Patrick's Notebook

by Lee Camp

The Biden Administration, the mainstream media and pretty much all the politicians in our country continue to throw fuel on the Sinophobia fire initially stoked by former President and current Mar-a-lago “fungineer” Donald Trump.
(Word to the wise, “Sinophobia” means anti-China hatred, not anti-cinema hatred as I had thought. So I apologize to all the people who posted a movie review for Fast And Furious 27 and noticed a response comment from me reading “GODDAMN SINOPHOBE!” Under the circumstances, that was an odd thing to yell.)

During the Trump Administration, the Wuhan lab leak theory was called a ridiculous conspiracy that blossomed out of Trump’s racist brain — which it did. It absolutely did. And he should get some credit for that because anyone can be racist but Trump is a racist inventor. He comes up with new and exciting ways to be racist. So he deserves some credit for his innovation.

Last year, Trump’s racist lab leak theory was thrown out by both the Democratic establishment and most of the mainstream media. However, now that the crackpot conspiracy can be useful for President Biden’s deranged anti-China rhetoric, all of a sudden the establishment and the media think it’s a wonderful conspiracy. » Read the rest of this entry «

by Eduardo Baptista

● Senior official insists that US is still a strong nation and will be hard to overtake, but should not adopt a ‘cold war mentality’

● Le says many countries are ready to support China internationally and criticises Washington for forming ‘small clubs’ such as the G7 and Quad

China’s foreign vice-minister Le Yucheng has called on Washington to accept that “American hegemony” is in decline, but insisted it will be difficult to overtake the United States even within a “relatively long period of time”.

The US is still the leading power in terms of strength but its adoption of a cold war mentality and creation of “small clubs” is a sign of ideological decline, Le told media outlet Guancha on Friday.

“The US decline is not a decline in strength but a decline of hegemony,” Le said. “No matter a country’s strength, hegemonic power is bound to wither, hegemony is not popular.”

But he said the US is “still a strong and large nation in the number one spot”, adding: “It will be hard to overtake it over a relatively long period of time.” » Read the rest of this entry «

by Peter Beaumont

Arrests made after prime minister says attackers posed as members of the US Drug Enforcement Agency

The president of Haiti, Jovenel Moïse, has been assassinated in his home by a group of armed men who also seriously injured his wife, according to a statement and comments made by the country’s interim prime minister.

Speaking on a local radio station, Claude Joseph confirmed that Moïse, 53, had been killed, saying the attack was carried out by an “armed commando group” that included foreigners.

In a televised national address later on Wednesday, Joseph declared a state of emergency across the country, and made a call for calm. “The situation is under control,” he said.

Late on Wednesday Haiti’s communications secretary said police had arrested the “presumed assassins”. Frantz Exantus did not provide further details about the killing or say how many suspects had been arrested. The police chief later said officers were fighting with the group and that four had been shot dead and another two arrested. » Read the rest of this entry «

by Zerohedge.com

There’s a growing cottage industry at the nexus of consumer research and government surveillance

In a report published Friday, the Wall Street Journal explored the world of Premise Data Corp., an innocently-named firm that uses a network of users, many in the developing world, who complete basic tasks for small commissions. Assignments can range from snapping photos of competitors’ stores, to counting the number of ATMs in a given area, to reporting on the price of consumer goods on the shelf.

Roughly half of the firm’s clients are private businesses seeking “commercial information” (mostly reporting on competitors’ operations), both the US government and foreign governments have hired the firm to do more advanced reconnaissance work while gauging public opinion.

According to WSJ, Premise is one of a growing number of companies that are straddling “the divide between consumer services and government surveillance and rely on the proliferation of mobile phones as a way to turn billions of devices into sensors that gather open-source information useful to government security services.” » Read the rest of this entry «

by Tom Luongo

Jon Stewart is the High Priest of Barely Functional Millennials. Not all Millennials, just the ones he’s personally destroyed. I’ve hated him from the moment my younger friends/family told me they got their news from him rather than you know, the news.

And saying this is not an endorsement of the news, then or now.

Stewart’s agitprop was the stuff of legend during his run on The Daily Show. He programmed an entire generation to think he was the truth-telling court jester when he was really always The Davos Crowd’s Pied Piper. All he had to do was bust open a few easily-busted lies while mugging for the camera.

That’s instant credibility with a generation incapable of real critical thinking.

He was funny when he got his first break on Dennis Miller Live on HBO back in the early 90’s. I didn’t have cable back then and had a co-worker tape them for me. Stewart stood out. He’s a talented guy, always has been. I don’t begrudge him his talent. It’s one of the hallmarks of evil people, most of them are admirably talented at something. » Read the rest of this entry «

by Global Times

If the Biden administration wants to project itself as a responsible government that respects science, it should dispatch scientists and allow a WHO team to investigate the origins of the coronavirus on US soil, instead of repeating his predecessor’s tactic of milking this subject to throw mud on China or serve its other political purposes, said Chinese epidemiologists.

The remarks came after US news outlet Politico reported on Wednesday that senior officials of the Trump administration decided in the spring of 2020 to strongly imply that COVID-19 came from a Chinese lab, even though intelligence officials investigating the pandemic’s origins did not have conclusive evidence supporting that hypothesis.

Politico said that some officials in the White House, the National Security Council and the State Department had urged the US to blame China for covering up the pandemic’s origins and to allege that it came from a research facility in Wuhan that specialized in the study of dangerous bat pathogens – a move that they described as going on the diplomatic offensive. » Read the rest of this entry «

by Jon Miltimore

More than a dozen states have passed or advanced legislation to place new checks on the powers of public health agencies in the wake of the pandemic

Mike Fratantuono grew up in a restaurant. Literally.

For decades, Sunset Restaurant in Glen Burnie, Maryland, was the family business. Over the years, he’d done seemingly every job imaginable: busboy, bartender, and butcher; prep cook and plumber; handyman and manager.

Fratantuono says that’s what made it so hard to watch the family’s legacy become a COVID casualty in 2020.

“It kills me. We were supposed to be getting ready to celebrate our 60th anniversary this year, and instead we’re packing up and closing at the end of this month,” Fratantuono told the Washington Post last year. “I try not to get too sentimental about it, because it won’t change a damn thing, but sometimes the stress hits me and my heart starts going like crazy. I get frustrated. It makes me angry.” » Read the rest of this entry «