Week ending 09/06/20
Global Covid Cases: 27,158,685
Global Covid Deaths: 885,129
New Deaths: 36,664 avg of 5238 per day down from last week’s 5450 per day
US Covid Cases: 6,440,816
US Covid Deaths: 192,956
New Deaths: 6012 859 per day down from 937 last week – but as noted before, these numbers are political so they are suspect.
Hawaii Covid Cases: 9693
Hawaii Covid Deaths: 84
Oahu Covid Cases: 8765
New Deaths Last Week: 22 deaths last week up from 15 the week before and 7 two weeks ago
Average 222 cases per day up from 218 last week and 211 the week before. This fire appears to be growing out of control little by little here on Oahu despite the lockdown orders on Oahu.
Other Covid News: Researchers from the State University of Londrina in Brazil found that people who reported “antisocial traits,” such as low levels of empathy and high levels of callousness and risk-taking, were less-likely to comply with Covid-19 prevention measures, such as wearing a mask and social distancing. In other words, sociopaths are less likely to wear masks and more likely to be anti-maskers. Similar studies found the same thing in Poland and the USA. Covid-19 cases in kids have increased 17% over two weeks…not surprisingly, about shortly after the school year has begun in many places – this will just get worse. At least a few deaths and a large number of cases have been related to the Sturgis motorcycle gathering – but it’s still too early to say for certain what the effects were.
Political News: Rumors are flying that Trump suffered a stroke last year when he paid a visit to Walter Reed. Trump’s taxes (as I foretold) are not going to be released to the State of NY prosecutor. Trump controls the courts, that’s the value of his first three years. President Trump signed a memo Wednesday to restrict federal $ from going to “anarchist jurisdictions” – the memo cites Seattle, Portland, NYC & D.C. This inspired NY Governor Andrew Cuomo to say “He better have an army if he thinks he’s gonna walk down the street in New York,” Cuomo said late Wednesday. “He can’t have enough bodyguards to walk through New York City. Trump also encouraged North Carolina voters to vote twice – something that North Carolina had to remind voters is illegal. In a bit of good news on the political front, Ed Markey a supporter of the Green New Deal defeated his primary challenger, young Joe Kennedy who was backed by Nancy Pelosi and other political elites – usually an incumbant winning over a young challenger wouldn’t be something to celebrate but in this case – Markey is a solid proponent of dealing with climate change so it’s a win for those of us who don’t want to see the planet become uninhabitable. A new report says that Russia is using their troll farms to amplify Trump’s message about elections being untrustworthy – yes, big surprise that Russia would be pushing the message that Putin’s puppet is already spewing. According to an article published by The Atlantic on Thursday, President Trump referred to fallen Marines who fought in World War I as “losers” and “suckers” while deciding not to visit the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery near Paris during a visit to France in 2018. He made similar comments about veteran and former Arizona senator John McCain after he died in 2018. Trump denies it all, but of course it is true. He also claims to be responsible for the Veterans Choice bill that McCain sponsored and Obama signed into law in 2014. We all know he’s a liar but for some reason, his base keeps following him – oh yeah, I forgot, because he’s a racist and they are mostly closet or overt whitee supremacists or the most exploitive types of capitalists who value profits far above people. Meanwhile Nancy Pelosi is catching heat for getting her hair done indoors in a salon in San Francisco, apparently violating covid-19 restrictions – yeah, fuck her for getting her hair cut – if I lived in San Francisco, I’d be voting for Shahid to replace her – but not because of her hair, nor because of his. In Texas a bunch of Trump boating enthuisiasts decided to have a boat parade and at least four of them sank. Seriously, can’t make this stuff up. Michael Cohen, once the president’s personal lawyer, detailed in his Trump tell all book that Trump hired an actor to be faux-bama so that Trump could pretend fire him. Still not making this up.
BLM – Protest News: The suspect in the Portland shooting is a 48-year-old white dad who described himself as 100% Antifa Michael Forest Reinoehl. Witnesses say the man who was killed was wearing a bulletproof vest and helmet and had been spraying people with mace/pepper spray and was carrying a nightstick and menacing people. He was a member of the same group that a man who atttacked people with a knife in Portland several years ago belonged too. It’s important to remember that these Trumpers loaded into trucks like ISIS thugs and drove into a peaceful protest to harrass, intimidate, and shoot protestors with paintballs and ball bearings. There’s plenty of video of this – but I don’t expect that to play any part in the narrative. Yes, folks, we officially have people killing each other in the streets now in Kenosha and Portland over whether Black Lives Matter or not. Thursday night, after an interview aired in which Michael Forest Reinoehl claimed he had no choice unless he wanted to see his friend beat to death but footage showed him stalking the guy he killed so he wasn’t some good guy, he was a person unhinged by the state of the world and then – Reinoehl was murdered by police. Coincidence that the man who killed a violent blue lives matter protestor was killed by police? I think not. This whole chain of events feels like a tipping point and I’d like to be wrong, but I think the death is just getting started – people should be a lot more freaked out about people murdering each other in the streets than they are… and about police murdering people…On the 100th night of protests in Portland, a riot was declared as mooltov cocktails were thrown. At least fifty were arrested.
Economic News: Apple and Tesla both split their stocks, in a way, locking in the amazing gains both companies have made over the course of the pandemic. Elon Musk is now the 3rd richest person in the world having passed Mark Zuckerberg and now chasing Bill Gates. Amazon’s drone delivery fleet was approved by the FAA. Amazon briefly advertised for agents to monitor union organizing this week before getting flagged for it and quickly removing the job listings. It was the best stock market August since 1984 – a huge generational shift in wealth from the bottom directly to the top. New weekly jobless claims came in at 881,000, well below the psychological million mark but a number that would have sent markets reeling downward in any other year. Of course, the numbers are a lie – if you get rid of the seasonally adjusted claptrap, the numbers are actually closer to 2.2 million and the second wave of layoffs has begun – this time hitting better paying jobs. 29.2 million people remain on unemployment – that’s 18.3% of the population. The bigger companies are now starting their layoffs, airlines, Salesforce, Coca-Cola, Wells Fargo, MGM resorts, AT&T, NBC Universal, Comcast, LinkedIn, Raytheon – not that restaurant and service jobs don’t matter – but the loss of these jobs are going to hit the economy a lot harder. There was a nice but far too minor market dip on Thursday. The top billionaires lost about $25 billion in wealth on Thursday and Friday, but that’s not enough. They need to lose it all. They need to be reduced to a number that a person can at least comprehend, they need to be reduced from billionaires to some maximum like 1/2 a billion – that’s enough for anyone. They should be required to create charities with the rest of their wealth – real charities run by trusted organizations that actually help people – not bullshit tax shelter charities or charities that push their political agenda. Tesla, much to the surprise of fans of the stock and the founder, was not included in the S&P 500 – the stock is down 25% as of writing this.
Disaster News/ Severe Weather/Climate Change News: A typhoon is bearing down on Japan. In California the creek fire prompted the helicopter evacuation of 224 campers from Mammoth Pools area.
Random Wierd Shit: A man in a jetpack was reported flying around next to landing aircraft at LAX one of the world’s busiest airports. David Blaine rode a bunch of helium balloons up to an unthinkable altitude and then parchuted down.