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top of the heap to third world status in one generation

Gry

Gry

Well-known member
Veteran
“. . . All Enemies, Foreign and Domestic”: An Open Letter to Gen. Milley
If the commander in chief attempts to ignore the election’s results, you will face a choice.

By John Nagl and Paul Yingling

Dear General Milley:
As chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, you are well aware of your duties in ordinary times: to serve as principal military advisor to the president of the United States, and to transmit the lawful orders of the president and Secretary of Defense to combatant commanders. In ordinary times, these duties are entirely consistent with your oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic…”
We do not live in ordinary times. The president of the United States is actively subverting our electoral system, threatening to remain in office in defiance of our Constitution. In a few months’ time, you may have to choose between defying a lawless president or betraying your Constitutional oath. We write to assist you in thinking clearly about that choice. If Donald Trump refuses to leave office at the expiration of his constitutional term, the United States military must remove him by force, and you must give that order.
Due to a dangerous confluence of circumstances, the once-unthinkable scenario of authoritarian rule in the United States is now a very real possibility. First, as Mr. Trump faces near certain electoral defeat, he is vigorously undermining public confidence in our elections. Second, Mr. Trump’s defeat would result in his facing not merely political ignominy, but also criminal charges. Third, Mr. Trump is assembling a private army capable of thwarting not only the will of the electorate but also the capacities of ordinary law enforcement. When these forces collide on January 20, 2021, the U.S. military will be the only institution capable of upholding our Constitutional order.
There can be little doubt that Mr. Trump is facing electoral defeat. More than 160,000 Americans have died from COVID 19, and that toll is likely to rise to 300,000 by November. One in ten U.S. workers is unemployed, and the U.S. economy in the last quarter suffered the greatest contraction in its history. Nearly 70 percent of Americans believe the country is on the wrong track. The Economist estimates that Mr. Trump’s chances of losing the election stand at 91 percent.

Faced with these grim prospects, Mr. Trump has engaged in a systemic disinformation campaign to undermine public confidence in our elections. He has falsely claimed that mail-in voting is “inaccurate and fraudulent.” He is actively sabotaging the U.S. Postal Service in an effort to delay and discredit mail-in votes. He has suggested delaying the 2020 election, despite lacking the authority to do so.
The stakes of the 2020 election are especially high for Mr. Trump; in defeat, he will likely face criminal prosecution. The Manhattan District Attorney is investigating the Trump Organization for possible bank and insurance fraud related to the overvaluation of financial assets. New York’s Attorney General is conducting similar investigations, having successfully subpoenaed Trump’s financial records from Deutsche Bank. Mr. Trump allegedly pressured the U.S. ambassador to Great Britain to pressure the British Government to move the British Open golf tournament to Trump Turnberry Resort in Scotland. This incident is but one of many examples of self-dealing that may lead to federal criminal charges against the president.
Given this dizzying array of threats not merely to his political prospects, but also his liberty and wealth, Mr. Trump is following the playbook of dictators throughout history: he is building a private army answerable only to him. When Caesar faced the prospect of a trial in Rome, he did not return to face his day in court. He unleashed an army personally loyal to him alone on the Roman government. No student of history, Mr. Trump nevertheless appears to be following Caesar’s example. The president’s use of militarized Homeland Security agents against domestic political demonstrations constitutes the creation of a paramilitary force unaccountable to the public. The members of this private army, often lacking police insignia or other identification, exist not to enforce the law but to intimidate the president’s political opponents.
These powerful crosscurrents—Mr. Trump’s electoral defeat, his assault on the integrity of our elections, his impending criminal prosecution, and his creation of a private army—will collide on January 20. Rather than accept the peaceful transfer of power that has been the hallmark of American democracy since its inception. Mr. Trump may refuse to leave office. He would likely offer as a fig leaf of legitimacy the shopworn lies about election fraud. Mr. Trump’s acolytes in right-wing media will certainly rush to repeat and amplify these lies, manufacturing sufficient evidence to provide a pretext of plausibility. America’s greatest Constitutional crisis since the Civil War will come about by a president who simply refuses to leave office.
America’s political and legal institutions have so atrophied that they are ill-prepared for this moment. Senate Republicans, already reduced to supplicant status, will remain silent and inert, as much to obscure their complicity as to retain their majority. The Democrat-led House of Representatives will certify the Electoral College results, which Mr. Trump will dismiss as fake news. The courts, flooded with cases from both Democrats and Mr. Trump’s legal team, will take months working through the docket, producing reasoned rulings that Trump will alternately appeal and ignore.
Then the clock will strike 12:01 PM, January 20, 2021, and Donald Trump will be sitting in the Oval Office. The street protests will inevitably swell outside the White House, and the ranks of Trump’s private army will grow inside its grounds. The speaker of the House will declare the Trump presidency at an end, and direct the Secret Service and Federal Marshals to remove Trump from the premises. These agents will realize that they are outmanned and outgunned by Trump’s private army, and the moment of decision will arrive.
At this moment of Constitutional crisis, only two options remain. Under the first, U.S. military forces escort the former president from the White House grounds. Trump’s little green men, so intimidating to lightly armed federal law enforcement agents, step aside and fade away, realizing they would not constitute a good morning’s work for a brigade of the 82nd Airborne. Under the second, the U.S. military remains inert while the Constitution dies. The succession of government is determined by extralegal violence between Trump’s private army and street protesters; Black Lives Matter Plaza becomes Tahrir Square.
As the senior military officer of the United States, the choice between these two options lies with you. In the Constitutional crisis described above, your duty is to give unambiguous orders directing U.S. military forces to support the Constitutional transfer of power. Should you remain silent, you will be complicit in a coup d’état. You were rightly criticized for your prior active complicity in the president’s use of force against peaceful protesters in Lafayette Square. Your passive complicity in an extralegal seizure of political power would be far worse.
For 240 years, the United States has been spared the horror of violent political succession. Imperfect though it may be, our Union has been moving toward greater perfection, from one peaceful transfer of power to the next. The rule of law created by our Constitution has made this miracle possible. However, our Constitutional order is not self-sustaining. Throughout our history, Americans have laid down their lives so that this form of government may endure. Continuing the unfinished work for which these heroes fell now falls to you.
Lest you forget:

“I, Mark A. Milley, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”
The fate of our Republic may well depend upon your adherence to this oath.
Respectfully yours,
John Nagl and Paul Yingling
John Nagl, a retired Army officer and veteran of both Iraq wars, is Head of School at The Haverford School outside Philadelphia.
Paul Yingling, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, served three tours in Iraq, another in Bosnia, and a fifth in Operation Desert Storm.
https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/20...n-and-domestic-open-letter-gen-milley/167625/
 
Gry

Gry

Well-known member
Veteran
I genuinely miss the likes of Mr D. He was a well educated man, and a solid republican that I was able to spend considerable time with in PM discussing things of a legitimate political nature on a regular basis.
Was fortunate to have spent years in DC, under several administrations and I enjoyed it.
I look for another solid republican who seeks conversation about things of a political nature without a need for endless childish exchanges.
 
O

oldschoolnitro

Member
Gry said:
“. . . All Enemies, Foreign and Domestic”: An Open Letter to Gen. Milley
If the commander in chief attempts to ignore the election’s results, you will face a choice.

By John Nagl and Paul Yingling

Dear General Milley:
As chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, you are well aware of your duties in ordinary times: to serve as principal military advisor to the president of the United States, and to transmit the lawful orders of the president and Secretary of Defense to combatant commanders. In ordinary times, these duties are entirely consistent with your oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic…”
We do not live in ordinary times. The president of the United States is actively subverting our electoral system, threatening to remain in office in defiance of our Constitution. In a few months’ time, you may have to choose between defying a lawless president or betraying your Constitutional oath. We write to assist you in thinking clearly about that choice. If Donald Trump refuses to leave office at the expiration of his constitutional term, the United States military must remove him by force, and you must give that order.
Due to a dangerous confluence of circumstances, the once-unthinkable scenario of authoritarian rule in the United States is now a very real possibility. First, as Mr. Trump faces near certain electoral defeat, he is vigorously undermining public confidence in our elections. Second, Mr. Trump’s defeat would result in his facing not merely political ignominy, but also criminal charges. Third, Mr. Trump is assembling a private army capable of thwarting not only the will of the electorate but also the capacities of ordinary law enforcement. When these forces collide on January 20, 2021, the U.S. military will be the only institution capable of upholding our Constitutional order.
There can be little doubt that Mr. Trump is facing electoral defeat. More than 160,000 Americans have died from COVID 19, and that toll is likely to rise to 300,000 by November. One in ten U.S. workers is unemployed, and the U.S. economy in the last quarter suffered the greatest contraction in its history. Nearly 70 percent of Americans believe the country is on the wrong track. The Economist estimates that Mr. Trump’s chances of losing the election stand at 91 percent.

Faced with these grim prospects, Mr. Trump has engaged in a systemic disinformation campaign to undermine public confidence in our elections. He has falsely claimed that mail-in voting is “inaccurate and fraudulent.” He is actively sabotaging the U.S. Postal Service in an effort to delay and discredit mail-in votes. He has suggested delaying the 2020 election, despite lacking the authority to do so.
The stakes of the 2020 election are especially high for Mr. Trump; in defeat, he will likely face criminal prosecution. The Manhattan District Attorney is investigating the Trump Organization for possible bank and insurance fraud related to the overvaluation of financial assets. New York’s Attorney General is conducting similar investigations, having successfully subpoenaed Trump’s financial records from Deutsche Bank. Mr. Trump allegedly pressured the U.S. ambassador to Great Britain to pressure the British Government to move the British Open golf tournament to Trump Turnberry Resort in Scotland. This incident is but one of many examples of self-dealing that may lead to federal criminal charges against the president.
Given this dizzying array of threats not merely to his political prospects, but also his liberty and wealth, Mr. Trump is following the playbook of dictators throughout history: he is building a private army answerable only to him. When Caesar faced the prospect of a trial in Rome, he did not return to face his day in court. He unleashed an army personally loyal to him alone on the Roman government. No student of history, Mr. Trump nevertheless appears to be following Caesar’s example. The president’s use of militarized Homeland Security agents against domestic political demonstrations constitutes the creation of a paramilitary force unaccountable to the public. The members of this private army, often lacking police insignia or other identification, exist not to enforce the law but to intimidate the president’s political opponents.
These powerful crosscurrents—Mr. Trump’s electoral defeat, his assault on the integrity of our elections, his impending criminal prosecution, and his creation of a private army—will collide on January 20. Rather than accept the peaceful transfer of power that has been the hallmark of American democracy since its inception. Mr. Trump may refuse to leave office. He would likely offer as a fig leaf of legitimacy the shopworn lies about election fraud. Mr. Trump’s acolytes in right-wing media will certainly rush to repeat and amplify these lies, manufacturing sufficient evidence to provide a pretext of plausibility. America’s greatest Constitutional crisis since the Civil War will come about by a president who simply refuses to leave office.
America’s political and legal institutions have so atrophied that they are ill-prepared for this moment. Senate Republicans, already reduced to supplicant status, will remain silent and inert, as much to obscure their complicity as to retain their majority. The Democrat-led House of Representatives will certify the Electoral College results, which Mr. Trump will dismiss as fake news. The courts, flooded with cases from both Democrats and Mr. Trump’s legal team, will take months working through the docket, producing reasoned rulings that Trump will alternately appeal and ignore.
Then the clock will strike 12:01 PM, January 20, 2021, and Donald Trump will be sitting in the Oval Office. The street protests will inevitably swell outside the White House, and the ranks of Trump’s private army will grow inside its grounds. The speaker of the House will declare the Trump presidency at an end, and direct the Secret Service and Federal Marshals to remove Trump from the premises. These agents will realize that they are outmanned and outgunned by Trump’s private army, and the moment of decision will arrive.
At this moment of Constitutional crisis, only two options remain. Under the first, U.S. military forces escort the former president from the White House grounds. Trump’s little green men, so intimidating to lightly armed federal law enforcement agents, step aside and fade away, realizing they would not constitute a good morning’s work for a brigade of the 82nd Airborne. Under the second, the U.S. military remains inert while the Constitution dies. The succession of government is determined by extralegal violence between Trump’s private army and street protesters; Black Lives Matter Plaza becomes Tahrir Square.
As the senior military officer of the United States, the choice between these two options lies with you. In the Constitutional crisis described above, your duty is to give unambiguous orders directing U.S. military forces to support the Constitutional transfer of power. Should you remain silent, you will be complicit in a coup d’état. You were rightly criticized for your prior active complicity in the president’s use of force against peaceful protesters in Lafayette Square. Your passive complicity in an extralegal seizure of political power would be far worse.
For 240 years, the United States has been spared the horror of violent political succession. Imperfect though it may be, our Union has been moving toward greater perfection, from one peaceful transfer of power to the next. The rule of law created by our Constitution has made this miracle possible. However, our Constitutional order is not self-sustaining. Throughout our history, Americans have laid down their lives so that this form of government may endure. Continuing the unfinished work for which these heroes fell now falls to you.
Lest you forget:

“I, Mark A. Milley, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”
The fate of our Republic may well depend upon your adherence to this oath.
Respectfully yours,
John Nagl and Paul Yingling
John Nagl, a retired Army officer and veteran of both Iraq wars, is Head of School at The Haverford School outside Philadelphia.
Paul Yingling, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, served three tours in Iraq, another in Bosnia, and a fifth in Operation Desert Storm.
https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/20...n-and-domestic-open-letter-gen-milley/167625/
Click to expand...


by 2 traitors... nice.. cant believe military was so corrupted with leftist bullshit
 
Gry

Gry

Well-known member
Veteran
We felt we had beaten it’: New Zealand’s race to eliminate the coronavirus again
Genomics could reveal details about the source of the country’s first outbreak in more than 100 days, says epidemiologist Amanda Kvalsvig.

A week ago, New Zealand was an exemplar for how swift and decisive action can stifle the spread of the coronavirus. No locally acquired cases of COVID-19 had been reported since the start of May. But the emergence this week of a cluster of cases — currently numbering 30 — has caught the nation by surprise, and is a blow to the government’s strategy to eliminate the virus.
Amanda Kvalsvig, an epidemiologist at the University of Otago in Wellington, has been assisting with the country’s COVID-19 response. She spoke to Nature about the rapid response to the new cases, and whether an elimination strategy is still possible.
How has the mood in New Zealand changed?

The new cases have been a shock. When they were announced, New Zealand had experienced more than 100 days with no identified community transmission, despite extensive testing. The country was at its lowest alert level, which allows near-normal activities, albeit with strict controls requiring travellers from overseas to remain in a quarantine facility for two weeks. There was a general feeling that we had beaten the virus — although government officials and public-health experts were warning against complacency.
Now, there’s widespread anxiety, with long lines of people at COVID-19 testing stations and some people panic-buying in supermarkets.
What has been the public-health response to these new infections?

The response has been swift, backed up by decisive government action. The Auckland region, where the cases were identified, is now at Alert Level 3 — the second-highest of four levels — with people instructed to stay at home apart from essential movement. The rest of the country is at Alert Level 2, which includes physical distancing measures and limits on mass gatherings.
People with COVID-19 and their contacts are being tested and traced. These are familiar measures but there are some new approaches, too. For example, the government is now recommending the use of face masks, and people with COVID-19 in the community will spend their isolation period in dedicated facilities instead of at home.
I and other public-health advocates have been strongly recommending population-wide mask use, which could help the country to avoid future lockdowns. Clear advice on risk would also help. For instance, there’s emerging evidence that the virus is transmitted readily in closed settings where people are speaking loudly, laughing and singing. This changes our thinking about ‘mass gatherings’ and gives a more nuanced sense of where the risks are.What is known about the original source of the outbreak?

The new cases came to light when a person in their fifties developed symptoms and presented for testing. Following that original positive test, their household and other contacts were tested, identifying further cases.
All of the new cases seem to be part of the same cluster, but that hasn’t been linked back to its point of introduction into the country. That is concerning because we don’t yet know how long this outbreak has been propagating and how many other cases might have been missed. Ideally, investigations will allow the public-health system to ‘backwards trace’, identifying each source of the known cases, and then ‘forwards trace’ to identify other close contacts of that source.
Authorities are exploring the possibility that the virus arrived on packaging in cold storage. That’s certainly worth exploring, but global experience with COVID-19 outbreaks so far suggests that the outbreak is far more likely to have originated from person-to-person close contact, either while people are en route to New Zealand or during quarantine at the border.
Could the virus have been spreading undetected in the community for some time?

It’s possible that the current cases are several generations on from the original introduced case, or cases. Around one-third of COVID-19 cases cause no symptoms, so a transmission chain could propagate through several generations before someone is unwell enough to have a test.
Another factor is that winter coughs and colds make it harder to detect a spike of COVID-19 transmission in the community. New Zealand uses a surveillance system to track influenza-like illnesses. There hasn’t been a significant uptick in these illnesses in recent weeks; in fact, the incidence is still far below what we would usually see at this time of year. That’s encouraging, because it suggests that although we certainly will detect more cases in the coming days, a massive undetected COVID-19 outbreak is unlikely.
It seems likely that the outbreak dates to a more recent introduction through the border in one way or another. But it would be good to know exactly when and how it arrived.
What could genomics tell us about this latest outbreak?

Genomic epidemiology is a powerful tool for tracing outbreaks back to the source, so it’s particularly relevant to the current situation, where the original case is still unknown. Genomic sequencing was used to investigate COVID-19 clusters in New Zealand earlier this year, and in several instances, investigators were able to link cases to a known cluster when conventional public-health methods hadn’t been able to establish the link. It can also identify situations in which cases seem to be linked through close contact, but actually belong to separate clusters.
If all of the Auckland cases turn out to be from one cluster, that will be good news for outbreak control. If there’s more than one cluster, it will suggest more widespread transmission.
New Zealand has adopted an elimination strategy. Does this latest outbreak suggest that isn’t possible?

We know that elimination is possible because New Zealand eliminated community transmission before. We expect to move in and out of elimination for the foreseeable future. The goal is to maintain zero community spread but this country will always be under threat from infections being introduced through the borders. No border-control system can be 100% fail-safe. But because we’re starting from a baseline of elimination, it should be feasible to extinguish each new outbreak using all the control measures we have at our disposal, including case and contact management, physical distancing and mass masking.
We’ve been fortunate to have outstanding political and scientific leadership in New Zealand. This has generated rapid and decisive action to protect population health. A key element of New Zealand’s response has been excellent communication with the public about what is happening and what is expected of them.
Stringent control measures have caused hardship for many people, so the high levels of adherence are a testament to the trust that people have in government at the moment. We’ve also seen tremendous compassion and innovative spirit around the country. Control measures have imposed a heavy burden on low-income communities, in particular on M?ori and Pacific populations. But community organizations, notably those led by M?ori, have provided vital support, delivering food parcels and re-orienting health and social services to be accessible to those most in need.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02402-5
 
F

funkyhorse

Well-known member
Hi Gry
I hope you dont mind, I found this quite interesting but I dont know if it fits in your thread
750 million genetically engineered mosquitoes approved for release in Florida Keys
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/08/19/health/gmo-mosquitoes-approved-florida-scn-wellness/index.html


I was checking the numbers used in the trials in Brazil and we are talking about 185.000 mosquitos used.
https://journals.plos.org/plosntds/article?id=10.1371/journal.pntd.0003864#sec002
Eclosion and release

Male pupae were aliquoted into release devices (RD) where they eclosed to adults over 24–48 hr before release (for details, see S1 Text). Mosquitoes were dispersed in field site by opening RDs at the rear of a vehicle moving slowly throughout the release area. Releases occurred three times per week. In the initial phase, which we call “rangefinder”, we maintained a constant release rate of males (~ 10,000 per release) for six weeks (total of 185,000 males).


750 million is an impressive number. I doubt any third world country would allow such numbers. I think you should change the thread title "top of the heap to fifth world or maybe sixth world and going down"


Do you really think there will be no environmental consequences? How do you count 750 million mosquitos, do you weigh them???
So the same way we have banana republics, now we will have mosquito republiquettes?
Have a nice weekend and enjoy life while you can
 
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