Independent Science News just published my piece "Peter Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance Has Hidden Almost $40 Million In Pentagon Funding And Militarized Pandemic Science." Prior pieces on this subject are here.
See piece in Salon: "Joe Biden won't tell the truth about his Iraq war record — and he hasn't for years."
See January 2007 questioning of Biden and Tony Blinken.
It is effectively DIY ranked choice voting, which allows voters to list their preferences 1-2-3. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom just vetoed a RCV bill in California and Republicans in Maine are still trying to block voters from using RCV in the presidential election -- which is expected to be a historic first.
Such attempts to limit voter choice are endemic to the establishment parties. indeed, much of our political and media system is designed to keep voters in perpetual subjugation to the Democratic and Republican parties: atomized, perpetually triggered by the latest outrage of 'the other side.' This effectively makes the establishment parties less and less accountable to the public since ironically, if each of the parties becomes worse, more fear kicks in spurring desperate support for the other. This creates a vicious cycle of fear and hatred and actually strengthens the duopoly. VotePact gives a strategic path out of this -- and even modest use of it could give the voting public leverage over the duopoly candidates since their votes can no longer be taken for granted."
But unlike RCV and other institutional reforms, VotePact doesn't require waiting for governmental sign off that may never come. Anyone can do this right now with someone from the other side of the duopoly.
A related problem is polling. Most polls are phrased something like 'if the election were held today, which of the following would you vote for: Democrat Joe Biden, Republican Donald Trump, Libertarian Jo Jorgensen or Howie Hawkins, the Green Party candidate.' But that just echos the voting bind and doesn't get at voter preference.
If pollsters cared to measure actual voter preferences, they would ask people to rank candidates 1-2-3, RCV style. Or they can ask: "Biden, Trump, Jorgensen and Hawkins are in a four-way tie. You are the tie-breaker, the deciding vote. Who do you vote for?' That would get at actual voter preference.
But voter preference and control are hindered, including by the Commission on Presidential Debates, a creation of the establishment Democrats and Republicans that is sponsoring what should be called a joint televised appearance Thursday night between Trump and Biden. Third party candidates are having their own debate with the group Free and Equal on Saturday. See my letter 'The Huge Problem with Polls' to Frank Newport of Gallup and the CPD.
I'm sure we all have lots of 9-11 stories, but I told one of mine for the first time in my new art show, "Invisibly Present/Visibly Absent" that just opened at Gallery Al-Quds at the Jerusalem Fund near the Kennedy Center.
The piece is "The Scorching Sun Which Brings Them Forth" (see below).
by Sam Husseini
In what was billed as one of President Clinton's most important speeches, he urged us to "begin" a dialogue on race relations. Clinton spoke of "the problem of race." There is no such thing — except for racists. There is the problem of racism, a word Clinton managed to use only once during his speech.
Barr was brought into the Trump administration about the same time as Elliott Abrams. He basically declared that based on his reading of the Mueller report that there was no obstruction of justice. So Barr basically got to decide if Trump stays or goes. Trump has been serving at Barr's pleasure.
Who experiment with mountain goats
Should leave the universe alone
It's not their business, not their home
-- John Prine, "Lonesome Friends of Science"
Similarly CNN (4/6/20) mocked the notion of a lab leak when re-assessing the source of the pandemic, describing one possibility being that: "It leaked -- like a genie out of a bottle -- from a lab in an accident."
But even a cursory look at the record shows that these labs, where ever they exist, have a lot of accidents -- just from 2019, the New York Times (8/5/19) reported: "Deadly Germ Research Is Shut Down at Army Lab Over Safety Concerns" regarding Fort Detrick in Maryland: "Problems with disposal of dangerous materials led the government to suspend research at the military’s leading biodefense center." (The local paper, the Frederick News-Post has provided some coverage, including publishing letters by local activist Barry Kissin who has focused on the issue.)
USA Today had a reporter on this beat, Alison Young, but she left the paper. A sampling of her work: