openpolitics.com

Author: timlangeman

  • The amazing woman responsible for the Pfizer and Moderna Vaccines

    Here’s the amazing story of grit and perseverance about the woman who did the pioneering work for the Pfizer and Moderna vaccine.
    Katalin Kariko light corrected.jpeg
    Katalin Karikó, born in Hungary
    Temple University & University of Pennsylvania

    Timeline: Development of Vaccine by Katalin Karikó:

    (from Wired Magazine article)

    1. 1955: Katalin Karikó was born in Hungary
    2. 1976: She hears about ideas of using mRNA to target viruses while an undergrad at the University of Szegedin Hungary.
    3. She completes her Ph.D.
    4. 1985: As an immigrant from Hungary, Katalin Karikó immigrated to the US to do research at Temple University.
    5. After a dispute with her boss, Temple University tried to have her deported.
    6. She switched to the University of Pennsylvania, but her research was not considered promising because there were significant challenges in getting the immune system to accept the mRNA that the vaccine uses.
    7. The mid-1990s — She failed to get funding for her work at the University of Pennsylvania and was forced to choose between stopping work on her mRNA research or be demoted from a track to be a full professor.
    8. She chose to be demoted and continue her research.
    9. UPenn’s ultimatum was posed just after she had been diagnosed with cancer.
    10. She persisted and was able to get her research funded with the help of an established immunology professor — Drew Weissman — who she met at the photocopier.
    11. In the early 2000s: she read a study that gave her an idea of how to avoid the adverse immune system reaction that prevented mRNA from being used in vaccines.
    12. 2005: Karikó and Weissman published a study suggesting that there may be a way to avoid the immune reaction.
    13. After publishing their research and patenting it, Karikó and Weissman received no invitations to talk about their work.
    14. But Derrick Rossi, a postdoc at Stanford University noticed their research and created a company called Moderna in 2010 to commercialize the technology.
    15. Karikó and Weissman licensed their technology to a small German company called BioNTech, after five years of trying and failing.  (BioNTech was founded by a Turkish immigrant named Ugur Sahin)
    16. 2013: UPenn refused to reinstate Katalin Karikó as a full professor after demoting her in 1995. She told them she was leaving to go to BioNTech: ”When I told them I was leaving, they laughed at me and said, ‘BioNTech doesn’t even have a website.’”
    17. 2017: Moderna (founded by the Derrick Rossi Stanford postdoc) used the technology Karikó pioneered to develop a Zika virus vaccine .
    18. 2018: The German company Karikó and Weissman licensed their technology to partnered with Pfizer to develop an influenza vaccine.
    19. April 2020: Derrick Rossi’s Moderna received $483 million (£360m) from the US Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority to fast-track its Covid-19 vaccine program
    20. Pfizer developed their mRNA vaccine using Karikó and Weissman research, but without government funding.

    Read More:

    1) Read full “Wired” article:

  • Was the 2020 Election Stolen?

    I’ve talked with friends who sincerely believe that this past election was stolen.

    I wrote this post up in the hopes it serves as a reference for friends who want to discuss Election Fraud — the most proximate cause of January 6 Capitol Hill Riot.

    Under Oath
    Under Oath

    1) Not Under Oath

    The first thing you have to do is distinguish between different types of evidence.

    Rudolf Giuliani, Sidney Powell, and others made many claims during press conferences but many of the claims and evidence provided were not presented in a court of law where testimony would need to be made under oath and subject to cross-examination.

    Sidney Powell

    When Sidney Powell did make claims in court, her cases fell apart.

    Sidney Powell
    Sidney Powell

    Sidney Powell describes one source, code-named “Spyder”, in court filings as a former “Military Intelligence expert and filed a claim that he was an expert witness:

    I was an electronic intelligence analyst under 305th Military Intelligence with experience gathering SAM missile system electronic intelligence. I have extensive experience as a white hat hacker used by some of the top election specialists in the world.

    But upon further scrutiny, it was revealed that her “expert” never completed his entry-level training for the 305th Military Intelligence Battalion over 15 years ago. (more…)

  • Did Philadelphia Use Dominion Voting Machines in the 2020 Election?

    Philadelphia City Hall
    Philadelphia City Hall



    My friend Dale heard rumors that President Trump would have won Pennsylvania if Dominion Voter Machines had not swapped votes for Joe Biden in Philadelphia.    I researched the claims and found them to be unfounded:

    No, Philadelphia did not use Dominion Voting Systems in 2020.

    CLAIM: Video provides data-supported evidence that the election technology firm Dominion Voting Systems committed election fraud by transferring vote ratios between precincts in Philadelphia.

    AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. Dominion technology isn’t used in Philadelphia’s elections, so the company had no part in tabulating votes there. Despite a flurry of false claims about election results in battleground states like Pennsylvania, there’s no evidence of widespread fraud or irregularities in the 2020 election.

    THE FACTS: A video claiming to be a “smoking gun” exposing Dominion’s election fraud in Philadelphia is easily debunked: Pennsylvania’s largest city doesn’t even use Dominion software in its elections.

    That’s according to city election commission spokesman Nick Custodio, who confirmed to The Associated Press in an email that Philadelphia’s voting system vendor is the Omaha, Nebraska-based Election Systems and Software LLC.

    It is also confirmed by Dominion, which explains among a series of fact-checks on its website that it does not “even operate in some of the contested districts, including Philadelphia, Milwaukee, and Dane County, WI.”

     

    But how can we trust the city of Philadelphia to tell the truth?

    ExprerssVote Voting Machine
    ESS ExprerssVote Voting Machine

    You don’t have to trust the city. Philadelphia’s purchase of  machines from ESS, a competitor to Dominion, was widely publicized at the time.

    Summary:

    • Machines were purchased from a competitor, Election Systems Software of Omaha, Nebraska.
    • The purchase of these machines was widely publicized at the time.
    • One of the requirements of the contract was that the new machines produce a paper audit trail that can be compared with the electronic tally.

    (more…)

  • President Trump’s “Peaceful Transfer of Power” “Bluff”

    President Trump’s “Peaceful Transfer of Power” “Bluff”

    Is Trump bluffing, like Saddam, to project an image of strength?

     

     

    Press Conference: September 23, 2020

    President Trump made news recently for declining to agree to a “peaceful transfer of power.“

    Mr. President, real quickly: Win, lose, or draw in this election, will you commit here, today, for a peaceful transferal of power after the election? And there has been rioting in Louisville. There’s been rioting in many cities across this country — red and — your so-called red and blue states. Will you commit to making sure that there is a peaceful transferal of power after the election?

    THE PRESIDENT: Well, we’re going to have to see what happens. You know that. I’ve been complaining very strongly about the ballots. And the ballots are a disaster. And — and —

    Q I understand that, but people are rioting. Do you commit to making sure that —

    THE PRESIDENT: Oh, I know. I know. Yeah, no, we want —

    Q — there’s a peaceful transferal of power?

    THE PRESIDENT: We want to have — get rid of the ballots and you’ll have a very trans- — we’ll have a very peaceful — there won’t be a transfer, frankly; there’ll be a continuation.

    The ballots are out of control. You know it. And you know who knows it better than —

    Q No, sir. I don’t know that.

    THE PRESIDENT: — anybody else? The Democrats know it better than anybody else.

    Never Admit Weakness or Consider Defeat

    Saddam Hussein Shotgun
    Saddam Hussein Shotgun

    The President’s sympathizers explain away his words by imagining a situation comparable to Saddam Hussein’s bluff with Weapons of Mass Destruction: Whereas Saddam Hussein could never admit he didn’t possess Weapons of Mass Destruction, out of need to project an image of strength, President Trump must never entertain the possibility of losing.

    Here’s a description of UN Weapons Inspector Hans Blix’s assessment:

    Blix provides a number of potential answers, ranging from Saddam’s pride, to the argument this essay advances—that he hoped to retain the threat of WMD in his weakened state. Only with the perception that he possessed unconventional weaponry could he be protected from his enemies such as Iranian Shi’a, Israel, and the Kurd

    Bluffing led to disaster

    We all know what disaster resulted from Saddam’s miscalculation and his need to maintain his pride..

    What Motivates Trump:

    In addition to his pride, Trump needs narcissist supply and the fears post-Presidency lawsuits. As a narcissist, he will provoke chaos without limit, seeing chaos as a bargaining chip in his bid to secure himself either:

    1. a continuation of Presidential term
    2. some post-presidential arrangement that avoids accountability and loss of face and  narcissistic supply.

    Any post-presidency scenario that does not provide him with sufficient attention and a cushion to his ego will be seen by the President as unacceptable.

    Like former Illinois Governor, Rod Blagojevich, the President is a transactional man who expects to get something in exchange for the power he’s been entrusted with.

    Don’t “joke about bombs at the Airport” or bluff about WMD

    Its a well know that one should not joke about bombs while you’re at the airport.  Likewise, you shouldn’t bluff about the peaceful transfer power in an election season.  The risk of this sort of brinkmanship is that it spirals beyond anyone’s control.

    The Banana Republic Option: State Legislatures Overule

    There is also a possibility that all this talk about fraud could provide cover for state legislatures to overrule the popular vote in their state, prompting Congress at a national level to cast votes on a 1 voter per state basis, which favors Republicans and would lead to a Trump second term.