Latest OpDis INTEL Updates 01.19.2021

"Over last weekend the Military raided CIA Headquarters in Langley VA. A military general who was part of the team said they came away with a ton of evidence. Well known politicians were guilty of embezzlement, identity fraud,

More from Government

South African science was crucial in helping UK discover its new variants; but then the UK govt claimed (wrongly) that the SA variant is more transmissible. No evidence to support this, according to @krisp_news

From the Times article: SA scientists "were the first to recognize the importance of a genetic change in the spike protein, something that allows the virus to attach more easily to human cells, making it more infectious than the original version."

The SA discovery was shared on Dec 4 over the WHO’s Covid-19 Evolution Working Group. “Our British colleagues were able to go back to their own databases and interrogate them as a result of the work we shared,” Richard Lessells, an infectious diseases specialist at Krisp, said.

More from the Times article by @janeflan: "While working on a much smaller budget than their British colleagues, the South African team, experienced with work on HIV, have the skills to decode the genome of viruses."

"They started work on samples of the Covid-19 virus soon after the first cases reached South Africa in March. In October they identified the first example that had changed significantly."

Cleveland Documenters
@cledocumenters

Last week, @CleCityCouncil started reviewing Mayor Frank Jackson’s proposed city budget for 2021. There was robust discussion, and Documenters were there to cover it. Here’s a thread of what we learned last week about the #CLEBudget

First, it helps to know where we are in the budget process. From today through Feb. 24, the council will meet about the General Fund budget. The council will then agree on a budget with their changes (if any); 15 days after doing so, they can vote to make the budget official.

In other words, there’s still time to use your voice! The #refundcleveland tool can help. Create the #CLEBudget you want and send it to your council member. Click “Change the Budget” on the homepage and follow the on-screen instructions from there.

Want to know the budget basics? Our #CLEBudget primer details the timeline, different types of budgets and the funds involved, and defines budget-related terms. It can be a helpful guide during City Council’s discussions.

And don’t forget: all these meetings are livestreamed on City Council’s YouTube channel. They’re slated to start at 9 a.m. every business day from today through the 24th. You can also follow along with #CLEDocumenters live-tweet threads and

Canuck11
@TrueCanuck11

1) I have a theory on what’s happening in DC right now. Keep in mind, we’re in unprecedented times. To my knowledge, there has never been a time where foreign powers have infiltrated every level of government in the US, down to the State level.

Crystal moth
@Prolapsarian

THREAD: British people are so thick that they will watch the government make exactly the same mistake for a fourth time, and carry on cheering. Ok, yes, you're being lied to in the press. But the opposite of "opening up as quickly" is not "lockdown forever". Here's why: 1/

In fact, opening up as quickly as we can will lead to more lockdowns, and worse restrictions over the course of the next year. Or to put it another way an extra week of lockdown now saves us from an extra month of lockdown in the Summer or Autumn.

How does that work? Right 2/

now the number of infections is declining quite fast. But the number of cases is still quite high. If they are still quite high (or even medium) when we lift restrictions this will lead very quickly to a massive spike in cases, and then we will have to lock down again, 3/

probably for a long time.

Sounds familiar doesn't it. It's exactly what we did in November through to now. First we went into lockdown, then we released it too early (at the beginning of December). As a result, cases spiked. By the end of December there was an enormous wave 4/

of infection, which killed tens of thousands of people. In the first weeks of January the government put in the current lockdown restrictions. They didn't really have a choice: about 80% of the British public supported restrictions. But here's the thing: after six weeks of 5/

George Peretz QC
@GeorgePeretzQC

This article by Jim Spellar for @LabourList misses the point about why Labour needs to think seriously about constitutional reform - and have a programme for it ready for government.

"Voters don\u2019t care about how the D\u2019Hondt system works or about how you\u2019d geographically carve up a regional assembly... They want results.\u2070"@spellar on why Labour should stop obsessing over constitutional issues: https://t.co/W0zsire5xI
— LabourList (@LabourList) February 11, 2021

The state of our constitution is a bit like the state of the neglected electric wiring in an old house. If you are moving into the house, sorting it out is a bit tedious. Couldn’t you spend the time and money on a new sound system?

But if you ignore the wiring, you’ll find that you can’t safely install the new sound system. And your house may well catch fire.

Any programme for social democratic government requires a state with capacity, and a state that has clear mechanisms of accountability, for all the big and all the small decisions that in takes, in which people have confidence.

That is not a description of the modern UK state.