>>14501941

nailed it

Later, it was clarified that an Afghan pilot was reportedly flying the chopper, and a Taliban member was trying to install the group's flag.

"Afghan pilot flying this is someone I have known over the years. He was trained in the US and UAE, he confirmed to me that he flew the Blackhawk helicopter. Taliban fighter seen here was trying to install Taliban flag from air but it didn't work in the end,"

>>14501868

>Commie boy Justin will have to flee to Cuba when he gets blown out in the upcoming election.

You mean wins by a landslide?

>>14501503

>Biden just got hit with the bucket and knocked down the steps. It only gets worse after this.

better corn some pop!

>>14501606

Oi! Don't talk to your neighbour!

>>14501381

<It only gets worse from here.

https://twitter.com/BBCYaldaHakim/status/1432411435787763716

https://apnews.com/article/health-pandemics-coronavirus-pandemic-9845c7257300ff6546c20489e642a1ea

A sound bite reexamined: ‘pandemic of the unvaccinated’

This summer’s coronavirus resurgence has been labeled a “pandemic of the unvaccinated” by government officials from President Joe Biden on down.

The sound bite captures the glaring reality that unvaccinated people overwhelmingly account for new cases and serious infections, with a recent study of government data showing that hospitalization rates among unvaccinated adults were 17 times higher than among those fully vaccinated.

But the term doesn’t appear to be changing hearts and minds among unvaccinated people. And it doesn’t tell the whole story, with some breakthrough infections occurring among the fully vaccinated. That’s led health officials to recommend a return to masks and a round of booster shots.

“It is true that the unvaccinated are the biggest driver, but we mustn’t forget that the vaccinated are part of it as well, in part because of the delta variant,” said Dr. Eric Topol, professor of molecular medicine at Scripps Research in La Jolla, California. “The pandemic clearly involves all people, not just the unvaccinated.”

Topol points to Louisiana, where data from the state suggest that nearly 10% of hospitalized patients are vaccinated.

Branding it “a pandemic of the unvaccinated” could have the unintended consequence of stigmatizing the unvaccinated, he added. “We should not partition them as the exclusive problem,” Topol said.

Instead officials should call out vaccine disinformation, said Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. A sketchy stream of dubious arguments continues to undermine public confidence.

“We can say that the virus has reemerged in the southern United States, primarily among unvaccinated people, but it doesn’t mean we have to blame the unvaccinated,” Hotez said. “The people we have to target are the purveyors of disinformation, and we have to recognize that the unvaccinated themselves are victims of disinformation.”

Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has tried to call attention to the damage done by misinformation and disinformation. But for many vaccine opposition has become ingrained.

A poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research in July found that 45% of adults who had not yet received a vaccine said they definitely would not get it, and 35% probably would not. Nearly 2 in 3 (64%) unvaccinated adults said they had little to no confidence the shots are effective against mutations like the delta variant, although public health data show vaccination dramatically reduces the risk of serious illness, hospitalization and death. Just 3% of unvaccinated adults said they would definitely get vaccinated.

Calling it a “pandemic of the unvaccinated” is “just provocative,” said Robert Blendon, who follows public opinion on health care at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “The unvaccinated have an opposition toward Washington, and the more you stir the opposition, the more it convinces them ‘I’m not going to give in to those people,’” Blendon said.

>>14502067

Yet top officials don’t seem to be ready to let go of a favored catchphrase.

“As I’ve said before, the pandemic of the unvaccinated is a tragedy that is preventable,” Biden declared in a recent remarks on his administration’s COVID-19 response.

“We’re now in a pandemic of the unvaccinated, and the way to end this pandemic is more vaccinations,” said White House coronavirus coordinator Jeff Zients, opening a media briefing days ago.

The term caught on before breakthrough infections among vaccinated people became a worry.

During a mid-July media briefing, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, underscored the troubling rise in cases and hospitalizations, saying “there is a clear message that is coming through: This is becoming a pandemic of the unvaccinated.”

Neither the CDC nor the White House would comment on whether that sound bite should now be retired, or amended.

Until very recently, Biden’s handling of the pandemic was seen as a solid strength. But the August edition of the AP-NORC poll found flashing warnings for the president. Approval of his COVID-19 response fell by 12 percentage points from July, down from 66% to 54%. It was the lowest COVID-19 approval rating for Biden, and the first time that his approval number on the pandemic was basically the same as his overall performance rating.

Among independents, there was a nearly 30 percentage point drop in approval.

Democratic pollster Geoff Garin, who tracks health care issues, says he sees no intent to divide in the Biden administration’s “pandemic of the unvaccinated” rhetoric. “I think the very clear intention is to tell unvaccinated Americans that they are the ones that are at risk,” he said.

But a mutating virus can outrun the smartest sound bites. “When you have a dynamic and fast-changing situation like this, it creates really significant challenges for communicators, who have to both maintain their credibility while staying ahead of the story,” said Garin.

Republican pollster Bill McInturff, who collaborates with Garin’s firm on some major polls, said, “Calling it a ‘pandemic of the unvaccinated’ is certainly not going to increase the compliance among the unvaccinated.”

In a pandemic no one is an island, suggests Dr. Leana Wen, a former Baltimore health commissioner and commentator on public health issues.

“We don’t live in communities where the vaccinated can separate themselves from the unvaccinated, because we are dealing with a highly contagious virus and there is a spillover effect,” she said. “That gets lost when we are just saying it’s a ‘pandemic of the unvaccinated.’”

>>14502068

>“We’re now in a pandemic of the unvaccinated, and the way to end this pandemic is more vaccinations,” said White House coronavirus coordinator Jeff Zients, opening a media briefing days ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Zients

https://apnews.com/article/Battle-for-Black-Farms-e1034c6701f55a3a5362447e0354c4cd

Black US farmers awaiting billions in promised debt relief

There was a time when Black farms prospered.

Just two generations out of slavery, by 1910 Black farmers had amassed more than 16 million acres of land and made up about 14 percent of farmers. The fruit of their labors fed much of America.

Now, they have fewer than 4.7 million acres. Black farms in the U.S. plummeted from 925,000 to fewer than 36,000, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s latest farm census. And only about one in 100 farmers is Black.

What happened?

They were able to overcome the broken promise of “40 acres and a mule” to the newly freed slaves — a military order, later rescinded. But over the last century, they faced one obstacle after another because of their race.

Farmers needed loans to expand, to buy seed, to bridge the time between harvests. But lenders — chief among them, the USDA — often refused to give them money, and often rushed to foreclose. Suppliers and customers undercut them. Laws of inheritance led to the breakup of homesteads.

Now the government wants to make amends by providing billions of dollars in debt forgiveness for farmers of color as part of the pandemic relief package. But a judge has put the money on hold in the face of lawsuits filed by white farmers claiming that the program is unfair — reverse discrimination.

Today’s Black farmers and the descendants of Black farmers who struggled and lost their stakes argue that they are the ones who have been the victims of injustice:

The Virginia farmer who barely was able to keep part of his farm when the USDA threatened to sell it at auction. The Kansas man who lost the land his grandparents once homesteaded. The Arkansas farmer who is holding on by a thread, praying the federal aid will come through in time.

It was racism, says farmer John Wesley Boyd Jr. And it still is.

“I think discrimination is still pervasive. I think that it’s done in a much subtler way,” Boyd says. “I don’t think you’re going to see many USDA officials spitting on people now or maybe calling them colored, but they aren’t lending them any money — the way they lend white farmers.”

https://apnews.com/article/texas-courts-78abf09bc505fd1b0a66502ff8202b79

Texas 6-week abortion ban takes effect, with high court mum

A Texas law banning most abortions in the state took effect at midnight, but the Supreme Court has yet to act on an emergency appeal to put the law on hold.

If allowed to remain in force, the law would be the most dramatic restriction on abortion rights in the United States since the high court’s landmark Roe v. Wade decision legalized abortion across the country in 1973.

The Texas law, signed by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott in May, would prohibit abortions once a fetal heartbeat can be detected, usually around six weeks and before most women even know they’re pregnant.

Abortion providers who are asking the Supreme Court to step in said the law would rule out 85% of abortions in Texas and force many clinics to close. Planned Parenthood is among the abortion providers that have stopped scheduling abortions beyond six weeks from conception.

At least 12 other states have enacted bans on abortion early in pregnancy, but all have been blocked from going into effect.

What makes the Texas law different is its unusual enforcement scheme. Rather than have officials responsible for enforcing the law, private citizens are authorized to sue abortion providers and anyone involved in facilitating abortions. Among other situations, that would include anyone who drives a woman to a clinic to get an abortion. Under the law, anyone who successfully sues another person would be entitled to at least $10,000.

Abortion opponents who wrote the law also made it difficult to challenge the law in court, in part because it’s hard to know whom to sue.

Texas has long had some of the nation’s toughest abortion restrictions, including a sweeping law passed in 2013 that the Supreme Court eventually struck down but not before more than half of the state’s 40-plus abortion clinics closed.

Lawmakers also are moving forward in an ongoing special session in Texas with proposed new restrictions on medication abortion, a method using pills that accounts for roughly 40% of abortions in the U.S.

https://apnews.com/article/health-census-2020-7be40ba7ee3019dd0de992f6b2d7e276

Census: Childless older women better off than older men

https://apnews.com/article/europe-business-ukraine-757330510acea075e0ed8bc01183e1b9

Post-Trump, Ukraine’s leader to push Biden for US support

https://apnews.com/article/business-crime-death-of-george-floyd-george-floyd-race-and-ethnicity-8e59a20f616a703be8b263c26c574c1c

Black women seeing guns as protection from rising crime

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/aug/28/republican-election-audits-have-led-to-voting-system-breaches-experts-say

Republican election audits have led to voting system breaches, experts say

MyPillow chief gave out election software at South Dakota event derived from Republican challenges in Colorado and Michigan

Republican efforts to question Donald Trump’s defeat in 2020 have led to voting system breaches experts say pose a risk to future elections.

Copies of Dominion Voting Systems software used for designing ballots, configuring voting machines and tallying results were distributed at an event this month in South Dakota organized by the MyPillow chief executive, Mike Lindell, a Trump ally who has made unsubstantiated claims about last year’s election.

Matt Masterson, a former top election security official in the Trump administration, said: “We told election officials, essentially, that you should assume this information is already out there. Now we know it is, and we don’t know what [hackers] are going to do with it.”

The software copies came from voting equipment in Mesa county, Colorado, and Antrim county, Michigan, where Trump allies challenged results last fall. Dominion software is used in some 30 states, including California, Georgia and Michigan.

Harri Hursti, an election security pioneer, was at the South Dakota event and said he and other researchers were given three separate copies of election management systems that run on the Dominion software. Data indicated they were from Antrim and Mesa counties. While it’s not clear how the copies came to be released, they were also posted online and made available for public download.

The release gives hackers a “practice environment” to probe for vulnerabilities and a road map to avoid defenses, Hursti said. All hackers would need is physical access to the systems because they are not supposed to be connected to the internet.

“The door is now wide open,” Hursti said. “The only question is, how do you sneak in the door?”

US election technology is dominated by three vendors, meaning election officials cannot easily swap out existing technology. A Dominion representative declined comment, citing an investigation.

Hackers could sabotage the system, alter ballot design or even try to change results, said Kevin Skoglund, an election technology expert.

“This disclosure increases both the likelihood that something happens and the impact of what would happen if it does,” he said.

The effort by Republicans to examine voting equipment began soon after the November election as Trump blamed his loss on widespread fraud. Judges appointed by both Democrats and Republicans, election officials of both parties and Trump’s own attorney general dismissed the claims. A coalition of federal and state officials called the 2020 election the “most secure” in US history, and post-election audits across the country found no significant anomalies.

In Antrim county, a judge allowed a forensic exam of voting equipment after a brief mix-up of results led to a suit alleging fraud. It was dismissed in May. Hursti said the date on the software release matches the date of the forensic exam.

>>14502100

Calls seeking information from Antrim county’s clerk and the local prosecutor were not immediately returned; a call to the judge’s office was referred to the county clerk. The Michigan secretary of state’s office declined comment.

In Colorado, authorities are investigating whether Mesa county elections staff provided unauthorized access to systems. The county elections clerk, Tina Peters, appeared with Lindell in South Dakota and told the crowd she was being targeted by Democrats.

Colorado’s secretary of state, Jena Griswold, said she alerted federal officials of the breach and was told it was not viewed as a “significant heightening of the election risk landscape at this point”. This week, Mesa county commissioners voted to replace voting equipment Griswold ordered no longer be used.

Geoff Hale, who leads election security at the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (Cisa), said his agency has always operated on the assumption system vulnerabilities are known by malicious actors. Officials are focused instead on ways to reduce risk, such as using ballots with a paper record that can be verified by the voter and rigorous post-election audits, Hale said.

Having Dominion’s software exposed publicly did not change the agency’s guidance, Hale said.

Jack Cable, a security researcher, said he assumed US adversaries already had access to the software. He said he was more concerned the release would fan distrust among the growing number of people not inclined to believe in the security of US elections.

“It is a concern that people, in the pursuit of trying to show the system is insecure, are actually making it more insecure,” said Cable, who recently joined a cybersecurity firm run by the former Cisa director Christopher Krebs and former Facebook security chief Alex Stamos.

Concerns over access to voting machines and software first surfaced in Arizona, where the Republican-controlled state senate hired Cyber Ninjas, a firm with no elections experience, to audit Maricopa county results. The firm’s chief executive tweeted support of conspiracy theories surrounding last year’s election.

After the county’s Dominion voting systems were turned over, Arizona’s top election official determined they could not be used again and ordered new ones.

Dominion has filed suits contesting unfounded claims about its systems. In May, it called giving Cyber Ninjas access to its code “reckless” and said it would cause “irreparable damage” to election security.

Ryan Macias, an election technology and security expert who was in Arizona earlier this year to observe that review, was alarmed by a lack of cybersecurity protocols. There was no information about who was given access, whether those people had passed background checks or were asked to sign non-disclosure agreements. Cyber Ninjas did not respond to an email.

Macias was not surprised to hear copies of Antrim county’s system had surfaced online, given the questionable motives of the various groups conducting the reviews and the central role that voting systems have played in conspiracy theories.

“This is what I anticipated would happen, and I anticipate it will happen yet again coming out of Arizona,” Macias said. “These actors have no liability and no rules of engagement.”

better luck next time