Libertarians steal votes from Republicans. Period. Except....

We all know the reason Karl Rove insisted upon electronic voting without a paper trail (and preferably without exit polls). It was so that the e-vote could be hacked and Democratic votes could be reassigned to a third party splitter (usually the Green candidate) in close races, handing an entire state's electoral votes to the Republican. What he called "THE Math."

This can happen with any high profile third party candidate, not just a Green.

Now, if David Dukes decided to run for the White People's Party, it would be hard for Russian hackers to re-assign Democratic votes to the WPP. It would not pass the smell test, as in "Something is rotten in the Kremlin."

However, if the Libertarian has the right kind of financial support (i.e. mega bucks from the Kremlin) and if he downplays usual Libertarian values of no government, no bailouts, no nothing and instead starts talking like the newer, younger, hipper alternative to Trump, he could then be used by KGB hackers to siphon votes from Biden to the Libertarian in tight races.

I expect that this fall will be a replay of 2008--massive angry voter turnout that will make it impossible for Trump or Putin to make use of all their dirty little tricks like voter suppression and e-vote hacking. However, in the dirty game of politics it is better to assume nothing and plan for the worst possible scenario.

So, please, watch any third party candidate. And, in particular watch who is funding them and watch how the KBG/Facebook trolls are promoting them. Jill Stein made the Greens a "No Go" this time around, however she was so successful at doing what she did (handing Trump the White House) that Russia is going to try the same ploy again. You can count on it. Putin is desperate. If he loses the White House, he might get forced out in Russia due to COVID and low oil prices and the Russian economic Depression that is sure to come. His only hope is to keep control of the POTUS.

What happens to lab animals if you sever their vagus nerves at the level of the neck? Answer: their lungs fill up with fluid, become stiff and they die.

We know that COVID gets into the central nervous system. One way it can gain access to the brain is via the olfactory nerves through the cribiform plate. But what if the virus also infects the vagus nerves that run down the neck, through the chest and finally into the abdomen? Other respiratory viruses such as influenza have been found to affect the vagus nerve in this way.

I have collected links to several articles about animal tests in which the vagus nerve is completely severed at the cervical level. The various animals--dogs, guinea pigs, rabbits, birds--do not live long. They develop pulmonary congestion and stiff lungs. They also have problems swallowing which can lead to aspiration. And their heart rates go through the roof while blood pressure drops.

Since neurological effects of COVID are not universal, this might explain why some people but not all develop the really severe type of COVID lung disease.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2133576/

https://journals.physiology.org/doi/abs/10.1152/ajplegacy.1976.230.3.777

https://journals.physiology.org/doi/abs/10.1152/ajplegacy.1949.157.1.130?journalCode=ajplegacy

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1566070200002800

https://www.surgjournal.com/article/0039-6060(65)90111-X/fulltext

https://journals.physiology.org/doi/abs/10.1152/ajplegacy.1964.206.2.265

https://journals.physiology.org/doi/abs/10.1152/jappl.1986.61.5.1741

Roe V. Wade is still the law of the land. But some states--including my own state, Texas--are using COVID as an excuse to outlaw all elective abortion even the medical kind.

Attorney General Barr says he wants to take action against states that restrict people's Constitutional rights as part of their effort to curb COVID. Then he should start with those that are ignoring the law of the land and go after states that are restricting women's rights to control their own bodies.

Trump supporters are the remnants of the Old White Mafia, which believed that it had a (white male) god given right to steal the labor of anyone not a member of their WASP club. Basically, Trump supporters think that the only good ethnic minority is one who willingly gives up most of his paycheck to a white in exchange for the promise that said white will not tie him to a tree and burn him. The same way that organized crime families offer "protection"--from their own violence--in exchange for a price. That makes every Trump supporter a would be Mafia knee-breaker which is why they rally every time he tells them to break the law. Because they are criminals with no respect for others or for the law that exists to keep us (mostly) civilized. To a Trump supporter, civil rights laws are like a policeman who refuses to accept a mob bribe. The policeman is following the law---which means he must be snuffed out. Health care for all means health care for a member of an ethnic minority--and how can you force a member of an ethnic minority to give you his paycheck if you don't keep him good and scared?

Trump supporters grew up hearing about the days when you could hire a Black woman for peanuts to clean your house, cook your meals and take care of your kids--turning every white woman into a woman of leisure or a "lady" and they think "Why do I have to do my own laundry? Why do I have to cook my own food?" Trump supporters grew up hearing about the days when a white man could get a job "supervising" a bunch of members of an ethnic minority while they did all the work---while bringing home a hefty paycheck and they think "Why do I have to do real work on my job?"

I wonder if they are hoping that great-aunt Sally and Grandpa Jim catch COVID 19 and die so that they can scoop up their property and savings. To a Trump supporter, it would be like winning the lottery.

I am going to propose an answer that might have practical applications. What do obese people have in common? They eat more. Also obesity is a major risk factor for gastro esophageal reflux—-food in your stomach tries to come back up the esophagus due to increased intra-abdominal pressure.

How might these two things put people who have a severe lower respiratory infection at risk? Aspiration. This is what happens when gastric contents—-including hydrochloride acid gets into your airway. This is a common killer in the elderly and those with certain neurological conditions. And we now know that COVID can have certain neurological manifestations in particular the loss of the sense of smell and in rare cases confusion, lethargy and other symptoms which in themselves are not fatal but which might make a person more prone to aspiration.

Plus, simply lying flat on your back in bed increases the risk that gastric contents will move out of the stomach into the throat. And where is the place most of us want to be when we are sick? In bed.

So, I am going to make a recommendation which has no potential for harm and which might, theoretically help. If you have COVID or think you might, have small meals, stay sitting up for an hour after eating and use a wedge pillow to elevate your head when you lie down. Also avoid foods which cause reflux. Do not eat anything solid for two hours before going to bed at night. Avoid alcohol at bedtime which can make reflux worse.

It is normal to want to eat “comfort food” when we are sick. And if the airway were not right next door to the esophagus that couldn’t be a problem. But since the two are side by side what you eat definitely can affect how you breathe.

Hypocrisy, they name is Right Wing Extremism.

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From the NYT today

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/16/technology/joe-biden-internet.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage§ion=Technology
Joe Biden is very famous, but you wouldn’t know it from looking at his YouTube channel.

Mr. Biden has just 32,000 subscribers on the influential video platform, a pittance compared with some of his rivals in the Democratic primary race and roughly 300,000 fewer than President Trump. The videos that Mr. Biden posts — these days, mostly repurposed campaign ads and TV-style interviews filmed from the makeshift studio in his basement — rarely crack 10,000 views. And the virtual crickets that greet many of his appearances have become a source of worry for some Democrats, who see his sluggish performance online as a bad omen for his electoral chances in November.

“This video is 2 days old and it’s sitting at 20,000 views,” one commenter wrote under a recent video of Mr. Biden’s. “This is a guy that is supposed to beat Trump?”

In a normal election year, a former vice president and presumptive Democratic nominee would have no trouble filling an arena. But the coronavirus has forced Mr. Biden to abandon in-person gatherings and adapt to an all-digital campaign strategy — a daunting pivot even in the best of times, but one made even harder by the need to compete for attention amid a pandemic and a once-in-a-generation economic collapse.

The shift has been clumsy for Mr. Biden, an old-school retail politician who relishes face-to-face interactions. He lacks the social media firepower of Mr. Trump, whose 106 million combined followers on Facebook and Twitter dwarf Mr. Biden’s 6.7 million, and whose White House coronavirus briefings have allowed him to commandeer the news cycle. Mr. Biden’s first virtual town hall last month was marred by technical problems, and some of his other digital experiments — like a soporific campaign podcast, “Here’s the Deal,” which did not rank among the top 100 podcasts on Apple Podcasts as of this week — have not gone as well as hoped.

Social distancing should not be a barrier. Every member of the House should set up a media room in the basement just like Joe Biden. That way the members can vote from home. The can also hold hearings to find out why Trump is handing out no bid contracts to companies with no employees and giving out stimulus checks to Red States and giving the public dangerous misinformation about COVID and calling himself God.

If we do nothing, Trump will bleed the federal coffers dry in order to enrich his friends and himself--and then retire to Dubai once this is all over a very rich man.

(In)Justice Roberts and associates forced urban voters in Wisconsin to put their lives at risk in order to exercise their Constitutional right to vote. And now the Supreme Court says it will do teleconference hearings due to COVID concerns.

I am beyond furious. Apparently the only lives that matter in this country are those on the Supreme Court.