US election: Australian Data guru Bela Stantic reveals Donald Trump is on track to win again

But can he allow for the huge voting frauds that seem likely this time?

A data guru who correctly predicted the 2016 US election, Scott Morrison’s win last year and the Brexit vote says history is repeating.

A data scientist who correctly predicted Donald Trump’s shock victory over Hillary Clinton in 2016 says the US President is currently on track to win again.

Professor Bela Stantic is the founder and director of Griffith University’s Big Data and Smart Analytics Lab, where he analyses social media data and sentiment to predict voters’ behaviour.

In the past, those predictions have been extraordinarily accurate.

Four years ago, Prof Stantic successfully picked the winner in 49 of the 50 American states. His lab also nailed the result of both the 2016 Brexit referendum and our own federal election last year.

In all three cases, public opinion polling pointed to the opposite result.

At the moment, the polls show Mr Trump trailing his opponent, Joe Biden, by an average of 6.2 per cent at the national level. They’re a bit closer in the key battleground states, where Mr Biden leads by 3.9 per cent.

It looks like a comfortable lead for the Democratic Party’s nominee. But, just like Ms Clinton’s lead four years ago, it could be a mirage.

Prof Stantic recently conducted a preliminary, draft analysis of the upcoming US election. His lab’s complete analysis, along with a final prediction of the result, will come closer to polling day on November 3.

“It is obvious again that Trump will lose the popular vote,” he told news.com.au.

“However, he’s tracking really well in the crucial states. Florida is a coin toss, but he’s slightly ahead for me. And Minnesota and Pennsylvania as well. And then Texas, he will win easily.

“So then that gives him an edge to get about 270, 280 electoral votes.

“It is maybe early, but I can tell you that the trend we identified in advance last time is holding.”

In other words, the race is close – pretty much neck-and-neck – but Mr Trump is once again on course to lose the popular vote while winning the decisive electoral vote.

About 2.9 million more Americans cast ballots for Ms Clinton than for Mr Trump in 2016. However, the President’s support was distributed more efficiently.

While the Democrat racked up huge margins in populous but uncompetitive states like California and New York, Mr Trump managed to scrape to relatively narrow victories in the states that actually mattered, such as Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

That gave him a 304-227 edge in the Electoral College, comfortably above the winning threshold of 270.

Prof Stantic said the 2020 election was, broadly speaking, the same sort of race. “It’s really a coin toss. I think Florida, at the moment, is a coin toss, but Trump is just ahead,” he said.

But his draft analysis dug up one particularly important – and perhaps surprising – difference between 2016 and 2020.

“I find that this time it is more polarised than last time,” Prof Stantic said. He reached that conclusion by analysing the comments on Mr Biden’s social media posts.

“People reacted so harshly against Biden. It was 30,000-something comments, and all strongly against him,” he said. “They are saying that he cannot be trusted, that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. ‘At least Trump, what he says, he thinks.’ Comments along these lines. “There was not much support for Biden.”

This is an interesting wrinkle, because the conventional wisdom you often hear from political experts – and occasionally, from self-important journalists – is that Ms Clinton was a more polarising figure than Mr Biden is.

Four years ago, Mr Trump and Ms Clinton both had unusually high disapproval ratings in the polls. This time, Mr Biden’s favourability rating is pretty much split down the middle.

Prof Stantic’s method is not infallible. It did, for instance, get the result of Australia’s same-sex marriage plebiscite wrong, for reasons he explained in detail afterwards.

But he says his lab’s analysis is more reliable than opinion polling, because it involves a significantly larger sample size.

“I think the polls are volatile because their sample size is very small. They have a thousand people, and it depends on who you interview,” he said. “I’m talking about millions of posts. Last month, I think I had 800,000 posts in one day. “It’s not just about these 800,000, but it’s also that some posts have 20,000-30,000 likes.”

People also tend to be more honest when expressing their opinions on social media than when a pollster quizzes them.

And the peculiar nature of America’s system, which hinges on the candidates winning states (rather than, say, seats like in Australia), helps make Prof Stantic’s job simpler, because the data allows him to pinpoint exactly which state people will be voting in.

“Australia, it’s a bit hard because of seats and their locations. The US election, it’s easier to predict,” he said.

SOURCE

***************************************

Support for Black Lives Matter has dropped among Americans since unrest flared after George Floyd’s death, new poll finds

Fewer white and Hispanic Americans are supporting Black Lives Matter while African American backing for the movement remains virtually unchanged, according to a new poll.

A majority of Americans – 55 per cent – express at least some support for the movement, which is down from 67 per cent in June, a new survey by Pew Research Center shows.

The number of American adults who say they strongly support the movement has also dropped from 38 per cent in June to 29 per cent.

The previous survey was taken in the days and weeks following the May 25 police-involved death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Pew’s latest findings were taken in the aftermath of the police shooting of 29-year-old black man Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Among African Americans, support for BLM remains strong. In June, 87 per cent of black people said they backed the movement.

The latest survey puts the figure at 86 per cent.

Notably, the poll found a drop of African American adults who say they strongly support BLM. In June, 71 per cent said they strongly supported it, though now 62 per cent say the same.

Pew found that it is among whites and Hispanics that backing for BLM has wavered.

Among white adults, 60 per cent said they supported BLM back in June. That number has now dropped to less than half – 45 per cent.

In June, 77 per cent of Hispanic adults said they supported BLM. The latest findings show that number has slipped to 66 per cent today.

Among Asian Americans, backing for BLM has dropped slightly from 75 per cent to 69 per cent.

Support for BLM also brings down sharply along partisan lines. Just 19 per cent of Republicans said they somewhat supported the movement.

Meanwhile, 88 per cent of Democrats said the same.

Broken down into race, 88 per cent of white Democrats expressed at least some support for BLM while just 16 per cent of white Republicans say the same.

A little more than half – 51 per cent – of white Democrats said they strongly support BLM, while just 2 per cent of white Republicans said the same.

SOURCE

*********************************

American Catholics Moving to Support Trump

The Catholic vote in America used to be a monolith, with up to 80 percent of Catholics supporting the Democratic candidate for president. Those days are gone, but the Catholic vote — especially in the northeast and upper midwest — is crucial. Catholics have voted for the presidential winner in 8 of the last 9 elections. They make up about 22 percent of the electorate.

But Catholics are riven by divisions between those who say they mostly follow the Church’s teachings and those who don’t. More conservative Catholics have been trending Republican in recent elections and that trend is expected to accelerate when Catholics go to the polls in November and vote for Trump.

Trump has been called the most pro-life president in history. That, along with his appeals to faith, family, and patriotism are very attractive to more devout Catholics.

Washington Times:

About 18% of Catholics say they accept all the church’s teachings, versus 38% who say they accept most of them, and 29% who say they do not accept some key teachings, according to a February EWTN News/RealClearOpinion poll.

“Among Catholics who do practice the faith in a substantive way, yes, there’s been a dramatic shift over the last several decades away from the Democratic Party and into the Republican Party, and I think it’s been especially pronounced under President Trump,” [Catholic Vote President Brian] Burch said.

Biden is very touchy about his Catholicism, bristling when questioned about his pro-choice stance being directly opposed to church teachings on abortion. He has also opposed the Trump administration to carve out exemptions for people of faith in Obamacare.

For traditional Catholics, however, Mr. Biden remains a hard sell, given his pro-choice stance on abortion and his opposition to conscience exemptions for religious organizations, business owners and medical professionals under Obamacare.

CatholicVote sought to drive home the point by unveiling Tuesday a $9.7 million campaign in six key swing states targeting “Joe Biden’s anti-Catholic record and policy agenda,” including digital ads, canvassing and direct mail.

Catholics are not only worried about Biden, but also his running mate, Kamala Harris, who apparently believes the Knights of Columbus are some kind of super-secret anti-abortion club. In 2018, she grilled a judicial nominee over his membership in the KOC.

“Since 1993, you have been a member of the Knights of Columbus, an all-male society comprised primarily of Catholic men,” said Ms. Harris during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. “Were you aware that the Knights of Columbus opposed a woman’s right to choose when you joined the organization?”

The Catholic Association described Ms. Harris, a Baptist, as “the ringleader of the anti-Catholic bullying stance adopted by the Democratic Party.”

There are still enough Catholics in key states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Minnesota to make the difference for Trump in November. Whether they come out and vote for him is another question. But with so much at stake — and now, a Supreme Court vacancy that could be filled with a Biden nominee who would make abortion on demand far easier to get — you would think that turnout would give Trump a big boost.

SOURCE

**********************************

IN BRIEF

“Go for the much higher numbers”: Trump undercuts GOP by calling for bigger COVID-19 relief package (The Hill)

Department of Health and Human Services unveils plans for vaccine distribution (Washington Examiner)

The Russian-bounties story turns out to be trash journalism (National Review)

White House press secretary excoriates media for failing to cover historic Middle East peace deals (The Post Millennial)

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow uses Obama-era photos to undermine Trump’s border policy and minority outreach (The Washington Free Beacon)

Senate Homeland Security Committee authorizes subpoenas for testimony from Obama officials as part of Russia probe (Fox News)

Robert Mueller declined invitation to testify before Senate Judiciary Committee (Washington Examiner)

Senator David Perdue cleared of wrongdoing on scrutinized stock trades (The Washington Free Beacon)

Pandering Biden criticized for playing sensual hit song “Despacito” at Hispanic Heritage Month event (Disrn)

“This is the most important election since our country was founded”: 235 retired military leaders endorse Trump in joint letter (Disrn)

BLM cofounder Alicia Garza in 2015 said capitalism must be abolished for black lives to matter (The Daily Caller)

Netflix subscription cancellations deservedly soar after “Cuties” controversy (The Daily Wire)

Minneapolis won’t let riot‐battered stores install security shutters (Cato Institute)

“There’s not a comparable year”: Homicides are up 52% in Chicago (USA Today)

Four people apprehended, facing multiple charges for intentionally starting wildfires on West Coast (Disrn)

Former Atlanta CFO — who was employed by an anti-gun administration — indicted for illegal machine gun possession (The Truth About Guns)

New York City Mayor’s Office to take weeklong furlough (WCBS 800)

Fed leaves interest rates near zero; end-of-year unemployment rate forecast is reduced considerably from previous outlook (NPR)

“The WTO is completely inadequate to stop China’s harmful technology practices”: World Trade Organization rules that some U.S. tariffs on China violate trade rules (National Review)

Nearly two-thirds of U.S. young adults unaware that six million Jews killed in the Holocaust (The Guardian)

Yoshihide Suga — facing daunting challenges — becomes Japan’s prime minister, pledging to follow Abe’s course (NPR)

******************************************

For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), A Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in). GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Personal). My annual picture page is here. Home page supplement

**************************

What life is really like in lockdown-free Sweden

The golden spire of Stockholm’s city hall glistens in the sunset, runners sweat away the day’s stresses on the boat-lined waterfront, and a young couple wobble along a cobbled street on a single-seater bike. I’m watching the evening unfold from the 52-metre high glass-flanked rooftop bar TAK, which, like almost every popular drinking spot in the Swedish capital, has remained open throughout the pandemic.

As a dual British-Swedish citizen living in Stockholm, I’m treating myself to a glass of fizz to celebrate Sweden finally joining the UK’s quarantine-free list. For me, it brings a chance to visit family for the first time since February. But my phone’s also been pinging with British contacts curious about holidaying in Sweden following the dramatic drop in cases here over the summer and an ever-dwindling list of alternatives for those seeking an autumn break in Europe.

The first thing any would-be tourist here will notice is the lack of face masks. They’re requested at Swedish airports but aren’t compulsory on transport, in shops, hairdressers or indeed any part of public life. A recent major poll found just 6% of Swedes currently use them, despite 43% believing they could stop the spread of infection and several prominent Swedish scientists lobbying the authorities to change their approach. Anders Tegnell, the country’s state epidemiologist, has said he might reconsider things if there’s a renewed increase in cases, but he’s repeatedly argued that hand-washing and social distancing remain more effective barriers against the virus.

For now, the lack of this year’s must-have accessory means Stockholm – usually ahead of fashion trends – certainly looks and feels significantly more “normal” than most European capitals. Yet it’s a myth that life hasn’t changed in Sweden, which also stood almost alone in shunning a lockdown at the peak of the pandemic and has relied largely on voluntary recommendations. At my rooftop location, there’s table-service only – ordering at bar counters stopped in March, in an effort to stop mingling. Social distancing between groups is guided by crosses of black and yellow plastic tape between the window seats, an incongruous clash with the venue’s plush leather and velvet seating. There is a DJ, but dancing’s not allowed. Major nightclubs have temporarily closed or, like the city’s hipster concrete mega-venue, Trädgården, pivoted into restaurants and maxed out their outdoor seating capacity.

As in other parts of the world, maintaining order once the drinks start flowing is challenging in some locations, while those hell bent on partying organised illegal raves in the forest over the summer. Yet at TAK, 27-year-old customer Olena believes that after six months of consistent guidelines, many young Swedes have got used to more sedate socialising. “You can meet friends in small groups. But a night out probably ends that evening, not going into the next morning!”

What she really misses are gigs, which, alongside most sports events and theatre productions, have largely been off the table since the spring due to a ban on public gatherings of more than 50 people. The public health agency recently recommended increasing the limit to 500, although it’s unclear exactly how or when things will change.

Swedes’ working lives remain different too. They’ve been asked to do their jobs from home until at least the end of the year if they can, although there are no official figures on how many are actually following the guideline. “We think most major company buildings are still closed or they’ve put in place a rota so people can go back in once a week or so for a different quality of interaction,” says Staffan Ingvarsson, CEO of Stockholm Business Region. Telecommuting has largely been “going well”, he argues, due to high levels of trust between employers and employees, a tech-savvy population and almost 100% broadband coverage. But anecdotal evidence suggests some employees bored of working from home are increasingly hanging out in coffee shops or even paying for spots at coworking spaces. And, while figures from Stockholm’s public transport company SL indicate people are still travelling less than before the pandemic, there are concerns about overcrowding during rush hour, especially since over-16s returned to high school in August for the first time since March.

Visitors hoping to avoid subways and buses by using the capital’s bike sharing scheme will be disappointed; a break between suppliers saw all cycles and racks removed in 2018, although several e-scooter startups are plugging the gap in the market. Yet with hotels crying out for guests, it’s currently no challenge to find affordable, central accommodation from which to explore the main hotspots on foot.

“Although business is very slow, it is kind of beautiful to see the streets so quiet,” says Mats Bengtsson, who runs The Collector’s Hotels, three antique-filled boutique venues set amidst the iconic spice-hued buildings of the city’s Medieval old town. Bookings have been so low since March he’s made half his staff redundant, with the rest propped up by a government support scheme. “Places in the countryside got Swedish tourists visiting this summer, but there wasn’t much reason for Swedes to come to the city because all the events were cancelled,” he explains. “We are starting to get a few international guests now and the UK has always been a strong market for us, so I’m hopeful we will get some business back.”

Sweden’s world-famous fashion and design stores are also looking forward to more global customers. While the retail economy hasn’t taken as big a hit as in the UK, it’s still experiencing its worst year for four decades. Covid safety measures taken by shops vary considerably; I’ve seen staff at tills standing behind plastic sheets, while others have grumbled when I’ve asked why there’s no communal hand sanitiser. Many venues have introduced floor stickers designed to encourage distancing in queues, albeit with varying effects. Some clothing brands closed their changing rooms at the peak of the pandemic, but most have now reopened.

Unsurprisingly, the strictest changes to public life here are in doctor’s surgeries and hospitals, where, emergencies aside, nobody’s allowed in without an appointment. There’s a backlog of tens of thousands of operations affected by reorganisation and delays designed to prioritise patients with Covid-19. Therapists have been allowed to offer face-to-face meetings throughout the pandemic though, with reports of a recent increase in couples seeking help. Even in a country that avoided a lockdown and the pressures of homeschooling, there’s been a spike in separations.

Despite intense international criticism over the country’s high early death toll and sharpening national political debates about the government’s preparedness for the crisis, domestic support for the public health agency has remained strong. And locals are acutely aware that their country’s back in the global spotlight for avoiding the fresh spikes seen in the UK and other parts of Scandinavia.

“We can’t know for sure but a lot of people are hoping we won’t get a second wave because we have kept more of society open instead of going in and out of lockdown,” said a Swedish gym friend, after my last socially-distanced evening exercise class. “I hope we can prove we did it right.”

Scientists have varied opinions on whether Swedes have developed greater immunity to the virus, are better at social distancing, or if other factors will turn out to be more relevant to the country’s downward curve. But many agree that the consistency of the measures in Sweden has contributed to a calmer public mood here than in the UK. That might prove another incentive for British tourists seeking a respite from the new rule-of-six, just in time to see Sweden’s forests burst into their autumn colour palette. Meanwhile, I’m stocking up on masks as I prepare to fly in the other direction, and crossing my fingers I don’t touch down to a local lockdown.

SOURCE

********************************

Ted Cruz Explains Perfectly Why RBG’s Seat Must Be Filled Before the Election

RINO Murkowski, prior to Ginsburg passing, said she 'would not vote' to confirm a nominee to Supreme Court before election

Republican Senator Ted Cruz says President Donald Trump needs to nominate a successor Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg next week, and that the Senate should confirm that choice or the country risks a constitutional crisis.

“I believe that the president should, next week, nominate a successor to the court. I think it is critical that the Senate takes up and confirms that successor before Election Day,” Senator Cruz told Sean Hannity on Fox News.

“Democrats and Joe Biden have made clear they intend to challenge this election. They intend to fight the legitimacy of the election. As you you know Hillary Clinton has told Joe Biden ‘under no circumstances should you concede, you should challenge this election.’ and we cannot have election day come and go with a 4-4 court.”

Cruz continued, “A 4-4 court that is equally divided cannot decide anything. And I think we risk a constitutional crisis if we do not have a nine-justice Supreme Court, particularly when there is such a risk of … a contested election.”

Cruz then shared his experience litigating Bush vs. Gore case and how the country didn’t know for 37 days who the president-elect was. “I think we have the responsibility to do our job. The president should nominate a principled constitutionalist with a proven record and the Senate … should do our job and protect the country from the constitutional crisis that could result otherwise.”

SOURCE

************************************

To mask or not to mask

I certainly cannot see any point in wearing a mask if you are not infected. A rule that all infected people should wear masks should be sufficient

Public trust in the word of “experts” and public health officials over the past few months has rapidly deteriorated.

It started in April when members of the White House Wuhan coronavirus task force told the public to start wearing face masks after two months of officials screaming at Americans not to wear them.

“Seriously people- STOP BUYING MASKS! They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus, but if healthcare providers can’t get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk!” Surgeon General Jerome Adams angrily tweeted on February 9.

“Whenever you leave home, be sure to put on your mask!” Adams said on August 7.

Then after months of life-altering economic sacrifices to help slow the spread of the disease and prepare hospitals for patients, on June 5, more than 1000 health officials signed a letter approving of mass protests in the name of social justice.

“We created the letter in response to emerging narratives that seemed to malign demonstrations as risky for the public health because of Covid-19,” the letter states. “We wanted to present a narrative that prioritizes opposition to racism as vital to the public health, including the epidemic response. We believe that the way forward is not to suppress protests in the name of public health but to respond to protesters’ demands in the name of public health, thereby addressing multiple public health crises.”

Americans have been forbidden from going to church or other religious services, funerals for loved ones, major life events and more. For a period of time, crucial yet “non-essential” health issues and procedures were canceled or delayed for the sake of stopping the virus. A salon owner in Dallas was thrown in jail for defying shutdown orders so her employees could work to feed their families. And yet, these health officials threw their previous advice about large crowds out the window for a leftist movement. They did this, without shame, while continuing to advocate for devastating shutdowns on everyone else.

This trend continued in September when health “experts” published a study showing Sturgis, an annual gathering of motorcycle riders in North Dakota, was a “super spreader” event. The researchers magically did not find the same results for massive Black Lives Matter protests, where tens-of-thousands of people packed in close to one another and screamed loudly.

And now, CDC Director Robert Redfield has put another nail in the trust coffin.

During testimony this week in front of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Redfield claimed masks are more effective than a vaccine in protecting Americans from Wuhan coronavirus.

“Face masks, these face masks, are the most important, powerful public health tool we have, and I will continue to appeal for all Americans, all individuals in our country, to embrace these face coverings,” Redfield said. “I might even go so far as to say that this facemask is more guaranteed to protect me against COVID than when I take a COVID vaccine.”

For months we’ve been told masks don’t protect the person wearing them, but instead catch droplets from a sick person wearing one and prevent them from spreading to others. Redfield now appears to be arguing masks protect the person wearing them, which is the opposite of what we’ve been lectured about while officials demand Americans wear them — even to walk their dogs alone.

Further, Redfield’s current statement is the opposite of his testimony in February when he said “no” after being asked by lawmakers whether healthy people should be wearing masks.

If face masks were as protective as the CDC director claims, the entire country would be open. The experts, who also happen to be longtime Washington, D.C., bureaucrats, are either lying or they don’t know what they’re talking about. Either way, they’ve lost significant trust among the American public.

SOURCE

**********************************

For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), A Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in). GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Personal). My annual picture page is here. Home page supplement

**************************

Coronavirus is soaring again in the UK, but the number of deaths is low. Here are the main theories why

This article seems to miss the obvious. It is known that the virus kills very few people in general so once the virus has swept through a population and killed off those susceptible, there will be very few left for it to kill. Hence the reduced numbers of deaths at the current time

That explains the Swedish experience as well. Sweden had a lot of opportunities for the virus to spread so they had a relatively high death rate. But the death rate there is now down to almost nothing. All those susceptible to it are now dead so there are few new deaths. Sweden has now got the problem all over with

After suffering one of the world’s most brutal outbreaks of COVID-19 earlier this year, the United Kingdom is bracing itself for what could be a second wave of the disease.

The UK managed to flatten its curve slightly from late June, just in time to allow people to enjoy the northern hemisphere’s summer.

The loosening of restrictions across Europe, which allowed people to enjoy rounds at the pub and beach holidays, is widely blamed for the region’s second spike.

But while the number of infections has climbed steadily for two months, something strange is happening with the UK’s COVID-19 death toll.

The number of death certificates issued which mention COVID-19 has been falling for 20 straight weeks, according to UK Government statistics.

It’s a huge achievement for Britain, which was experiencing Europe’s worst surge in deaths in June.

While experts aren’t sure exactly what’s behind the fall in COVID-19 deaths, there are a few theories.

This spike is a young spike

The UK’s first wave of COVID-19 cases was predominantly driven by people in care homes and hospitals.

It’s estimated that about 20,000 British care residents died from COVID-19 as the virus ripped through facilities for the elderly and disabled across the kingdom.

But it appears that younger Britons are behind this renewed surge of the disease.

Pubs in the UK are still open, and the city of Leeds says it’s started issuing fines after an increase in music events, house parties and illegal raves.

In the first week of September, a third of all cases in England were people aged between 20 and 29.(Reuters: Simon Dawson)
People aged 20 to 29 have the highest infection rate in England, with 46 cases per 100,000 people. That’s followed by people in their 30s, with nearly 30 cases per 100,000.

“What we think is happening is that it’s mostly infecting younger people in particular parts of the country, and it’s not so much yet moving into the older and more vulnerable population,” Peter Openshaw, who is a professor of experimental medicine at Imperial College London and scientific advisor to the UK Government, told the ABC.

“So many of the people who would be very severely affected are keeping themselves in isolation still and are not behaving in a way that might put them at risk of catching it, so it hasn’t moved up the generations in the way that it would need to in order to cause deaths.”

But the UK Government fears the disease could soon spread to older generations. “Don’t kill your gran by catching coronavirus and then passing it on,” UK Health Minister Matt Hancock warned.

While younger people can die from COVID-19 complications, older patients still have a much higher risk of death from the disease.

Doctors are getting better at treating the virus

While the UK’s second surge of infections could still spread to older people, the doctors on the front lines of the crisis appear to be better equipped to cope.

At the beginning of the pandemic, health workers around the world were grappling with a novel virus.

They had never encountered COVID-19 before, and so every symptom and complication was new, every treatment something of an experiment.

Now, doctors have approval from the National Health Service (NHS) to use two drugs on critically-ill COVID-19 patients: the Ebola treatment remdesivir, and the low-cost steroid dexamethasone.

The medications are not a cure, but may be helping patients recover quicker.

The UK is testing more people

At the beginning of the pandemic, it could be quite difficult to get a COVID-19 test in the UK.

Download the ABC News app and subscribe to our range of news alerts for the latest on how the pandemic is impacting the world
Tests were mostly limited to older people and those who had been checked into hospital with respiratory problems.

Anyone else with symptoms was urged to isolate at home for seven days, and call an NHS hotline if they took a turn for the worse.

Those restrictions meant that by early April, only 7,500 people in England had been tested for COVID-19. At the same point, Germany was already testing 5,000 people a day.

The rules have since been changed by the NHS so that anyone with symptoms can get a free swab.

That meant that in the first week of September, 436,884 people were tested in England, according to UK Government statistics.

“It’s a general trend, but it’s really important to understand a large part of the graph going up is more tests, and in particular more test in areas with a high rate,” Danny Dorling, the Halford Mackinder Professor of Geography at the University of Oxford, told the ABC.

The UK’s testing system is still being criticised. As demand for tests increases, the backlog of swabs at laboratories has reportedly grown to nearly 185,000.

Professor Dorling also pointed to a random sample survey by the Office of National Statistics, which tracks people who have first tested negative to coronavirus before repeatedly following up with tests to see how many people catch it.

“That ONS one shows the increase is only among young adults so far — that only comes out every couple of weeks but is such a higher quality (than NHS testing).

“If you want to know what is happening in the population you need to look at the ONS data, because it’s a proper random sample that is not affected by fewer or more people getting tested and so-on.

“And that one is a lot less worrying than the raw figures.”

There may simply be a lag in deaths

While deaths are not rising in lockstep with new coronavirus cases, it may only be a matter of time.

There is always a lag between a spike in cases and the number of people dying from the disease.

Hospital admissions for COVID-19 patients have hit their highest levels in two months, official UK data shows.

On September 13 alone, 153 people were admitted to English hospitals with COVID-19.

In a country of 56 million, that may not sound like much, but it’s a concern to UK actuary John Roberts, who analyses the UK’s infection rate for the COVID-19 Actuaries Response Group.

If hospital admissions continue on this current trajectory, the UK could have as many people needing treatment for COVID-19 as they did in June.

“The last couple of weeks there’s been a bit of a spike, the number of deaths has gone up but it’s not a huge jump and it may be that we’re going to have to wait a bit to see the trends in infection, particularly in the vulnerable age groups, go up,” Professor Openshaw said.

“Then after a lag of two or three weeks we’ll expect to see the upwards trend in terms of the number of deaths.

“So there is an built-in delay of about three weeks between it spreading into a particular population and those infections being translated into death.”

SOURCE

*************************************

If you’ve got a runny nose you DON’T have Covid-19: Top expert says fatigue is most common symptom for children as Matt Hancock urges parents not to confuse colds with coronavirus

Children only suffering from a runny nose ‘absolutely’ do not have coronavirus, a top expert has warned amid calls for Britons to stop getting tested unnecessarily as the government’s ongoing swabbing fiasco continues.

Professor Tim Spector, of King’s College London, moved to reassure parents the symptom, alongside congestion and sneezing, is a ‘sure sign’ they have a cold and not Covid-19.

Matt Hancock has claimed parents seeking tests for children merely battling colds are contributing to the soaring demand on Britain’s creaking testing service, which has descended into chaos over the past week.

Fears are now high that schools and offices will have to shut because people with mild symptoms cannot prove they are negative. Officials say a quarter of Britons getting tested aren’t ‘eligible’.

It was claimed today that the testing fiasco has hit almost every school in the UK, with up to 25,000 teachers in England already forced to stay at home and self-isolate.

Professor Spector, who runs the Coronavirus Symptom Study app, is behind research showing the most common symptoms of Covid-19 for school-age children is fatigue (55 per cent), headaches (55 per cent) and a fever (49 per cent).

By comparison, the most common symptoms in adults are fatigue (87 per cent), headache (72 per cent) and a loss of smell (60 per cent). Neither children or adults frequently report a runny nose.

SOURCE

*************************************

IN BRIEF

Up to nine additional nations could join peace deal with Israel, including Saudi Arabia, Trump says (The Daily Wire)

Clueless Joe refers to the “Harris-Biden administration” (Washington Examiner)

Biden votes in person, wrecks the Democrats’ mail-in voting narrative (PJ Media)

House GOP releases “Commitment to America” agenda (The Resurgent)

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi unpractically seeks to put pressure on GOP in COVID-19 relief battle (The Hill)

Senator Tom Cotton: The U.S. should eliminate China’s “most favored nation” trade status (The Washington Free Beacon)

Criminal probe opened into John Bolton’s book, The Room Where It Happened, which may contain classified information (Politico)

A former NRA insider paints an unflattering picture (National Review)

Three charged for harassing patrons at Pittsburgh restaurants during Labor Day BLM protest (National Review)

Judge throws the book at 13 alleged Lancaster rioters and sets $1 million bail for seven of them (Daily Mail)

Up to 95% riots are linked to Black Lives Matter (The Federalist)

Virginia police hunting for person who shot patrol car three times (Fox News)

“Evil is real”: North Carolina police officer pens heartfelt resignation letter to community amid “unprecedented” exodus from the force (The Daily Wire)

Breonna Taylor’s family reaches massive settlement with City of Louisville for $12 million (WAVE 3 News)

LA County sheriff calls out LeBron James, wants him to match reward for deputies’ shooter (The Truth About Guns)

Chinese organization with Communist Party ties funds Black Lives Matter ventures (The Federalist)

Chinese software firm that “provides intelligence to the government and military” collects data from 50,000 Americans (Daily Mail)

“Worst-case scenario”: Baltimore murder suspects protected by sanctuary laws (The Washington Times)

Trump says he favored plan to eliminate Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, but then-Secretary of Defense James Mattis opposed it (Disrn)

FTC prepares possible antitrust lawsuit against Facebook (Bloomberg)

Oil demand has collapsed, and it won’t come back any time soon (NPR)

Alan Dershowitz files multimillion-dollar defamation lawsuit against CNN (Washington Examiner)

Policy: The U.S. dollar collapse is greatly exaggerated (Mises Institute)

**********************************

For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), A Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in). GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Personal). My annual picture page is here. Home page supplement

**************************

Eli Lilly’s coronavirus antibody drug cut hospitalization rates by THREE-FOLD for mild or moderately ill patients, early study data reveals

Eli Lilly and Co says interim results from its study of an antibody drug shows it may prevent mild to moderately ill coronavirus patients from being hospitalized.

The antibody, LY-CoV555, was developed by Indianapolis-based Lilly and the Canadian company AbCellera.

It recognizes the virus once a person is infected and attaches to it, preventing the pathogen from spreading throughout the body.

Hospitalization or ER visits were about three times less likely in COVID-19 patients given the drug than those given a placebo.

The company announced the results on Wednesday in a press release, but they have not been published or reviewed by independent scientists.

‘I’m strongly encouraged’ by the results, said Dr Myron Cohen, a virologist at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. He had no role in the Lilly study but helps direct antibody studies for a public-private research group the federal government formed to speed testing of these drugs. ‘This seems to demonstrate what we thought’ – that such drugs would give a benefit, he said.

A total of 450 people with COVID-19 symptoms not severe enough to warrant hospitalization were recruited for the mid-stage study.

The drug is given once through an IV and was tested at three doses. Neither the patients nor their doctors knew which patients received the drug or placebo infusions.

Hospitalization or ER visits occurred in 1.7 percent of 302 patients given the drug and six percent of those given the placebo, a 72 percent risk reduction.

No serious side effects or deaths were reported among patients.

The drug missed the study’s main goal of reducing the amount of virus patients had after 11 days, except the middle of three doses being tested at 2,800 milligrams.

However, most study participants, even those given a placebo treatment, had cleared the virus by then, so that time point now seems too late to judge that potential benefit, the company said.

The company felt that giving the actual numbers ‘told the story in the most balanced way,’ said Dr Daniel Skovronsky, Lilly’s chief scientific officer.

‘The results reinforce our conviction that neutralizing antibodies can help in the fight against COVID-19.’

The company said most hospitalizations occurred in patients who were among higher-risk groups, such as being elderly or underlying risk factors such as being elderly or obese, suggesting a more pronounced treatment effect for people in these higher-risk groups.

Lilly said it would talk with regulators about possible next steps but that it was too soon to speculate on whether these interim results might lead to any action to allow early use.

Antibodies are proteins the body makes when an infection occurs. They attach to a virus and help it be eliminated.

The blood of survivors – convalescent plasma – is being tested as a treatment for COVID-19 patients because it contains such antibodies.

However, the strength and types of antibodies varies depending on each donor, and doing this on a large scale is impractical.

The drugs that Lilly and other companies are testing are concentrated versions of specific antibodies that worked best against the coronavirus in lab and animal tests, and can be made in large, standardized doses.

They are being tested to treat newly diagnosed COVID-19 patients in hope of preventing serious disease or death, and to try to prevent infection in people at high risk of these outcomes such as nursing home residents and health workers.

The difference seems large enough to suggest a true benefit and the result is ‘promising’ even though the study missed its main goal, said Dr Peter Bach, a health policy expert at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York who was not involved in the study.

The trial, which has now enrolled 800 patients with mild-to-moderate COVID-19, is being test in combination with another Lilly antibody, LY-CoV016, which binds a different park of the spike protein the virus uses to enter human cells.

Lilly has already started manufacturing its antibody drug, hoping to have hundreds of thousands of doses ready by fall if studies give positive results.

Another company that developed an antibody drug cocktail against Ebola – Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc – now is testing a two-antibody drug for coronavirus.

SOURCE

**********************************

Do eyeglasses lower COVID-19 risks? Study finds spectacle-wearers are FIVE TIMES less likely to be diagnosed with coronavirus than the general public

Wearing eyeglasses daily may reduce the risk of contracting the novel coronavirus, a new study suggests.

Researchers from China found that COVID-19 patients were five times less likely to have frames than the general population.

The team, from The Second Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University, says they believe this is because ACE-2 receptors, which the virus latches onto to enter and infect human cells, can be found in the eyes.

The findings also provide more evidence for why healthcare workers should wear eye protection and why more attention needs to be focused on preventive measures such as frequently wash their hands and avoid touching their face.

For the study, published in JAMA Ophthalmology, the team looked at 276 patients diagnosed with COVID-19 between January 27 and March 13.

Thirty patients wore eyeglasses (10.9 percent), including 16 cases of nearsightedness and 14 cases of farsightedness.

None of those diagnosed with the virus wore contact lenses or had undergone refractive surgery to correct their vision.

A total 16 patients, all nearsighted, were long-term wearers, defined as wearing glasses for more than eight hours a day, accounting for 5.8 percent.

For the general population, the researchers looked at study decades ago from students between ages seven to 22 years in Hubei province, of which 31.5 percent wore glasses for nearsightedness.

At the time of publication, those students would be between ages 42 and 57, close to the median age of 31 for the COVID-19 patients.

This means that the general population is 5.4 times more likely to wear eyeglasses daily than those diagnosed with coronavirus.

‘Our main finding was that patients with COVID-19 who wear eyeglasses for an extended period every day were relatively uncommon, which could be preliminary evidence that daily wearers of eyeglasses are less susceptible to COVID-19,’ the authors wrote.

The researchers hypothesize that frames ‘prevent or discourage wearers from touching their eyes, thus avoiding transferring the virus from the hands to the eyes.’

Studies have recently found that the eyes produce ACE-2, making the organs a prime target for the virus.

Coronavirus has not only been found on the surface of the eyes, but also within tears, which would transfer the pathogen.

This may explain why up to 12 percent of patients with COVID-19 have so-called ‘ocular manifestations,’ such as redness and swelling.

‘Therefore, the eyes are considered an important channel for SARS-CoV-2 to enter the human body,’ the authors wrote.

‘For daily wearers of eyeglasses, who usually wear eyeglasses on social occasions, wearing eyeglasses may become a protective factor, reducing the risk of virus transfer to the eyes and leading to long-term daily wearers of eyeglasses being rarely infected with COVID- 19.’

In an invited commentary, Dr Lisa Maragakis, an associate professor of medicine and epidemiology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, said people should not wear glasses if they do not need them.

‘Although it is tempting to conclude from this study that everyone should wear eyeglasses, goggles, or a face shield in public to protect their eyes and themselves from COVID-19, from an epidemiological perspective, we must be careful to avoid inferring a causal relationship from a single observational study,’ she wrote.

SOURCE

*********************************

Twitter suspends account of Chinese virologist who claims COVID-19 was developed in a Wuhan lab – as she releases report with ‘evidence’ that she says backs up her theory

Twitter has suspended the account of a Chinese virologist who has publicly claimed that COVID-19 was developed in a Wuhan laboratory.

Li-Meng Yan’s account was taken down on Tuesday after she accused China of intentionally manufacturing and releasing COVID-19.

The Twitter account remained down on Wednesday and a message on the page now reads: ‘Account suspended. Twitter suspends accounts which violate the Twitter Rules.’

Twitter has not commented on the suspension of Yan’s account.

The social media giant started putting warning messages on tweets in May that contained disputed coronavirus claims.

It is not clear if there was one specific tweet from Yan that violated Twitter’s policy.

In an interview with Fox News’ Tucker Carlson on Tuesday night, Yan claimed she was suspended because ‘they don’t want the people to know this truth’.

Yan, who is a former researcher at the Hong Kong School of Public Health, said COVID-19 was ‘man-made’ and ‘not from nature’.

‘I have evidence to show why they can do it, what they have done, how (they did it),’ she told Fox News.

‘The scientific world also keeps silent… works together with the Chinese Communist Party, they don’t want people to know his truth. That’s why I get suspended, I get suppressed, I am the target that Chinese Communist Party wants disappeared.’

After the segment aired, the Fox News show also accused Facebook of censorship after saying they had been blocked from sharing the interview segment on the social media platform.

A video of the interview segment posted on the Tucker Carlson Tonight show’s page now comes with a warning that reads: ‘False Information. This post repeats information about COVID-19 that independent fact-checkers say is false.’

It comes as Yan published a report this week that she claims backs up her theory that China created the virus in a lab.

Some scientists have since said her report is ‘unsubstantiated’ and said it ‘cannot be given any credibility’.

Yan’s report has not been published in a scientific journal and has not been peer-reviewed – meaning it has not been checked and approved by fellow scientists.

Her report was posted on the website Zenodo.

The study was produced by the Rule of Law Society and the Rule of Law Foundation, sister organizations that former Trump strategist Steve Bannon founded with 50-year-old Chinese fugitive Guo Wengui.

Yan, who claims she fled to the US in April, says she was working at the Hong Kong School of Public Health – a reference laboratory for the World Health Organisation – before she was cut off after trying to alert people to human-to-human transmission of the virus in December.

The lab has denied that Yan ever ‘conducted any research on human-to-human transmission’ and said her assertions have ‘no scientific basis’.

In her report released this week, Yan claims the virus was built by merging the genetic material of two bat coronaviruses.

She claims its spike protein – a structure on the surface of the virus which it uses to bind with cells – was edited to make it easier for the virus to latch on to human cells.

Other research papers have already determined the origin of the virus as bats, which has resulted in top experts dismissing suggestions the virus was created by humans.

Yan writes that her research discounts the theory that coronavirus evolved in the wild and was then transferred to humans, claiming it ‘lacks substantial support’.

‘SARS-CoV-2 shows biological characteristics that are inconsistent with a naturally occurring virus,’ she wrote.

President Donald Trump claims he has seen evidence the virus, which he solely blames China for, came from Wuhan Institute of Virology – but he is not allowed to reveal it.

SOURCE

**********************************

For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), A Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in). GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Personal). My annual picture page is here. Home page supplement

**************************

<b>The "improved" blogger</b>

Blogger.com appear to be intent on forcing bloggers off their platform. The old form of their blogging engine is no longer available as from today.  And the new form will either insert paragraph breaks but interpret no html or it will interpret html but not create paragraphs.  The old engine that would do both is gone.  So to make my posts today intelligible I have to leave my html uninterpreted, which is messy.  I have an idea for a workaround but it will require preparation

University of Pittsburgh scientists discover antibody that 'neutralizes' virus that causes COVID-19

Scientists at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine have isolated “the smallest biological molecule” that “completely and specifically neutralizes” SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

The antibody component is 10 times smaller than a full-sized antibody, and has been used to create the drug Ab8, shared in the report published by the researchers in the journal Cell on Monday. The drug is seen as a potential preventative against SARS-CoV-2.

According to the report, the drug has been “highly effective in preventing and treating” the SARS-CoV-2 infections in mice and hamsters during tests. The drug also reportedly does not bind to human cells, which suggests it will not have negative side effects in people.

“Ab8 not only has potential as therapy for COVID-19, but it also could be used to keep people from getting SARS-CoV-2 infections,” said co-author John Mellors, chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Pitt and UPMC. “Antibodies of larger size have worked against other infectious diseases and have been well tolerated, giving us hope that it could be an effective treatment for patients with COVID-19 and for protection of those who have never had the infection and are not immune.”

Researchers are “thinking outside the box” for how the drug could be administered, stating it may be able to be inhaled or through a superficial injection, instead of an IV

According to the report, the team at University of Texas Medical Branch Center for Biodefense and Emerging Diseases and Galveston National Laboratory tested Ab8 and found it blocked the virus from entering cells. In mice trials, those treated with Ab8 had 10-fold less of the amount of infectious virus compared to those that were untreated.

SOURCE

**************************************

It’s Far Too Late to Think Lockdowns Can Make Covid-19 Go Away

In the early days of the coronavirus crisis, the rationale given for lockdowns was that it was necessary to stay at home for "fifteen days to slow the spread." The idea was that social distancing was necessary so that hospitals and other healthcare resources would not be overwhelmed.

However, by the summer of 2020, whether by design or not, it became common to hear media pundits, politicians, and even some scientists either imply or outright claim that social distancing could permanently flatten the curve or otherwise somehow cause a drastic reduction in overall covid-19 deaths.

For example, The Hill's Reid Wilson claimed in July: "We know how to stop this virus, it requires social distancing, it requires wearing a mask, and constant hand sanitizers and staying home as much as possible."

Yet this displays a woeful lack of understanding about the purpose and effectiveness of lockdowns. Lockdowns of the sort seen in April and May in this country do nothing at all to "stop this virus." The lockdown strategy only works to completely stop a disease if certain conditions can be met. Specifically, the lockdown must be extremely strict,  and it must be maintained indefinitely—perhaps for years—until a safe and effective vaccine is widely available.

Clearly, the US is nowhere near enforcing a lockdown like this, nor does it appear that a vaccine—certainly not a well-tested one—is imminent. Thus, given that we know lockdowns themselves cause deaths through suicides, drug overdoses, and more, trying to impose a strict lockdown until that day comes would be a high-stakes gamble few will be willing or able to endure.

Lockdowns Only Provide "Temporary Suppression"
For some insightful observers, this has been clear from the very beginning. Writing back in April of this year, Joseph Ladapo, a professor of medicine at UCLA, wrote:

There is no guarantee of a vaccine within the next 18 months. We have taken measures to slow the virus, but these can’t stop it. The only thing that can stop the virus at this advanced stage of community transmission is a complete lockdown, which can happen in authoritarian countries like China, but not in the U.S.

Are shutdowns enough? No. Despite the efforts, there is still enough human contact to ensure the virus will spread. Take a look at the long list of “essential” services and exemptions on California’s Covid-19 website, for example. Shutdowns will cause the virus to spread more slowly, but it will spread nonetheless.

When shutdowns end, the virus will spread and Covid-19 deaths will increase. Without a vaccine and community immunity—often called “herd immunity”—this outcome is all but guaranteed. The only thing that will temporarily quell it in the near term, short of a miracle treatment, is another shutdown. But states will get only one pass at this. Once lifted, the appetite for a repeat shutdown will be tepid at best, even in left-leaning states. The reality of the shutdown’s costs—the upheaval caused by school closures, economic hurt, social isolation and lost lives and livelihoods—will be fresh. Some argue that stopping Covid-19 and protecting the economy are one and the same. Although this is true, it is too late to do either.

Not even the most enthusiastic supporters of draconian lockdowns, including Neil Ferguson, author of the infamous (and very wrong) Imperial College model, thought it possible to eradicate the disease through lockdowns. The Imperial report refers to lockdowns simply as a method of "temporary suppression."

As Ladapo notes, at this stage in the game, i too late to contain the disease without a total lockdown where so much as a trip to the grocery store is verboten. Moreover, international borders would have to be sealed shut to prevent infected populations from entering the country. Given the success with which governments have controlled the flow of migrants, we can guess about how successful that strategy would be.

When we add all this together, given current realities, social distancing and lockdowns cannot possibly serve any purpose other than to slow down the spread so as to lessen the burden on healthcare facilities. The only lives saved would be those who would otherwise have been denied medical care by an overwhelmed medical system. But this is a relatively small number, and in the developed world medical systems are now nowhere near running out of beds.

Thus, another round of stay-at-home orders or lockdowns certainly won't make the disease go away. They'll just delay the spread to a future date. Moreover, it’s debatable how effective lockdowns are at accomplishing even this. In a new working paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), Andrew Atkeson, Karen Kopecky, and Tao Zha conclude that we may be even past the time when lockdowns make much of a difference to outcomes.

It appears countries and regions follow a similar pattern "everywhere." Transmission rates are high at first, the study notes, but growth in the spread of the disease quickly declines after twenty to thirty days. After this, “the growth rate of daily deaths in all regions has hovered around zero or slightly below.” This is regardless of whether or not there are social distancing laws or mask mandates. In other words, it doesn't look like lockdowns (which now vary widely in their extent and severity) are even changing the shape of the curve anymore.

Thus, a few months out from the initial surge, growth rates in all regions became more and more similar across jurisdictions. The authors therefore conclude:

given the observation that disease transmission rates have remained low with relatively low dispersion across locations worldwide for the past several months as NPIs [nonpharmaceutical interventions] have been lifted, we are concerned that estimates of the effectiveness of NPIs in reducing disease transmission from the earlier period may not be relevant for forecasting the impact of the relaxation of those NPIs in the current period, due to some unobserved switch in regime.

In other words, not only are we well past the time when lockdowns might have flattened the initial surge in transmissions, at this point in the pandemic it doesn’t look like lockdowns would even do much to flatten the curve to the point that we're better off.

Dogmatic advocates for lockdowns are likely to continue pushing for open-ended mandates until a vaccine is widely available. But they're gambling with people's lives. How many children must be impoverished and how many jobless men and women must die by suicide or drug overdoses in the meantime? Every day of a lockdown puts more lives in danger.

SOURCE 

****************************************

‘One size fits all’ approach dangerous when it comes to personal protective equipment

Protective masks do not fit healthcare workers properly, particularly women and those of Asian descent, a new Australian study has found.

The debate around mask wearing has been a hot topic since the coronavirus pandemic began.

Now researchers claim masks don’t always fit our frontline workers properly, particularly women or those of Asian descent, putting them at risk of catching the potentially deadly disease.

Now academics are calling for more formal fit-testing procedures.

Researchers at the University of Western Australia and Perth Children’s Hospital argue hospitals lack the time and financial resources to ensure every worker has a mask that fits properly.

Co-author Professor Britta von Ungern-Sternberg said an ill-fitting mask could allow unfiltered air to be drawn inside.

The “fit-pass” rate for women is just 85 per cent compared with 95 per cent for men, while masks fit 90 per cent of caucasian workers properly, but that figure drops to 84 per cent for people of Asian descent and even lower at 60 per cent for Asian females.

The shape and size of the respirator in relation to the wearer’s facial anthropomorphic dimensions were major factors in terms of quality of fit, researchers said.

However, the study has its limits. Females and Asians were under-represented, academics confessed.

But they said the most important takeaway was triggering discussion about the difference between fit checking (when a wearer checks their own mask) and fit testing (a standardised testing measure).

The authors said fit testing should form part of official hospital occupational health and safety programs.

According to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, filtering facepiece respirators require a fit test to ensure proper protection.

But despite international guidelines, fit testing is not adopted in many countries including in Australia.

Some companies do offer fit testing at a hefty price which authors said is similar to in-person mandatory training.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted deficiencies of some healthcare facilities to protect their HCWs in line with national and international recommendations, and the requirement for formal fit-testing programs appears to be particularly important,” the study authors noted.

SOURCE

**************************************

IN BRIEF

John Durham speculation reaching fever pitch after aide resignation, Lindsey Graham comments, and phone-wipe mystery (Fox News)

CDC is moving ahead with critical race theory trainings despite Trump order (National Review)

Justice Department internal watchdog is investigating Roger Stone's sentencing (NBC News)

Attacks on Chicago officers are up "five times" over previous years (The Daily Wire)

Two Los Angeles County deputies in stable condition after being shot; search for assailant continues (ABC 7)

Wounded female LA deputy, shot through jaw and both arms, gave partner emergency medical treatment after ambush (Disrn)

Rochester mayor fires police chief over handling of Daniel Prude case (Washington Examiner)

Federal ruling: Florida can require eligible felons to pay fines and fees to vote (Washington Examiner)

Riots and looting hit Pennsylvania after cop shoots a minority man who was charging at the officer with a knife (The Daily Wire)

If the child porn in Netflix's "Cuties" surprised you, you haven't been paying attention (The Federalist)

NBC's woke Sunday Night Football ratings plummet nearly 30% compared to 2019 (Disrn)

"They're there to cover the game": CBS tells announcers not to editorialize on NFL "social justice" (The Resurgent)

Maryland to add LGBTQ content to public schools' history curricula (The Daily Caller)

University of Chicago's English Department declares it will only accept applicants interested in working "in and with Black studies" for its next graduate admissions cycle (Daily Mail)

College Board reportedly became "key partner" with Chinese regime; the academic behemoth behind AP, SAT helped advance Chinese infiltration in K-12 schools (The Washington Free Beacon)

DHS cracks down on goods made with Chinese forced labor (The Washington Free Beacon)

DHS leaked email confirms antifa is an organized group (The Post Millennial)

Trump issues stark warning to Iran after reports country is considering plot to assassinate U.S. ambassador (Fox News)

U.S. halts ineffective symptom checks and screenings for high-risk countries (New York Post)

Policy: How urban governments have failed on housing, school outcomes, income segregation, and policing (American Enterprise Institute)

Policy: President Trump's ban on critical race theory, explained (Foundation for Economic Education)

**********************************

For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), A Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here  (Personal).  My annual picture page is here.  Home page supplement

**************************

9th Circus rules 400,000 immigrants can be forced to leave

Los Angeles: A federal appeals court has ruled the Trump administration acted within its authority in terminating legal protections that have allowed hundreds of thousands of immigrants to live and work legally in the United States, sometimes for decades, after fleeing conflict or natural disasters in their home countries.

The 2-1 ruling by the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals effectively strips legal immigration status from some 400,000 people, rendering them deportable if they do not voluntarily leave. The decision affects the overwhelming majority of beneficiaries of a program offering what is known as "temporary protected status", which has permitted them to remain in the US after being uprooted from their unstable homelands.

The Trump administration has argued that the emergency conditions that existed when people were invited to come to the US — earthquakes, hurricanes, civil war — had occurred long ago. The program, it said, had inadvertently conferred permanent immigration status for people from places like El Salvador, Haiti and Sudan, most of whom it said no longer needed safe haven.

The long-awaited decision does not immediately end the protections. The Trump administration has agreed to maintain them until at least March 5, 2021, for people from five of the affected countries and until November 2021 for people from El Salvador.

If President Donald Trump is not reelected, a new administration could choose to maintain the program.

The plaintiffs are almost certain to request that the decision be reconsidered by an 11-judge panel hearing the case. They could also ask the Supreme Court to take up the matter.

"It's a really devastating day for hundreds of thousands of people who have lived and worked in the country lawfully for decades," said Tom Jawetz, vice-president for immigration policy at the Centre for American Progress.

"But it's not the end of the line for them," Jawetz said. "There will be additional litigation, and ultimately the fate of these people may be decided by the outcome of the November election."

Proponents of limits on immigration hailed the decision.

"The 9th Circuit affirmed two clear aspects of TPS," said Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, said in a statement. "The first is that the T in TPS stands for temporary and that it is not intended, nor should it be, a backdoor to permanent residency."

He said the decision also made it clear that the government had discretion to determine when it was safe for immigrants given temporary protections to return home. For countries such as El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua and Sudan, he said, "the crises that triggered the TPS designation have long since passed."

The court's ruling could force many people who have been in the country for years, if not decades, to contemplate leaving their jobs, homes and communities to return to impoverished countries that are ill-prepared to absorb them. It also could result in the separation of families because beneficiaries have about 200,000 US-born children.

Ten countries are currently part of the temporary protected status program, signed into law by President George HW Bush in 1990. Only four were officially included in Monday's decision — El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua and Sudan — but nationals from two other countries, Honduras and Nepal, sued separately and a legal agreement calls for those countries to be covered by Monday's decision.

Nationals of El Salvador, the first to be offered temporary protected status, as a result of the country's civil war in the 1980s, represent about half of all recipients. Haitians received protection after the 2010 earthquake. Syria and Yemen were designated after civil wars erupted there.

Under the program, the secretary of Homeland Security decides when a country merits the designation and the status can be extended indefinitely. Bosnia and Herzegovina lost its temporary protected status after the end of its 1990s-era civil war, as did Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia after the Ebola crisis.

Determined to reduce immigration, Trump in 2017 began trying to scrap protection under the program for several other countries, meeting with lawsuits that temporarily blocked any cancellations.

The government extended protections under the program for beneficiaries from El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua and Sudan, who account for more than 90 per cent of the total, as the courts considered the legal challenges.

The appeal that was before the 9th Circuit argued that the government's decision to eliminate the program was motivated by Trump's animosity towards immigrants from non-white, non-European countries. Lawyers had cited his statements that were disparaging of Mexicans, Haitians and others from developing countries.

The plaintiffs also argued that maintaining the program was in the national interest because more than 100,000 holders of temporary protected status work in industries deemed "essential" during the coronavirus pandemic, including more than 11,000 healthcare workers and more than 76,000 food-related workers, according to the Centre for American Progress.

The US Chamber of Commerce said that revoking the program would adversely affect several key industries where recipients make up a significant amount of the workforce. Roughly one-fifth of construction workers in Washington, DC, are immigrants with temporary protected status, most of them Salvadorans.

The judges said the argument that the Trump administration was motivated by animus toward certain races or countries was unlikely to succeed. "Plaintiffs fail in their burden of showing a likelihood of success, or even serious questions, on the merits of their claim that racial animus toward 'non-white, non-European' populations was a motivating factor in the TPS terminations," they said in their opinion.

The panel noted that the administration extended temporary protected status for immigrants from some countries, including Somalia, South Sudan, Syria and Yemen, whose populations are also "non-European" and "non-white". Beneficiaries from those countries collectively represent less than 8000 people.

The majority opinion was written by Judge Consuelo Callahan, an appointee of President George W Bush, with Judge Ryan Nelson, appointed by Trump, concurring. Judge Morgan Christen, named to the court by Barack Obama, dissented.

Ahilan Arulanantham, senior counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, who led the legal challenge, said the plaintiffs would keep pressing their argument through the courts. "The president's vile statements about TPS holders made perfectly clear that his administration acted out of racial animus," he said. "The Constitution does not permit policy to be driven by racism."

The Justice Department applauded the court's decision, which it said recognised that the government had the authority to make such decisions without judicial review. "We applaud the 9th Circuit's recognition of the plain language of the Immigration and Nationality Act and its rejection of the baseless accusations of animus behind the actions taken by the Department of Homeland Security," the Justice Department said in a statement.

The court vacated a 2018 preliminary injunction issued by Judge Edward M. Chen of the US District Court in San Francisco that had blocked the administration from terminating the program for immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Sudan.

As part of their finding that the plaintiffs were unlikely to succeed on the merits, the judges said federal courts generally lacked the authority to review such decisions by the secretary of Homeland Security.

SOURCE

************************************

No, Biden did not support Trump's early measures to reduce the China virus spread

For the record…

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are desperately endeavoring to distract voters from the polling backfire they are experiencing — the result of not condemning the urban riots plaguing Democrat-controlled cities. They have pivoted to a pre-election strategy of blaming Donald Trump for the CV19 pandemic death and economic destruction — as I predicted they would do last February.

That pivot hit another snag, meaning the disinformation and outright lies aren’t working.

Last week, our Douglas Andrews noted how Biden’s national press secretary, T.J. Ducklo, ducked a basic question: “Has Joe Biden ever used a teleprompter during local interviews or to answer Q&A with supporters?” He refused to answer — which was the answer.

But, given the Biden-Harris campaign shift to “the pandemic,” Ducklo had to answer the question of whether Biden supported President Trump’s early measures to contain the viral spread — specifically his restrictions on non-resident travel from China. Ducklo lied, claiming Biden did support the restrictions: “Joe Biden has been clear that he was not against that travel ban at the time.”

Actually, Biden was clear in his opposition to the restrictions. On 31 January, after the Trump administration declared the coronavirus a public health emergency and DHS announced the China travel restrictions, Biden declared Trump’s actions constituted “hysterical xenophobia.” According to Biden, “This is no time for Donald Trump’s record of hysteria and xenophobia — hysterical xenophobia — and fearmongering to lead the way instead of science.” Of course, it was “science” and advice from his pandemic team that led to Trump’s actions.

A day later, Biden again condemned Trump for “adding more countries to his list of who’s not welcome in America.” Biden reiterated, “We need to lead the way with science — not Donald Trump’s record of hysteria, xenophobia, and fear-mongering.” Biden did not alter his opinion on the travel restrictions until 3 April.

Every time Ducklo goes on record, you may fairly assume it is disinformation and obfuscation.

SOURCE

****************************************

IN BRIEF

Joe Biden pushes gun control less than 24 hours after attempted assassination on deputies (Fox News)

President Trump gets a second nomination for Nobel Peace Prize (Bongino.com)

Trump signs executive order to lower drug prices in fight against Big Pharma (Fox News)

Federal prosecutor resigns from John Durham probe over alleged pressure to wrap up ahead of election — even though the probe should have ended some time ago (National Review)

The Democrat narrative about "buying elections" notwithstanding, Michael Bloomberg to prop up Biden with $100 million in Florida (Reuters)

U.S. Ambassador to China Terry Branstad steps down amid rapidly deteriorating relations over trade war, Hong Kong, and coronavirus (Daily Mail)

Netflix should face DOJ action over pedophilic "Cuties," some members of Congress say (Fox News)

Netflix CEO was not asked single question about "Cuties" controversy during 10-minute CNN interview (Disrn)

Slate calls people being offended by pedophilia "creepy" (Not the Bee)

Man arrested for arson, throwing Molotov cocktails at California Republican women's organization building (The Federalist)

St. Louis BLM protesters from McCloskey confrontation finally cited for trespassing (Fox News)

Governor Gretchen Whitmer continues streak of terrible decisions and orders athletes to wear masks during games (Washington Examiner)

On a related note, Whitmer expressed fears over Trump's Michigan rally but excused Biden's event (The Federalist)

Portland mayor bans police use of tear gas even after 100 days of rioting (The Daily Caller)

More than 20% of evangelicals wrongly embrace the concept of "gender fluidity" (Disrn)

Chick-fil-A to be offered lease in San Antonio airport following Rainbow Mafia moratorium (Fox News)

Iran weighs plot to kill U.S. ambassador to South Africa to avenge Qassem Soleimani (Politico)

San Francisco to vote on whether 16-year-olds should vote (The Daily Wire)

Epic fumble: Eleven NFL players charged in alleged coronavirus money scheme (Sharyl Attkisson)

Chinese virologist claims she has proof coronavirus came from Chinese lab (Disrn)

**********************************

For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), A Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here  (Personal).  My annual picture page is here.  Home page supplement

**************************

1,000 Georgia Voters Face Prosecution for Casting Multiple Ballots

During the state’s primary in June, 1,000 Georgia voters successfully voted twice, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced Tuesday.

The 1,000 Georgia residents cast votes by absentee ballot and then went in person to polling places on June 9 and voted again, Raffensperger said, adding that they will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

Of the 1,000 voters who voted twice, 58 percent requested Democratic ballots, according to Raffensperger’s office. Georgia does not offer the option to affiliate with a political party during voter registration, meaning voters who wish to vote in primary elections must request either a Republican or Democratic ballot.

“While the investigation is still ongoing, initial results show that of the partisan ballots at issue, approximately 58% were Democratic ballots,” a spokesperson for the Georgia Secretary of State said in a statement to National Review.

The secretary of state said that Georgia’s attorney general and local prosecutors will weigh whether to bring charges against the voters on a case-by-case basis.

“A double voter knows exactly what they’re doing, diluting the votes of each and every voter that follows the law,” Raffensperger said at a news conference. “Those that make the choice to game the system are breaking the law. And as secretary of state, I will not tolerate it.”

Voting twice is a felony in Georgia that carries a one to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $100,000.

About 150,000 Georgia residents who requested absentee ballots later appeared at polling places during the state’s primary to vote in person, many because they either never received their absentee ballot or changed their minds and opted to vote in person. However, 1,000 of those voters had already mailed in their absentee ballot and were allowed to vote again by poll workers, although the double votes did not alter the outcome of any primary election, Raffensperger said.

About 1.15 million Georgia voters voted by absentee ballot during the primary, and 900,000 residents have requested absentee ballots so far for the general election so far.

The announcement comes as lawmakers, pundits, and activists on both sides of the aisle warn the public about the potential for complications and lengthy delays in tallying the final results of November’s general election due to an expected massive increase in the use of mail-in ballots.

President Trump suggested earlier this month that voters should attempt to vote twice in order to test the mail-in voting system, which he has warned could be a breeding ground for election fraud if large numbers of people vote by mail.

“Let them send it in and let them go vote, and if their system’s as good as they say it is, then obviously they won’t be able to vote,” Trump said. “If it isn’t tabulated, they’ll be able to vote. And that’s what they should do.”

SOURCE

***************************************

The boogaloo  phenomenon/b>

Following is the first part of an article by the NYT  concerning a Right-wing movement I have never heard of.  There seems to be at least some truth in it but I do not know how much. I suspect that it is greatly exaggerated


At first glance, the We Are Washington rally might have looked like an early Fourth of July celebration, all bright stars-and-stripes Americana. It was a cool May morning in the state capital, Olympia, and low clouds were threatening to ruin the red, white and blue archway of balloons above the rally stage, the crepe paper behind it and the cut-out letters propped up in front that spelled ‘‘FREEDOM.’’ Few people wore masks. A man with a pistol on his hip meandered through the several-hundred-person crowd selling tiny yellow Gadsden flags — the ‘‘Don’t Tread on Me’’ rattlesnake — for $5 each to anyone who wasn’t already carrying something. A canopy of marker-drawn signs held above heads blared complaints about Covid-19 and the stay-at-home order declared by Gov. Jay Inslee, at this point in its 69th day. ‘‘0.2% Death Rate. No Muzzle’’; ‘‘Inslee Is the Real Virus’’; ‘‘Kim Jong Inslee.’’ Some took a more conspiratorial tone: ‘‘You Are Being Lied To.’’

Near the back of the crowd was a socialmedia-ready selfie backdrop: a large Q made of squares of cardboard, lying on the grass in front of the Capitol building. Below it, a hashtag: #WWG1WGA, ‘‘Where we go one, we go all.’’ It’s the rallying cry for QAnon, the conspiracy theory that at its most basic centers on a Democrat-run child-sex-trafficking ring and at its most elaborate involves figures like the pope and Joe Biden having been executed in secret and replaced with holograms. It might seem, in other words, like an odd theory to float at a rally that was ostensibly about the reopening of the local economy. But around the country, events like this one had become a beacon to fringe thinkers: anti-vaxxers, internet trolls, gun nuts, Proud Boys, hate groups, antigovernment militias and any other Americans who interpreted social-distancing and face-covering regulations as an infringement of their constitutional freedoms.

These reopening rallies had become more than just rallies, allowing everyday Americans — suspecting a liberal ploy in the shutdown of the economy and misled by right-wing politicians, up to and including President Trump, about the dangers of the coronavirus — to be exposed to the ideologies of a wide variety of extremists.

As the crowd grew in Olympia, a woman in a hooded sweatshirt got up onstage to give a speech and encourage the crowd to join something called People’s Rights Washington. They could be a part of it by texting the word RIGHTS to a five-digit number, which would then enlist them in a phone tree, allowing any member to report anything they deem a violation of personal freedom. ‘‘If there is an emergency, if a contact tracer shows up at your door, if C.P.S. shows up at your door, if the Health Department comes to your work and threatens to shut you down,’’ she explained, ‘‘we can send a text out that says, ‘Get to this address right now.’ ’’

Standing at the rear edge of the crowd, I took a few steps closer when I realized the voice coming from the stage sounded familiar. It was Kelli Stewart. She has been a live-streamer at several federal-court trials I’ve covered in the West — particularly of the Bundy family in both Nevada and Oregon. After Ammon Bundy, his brother Ryan and several other defendants were acquitted in 2016 of charges related to occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon, Stewart cheered and cried at the verdict, then paced in front of the courthouse reading from the Constitution. In the past two months, she has live-streamed from rallies and from the ‘‘underground church’’ she opened. For several years, she has referred to law enforcement as ‘‘Blue ISIS.’’

Now she explained to the crowd in Olympia that just a few years ago, she was just like all of them. She was a mother, a Sunday-school teacher raising goats on a small farm when the news of the refuge occupation broke. But it wasn’t until Robert LaVoy Finicum, a 54-year-old Arizona rancher who served as a spokesman for the occupation, was shot and killed by the police that she became an activist. It was her wake-up call, she said: the moment when the world she had always known was forever changed.

Stewart is now a fixture at right-wing rallies like this one, and as she spoke, she got at something undeniably true about these gatherings: This is where everyday people like her can be reborn, leaving their world behind and subscribing to a new collective truth. This is where they find fellowship with other people who are upset enough about the same things, who hold the same fears and frustrations. This is where isolation ends, where communion begins.

At the back of this crowd, which was mostly mothers and grandmothers and church leaders and business owners and the like, stood a clutch of men with long guns who didn’t seem to be listening much to the speeches. They clustered together in small groups, their eyes scanning the crowd behind sunglasses. One man carried a flag bearing the logo of the Three Percenters militia: the Roman numeral III in the center of a ring of stars. There was a cardboard sign propped up with the letters ‘‘NWO’’ — New World Order — crossed out. And in this mix were a couple of men wearing body armor decorated with American-flag patches. One wore a blue-and-white floral Hawaiian shirt under a desert-sand-colored vest, packed with as many as 90 extra rounds of ammunition. The other man had a different patch on his vest. It read: ‘‘Boogaloo.’’

Just what the word ‘‘Boogaloo’’ means depends on whom you ask. In simple terms, it’s the newest and youngest subset of the antigovernment movement, born in the full light of the internet age — with all the peculiarities that entails. The name comes from 4chan, the lamentably prolific message board where many memes are born, and involves the 1984 breakdancing movie ‘‘Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo.’’ Though the movie was panned, the second half of its name had a long afterlife, eventually wending its way onto forums and social media, where it became slang for a fabled coming civil war — a sequel to the first. To some white supremacists, it means a race war. To others, it was all just a joke. But many others take it seriously, and to them it means a less well-defined cataclysm touched off, or sped up by, any number of groups who share antigovernment ideas and a deep love of firearms.

The Boogaloo is not just an event; it’s a movement of people, too. They call themselves ‘‘Boogalooers’’ or ‘‘Boogaloo bois.’’ Most seem to have extreme libertarian politics, with a heavy emphasis on Second Amendment rights. The Boogaloo is leaderless, and its goals differ depending on which Facebook or Telegram group you’re hanging out in. Some of these men claim to be antiracist, while others hold white-supremacist beliefs and warn of an impending white genocide. While some Boogaloo pages on Facebook feature periodic talk of racial justice and urgent needs to address climate change, many others are filled with memes featuring neo-Nazi black suns. If there is one thing that binds the Boogaloo together besides guns and Hawaiian shirts, it is a firm anti-authority, anti-law-enforcement stance — and a willingness, if not an outright desire, to bring about the collapse of American society.

When I spoke to Kris Hunter, a 39-year-old Boogaloo boi from Waco, Texas, he painted the movement as just wanting to help. Hunter told me he and his compatriots feel their hands have been forced. ‘‘A lot of the violence perpetrated by the government, police brutality, foreign wars, civilian casualties, no-knock raids — I guess the way we viewed it was: ‘How in the world are we supposed to stand up against this?’ ’’

I reached Hunter through Tree of Liberty, a website that seems to be acting as a public face for a movement that, by and large, congregates on private social-media pages. He says his group — the United States Boogalier Corps, by his estimate 80 percent military veterans — doesn’t take this self-appointed duty lightly. He pointed to the Boston Massacre of 1770, when five colonists were shot by British soldiers. ‘‘That was this moment when both the British and colonists realized we have run out of all peaceful options, and now they’re literally killing us out in the open,’’ he said. ‘‘We want the American people to understand that they have the constitutional authority to defend themselves against unconstitutional oppression.’’ But he insisted the movement does not want any actual confrontation with government forces.

This is not at all an uncommon stance among right-wing militias, which the Boogaloo both resembles and diverges from. And to truly understand the Boogaloo, you must first understand the militia movement that took root in the United States in the 1990s. The standoff between the white-supremacist Weaver family and the A.T.F. and the F.B.I. at Ruby Ridge in Idaho and the siege of the Branch Davidians’ compound at Waco led to a rapid expansion in their ranks, but broader societal dislocations were in the background, too. The United Nations and NAFTA, for example, figure prominently in militia ideology, often claimed to be signs of a so-called New World Order. ‘‘People get sucked into these movements for a bunch of different reasons,’’ says Travis McAdam, former executive director of the Montana Human Rights Network, a progressive organization that does research on the state’s extremists. ‘‘For some people it’s guns or environmental regulations, or some people don’t like people of color. You have people brought into this wide opening of the funnel cloud for various reasons.’’

But Boogaloo bois ‘‘are making their way through the funnel cloud,’’ McAdam says. And like militias, they’re arming up for the future. But there’s a key difference. With militias, ‘‘there’s always that imminent war coming, there’s always that invasion by One World forces,’’ he says. ‘‘It never happened, but it was always going to happen. Whereas with the Boogaloo stuff, there is a piece of that that is like, ‘We want to make that happen.’ ’’

The Boogaloo has thrived in an environment rife with entry points to the militia funnel cloud — the nihilistic swamps of social media and 4chan. Each Boogaloo group takes a different form, but memes are their common language — some funny, others less so. ‘‘Victory or fire. I Will Not Burn Alone,’’ reads one. Posts routinely call for the shooting of pedophiles. ‘‘Save the Bees. Plant More Trees. Clean the Seas. Shoot Commies,’’ reads another. Fears of climate change figure into the groups’ apocalyptic worldview, but they often find themselves attaching to reactionary ideas. ‘‘It’s very simple,’’ one meme reads, ‘‘learn to hate or die silently.’’ Another: ‘‘Environmentalism and nationalism go hand in hand. It is pride in your people, pride in your nation and pride in the very soil of the land.’’ But one common theme undergirds all these messages, regardless of which Boogaloo subset they attract: Do something about it. And do it now.

Back in November 2019, Mark Pitcavage, a senior research fellow at the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism, issued a warning about who was using the word ‘‘Boogaloo’’ and why, in the form of a blog post illustrated with bizarre memes pulled from their forums: Pepe the frog firing a bazooka, a laser-eyed storm trooper with a black-sun halo, a big igloo. Though some still use ‘‘Boogaloo’’ as a joke, Pitcavage wrote, ‘‘an increasing number of people employ it with serious intent.’’ Still, he finished with a note of caution: Some people use the word ‘‘Boogaloo’’ to ‘‘mock some of the more fanatical or gung-ho elements of their own movement.’’

‘‘By that time it had crystallized from more than just a concept or a term,’’ he told me in July. ‘‘The beginnings of a movement had already started.’’ He went on: ‘‘It also started manifesting in the real world, with people showing up at events, self-identifying as Boogaloo.’’ The spring of 2020 was like a coming-out party for the movement, as men in colorful floral shirts and body armor festooned with igloo-shaped patches, semiautomatic weapons in hand, showed up at reopening rallies against Covid19 restrictions across the country, from Lansing, Mich., to Denver, to Harrisburg, Pa. Some carried black-and-white American flags with a red stripe of floral print through the middle and an igloo in the place of stars.

In March, a Missouri white supremacist told an undercover F.B.I. agent he planned to detonate a car bomb outside a hospital treating Covid-19 patients. He called the plan ‘‘Operation Boogaloo.’’ When the F.B.I. tried to serve the man a probable-cause warrant, a firefight ensued, and he shot himself before he could be apprehended and succumbed to his wounds at the hospital. In April, a man in Texarkana, Texas, who identified with the movement streamed a live video on Facebook while dressed in body armor and a Hawaiian shirt, telling viewers he was ‘‘hunting the hunters’’: searching for police officers to ambush. He is accused of leading several officers on a high-speed chase, continuing even after his tires were deflated by a spike strip. He was later apprehended and pleaded not guilty to attempted-murder charges.

As the movement’s profile rose, catching the attention of the media, Boogaloo bois bent the word to shield it from the eyes of content moderators. ‘‘Boogaloo’’ became ‘‘big igloo,’’ then ‘‘big luau’’ — hence the Hawaiian shirts. Boogaloo bois became ‘‘boojahideen.’’ On the forums, they would joke about a ‘‘pig roast’’ — code for killing police officers. In June, Facebook claimed that it deleted hundreds of accounts and pages devoted to the movement; by mid-July, the Boogaloo bois were back on Facebook talking about a ‘‘spicy fiesta.’’

‘‘The problem with the Boogaloo bois is they’re not a cohesive movement,’’ J. J. MacNab, a fellow at George Washington University’s Program on Extremism, said during testimony to the House Subcommittee on Intelligence and Counterterrorism in mid-July. ‘‘You could actually, in a really bizarre world, have two Boogaloo groups shooting at each other.’’ It is on the issue of law enforcement that the Boogaloo seems to greatly diverge from the militias that came before it, which in many cases collaborate with or even have members that are police officers. ‘‘They’re really anti-police,’’ Pitcavage says of the Boogaloo; they may say they want to find common cause with anyone protesting the police — but some want to act as agents provocateurs, accelerating street violence and furthering any conflict. For many of them, the protests following the killing of George Floyd on Memorial Day looked like the perfect opportunity to create mayhem.

SOURCE

**********************************

For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), A Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here  (Personal).  My annual picture page is here.  Home page supplement

**************************