FEBRUARY 21, 2020
The country now has the second highest number of infected people after China.
The country also confirmed its first death from coronavirus on Thursday.
The Korean Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that of the new cases, 39 were from the southern city of Daegu. All of these cases were linked to the Shincheonji Church of Jesus in the city.
The infections have been traced to a 61-year-old woman, who attended the church. The sect has since shut down its services. The mayor of Daegu, Kwon Young-jin has advised residents to stay indoors as much as possible.
Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun said that Daegu and the neighboring area of Cheongdo County would be declared as “special care zones.”
The government is trying to identify those who might have come in contact with infected people, and diagnose the disease at the earliest opportunity.
“We will proactively provide necessary assistance including sickbeds, personnel, and equipment,” the PM said in a meeting with senior officials.
Also on Friday, officials in the capital Seoul banned public rallies in a bid to control the spread of the disease.
The coronavirus outbreak that originated in China has infected more than 76,000 globally. It was named COVID-19 by the World Health Organization due the coronavirus that causes it, and the year 2019 when it originated.
Tweets that spread “lies” or “misinformation” will be highlighted for users with a bright-colored warning that is nearly the same size as the offending post, according to a report from NBC News. The changes are supposedly part of a policy revamp at Twitter, scheduled to go into effect next month.
Who are these “community” judges, juries and executioners? “Fact-checkers and journalists” who are verified on Twitter will be the able to decide which tweets promote “misleading” information, though a Twitter spokesperson told NBC that the site will be testing “many different ways” to combat “misinformation.”
A “Community Notes” section also gives users the ability to earn points based on being a “good neighbor,” which is apparently a Twitter euphemism for someone who flags other people’s tweets. Points and community badges could be rewarded to those who act in “good faith” when targeting offending tweets.
The point system is meant to prevent “bad actors” from abusing it. Considering how much political fighting there is on Twitter, odds that this tool will be abused are close to 100 percent, however.
Screenshots from a public testing site show tweets from both conservative and liberal politicians being flagged, as well as tweets denying climate change.
Having been accused of political bias and shadowbanning users with more right-wing beliefs in the past, many do not have faith in Twitter responsibly identifying “misleading” information.
“Can’t wait to see just how much of a disaster this is going to be,” reporter Seth Mandel tweeted in response to the coming changes.
“This should go well,” added commentator and podcaster Stephen Miller.
Twitter already put a new policy in place last month banning tweets that share “manipulated media.” That, however, could mean anything from deep fakes to memes such as that of President Donald Trump giving a medal to the military dog Conan, an obviously humorous and trolling tweet that was quickly “fact-checked” by reporters anyway.
With such precedents, it’s not surprising that many Twitter users fear the new tools could be abused to flag legitimate satire.
kind of fucked up that twitter is already flagging my posts. is anyone else seeing this https://t.co/srbFm28Ijh—
leon (@leyawn) February 20, 2020
Facebook has faced similar criticism for attempts at censorship of what they deem to be harmful content. CEO Mark Zuckerberg even recently set up an Oversight Board, completely funded by Facebook of course, so people can attempt to appeal the social media giant’s decisions on banned content.
Twitter also has a history of trying to punish “wrongthink.” Author Yasha Levine had his account locked after objecting to the US pushing for war with Russia. Actor James Woods only recently returned to the platform after months-long absence, after Twitter locked his account and demanded he delete an offensive tweet.
“If you try to kill the King, you better not miss,” the politically-outspoken Woods tweeted, quoting a line from the famous TV show ‘The Wire’ that paraphrases Ralph Waldo Emerson. Twitter deemed it to be some kind of threat or incitement of violence.
With the new flagging rules and seemingly impossible-to-control policies in the pipeline, it would be no surprise to see even more attempts at thought control, putting a wedge between the social media giant and already frustrated users.
By Dr. John Campbell – 2/21/2020
By Joshua Caplan – 2/21/2020
Earlier this week, 14 Americans with the virus flew stateside along with around 300 others after they were evacuated from the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Yokohama, Japan.
Upon confirmation of the cases, the State Department and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) officials opted to greenlight the fight despite CDC objecting to the move amid concerns of the disease spreading on the aircraft, the Washington Post reported.
In a statement, both agencies explain the rationale behind returning the infected Americans home, but left out the CDC’s advice against the move. The federal public health agency requested that it be removed from the explanation.
The statement read:
These individuals were moved in the most expeditious and safe manner to a specialized containment area on the evacuation aircraft to isolate them in accordance with standard protocols. Every precaution to ensure proper isolation and community protection measures are being taken, driven by the most up-to-date risk assessments by U.S. health authorities.
The 14 infected evacuees were transported to Travis Air Force Base in California and Lackland Air Force Base in Texas. Thirteen of them were then transferred to the University of Nebraska Medical Center for treatment.
“Those who have tested positive for this novel coronavirus, are only showing mild symptoms of the disease,” Nebraska Medicine said in a statement.
by Cristina Laila
Deep Staters in the intel community and (Adam Schiff?) is at it again — leaking and spinning in order to harass President Trump in an attempt to derail his re-election efforts.
A new leak to the New York Times claims intel officials warned House lawmakers last week that Russia was interfering in the 2020 campaign to try to get Trump reelected.
Intelligence officials warned House lawmakers last week that Russia was interfering in the 2020 campaign to try to get President Donald Trump reelected, five people familiar with the matter said, in a disclosure that angered Trump, who complained that Democrats would use it against him.
The day after the Feb. 13 briefing to lawmakers, Trump berated Joseph Maguire, the outgoing acting director of national intelligence, for allowing it to take place, people familiar with the exchange said. Trump cited the presence in the briefing of Rep. Adam B. Schiff, D-Calif., who led the impeachment proceedings against him, as a particular irritant.
During the briefing to the House Intelligence Committee, Trump’s allies challenged the conclusions, arguing that Trump has been tough on Russia and strengthened European security. Some intelligence officials viewed the briefing as a tactical error, saying that had the official who delivered the conclusion spoken less pointedly or left it out, they would have avoided angering the Republicans.
Brennan tweeted out the latest leak to the NY Times and accused Trump of working to get reelected “for Moscow’s interests, not America’s.”
BRENNAN: We are now in a full-blown national security crisis. By trying to prevent the flow of intelligence to Congress, Trump is abetting a Russian covert operation to keep him in office for Moscow’s interests, not America’s.
Brennan was behind the Russian collusion canard and the Ukraine impeachment hoax and now he’s going for a third hit on Trump.
By Shane Trejo – 2/21/2020
Activists in Rye, New York have successfully averted a showing of “drag queen story hour” in their community library, but the library is pushing back with an LGBT re-education program meant to indoctrinate young minds into the perverted lifestyle.
The activists, including citizen journalists Robin Janovich and Tom McDermott of The Rye Record, questioned a showing of drag queen story hour scheduled for the library on Feb. 8.
“Are families likely to bring their young children to a program that uses drag queens to focus on inclusivity? Why are we foisting conversations on inclusivity on children that young? Are we replacing bedtime stories, which take children out of themselves and out into other, far more interesting worlds, with discussions of sexual differences when they are innocent sponges?” the reporters asked.
The proposed story hour event was geared toward children aged 3-8 years old and was billed as a teaching experience to “celebrate difference, learn empathy, and create crafts” and “celebrate diversity while building confidence in self-expression.”
Citizens in Rye started asking questions and began to cause a stir among the community as people began to question why these perverts were being allowed intimate access to children.
“What happened to bringing joy and delight to our children and grandchildren, rather than assaulting them with political correctness?” one concerned citizen asked.
“If the #MeToo Movement has taught us one thing, isn’t it that men dressing up as women for entertainment isn’t progress?” asked another individual.
The activism resulted in the event being postponed, but Rye Free Reeding Room Director Chris Shoemaker announced that they would instead bring in “educators” to push LGBT propaganda instead of drag queens.
“But nearly all of those emails were anonymous, so I couldn’t respond to them individually,” Shoemaker said. “They were form letters asking that the library be neutral in its viewpoints and not create an unwelcome environment.”
“After looking at all the feedback and considering whether we should be using an adult performer to spread this message,” Shoemaker continued, “I decided the library should pause and refocus on engaging different educators.”
Meanwhile, pro-degeneracy advocates such as Rye resident Joie Cooney and the City of Rye’s Human Rights Commission are pushing to get story hour reinstated. They want children to be groomed by this vile group of predators out to corrupt the souls of the children.
In other states, drag queens have been completely unvetted before being allowed to read creepy stories about gender and sexuality to children. This has resulted in pedophiles being allowed to administer story hour events to kids. The organizers have done absolutely nothing to assure that drag queens receive criminal background checks beforehand, and there could be dozens if not hundreds of more predators using story hour as a means to find unsuspecting prey.
The people of Rye, as well as the rest of the country, will require nothing short of eternal vigilance to protect the innocence of children from LGBT predators.
FEBRUARY 20, 2020
An activist group called Nanchong Missing Animal Aid Group claims officers from a county in south-western China’s Sichuan Province were going house-to-house and ordering citizens to hand over their furry companions, most often dogs.
The township of Longcan in Peng’an County, Nanchong is where the inhumane executions are allegedly taking place.
Video posted to a Chinese website similar to Twitter allegedly shows officers from the villages of Qianqiubang putting deceased dogs into the back of a truck.
Another video posted by an animal activist shows an officer touching a lifeless dog lying on the ground as bystanders watch.
Warning: Viewers may find the following content disturbing.
An activist who posted one of the videos claims the Communist Party Secretary of Longcan Town ordered the mass executions.
“Stop slaughtering pets in the midst of the epidemic. Enforce law in a civilized way,” the activist wrote in the social media post.
A spokesperson for PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) told DailyMail the outbreak is not “an excuse to abuse animals.”
“Violent acts like this one don’t address the public health problems. They only cause more conflicts in society,” the PETA spokesperson added.
Additionally, the WHO (World Health Organization) has already dismissed claims that pets are transmitting the virus.
Just last week footage allegedly coming out of China showed a community officer beating a dog to death with a massive wooden staff.
Pet culling campaigns have also been reported in the cities of Chengdu and Wenzhou.
As the virus continues spreading throughout the world, hitting China the worst, the nation’s communist government is becoming increasingly violent and authoritarian.
It has modeled two scenarios on the coronavirus outbreak morphing into pandemic. Under the first scenario, if it spreads more widely in Asia, world GDP would fall by $400 billion this year, or 0.5 percent. The second scenario foresees the global GDP dropping $1.1 trillion or 1.3 percent, if the virus outbreak becomes a pandemic and a disruption to manufacturing in Asia spreads worldwide. Such a decline would be the same as losing the entire annual output of Indonesia, which is the world’s 16th largest economy.
“Our scenarios see world GDP hit as a result of declines in discretionary consumption and travel and tourism, with some knock-on financial market effects and weaker investment,” wrote the analysts.
Oxford Economics said it still expected the impact of the virus to be limited to China and to have a significant, but short-term impact, bringing world GDP growth just 0.2 percent lower than January at 2.3 percent.
The growth of new confirmed cases of the deadly coronavirus has slowed down this week, but experts warn it is too early to call the all-clear for the risk of a pandemic. So far, there are over 75,500 confirmed cases and more than 2,100 deaths.
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