Trump eyes massive expulsion of suspected Chinese spies

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

59 minutes ago, Yoshiro Kamamura said:

It is hard to find a black cat in a dark room - especially if it isn't there. 

But I am confident Trump will find not one, but whole bunch. He will need a lot of scapegoats when this crisis is over, because his mismanagement will cost a lot of lives. Turning attention to outer enemy always worked. 

Okay, let’s return to the root issue..

Which country created this virus, then lied about it until it had already spread globally killing tens of thousands (so far)?

Any idea who I am talking about Yoshiro?

[Yoshiro Kamamura + 274]

14 hours ago, Ward Smith said:

I'll be curious if @Tom Kirkman sees you logging in via annonymizer servers. Then I'll know precisely who you are. 

Why don't you ask him? He will tell you I am logging from a single Czech IP address (maybe if my VPN to work steals my route, then from another Czech IP address), I already had a talk with him. I am a Czech by nationality, in case you are interested, so the usual excuse of "don't mind him, he is just a paid Russian/Chinese spy" just does not fly. I don't really believe China nor Russia wastes money on single unimportant little guys constructing convoluted arguments to win mostly pointless arguments with other unimportant little guys about topics that are forgotten in a week. And no, I don't believe you are paid from Langley to "proudly stand guard on the US electronic borders against foreign saboteurs and peddlers of pessimism." Occam's razor. 

And yes, there are propagandistic/influencer campaigns, but they are executed by more efficient and sophisticated tools. 

Edited March 30, 2020 by Yoshiro Kamamura

[TooSteep + 142]

The Czech's are doing one thing right.

If I wear a homemade cloth mask, and I am infected, it will definitely lower the total inoculum if I infect somebody else. Possibly even halt it altogether.

If I wear a homemade cloth mask, and you are infected, and spray your inoculum in my face, my mask might make it worse for me, as it gets trapped there, and I inhale it!

If we both wear homemade cloth masks, we lower total risk.

 

[Yoshiro Kamamura + 274]

14 hours ago, Douglas Buckland said:

Okay, let’s return to the root issue..

Which country created this virus, then lied about it until it had already spread globally killing tens of thousands (so far)?

Any idea who I am talking about Yoshiro?

Heh, quite ironically, I was banned from a Czech site blisty.cz two days ago, because I linked an interview with a Czech immunologist Jaroslav Svoboda who is fascinated by the virus and wonders whether it is of natural or lab origin. The owner of blisty.cz is convinced that the virus is 100% natural in origin, and that even hinting otherwise is "dangerous spreading of misinformation", even though the single study he is basing his opinion on says that the artificial origin of the virus is "improbable" - which is far from "100% certainty", as that guy claimed. 

Anyway, I was banned for being "right-wing extremist", which is funny, because normally, I am banned for being "socialist, communist and China-sympathizer" (which once again I am not, I have strong left-wing bias, but no implementation of "socialism" so far was particularly appealing to me), so to the question of who "created" the virus and why? We will probably never know. The fact is that there really is, or was, a high security government lab working with viruses in Wuhan. I simply refuse to just accept it was a "coincidence", as that study suggests. Their main argument is that the virus is so "perfectly functioning" and at the same time "unorthodox" that they cannot imagine anyone could create it in a lab. But how can you quantify limits of somebody who is perhaps much more capable than you? If I cannot imagine something, that is not proof it could not be true. 

My opinion is that they probably was either studying the virus after finding it somewhere in the wild, or that something happened during their experiments on its own, and they failed at the containment procedures and the virus got out. I cannot imagine it's an attack on "western civilization", because weapons you cannot control are not very practical (like Hannibal's elephants, that more often than not killed his own legions). 

But anything is possible in this case, IMO. 

Edited March 30, 2020 by Yoshiro Kamamura

[TooSteep + 142]

19 minutes ago, Yoshiro Kamamura said:

... I don't really believe China nor Russia wastes money on single unimportant little guys constructing convoluted arguments to win mostly pointless arguments with other unimportant little guys about topics that are forgotten in a week. ...

http://gking.harvard.edu/files/gking/files/50c.pdf?m=1463587807

Who are these instructions for?

https://twitter.com/jenniferatntd/status/1238076579466674178/photo/2

They are everywhere:

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/dec/07/china-plan-for-global-media-dominance-propaganda-xi-jinping

[Yoshiro Kamamura + 274]

20 minutes ago, TooSteep said:

http://gking.harvard.edu/files/gking/files/50c.pdf?m=1463587807

Who are these instructions for?

https://twitter.com/jenniferatntd/status/1238076579466674178/photo/2

They are everywhere:

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/dec/07/china-plan-for-global-media-dominance-propaganda-xi-jinping

Honestly, I don't really know, and I have no means to know, since (despite what you may believe), I don't command any Chinese subterfuge divisions, they don't report to me, so I don't know what they are up to. I told you I don't believe they bother wasting money and effort on it but who can really know?

When I was young, Europe was divided by the so called "Iron Curtain" - the eastern and western states did not talk nor trade with each other, there was rivalry, but I remember that the official Party propaganda explanation why a potato harvest failed repeatedly was that the CIA was throwing the "Colorado potato bug" (nicknamed "The American Bug") on our potato fields from planes in the night to ruin our economy. And that was so ridiculous an explanation that people here made jokes about it for years, it became the first meme here 40 years before the internet. 

Maybe that's why I am reluctant to believe in over-complicated, expensive spy operations with unsure results. And by the way - even though I hate Trump with passion, I don't believe he was "installed by Russia" as the democratic party tried to prove, trying to prove that was ridiculous, and it was a serious mistake. 

Edited March 30, 2020 by Yoshiro Kamamura

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

Excerpt from speech by Pompeo back in February.  Full text in the dot gov link:

https://www.state.gov/u-s-states-and-the-china-competition/

U.S. States and the China Competition

MICHAEL R. POMPEO, SECRETARY OF STATE

FEBRUARY 8, 2020

"Last year, I received an invitation to an event that promised to be, quote, “an occasion for exclusive deal-making.” It said, quote, “the opportunities for mutually beneficial economic development between China and our individual states [are] tremendous,” end of quote.

"Deal-making sounds like it might have come from President Trump, but the invitation was actually from a "former governor."

"Competition with China is happening inside of your state, and it affects our capacity to perform America’s vital national security functions."

Look at the nearly 18 tons of medical supplies the United States just flew to China this past week to help fight the corona virus. Yesterday we announced more than $100 million in assistance to China and the countries that are affected by that virus.

And on that note, too, I want to take just a moment to note I want to send my condolences to the loved ones of the United States citizen who fell victim to the corona virus in Wuhan over the last days.

What China does in Topeka and Sacramento reverberates in Washington, in Beijing, and far beyond. Competition with China is happening. It’s happening in your state.

In fact, I would be surprised if most of you in the audience have not been lobbied by the Chinese Communist Party directly.

Chinese Communist Party friendship organizations like the one that I referenced earlier are in Richmond; Minneapolis; Portland; Jupiter, Florida; and many other cities around the country.

Think about that. You had a diplomat from China assigned here to the United States, a representative of the Chinese Communist Party in New York City, sending an official letter urging that an American elected official shouldn’t exercise his right to freedom of speech.

Let that sink in for just a minute.

And this isn’t a one-off event. It’s happening all across the country.

Chinese consulates in New York, in Illinois, in Texas, and two in California, bound by the diplomatic responsibilities and rights of the Vienna Convention, are very politically active at the state level, as is the embassy right here in Washington, D.C"

"I know you all have power over pension funds or the people that run them. As of its latest public filing, the Florida Retirement System is invested in a company that in turn is invested in surveillance gear that the Chinese Communist Party uses to track more than 1 million Muslim minorities. California’s pension fund, the largest public pension fund in the country, is invested in companies that supply the People’s Liberation Army that puts our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines at risk."

"So again, it’s worth trusting but verifying. There are federal officials prepared to help you work your way through these challenges when they arise. Don’t make separate individual deals and agreements with China that undermine our national policy. I know none of you would do so intentionally. Let us help you make sure we’re getting it right."

"You all have important missions leading your states. These are complex, difficult jobs. You have the task to create jobs and opportunity in your state for your people, attract human capital, investment that undergirds our prosperity."