December 7, 2020

Governor Cuomo Briefing December 7 2020

Governor Cuomo interviews Dr. Fauci today.

Start 0:42

December 6, 2020

Governor Cuomo Briefing December 3 2020

Hospitalization rate and capacity are the key to coping with surge.
Hospitalization rates will increase through the winter for all states.
Total number of beds has to have flex and surge capability or deaths increase.

States that don't plan for hospital surge, don't have command of their covid numbers, have to triangulate access to hospitals (as is called for by NM's governor) and death rates increase.

A failed rescue package passage will cause bankruptcy for 50 states and no holiday.
Sen. Manchin and Pelosi believe the $908 billion would help until next March.
National Governors Association asked for $500 billion and will only get $160 billion in governing aid.

On the vaccine, 50-50% acceptance of vaccine doesn't work to reach 75% needed for general immunity.

Cuomo shows a Pfizer box of vaccine and diagrams of its contents -- tracking devices, dry ice and vial trays.

December 5, 2020

Education For Whom and For What?

1. Background conceptions
-- of Walter Lippman on the thinkers and the meddleome herd, the manufacturing of consent (called "progressive essays on democracy," the Creel Commission, the UK Ministry of Information, Edward Bernays ),
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson on the discouraging and frightening purpose of mass public education,
-- James Madison and Aristotle on marginalizing the public re "land reform,"
-- originalism of the U.S. Constitution and David Hume
-- Jonathan Rose on The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes
-- 1930's workers' education and high culture
-- Enlightenment concepts -- the empty, leaky vessel, the string trail
-- John Dewey's views

2. Implications
-- Journal of Science endorses science education as imitative of scientists' experience, because high concepts, taught too early in schooling, lead to memorization, spoils the joy of learning, presents science as rote, boring and a pointless game, now called "no child left behind"

3. Unfolding History
-- higher education, mass education after WWII motivated by wealth, work transition forces
-- "new spirit of the age" pressures of Adam Smith's "vile maxim"
-- erosion of Magna Carta's charter of the preservation of the Commons
-- commodification and consumerism "to keep people from our throats"
-- can an education revival eliminate the "new spirit of the age"
-- The American Century changes in state sector economies, universities, the IMF system, massive funding of the Pentagon's research, socializing cost & privatizing profit, higher education, K-12 (and the null set!)
-- 60's enriches society & 70's activism, reacted to by Lewis Powell (Chamber of Commerce) and the Trilateral Commission ("liberal internationalists) the dire threat of individual freedom coming from corporate funded universities and too much democracy from "special interests", both sides demanding the restoration of "order" which have led to attacks on education
-- today, low cost vs for profit higher education, and $1 Trillion debt as a result
-- corporate threats of defunding higher education warp the range and depth of curricula; corporate practices in universities of passing costs to society (class size, personnel contracts)
-- public school assaults based on human mutual care, colleges of arts & science humanities studies, history studies, violates the "new spirit of the age" corporate values

Forces to diminish education cannot progress very far in isolation from the freedom and justice that's already been achieved in the world.

December 5, 2020

One of the Most Menacing Problems and Yet Most Consequential --

How the Law Is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful: Noam Chomsky & Glenn Greenwald


"This concept of equality of rule under law has never been the predominant theme to describe American political reality."

While we're waiting for Jan 20, Rule of Law is worth a wider look (and not necessarily a partisan look).

December 5, 2020

White House fires Pentagon advisory board members, installs loyalists

Source: Politico

The White House removed nine members of the Pentagon's Defense Business Board on Friday and installed people loyal to President Donald Trump in their place, including presidential allies Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie.

Besides Lewandowski and Bossie, the other new members are Henry Dreifus, Robert McMahon, Cory Mills, Bill Bruner, Christopher Shank, Joseph Schmidt, Keary Miller, Allen Weh and Earl Matthews.

The Defense Business Board is made up of more than a dozen industry and academic leaders who volunteer to provide independent business advice to Pentagon leadership and are appointed by top Pentagon leaders.

The board has completed reviews of defense agencies and field activities, along with a study of using data analytics in the private sector and how it applies to DoD. The group also recommended disestablishing the position of chief management officer and putting a new alternative in place, which this week was voted into the final National Defense Authorization Act.



Read more: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/12/04/pentagon-fires-business-advisory-board-members-442892

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By LARA SELIGMAN, DANIEL LIPPMAN and JACQUELINE FELDSCHER
12/04/2020 12:49 PM EST
Updated: 12/04/2020 03:20 PM EST

December 3, 2020

Today's Recipient of the Katie Porter Thrash -- The Snotty Steve Mnuchin

December 2, 2020

Chris The Man Hayes on the Latest Pardon Scheme and the Limitations of the Presidential Pardon.

From a DOJ filing from August 28, released today by Chief Judge Beryl A. Howell of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.



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