control the situation." A new Trump-era Pentagon directive calls it "extreme situations." In all cases, even where a military commander declares martial law, the directives say that civil rule has to be restored as soon as possible.

"In scenarios where one city or one region is devastated, that's a pretty straightforward process," the military planner told me. "But with coronavirus, where the effect is nationwide, we're in territory we've never been in before."

An extended period of devolution

Continuity of government and protection of the presidency began in the Eisenhower administration with the possibility emerging that Washington could be obliterated in an atomic attack. The need to plan for a nuclear decision-maker to survive even a direct attack led to the building of bunkers and a maze of secret procedures and exceptions, many of which are still followed to this day. Congress was also folded in – at least Congressional leadership – to ensure that there would always be a Constitutional successor. And then the Supreme Court was added.

Before 9/11, continuity and emergency programs were broadened beyond nuclear war preparedness, particularly as hurricanes began to have such devastating effects on modern urban society. And because of the advent of pandemics, broadly beginning with the Avian Influenza, civil agencies responsible for national security, such as the Department of Health and Human Services, which is the lead agency to respond to coronavirus, were also brought into continuity protection.

Despite well-honed plans and constant testing over 30 years, the attacks of September 11, 2001 severely tested all aspects of continuity movement and communications. Many of the procedures written down on paper were either ignored or thrown out the window. As a result, continuity had a second coming, billions spent by the new Department of Homeland and the other national security agencies to ensure that the Washington leadership could communicate and move, a whole new system established to be ready if a terrorist attack came without warning. Bunkers, many shuttered at the end of the Cold War, were reopened and expanded. Befitting the panic at the time, and the atomic legacy, the most extraordinary planning scenario posited a terrorist attack that would involve an improvised nuclear or radiological dispersal device in a major American city.

The terrorist attack scenario dominated until 2006, when the disastrous government response to Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans shifted federal government preparedness to formally adopt an "all-hazards" system. Civil agencies, the 50 states and local communities – particularly large cities – all began to synchronize emergency preparedness with common protocols. U.S. Northern Command was created to harness military assistance in domestic disasters, it's three overarching contingency plans the product now of 15 years of trial and error.

Government at all levels now have extensive "continuity" programs to respond to man-made and natural disasters, a national response framework that has steadily grown and taken hold. This is the public world of emergency response, ranging from life-saving efforts to protect and restore critical infrastructure, to drills that practice the evacuation of key officials. It is a partnership created between federal government agencies and the States, carefully constructed to guard the rule of law.

In July 2016, Barack Obama signed the classified Presidential Policy Directive 40 on "National Continuity Policy," establishing "essential functions" that government agencies were tasked to protect and retain. At the highest level were the National Essential Functions, those that posit "the continued functioning" of government under the Constitution. In order to preserve Constitutional rule, agencies were ordered to have not just a line of succession but also one of "devolution," a duplicate chain of individuals secreted outside Washington available in a catastrophic emergency. Federal Continuity Directive 1, issued just days before Donald Trump became president, says that devolution has to establish "procedures to transfer statutory authority and responsibilities" to this secondary designated staff to sustain essential functions.

"Devolution may be temporary, or may endure for an extended period," the directive states. And it further directs that the devolution staff be located at "a geographically dispersed location unaffected by the incident." Except that in the case of coronavirus, there may be no such location. This places the plans for the extraordinary into completely uncharted territory, planners not just considering how devolution or martial law might work in a nationwide disaster but also how those earmarked to implement these very plans have to be sequestered and made ready, even while they are equally vulnerable.

NORTHCOM stresses in almost everything it produces for public consumption that it operates only in "support" of civil authorities, in response to state requests for assistance or with the consent of local authorities. Legally, the command says, the use of federal military forces in law enforcement can only take place if those forces are used to suppress "insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy." A second test also has to be met, that such disturbances "hinders the execution of the laws of that State, and of the United States within the State," that is, that the public is deprived of its legal and constitutional protections. Local civil authorities must be "unable, fail, or refuse" to protect the civilian population for military forces to be called in, Pentagon directives make clear.

Since Hurricane Katrina in 2006, no emergency has triggered any state to even request federal military aid under these procedures. Part of the reason, the senior officer involved in planning says, is that local police forces have themselves become more capable, acquiring military-grade equipment and training. And part of the reason is that the governors have worked together to strengthen the National Guard, which can enforce domestic law when it is mustered under state control.

But to give a sense of how sensitive the employment of military forces on American soil is, when the New York National Guard arrived in New Rochelle last week, even though they were operating under the control of the governor, Mayor Noam Bramson still found it necessary to assure the public that no one in military uniform would have any "policing function."

Local authorities around America are already expressing worries that they have insufficient equipment, particularly ventilators, to deal with a possible influx of coronavirus patients, the number of hospital beds fewer than the potential number of patients that could need them. And brawls have already broken out in stores where products are in short supply. The worst case is that shortages and violence spreads, that the federal military, isolated and kept healthy behind its own barricade, is called to take over.

Orders have already gone out that Secretary of Defense Esper and his deputy, David Norquist, remain physically separated, to guard against both of them becoming incapacitated. Other national security agencies are following suit, and the White House continuity specialists are readying evacuation should the virus sweep through the Executive Mansion.

The plans state that the government continues essential functions under all circumstances, even if that is with the devolved second string or under temporary military command. One of the "national essential functions", according to Federal Continuity Directive 1 is that the government "provid[e] leadership visible to the Nation and the world ... [while] maintaining the trust and confidence of the American people" The question is whether a faceless elite could ever provide that confidence, preserving government command but also adding to public panic. That could be a virus too.

https://www.newsweek.com/exclusive-inside-militarys-top-secret-plans-if-coronavirus-cripples-government-1492878

Bill Barr Goes Rogue – DOJ Asks Congress to Expand Legal Authorities to Circumvent Pesky Civil Liberties

The Deep State is playing COVID-19 perfectly.  With the intention to create/instill extra fears amid center-right Americans; and timed to emphasize the center-left narrative of authoritarian Trump; U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr steps in to execute his role.

U.S. AG Bill Barr asks legislators to empower him with more legal authority to take actions within the justice department amid the crisis known as the 2020 Coronavirus pandemic.

(Via Politico) The Justice Department has quietly asked Congress for the ability to ask chief judges to detain people indefinitely without trial during emergencies — part of a push for new powers that comes as the coronavirus spreads through the United States.

Documents reviewed by POLITICO detail the department’s requests to lawmakers on a host of topics, including the statute of limitations, asylum and the way court hearings are conducted.

[…] The DOJ requests — which are unlikely to make it through a Democratic-led House — span several stages of the legal process, from initial arrest to how cases are processed and investigated.

In one of the documents, the department proposed that Congress grant the attorney general power to ask the chief judge of any district court to pause court proceedings “whenever the district court is fully or partially closed by virtue of any natural disaster, civil disobedience, or other emergency situation.” (read more)

Perfectly timed to ignite a week before AG Barr goes before the House Judiciary Committee for testimony March 31st.  Strong execution game by the deep state.

Democrats will position themselves a pear-clutching civil libertarians, and AG Barr will respond by framing the Trump administration as authoritarian.  Everyone has a role to play in the political framework and purposing of COVID-19 as a snowball rolling downhill gathering speed…

The state is operating to protect itself, by any means necessary.

Could This Explain Why the Coronavirus Death Rate in Italy is so High?

 
Article by Bronson Stocking in "Townhall":

An adviser to Italy's minister of health, Professor Walter Ricciardi, said the coronavirus death rate in Italy may be higher than in other countries not only because of demographics -- Italy has the second oldest population in the world -- but also because of the way Italy records deaths of those who have tested positive for the coronavirus. 

"The way in which we code deaths in our country is very generous in the sense that all the people who die in hospitals with the coronavirus are deemed to be dying of the coronavirus," Prof. Riccardi told The Telegraph. 

"On re-evaluation by the National Institute of Health, only 12 percent of death certificates have shown a direct causality from coronavirus, while 88 percent of patients who have died have at least one pre-morbidity - many had two or three," the professor explains.

The professor is not alone, as others say it's way too early to know the true mortality rate so long as the number of mild cases in the country remains unknown. 

Italy's older population may also explain the large number of deaths being attributed to the coronavirus. 

"The age of our patients in hospitals is substantially older - the median is 67, while in China it was 46," the professor says. "So essentially the age distribution of our patients is squeezed to an older age and this is substantial in increasing the lethality."

A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that 87 percent of the deaths in Italy attributed to the coronavirus and 40 percent of known infections have been people 70 years of age or older.

The coronavirus obviously poses a threat to the health and well-being of people all around the world, but it's probably a good idea to balance the panic and all the dire forecasts with a little bit of critical thinking. 

The Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine points out that 10 weeks after the first international alert for the H1N1 influenza, the overall case fatality rate as of Jul. 16, 2009 varied 0.1% to 5.1%. In 2019, the WHO reported the H1N1 influenza had a much lower fatality rate of 0.02%.  

As of Sunday, the number of reported deaths in Italy attributed to the coronavirus is 4,825. But there are reasons to be hopeful that Italy's coronavirus death rate may not be as high as the current reports indicate. 

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/bronsonstocking/2020/03/21/so-thats-why-italys-coronavirus-death-rate-is-so-high-n2565445