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TomCADem

TomCADem's Journal
TomCADem's Journal
December 13, 2020

Perspective: South Korea's Moon warns of toughest COVID-19 curbs after two days of record cases

Perhaps you have seen the headlines. A second wave of COVID cases is hitting South Korea. Sounds bad, right? Perhaps the U.S. is not the only one suffering from a surge. Heck, just like Trump making fun of New Zealand, perhaps Republicans will say, "Ha! That shows that wearing face masks and protective measures do not work!"

So, you would think that South Korea is also experience hundreds if not thousands of people dying each day given how densely populated South Korea is. In actuality, South Korea experienced 0.62 deaths per 1,000,000 people over the past 7 days.

What about the U.S.? The U.S. experienced 40.21 deaths per 1,000,000 people over the past 7 days.

To make this comparison even more clear, just north of the border, Canada experienced 16.25 deaths per 1,000,000 people over the past 7 days.

Yet, what is the Federal Government headed by the White House focusing in on? Overturning the election results.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-southkorea/south-koreas-moon-warns-of-toughest-covid-19-curbs-after-two-days-of-record-cases-idUSKBN28N01F

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in warned on Sunday that COVID-19 restrictions may be raised to the highest level after a second day of record increases in cases as the country battles a harsh third wave of infection.

Presiding over an emergency meeting at the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters for the first time since February, Moon urged vigilance and called for an all-out efforts to contain the virus.

“Unless the outbreak can be contained now, it has come to the critical point of considering escalating social-distancing measures to the third level,” he said, referring to the tightest curbs under the country’s five-tier system.

Greater Seoul, home to about half of South Korea’s 52 million people, is under level 2.5 restrictions. Gatherings of more than 50 people are banned and restaurants are prohibited from serving customers after 9 p.m.
December 5, 2020

The Failure of The Trump Administration - Covid Deaths Per Capita Comparison

While much talk is rightfully focused on the U.S.A. appears to be well on its way to over 300,000 COVID related deaths by January 2021, what is not discussed is how poorly the U.S. is doing compared to other developed countries. Even when adjusted for population, the U.S. is still among the top countries in deaths per a million despite its advantages in wealth and science and the fact that it is not as densely populated as countries in Europe or Asia. Even worse, if you were to focus on just the past seven days, the U.S. is still around the top 20.

This makes no sense unless you look at our leadership or lack thereof. Even today, as the pandemic starts a third wave, you have a White House that is primarily focused on engineering a coup, along with White House "experts" like Scott Atlas who continues to attack mask usage on popular cable channels like Fox News.

The irony is that you ready headlines about COVID-19 outbreaks in other countries, but their so-called outbreaks would be considered a success compared to the current situation in the United States.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-deaths-worldwide-per-million-inhabitants/

Country / Deaths per million (total)
Belgium 1,483.19
Peru 1,109.67
Spain 977.93
Italy 962.53
United Kingdom¹ 897.98
Moldova 889.14
North Macedonia 886.51
Argentina 874.64
Bosnia and Herzegovina 851.86
Mexico 847.91
USA 838.08
Brazil 830.47
Chile 818.86
Czechia 809.86
France 797.79
Ecuador 783.48
Bolivia 780.15
Slovenia 762.47


October 31, 2020

Study links Trump rallies to more than 700 Covid deaths

Source: Politico

President Donald Trump's campaign rallies between June and September may have caused some 30,000 coronavirus infections and more than 700 deaths, according to a new study by Stanford University economists.

The working paper, released late Friday, examined the impact of 18 rallies held between June 20 and Sept. 30 by comparing spread of the virus after each event to parts of the country that didn't host rallies. The findings illustrate the risks of not heeding public health warnings to wear masks and avoid large gatherings to mitigate the risks of Covid-19, the authors -- including B. Douglas Bernheim, the chair of Stanford's economics department -- wrote.

"The communities in which Trump rallies took place paid a high price in terms of disease and death," they wrote. Fifteen of the 18 events studied were held outdoors.

Trump has drawn criticism for continuing to hold events with large, tightly packed crowds in states that are experiencing outbreaks. Many in attendance, including Trump, have not worn masks.

Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/study-links-trump-rallies-to-more-than-700-covid-deaths/ar-BB1azEsq?li=BBnb7Kz



Trump is definitely making a running for worse mass murderer in U.S. History. He already puts Typhoid Mary to shame and she was confined for decades for continuing to serve as a cook even though she had typhoid fever.
October 31, 2020

CNN: Trump's job losses are the worst of any American president on record

Are we better off then we were four years ago?

https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/04/economy/august-jobs-report-trump-jobs-record/index.html

New York (CNN Business)President Donald Trump is heading into the general election with the worst jobs numbers of any president, based on records that go back to World War II.

That's not going to change in the two months between now and Election Day, no matter how the economy does.

The US economy is down 4.7 million jobs since January 2017 when Trump took office, according to the Labor Department.

The August jobs report released Friday showed employers added back about 1.4 million jobs, bringing the unemployment rate to 8.4%. That is still well short of what would be needed to give Trump a positive jobs record by November 3.
October 30, 2020

Vanity Fair: AOC'S NEXT FOUR YEARS

You can see why Republicans and conservatives are so threatened by someone like AOC or any of the other women of color in Congress. Also, this just goes to show that Trump is not alone in his racism and misogyny.



https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/10/becoming-aoc-cover-story-2020#intcid=_vanity-fair-right-rail_21fd9bc6-50a4-4b65-9d05-11a40bc5393f_popular4-1

Her Republican colleagues had, up until then, been civil. But one day in late July, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez stood on the steps of the U.S. Capitol while Representative Ted Yoho lost his shit. The Florida Republican, incensed by the New York congresswoman’s recent comments linking crime and poverty, jabbed his finger in her face, calling her “crazy” and “disgusting.” She froze. The situation felt dangerous, with Yoho towering over Ocasio-Cortez, who calls herself “five-five on a good day.” Congressman Roger Williams, a Texas Republican, bumbled next to him like a wind puppet at a used-car dealership. She told Yoho he was being rude and went into the Capitol to vote. As Yoho descended the steps, he called her a “fucking bitch.” A reporter nearby witnessed the exchange, and soon the whole world had heard the epithet.

This part hasn’t been reported: The next day Ocasio-Cortez approached Yoho and told him, “You do that to me again, I won’t be so nice next time.” She felt his actions had violated a boundary, stepping “into the zone of harassment, discrimination.” His mocking response, straight out of Veep: “Oh, boo-hoo.” Publicly, Yoho doubled down, issuing a non-apology on the House floor, citing his wife and daughters as character witnesses.

Ocasio-Cortez flashed back to one of her first jobs out of school, when a male colleague whom she’d edged out for a promotion called her a bitch in front of the staff. She had been too stunned to reply, and no one came to her defense. She wouldn’t let it happen again.

Forty-eight hours later, Ocasio-Cortez delivered one of the most eloquent dunks in political history, a “thank u, next” for the C-SPAN set, taking on not just Yoho but the patriarchy itself. She took care to enter “fucking bitch” into the Congressional Record. “I want to thank him for showing the world that you can be a powerful man and accost women,” she told the House. “It happens every day in this country.” And the line that spawned headlines, T-shirts, hashtags, and memes: “I am someone’s daughter too.”
October 29, 2020

But for People With COVID-19. It is probably tough to breathe...

...let alone when it is hot with over 70 percent humidity. The mister probably does not help with respect to controlling the spread of covid.

October 29, 2020

More than 860,000 women dropped out of the labor force in September, according to new report

This is why the so called news of a recovery is BS. Unemployment is going down because hundreds of thousands of women have dropped out of the labor force permanently or indefinitely due to the pandemic.

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2020/10/02/865000-women-dropped-out-of-the-labor-force-in-september-2020.html

As the economy slowly tries to recover during the coronavirus pandemic, new data shows that women are still being disproportionately impacted by today's crisis.

Between August and September, nearly 1.1 million workers ages 20 and over dropped out of the labor force, meaning they are no longer working or looking for work. Of those workers, 865,000 of them were women, a number that is four times higher than the 216,000 men who also left the workforce, according to a National Women's Law Center analysis.

"This is the devastating impact of the ongoing breakdown of our nation's caregiving infrastructure in the face of Covid-19," Emily Martin, vice president for education and workplace justice at NWLC, tells CNBC Make It. "As families across the country struggle to figure out how to keep their jobs while also making sure their children are cared for, safe and learning every day, it's women who are being pushed out of work."

While all women are undoubtedly feeling the brunt of today's pandemic, Martin adds that Black women and Latinas are still seeing the highest rates of unemployment, "demonstrating the ways Covid-19 is deepening the already sharp inequities in our economy."
October 22, 2020

Trump's campaign made stops nationwide. Coronavirus cases surged in his wake in at least five places

As expected, Trump is the super spreader in chief bringing the blessings of COVID outbreaks to battleground states.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trumps-campaign-made-stops-nationwide-coronavirus-cases-surged-in-his-wake-in-at-least-five-places/ar-BB1aj7q8?li=BBnb7Kz

As President Donald Trump jetted across the country holding campaign rallies during the past two months, he didn’t just defy state orders and federal health guidelines. He left a trail of coronavirus outbreaks in his wake.

The president has participated in nearly three dozen rallies since mid-August, all but two at airport hangars. A USA TODAY analysis shows COVID-19 cases grew at a faster rate than before after at least five of those rallies in the following counties: Blue Earth, Minnesota; Lackawanna, Pennsylvania; Marathon, Wisconsin; Dauphin, Pennsylvania; and Beltrami, Minnesota.

Together, those counties saw 1,500 more new cases in the two weeks following Trump’s rallies than the two weeks before – 9,647 cases, up from 8,069 to 9,647 cases.

Public health officials additionally have linked 16 cases, including two hospitalizations, with the rally in Beltrami County, Minnesota, and one case with the rally in Marathon County, Wisconsin. Outside of the counties identified by USA TODAY with a greater case increase after rallies, officials identified four cases linked to Trump rallies.
October 10, 2020

Trump has the worst job losses on record heading into the election

The one thing Fox News and many business channels push is the fiction that Republican presidents are better for the economy.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/10/02/trump-has-the-worst-job-losses-on-record-heading-into-the-election/

Heading into the November election, the US jobs recovery is running out of steam.

The economy added 661,000 jobs in September, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Friday. The unemployment rate stood at 7.9%.

This is the highest the unemployment rate has been ahead of a presidential election since the government started tracking the monthly rate in 1948.

In 2012, when the country re-elected President Barack Obama, the pre-election unemployment rate was initially also reported at 7.9%, before getting revised down to 7.8%.
October 6, 2020

GQ: Alex Gibney on His Deep Dive into Russian Election Meddling

Interesting story about the continued evolution of Russian election meddling. Rather than directly broadcasting into the U.S., Russia mainly amplifies or pays existing voices that promote division in the U.S.

If you want to get a Russian paid gig, just start writing stories attacking Democrats from the "left" or pushing fealty to Trump from the "right."

https://www.gq.com/story/alex-gibney-agents-of-chaos-hbo-doc

In early 2017, Alex Gibney flew to a secret location on the West Coast to meet a man named Glenn Simpson. Just a few weeks prior, Simpson, a co-founder of the research firm Fusion GPS, had become known the world over for his role in producing the so-called Steele Dossier, which alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government to secure Trump’s 2016 presidential victory (among far more salacious activities). Simpson told Gibney he was concerned that if anything were to happen to him, then his side of the story might never get out. Gibney, an Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker who had already been looking into Russia, was eager to hear it. Just a few months later, Fusion GPS’s findings would form the basis of the Mueller investigation.

Over the past 40 years, Gibney has built a reputation for unpacking some of the biggest scandals of our time: Enron, WikiLeaks, Lance Armstrong’s blood doping, Elliot Spitzer’s liaisons. If anyone could explain the Russia-Trump story in a way that others would understand, it would be him. And so after their meeting, Gibney set to work on Agents of Chaos, a two-part series that premiered on HBO in late September. The story it tells may not answer any unresolved questions, but it brings together a cast of characters who have never before appeared in the same story, including former FBI director Andrew McCabe, former Trump associates Felix Sater and Carter Page, and, of course, Glenn Simpson himself. Collectively, they provide chilling insight into the lengths to which Russia went to sow chaos in the U.S. in 2016, and the extent to which the Trump campaign was willing to help. More chilling still: While the series may be finished, the story is far from over.

In a telephone interview before the series premiered, Gibney told me that he thinks part of the problem with the way the Russia-Trump story has been told up to now is that “everybody wanted to tie it up neat.” His team decided to take a different tack altogether, to “embrace the very idea of uncertainty. And once you embrace that idea, then tying up every loose end ends up kind of missing the essence of the story.” The essence of this story, as Gibney tells it, is that the Russian government wanted to dismantle American democracy, and so they did, by the most convenient means at their disposal: us.

It’s a far messier story than the myriad conspiracy theories that have attempted to explain the events of 2016, like the idea that Trump has been a Russian asset since the 1980s or the QAnon notion this is all part of a plot by deep state Democrats to frame Trump lest he unmask their cabal of pedophiles. And that’s exactly Gibney’s point. “Conspiracy theories, at their heart, are a way of explaining the unexplainable,” he told me. “Everything fits together perfectly. Well, things don’t fit together perfectly, usually.”

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