(CNN) With coup label, Capitol rioters join communist party in plotting against USA, university project says. Quoting,

The Coup D’etat Project, an initiative of the University of Illinois’ Cline Center for Advanced Social Research, has determined the insurrection that unfolded at the Capitol on January 6 fits its definition of an attempted dissident coup.

The only other American entry in its global database is placed in 1948, in which members of Communist Party USA conspired to violently overthrow the government. They talked about it in their living rooms, and wrote plans.

This is a ludicrous comparison. The 1948 “coup attempt” survives in the public record only from the  trials of 11 members of the Communist Party of the U.S.A.,  Smith Act trials of Communist Party leaders, between 1949 and 1958. According to specific criteria of the Coup D’etat Project, this results in a single line in their .xls spreadsheet.

You may despise communism, as I do.  But Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black explains the difference in his dissent opinion for  a 1951 Smith trial, Dennis v. United States:

These petitioners were not charged with an attempt to overthrow the Government. They were not charged with overt acts of any kind designed to overthrow the Government. They were not even charged with saying anything or writing anything designed to overthrow the Government. The charge was that they agreed to assemble and to talk and publish certain ideas at a later date: The indictment is that they conspired to organize the Communist Party and to use speech or newspapers and other publications in the future to teach and advocate the forcible overthrow of the Government. No matter how it is worded, this is a virulent form of prior censorship of speech and press…

In the immediate postwar period, in the U.S. government as in Britain, there was a significant presence of Soviet moles. This sensitized Hoover’s FBI to the negligible threat of visible, self-identified communists who did share a vision of revolution. To put into perspective the efficiency with which the FBI nullified the CPUSA, from 1957-1977, the party paymaster, Morris Childs, was an agent for the FBI.

What benefit derives from comparison with the sacking of the Capitol, while advocating murder with weapons in hand, egged on by a sitting POTUS? If you’re running an academic project, which is not without value, it gets you news coverage for the wrong reason.

The most powerful fact was ignored: The Capitol Insurrection was powered by hate speech which incited violence. In the Free World, the U.S. is the only country that constitutionally protects hate speech.

Is hate speech now an unaffordable luxury, or can doctoring social media diminish the now rampant forces of hate?

(CNN) Defense Secretary dismisses hundreds of members of Pentagon advisory boards including late Trump picks.

Some, though not all of the appointments of the previous administration had a strong tinge of the political, and, going beyond that, personal loyalty, demanded by then-POTUS. This deprived DoD of the best possible civilian expertise.

If DoD were a civilian organization, uniform members would be the  point-men/women. Most officers have advanced degrees. But modern warfare is so complex, it is beyond the capacity of these individuals to have more than concentrated  knowledge. Command, strategy, and tactics are the consuming occupations. By themselves, they make a life.

A recent Pentagon study has a startling conclusion, that in some cases, forces within the military don’t know how to accomplish their assigned missions.  This is exemplified by at least one massive failure in procurement, the littoral combat ship, with two deficiencies:

• The first four, virtually new ships are to be retired, due to construction defects that cannot be economically remedied.
• Conceived when the Philippines was considered a stalwart ally, these lightly armed chameleons  would have  had thousands of miles of coastline to evade the Chinese Navy. They are not now survivable ships.

East Asia has changed, so the mission must change as well. In the near future,  relative strengths will be determined by cruise missiles, torpedoes, and logistics, followed later by directed energy weapons. Logistics may be the second most daunting problem. The most serious problem is erosion of U.S. soft power.

Since the advisory boards were  involved in defining this mission, it makes sense to reach  out for fresh thought.  We can aspire to ideals, but we must not let them dictate.

There  is likely one more reason of sinister necessity. In arrests from the Capitol insurrection, military veterans are over represented. If insurrectionist sentiment had any representation in the advisory committees, it could have facilitated subversion of the military chain of command. The preservation of it  is vital to defense of the Constitution.

(CNN) Gupta: I’m stunned Gov. Cuomo said this about health experts.

My heart is on the side of the experts; see Why I Support Dr. Anthony Fauci. At the beginning of the COVID epidemic, almost everyone, expert or ignorant, were mostly wrong about the future. But the experts learned and applied new knowledge, while the ignorant continued to be ignorant. Epidemiologists apply the scientific method. Politicians do not.

But epidemiology has weak predictive powers. New plagues do not replicate old ones that have been studied. Mathematics, which works so well with the hard sciences, has not been successful in predicting the trajectory of COVID. To predict, you have to model. To model, you have to know  the system. The system by which COVID-19 propagates is too complex to model.

A partial transcript of the CNN video, from The Hill:

Neurosurgeon and CNN medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta on Monday said that he was “stunned” by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) casting doubt on the input of experts amid the coronavirus pandemic.

“When I say ‘experts’ in air-quotes, it sounds like I don’t really trust the experts, because I don’t,” Cuomo said in a press briefing Friday.

Cuomo said this in preface to,

“The experts say that the trend for New York should continue to drop. That’s what the experts say…”

Skepticism was Cuomo’s qualifier, since like many of us, he is skeptical of trend predictions that do not take into account the likely effect of the new, more contagious strains. Which language is more broken:

• Cuomo’s ironic observation, which has basis in fact?
• A statistical product that is less informative than the number of sardines per cubic foot of seawater?

This is what happens when epidemiology, a science with weak powers of prediction, is pushed by popular demand to make unreliable predictions, and then skewered by politicians who are forced to make use of the product.

Affronted, the experts quit, because they understood

“When I say ‘experts’ in air-quotes, it sounds like I don’t really trust the experts, because I don’t.”

to mean “The experts are unworthy of public trust, or their guidance should be disregarded”, or “I don’t appreciate you or your job.”

Negative sentiments are appropriate towards Scott Atlas ((CNN) Dr. Scott Atlas Resigns from Corona Virus Task Force), but not for Cuomo’s experts. People like to be appreciated when they deserve it. There is a flaw in the system. Cuomo received a projection that requires a qualifier, preferably supplied by the experts themselves: The propagation of mutant strains makes the projection worthless.

Being smarter than the average bear, Cuomo recognized this. With the impatience of superior intellect, he made this known. His only mistake was not lying. All politicians should be fluent at lying, which can only be acquired with gratuitous practice.

My other favorite quote of Andrew Cuomo is (paraphrased), “America…was never that great”  (CNN) Gov. Cuomo: America was never that great. Tell it like it is, Andrew.

Governor Cuomo, you win the Fortune Cookie Honest Man Award.

*Honest Man Award Ceremony*

The name of this painting: They died for nothing.

(click to enlarge)

Some die for love, others for hate, or patriotism, or greed. These 428,000,  who will be joined by a number that does not yet have an upper bound, died for nothing.

The (Britannica) 30 Years War, offers a striking comparison. By varying assessments, the belligerent armies were largely mercenaries.

The dead, mostly civilian, mostly innocent and uncomprehending, were victims of the mercenaries’ need to eat, and to deny food to the enemy. The prize was power, an abstraction clothed in religious strife.

In that time, armies lived off the land. Sadly, this idea still has representation in modern political thought: the struggle for power, clothed in  ownership of the myth of America, consuming the substance of the body politic. It came down to wearing masks.

In the interest of a broad audience, I’ll skip fixing blame.

Bring us back together, Joe and Kamala.

Work with who you have to.

Find our common ground.

Ideation of a  coup continues. At the center is one very desperate man.

In theory, POTUS is commander-in-chief of the armed forces. The deployment of 20,000  National Guard troops to Washington results in this ideation: “If only I could command those troops, I could overwhelm civil authority.” In the eye of a desperado, the mechanism is martial law.

It would explain the sacking of the Defense Policy Review Board, and the attempt to appoint a new NSA General Council. (CNN) Acting secretary of defense orders NSA chief to install Trump loyalist as agency’s general counsel. Alternately, the appointment could obfuscate impeachment trial testimony regarding presidential communications.

This does not imply a coup is viable, or that a cabal of conspirators even exists. It could simply be mad ideation, or the ideation of a small, a non-viable cabal.

History cautions that successful coups have occurred without force supremacy. The sequestration of key people, such as those responsible for presidential succession, and a hidden power base within government, can suffice.

Until the Inauguration, the defenders of the Constitution have a difficult task, to prevent a coup lead or instigated by POTUS, with these measures:

• Prevent use of the statutory chains of command for illegal, seditious purpose.
• Identify individuals who might facilitate illegal use, and attempt to limit their influence.
• Protect, from involuntary sequestration, individuals key to the processes of succession, and exercise of the 25th Amendment.
• Accomplish the above in the presence of possible violent civil unrest.

We cannot stop the ideations of the desperate. If these measures have already been taken with effect,  realization of our worst fears cannot occur.

Leadership in this interval  leading up to inauguration is an informal collective of very competent people, who unfortunately lack the statutory authority on which all notions of deterrence rest.

The situation persists because  the risk of domestic unrest is more real to the politically astute than the risk of hostile foreign powers.

A hostile foreign power might be emboldened to shortly take a risk we would normally call a miscalculation.  Their numbers might actually add up.

The remedy to risk from hostile foreign powers is to reestablish the statutory authority that is the basis all forms deterrence, as provided for by the Constitution.

It’s much cheaper than fighting a war.

(CNN) Top White House national security officials are considering resigning.  Quoting,

Several of President Trump’s top aides, including national security adviser Robert O’Brien, are considering resigning in the wake of his response to a pro-Trump mob breaching the US Capitol today.

This is addressed to those officials. Please don’t resign. We need you more than ever.

This is a day which will live in infamy, but not yours. The  minor shame of serving to the end is erased by the service you have rendered. The numbers of experienced professionals like yourselves, who stepped up for the most difficult jobs of their lives, is the most impressive fact of this administration.  You have together borne the shield of decency and preserved the Constitution.

On 12/21, I began to wonder: Coup in the United States? In May of 1964, this almost happened… It may yet emerge as more real than mere ambition, prevented by one insuperable obstacle, YOU.

You, as interlocutors with the rest of  government, were the barrier to illegalities of usurpation. You defended the Constitution and preserved the Republic.  This remains your obligation  and reward until Inauguration Day, unless the 25th Amendment is invoked.

Even if history does not shower you with the praise of the victorious, if you stay the course of the Republic, this will be your finest hour.

So there’s no misunderstanding, I would drive three hours to get either shot. But there is a strong argument for a half dose.

(Reuters) Mexican doctor hospitalized after receiving COVID-19 vaccine is concerning. Quoting,

“The initial diagnosis is encephalomyelitis,” the Health Ministry said in a statement released on Friday night. Encephalomyelitis is an inflammation of the brain and spinal cord.

Encephalomyelitis does not result from atopy. It is a result of a cell-mediated autoimmune reaction. In the few 3rd World countries that still use the Semple rabies vaccine, it is a regular and frequently lethal side effect. Brain damage is frequent in survivors.

The Semple vaccine is made of animal nerve tissue with no purification. When encephalomyelitis results from this vaccine, it is the result of introducing into the body proteins which are both similar and different. The foreignness of the protein induces an immune response that also attacks native proteins. But this mechanism gives no hint as to why it would occur with an RNA vaccine.

A clue is offered by (Nature, 12/20/2020) The S1 protein of SARS-CoV-2 crosses the blood–brain barrier in mice. For a neat summary, see (ScienceDaily) COVID-19 virus enters the brain, research strongly suggests.

The Mexican physician has a history of severe allergic reactions. How could this tie in with encephalomyelitis? A possible mechanism:

• The patient had a “standard” anaphylactic reaction, which involves a huge histamine release.
• The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines cause cells at the injection site to produce a flood of spike protein, which, unbound to an adjuvant, is highly mobile.
• Since it is now known that the brain contains mast cells, the blood-brain barrier suddenly became porous. Even with prompt treatment, a substantial quantity of spike protein passed the barrier.
• With no previous exposure to spike protein, the nature of the immune response within the brain is a mystery. Encephalomyelitis could be the visible result of a massively apoptotic event.
• Had the patient  received epinephrine prophylaxis with the vaccine, this might have been avoided. Something to consider?

In traditional vaccines, adjuvants have been combined with antigen to increase the potency of the shot. Various theories explain why adjuvants work:

• The immune system requires insult to react. As a minor irritant, an adjuvant causes the immune system to respond more strongly to the antigen.
• When an antigen is attached to a poorly soluble adjuvant, such as alum, the half life of the antigen in circulation is greatly increased. This also reduces the mobility of the antigen.

As potentially toxic substances, adjuvants went out of fashion for a while, with preference for highly potent antigens synthesized by recombinant techniques. Now adjuvants are back in favor in new flavors.

RNA vaccines produce a sudden flood of unbound s-protein antigen. More traditional vaccines present antigens bound to larger structures, either adjuvants, or virus-like-particles. This reduces the mobility of the antigen, in this case s-protein, lessening the chance it can pass the blood-brain barrier. This “safety feature” cannot be incorporated into RNA vaccines.

Since this is unlikely to have a large lay readership, we could finish with Paracelsus. You know what he said. Even a handful of cases of encephalomyelitis could frustrate mass immunization.

So cut the dose in half. Yes, I’m still driving three hours for the shot. I’ll take mine with a side of epinephrine.

(click to enlarge)

I’m too much of a realist to revel in a single day, and wish you a happy new year. From (Shakespeare) Richard III,

The oil-on-canvas painting is inspired by a  shack in southern New Mexico, where I saw orange desert lighting, bolts spanning the entire sky.  It was made in an unusual way.  Mars Black mixed with heavy medium was applied in heavy impasto. The line drawing was inscribed with a stick. It was set aside to dry for a month.  All of the colors and shades are the result of thin glazes. Lit straight on, the canvas appears inscrutably dark. The photo was taken with side lighting.

Look!  In the window of the shack! Is that glow the lamp of a solitary dweller, a beacon of hope, or just the reflection of lightning?

Your choice, the freedom of imagination.