Thursday Morning Breakfast For The Brain

Served up piping hot and definitely not sunny side up.

The Postal Service is running a ‘covert operations program’ that monitors Americans’ social media posts

Via Yahoo News

The law enforcement arm of the U.S. Postal Service has been quietly running a program that tracks and collects Americans’ social media posts, including those about planned protests, according to a document obtained by Yahoo News.

The details of the surveillance effort, known as iCOP, or Internet Covert Operations Program, have not previously been made public. The work involves having analysts trawl through social media sites to look for what the document describes as “inflammatory” postings and then sharing that information across government agencies.

“Analysts with the United States Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) Internet Covert Operations Program (iCOP) monitored significant activity regarding planned protests occurring internationally and domestically on March 20, 2021,” says the March 16 government bulletin, marked as “law enforcement sensitive” and distributed through the Department of Homeland Security’s fusion centers. “Locations and times have been identified for these protests, which are being distributed online across multiple social media platforms, to include right-wing leaning Parler and Telegram accounts.”

A number of groups were expected to gather in cities around the globe on March 20 as part of a World Wide Rally for Freedom and Democracy, to protest everything from lockdown measures to 5G. “Parler users have commented about their intent to use the rallies to engage in violence. Image 3 on the right is a screenshot from Parler indicating two users discussing the event as an opportunity to engage in a ‘fight’ and to ‘do serious damage,’” says the bulletin.

“No intelligence is available to suggest the legitimacy of these threats,” it adds.

The bulletin includes screenshots of posts about the protests from Facebook, Parler, Telegram and other social media sites. Individuals mentioned by name include one alleged Proud Boy and several others whose identifying details were included but whose posts did not appear to contain anything threatening.

“iCOP analysts are currently monitoring these social media channels for any potential threats stemming from the scheduled protests and will disseminate intelligence updates as needed,” the bulletin says.

Read the entire article HERE.

States have a new Covid problem: Too much vaccine

Via Politico

Millions of Americans are still getting shots each day — but, in a jarring twist after months of scarcity, too many slots remain open as skeptics hold out.

The supply of Covid vaccines is now exceeding demand in rural areas and big cities, even as states lift remaining eligibility restrictions, open walk-in clinics and even offer shots to out-of-state residents.

It’s a jarring twist after months during which vaccine-seekers crashed appointment websites seeking shots and stalked pharmacy counters hoping to snag leftover doses. And it’s a problem that state and federal officials are rushing to address with only limited success.

On Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula, EMS personnel are bringing the vaccine to any house or business with more than three people. New Orleans partnered with a bar in a “shots for shots” promotion. North Dakota officials are piloting pop-up clinics at Walmart. And states like Georgia, Mississippi and Montana are weighing what to do about surplus vaccine that could go to waste as they face more open slots than ever before.

The challenge comes at a crucial point in the pandemic with more contagious variants surging across the country and crisis fatigue combining with misinformation to harden resistance among the holdouts. Governors say they need more help from the Biden administration to reach the vaccine hesitant. But in most cases, state officials aren’t waiting.

“We’re trying to really meet people where they’re at — and that may be [a] physical location, it may be just making sure their questions are answered,” said Anne Zink, Alaska’s chief medical officer.

The Biden administration touts the $3 billion it has already invested in addressing vaccine hesitancy and its new volunteer corps charged with helping boost vaccine confidence, but governors, senators and public health experts contend that the White House can’t rely on the same strategy it used when supply was constrained.

“It’s a huge mistake,” said New Hampshire Republican Gov. Chris Sununu. “Communication from this administration is inconsistent and rare.”

After steadily increasing for three months, the pace of vaccinations has flattened at around 3 million a day, and the national total obscures pockets of the country like New Hampshire, North Dakota and Virginia that have more open appointment slots than they’ve yet experienced. Several states are now administering fewer 75 percent of the doses they receive, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Read the entire article HERE.

No, Mr. President, the ‘soul of America’ isn’t racist

Via The Washington Examiner

President Joe Biden is already starting to push people too far with his constant refrains about how racist this country is.

He is overstating a very weak case, and he risks becoming like former President Jimmy Carter when Carter’s so-called “malaise speech” had the annoying effect, in the insightful words of Vice President Walter Mondale, of “urging the people to be as good as the government.” The public and American culture are better than Biden says we are. He may soon see a backlash against him not just for hectoring us but for enlisting big government’s might to promote and enforce his racialist agenda.

Biden did it again Tuesday evening in his remarks responding to the three-count conviction of former Minnesota police officer Derek Chauvin. He indicted the entire American judicial system, without proof, by saying that accurate and just verdicts are “much too rare” and that Chauvin’s just conviction was possible only because of a “unique and extraordinary convergence of factors.” He said that “systemic racism is a stain on our nation’s soul” while asserting, without evidence, that Chauvin’s murder of George Floyd was the result of such systemic racism. He cited the “racism and racial disparities” supposedly endemic to policing and criminal justice. And he described a Manichean “battle for the would of this nation” and “the harsh reality that racism has long torn us apart.”

His message seriously exaggerates the relevant grains of truth therein. To start with, numerous careful (non-right-wing) studies actually show only the mildest of racial “disparities” in the system. Yes, more black people are arrested, but that stands to reason because black people commit more crimes on average.

Now, all decent people wholeheartedly reject the notion that criminality is somehow a racial trait. But poverty, family breakups, subpar education, and numerous other factors, many of them, of course, the lingering, evil generational effects of slavery and Jim Crow, surely play a role. The point here is not the “why.” The point is that the numbers do not lie about the “what” of criminal incidences, despite the narrative pushed by Biden and so many in the media. The statistics just do not show major racial bias in policing and convictions — although there is indeed disturbing evidence that sentencing is, on average, harsher for black convicts.

The bigger problem with the Biden/media-driven “systemic” racism narrative is not with the statistics but with the labels that misstate the nature of the problem.

Let us posit that “racism” means what, for decades, everyone agreed it means, namely the assumption that people of a certain ethnicity will possess inherent traits (such as character or intelligence) by virtue (or vice) of that ethnicity. Particularly egregious racism occurs when the stereotypes involved are negative ones. Racial “discrimination” is what happens when people (or systems) act in deliberate or obviously implicit furtherance of those racist assumptions. By these simple definitions, anybody can be racist, and anybody can act racially discriminatorily — but the obvious and horrific reality is that white racism and discrimination historically has been far more deleterious to black people in this country than vice versa.

There is no doubt that many of the systems and institutions, private and public, in the United States were racially discriminatory against black people for hundreds of years. Yet, that is an entirely different thing than to say that systems and institutions still discriminate that way. The reality is that the U.S. is one of the most multi-ethnic societies on earth, that in ordinary life (away from the media and identity politics), it is one of the most harmoniously multi-ethnic societies on earth, and that its guarantees of civil and human rights are stronger than almost every nation ever known to man.

As every sentient American can readily see, almost every instrument of government at every level, along with almost every leading cultural institution, not only has abandoned pro-white racism but for half a century has consciously and, yes, systematically worked against it. Some, indeed an increasing number, have become not just anti-racist but aggressively so, and more than a few have gone beyond even that, systemically trying to right past wrongs and current “inequities” by discriminating in favor of ethnic minorities.

Today’s racism, in other words, is absolutely not systemic or institutional.

Read the entire article HERE.

Biden Threatens Americans That Fourth Of July Will Be Canceled If They Don’t Get ‘The Jab’

Via The New York Post

President Biden on Wednesday warned Americans they may have to cancel “small” outdoor gatherings on the Fourth of July if there’s a slowdown of COVID-19 vaccinations.

More than 51 percent of American adults have received at least one vaccine dose, according to CDC data, indicating that herd immunity and the pandemic’s end are near.

But Biden said at the White House that he’s not yet comfortable saying people can hold small outdoor gatherings on Independence Day.

“Back on March 11, I outlined a vision of what America could look like by the Fourth of July — an America that was much closer to normal life that we left behind more than a year ago,” Biden said.

He warned: “To celebrate our independence from this virus on July 4th with family and friends in small groups, we still have more to do in the months of May and June. We all need to mask up until the number of cases goes down, until everyone has a chance to get their shot.”

Biden proposed in a March primetime address that people could host “small” outdoor gatherings for the summer holiday. The idea drew Republican criticism due to the efficacy of vaccines and low outdoor transmission rates.

Read the entire article HERE.

Frustrated Looter Has To Wait Until The Next National Outrage To Liberate A TV

Via The Babylon Bee

US — Following Derek Chauvin’s guilty verdict on all 3 counts, riots have been called off across the country. Some freedom fighters have been frustrated by this as they had their eyes on some specific merchandise they wanted to liberate.

“I mean it’s good we got the verdict we wanted, I guess, but now I can’t loot — I mean liberate, that big screen TV tonight!” complained justice advocate Larry Smith. “Oh well, I guess I’ll have to wait until the next outrage.”

Others like Larry complained that they got dressed for this and stood outside Target for hours for nothing. “I just feel kinda stupid now, I waited outside the store shouting all day and I didn’t even get to break anything or pick up some AirPods… for justice of course.” said mostly peaceful protestor Doug Flandel.

“It’s just frustrating to put so much effort into buying pallets of bricks, and filling milkshakes with cement that you never get to throw.” added others. “And to make matters worse I have to go to work tomorrow because the city isn’t shut down.”

When asked what’s next Larry Smith replied, “Well, I guess we’ll just go throw soup cans at some cops until they launch tear gas unprovoked. Maybe that video will spark rioting and looting.”

Check out all of the Bee’s takes on a world gone mad HERE.

Be sure to stop by at Def-Con News to get our morning started off right.