Pretty remarkable that this tidbit has gotten a free pass. Anyone following the Pfizer study knows these #s are an order of magnitude higher than the cases determined to be cases for the purpose of determining efficacy. So why weren’t these cases assessed?

Everyone should read this paper, esp. Tables 15, 17, and 19, and this weird bit on pg. 41:

“Among 3,410 total cases of suspected but unconfirmed COVID-19 in the overall study population, 1,594 occurred in the vaccine group vs. 1816 in the placebo group.”https://t.co/lfzTZ88VCV

— Alex Berenson (@AlexBerenson) December 14, 2020

Covid: WHO to investigate virus origins in China’s Wuhan BBC. Furzy: “How many times have we seen this headline?”

British American Tobacco wins approval to test Covid vaccine on humans Guardian. Vlade:

If there’s anything you need to know, why the whole vaccine stuff is about money, than anything else, this should persuade you. Next: Gun manufacturers persuade FDA that bullets can serve as a CV treatment.

Alaska Health Worker Had a Serious Allergic Reaction After Pfizer’s Vaccine New York Times

Association of Mortality and Aspirin Prescription for COVID-19 Patients at the Veterans Health Administration MedRxiv

A retrospective comparison of drugs against COVID-19 Science Direct

UK/Europe

Coronavirus: Daily record 952 deaths as Germany enters lockdown DW

Almost 1,000 daily COVID-19 deaths in Germany: The criminal outcome of keeping businesses and schools open WSWS

US

US has the DEADLIEST day of the COVID pandemic: 3,700 people die in 24 hours, a record 113,069 are hospitalized and 250,000 more people as vaccine shipments are held up across the country Daily Mail

Pence, other Trump officials to get vaccine publicly The Hill

‘We want them infected’: Trump appointee demanded ‘herd immunity’ strategy, emails reveal Politico (Kevin W)

Alabama’s Highest-Paid State Employee in a Pandemic Year Will Be a Fired Football Coach Slate (resilc)

After 110K virus deaths, nursing homes face vaccine fears Associated Press. Note also

A 2-year-old was abandoned at a Goodwill with a note and a bag of clothes CNN (furzy)

Chicago schools look to hire 1,000 monitors to babysit classrooms while Covid-spooked teachers stay home RT (Kevin W)

Finance/Economy

Congressional leaders add stimulus checks to $900 billion relief package as they near deal Washington Post (Kevin W)

Bernie Sanders and Joe Manchin reportedly fight on conference call over stimulus checks Yahoo

Covid-19 Relief Draft Bill Gives $100 Billion Tax Deduction for Wealthy Intercept

China?

China Brings Moon Rocks to Earth, and a New Era of Competition to Space New York Times (Kevin W)

Brexit

Girteka Logistics director: some hauliers may think it’s better to avoid UK for 3-6 months TransInfo (guurst)

Brexit stockpiling blamed as port congestion hurts ‘45% of manufacturers’ Sky (Kevin W)

BREAK: 🚨🚨🇫🇷🇬🇧🚗🚙🚗🚙🚗🚙🚗🚙🚗🚙🚗🇫🇷🇬🇧🚢🚢🚢🚨🚨 The UK rejects Dover funding bid to double French passport booths via @FT – long queues ahead…as other ports also don’t get money they asked for to build #brexit border. Stay with me/1 thread
https://t.co/fV7cixETKq

— Peter Foster (@pmdfoster) December 16, 2020

2. The UK has not been able to feed itself since the early C19th. Even for an industrial economy, it is unusually dependent on imported food. And by the 1970s, a mixture of bad harvests, population growth, inflation & the collapse of Commonwealth agreements was starting to bite.

— Robert Saunders (@redhistorian) December 11, 2020

Revealed: the millionaires hoarding UK fishing rights Unearthed (Colonel Smithers)

See photo #1. Caption: Women, including widows and relatives of farmers who were believed to have killed themselves over debt attend a protest against farm bills passed by India’s parliament, at Tikri border near Delhi, India. Reuters (resilc)

New Cold War

US and Ukraine vote AGAINST anti-Nazi resolution proposed by Russia at UN General Assembly, Germany abstains RT (Kevin W)

Syraqistan

US Designates Bahrain-Based Shia Group as Terror Organization Antiwar. Resilc: “I worked with Bahraini Shia farmers in the Peace Corps. they have been shit on for decades by a Sunni minority.”

Big Brother is Watching You Watch

Facebook Said It’s Developing A Tool To Read Your Brain Buzzfeed

Up To 3 Million Devices Infected By Malware-Laced Chrome and Edge Add-Ons ars technica

Imperial Collapse Watch

How Donald Trump Rescued the “Blob” American Conservative

Biden

Cuomo v. Cuomo: Did The New York Governor Make The Case Against Himself With Kavanaugh? Jonathan Turley (Chuck L)

2020

Wall Street donates millions to back Republicans in Georgia Senate race Guardian

Ocasio-Cortez: I’m ‘not ready’ to be Speaker but Pelosi and Schumer need to go The Hill

Watching AOC cautiously calibrate her rhetorical opposition to Pelosi is another reminder just how un-radical the DSA/left wing of the Dem Party is compared to GOP’s Tea Party insurgents before them, who never flinched from threatening their leadership to get what they wanted

— Mark Ames (@MarkAmesExiled) December 17, 2020

Our Famously Free Press

The Desperate Last Days of Local News New Republic

The story of Duffel Blog (and why we moved to an email newsletter) Duffel Blog (BC). In the third para. Looks like the author is so cowed he won’t call out FB directly with respect to Duffel Blog:

But this year has been awful. Everyone has had a rough time…Because sometimes (or often) Facebook throttled their content and only served it to a small audience even though those properties worked hard to grow those audiences of loyal readers.

Analysis-Federal Reserve ‘boneheads’ emerge from Trump era unscathed Reuters (resilc)

A Recovery Squandered Barry Ritholtz

Google Antitrust

Ten States Sue Google, Alleging Deal With Facebook to Rig Online Ad Market Wall Street Journal

Google accused of colluding with Facebook in online ad market Financial Times. Lead story in FT and WSJ.

OK, whew. I’ve now read all 130 pages of state AGs suit v Google.

In three words, Google is royally screwed.

Expect…
Press headlines: Facebook and Google colluded!

Deeper dives: Google turned open web into a walled garden of tying, exclusionary tactics, and privacy fixing.

— Jason Kint (@jason_kint) December 16, 2020

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/facebook-news-article-summary-tools-brain-reader

Class Warfare

“Everyone Is Tired of Always Staying Silent”: Inside a Worker Rebellion in the Central Valley Mother Jones (resilc)

Antidote du jour. From a story in Pattaya News that furzy sent a while back. First sentence: “Khao Kheow Open Zoo has been feeding animals with fruit flavored ice to reduce stress from the heat.”

And a bonus (guurst):

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… pic.twitter.com/scItIGHUR7

— World birds (@worldbirds32) November 4, 2020

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here