never ones to follow herd mentality… maybe this time is an exception? tom and rp talk vaccinations; the already vaxxed, the anti-vaxxers, the j&j effect and more. watch, share, discuss.

today tom and rp talk the ins and outs of the war in afghanistan. why we went, what was and wasn't accomplished, and what happens now that our troops are coming home? watch, share, discuss.

Yes or BS Y / BS: We will see the warnings and stop the next Bernie Madoff Y / BS: $2 trillion, 2,400 KIA, 20,700 WIA = huge mistake Biden, saying it is ‘time to end America’s longest war,’ declares troops will be out of Afghanistan by Sept. 11. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/14/us/biden-afghanistan-troops.html

Y / BS: Halt second shots How to Double the Vaccination Pace With Covid cases rising, more experts think the U.S. should start delaying second vaccine shots. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/13/briefing/daunte-wright-shooting-michigan-britain.html?smid=url-share

Y / BS: Pausing J&J will increase vaccine hesitancy and kill people around the world Serious and Rare Will the Johnson & Johnson pause do more harm or good? https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/14/briefing/vaccine-pause-capitol-police-kim-potter.html?smid=url-share

Western Warnings Tarnish Vaccines the World Badly Needs Amid a deep residue of mistrust, American and European cautions on the AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson vaccines risk igniting anti-vaccine fervor in the global south https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/14/world/europe/western-vaccines-africa-hesitancy.html?smid=url-share

Y / BS: India is the new Florida. Covid death toll vastly underreported Officially, India Has the World’s Second-Worst COVID-19 Outbreak. Unofficially, It’s Almost Certainly the Worst

https://time.com/5954416/india-covid-second-wave/

california, brazil, south africa, the uk. tom and rp take a not so scenic tour of the covid variants - along with stats, projections and vaccine effectiveness - as the variants position themselves for domination.

_

Show Summary Notes

Zero Days – Nutan Nuclear reactor – Iran + Strategic Talks 

• Iran either badly wants nuclear weapons or wants to trade them off 
• Can buy themselves a big seat at the table, take the sanctions off and let them sell their oil around the world 
• OR they want to be a nuclear state – hegemonic toliterian 
• Air Gap facility – no data wires leave that facility and go anywhere else, you can't hack it – it had to be human engineered, it was extraordinary 
• April 11th – Israel said that they orchestrated the attack 
• What does this attack tell you about America’s cyber weaponry? 
• • In a number of years we will have cyber weapon treaties 

College Women's Softball – Hope Trabwine, North Texas 

• 21 bats, 21 strikeouts – perfect game 

Battle of the variants

• In California, CA variant blocking spread of UK variant.
• • https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-04-12/california-coronavirus-variant-preventing-spring-surge-herd-immunity

• In Israel, UK variant blocking spread of South African variant
• • https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-israel-study-idUSKBN2BX0JX

• Can you be infected with multiple variants? 
• • Why is co-infection rare?
  • https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-what-happens-when-a-person-is-simultaneously-infected-with-two-variants-154748

***This disease mutates less than the flew, but with this many infections there comes a lot of variants 

B117 

• UK has excellent genomic surveillance 
• Most prominent attack right now, worse virus for us a population 
• 50% more transmissible - 7x-8x more lethal, on a populations basis 

Think of california variant as a lighter UK variant 

They compete with each other on inverse transmissibility 

The race between variants and vaccines 

2 big issues we have to think about in the US: 

• Vaccines vs. variants 
• Variants vs. variants 

Vaccine Efficacy 

• Soma variants are more concern than other, immune escape 
• Israel's data – appears that the Pfizer vax does not appear to have the same efficacy against the South African variant as it does against the wild strain - more immune escape 

• Brazilian variant, not enough evidence but some evidence appears that this variant also has some reduced efficacy, but we do just not have enough data yet 

Minneapolis shooting

https://www.wsj.com/articles/minnesota-police-shoot-man-in-traffic-stop-incident-killing-him-11618202288

Yes or BS

J&J Pause

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/13/us/politics/johnson-johnson-vaccine-blood-clots-fda-cdc.html

Shut down Michigan

https://www.wsj.com/articles/minnesota-police-shoot-man-in-traffic-stop-incident-killing-him-11618202288

"Vaccine passports” are our ticket to freedom

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/07/opinion/the-argument-vaccine-passports.html

Bezos Union Buster?

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/16/technology/amazon-unions-virginia.html

Court-packing isn’t the right fix for our courts. Ending life tenure is. (Washington Post Editorial Board)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/court-packing-isnt-the-right-fix-for-our-courts-ending-life-tenure-is/2021/04/09/482af550-994d-11eb-b28d-bfa7bb5cb2a5_story.html

it’s the economy, optimists. tom and rp talk stimulus bill, infrastructure bill, the increased rate of shots in arms and yes, the projected economic boom. spread the conversation. tnp.us

Jamie Dimon

Boom Shaka Laka

This should also be the headline for the show

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/07/jamie-dimon-says-economic-boom-fueled-by-deficit-spending-vaccines-could-easily-run-into-2023.html

Banks

IMF - predicting 6% global growth

https://www.wsj.com/articles/imf-lifts-global-growth-forecast-for-2021-to-6-11617712209

New York Real Estate - Office Space

In only 1 year, office property values dropped 25% leading translating to $1 billion drop in property taxes.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/08/business/economy/office-buildings-remote-work.html

Guiliani

https://www.newsweek.com/georgias-gop-lieutenant-gov-says-rudy-giulianis-election-lies-led-new-voting-laws-1581970

Y/BS: Joe Manchin is most powerful senator in 40 years.

https://www.newsweek.com/joe-manchin-insists-he-doesnt-like-being-most-powerful-senator-he-appears-4-sunday-shows-1574348

Y/BS: As goes Georgia, so goes Kentucky

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/07/us/politics/kentucky-voting-law.html

Y/BS: Biden is the Bipartisan President

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/07/us/biden-infrastructure-taxes.html

Y/BS: This article is BS

(The article suggests that “some people” will skip the second dose, but makes no attempt at substantiating that — either by quoting a single person or quoting a survey or anything. FYI— the link that brought me to this had a headline “Many Skip Second Dose...”)

https://www.fox5ny.com/news/public-health-experts-urge-americans-to-not-skip-2nd-vaccine-dose

Y/BS: Brazil is a biological Fukushima, putting whole world at risk

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/14567615/brazil-covid-plague-biological-fukushima-mutant-strains/

On that note…

Vaccination leaders - Israel and Chile. Israel almost in clear. Chile entering lockdown.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/06/israel-and-chile-both-led-on-covid-jabs-so-why-is-one-back-in-lockdown

Germany makes new lockdown

How does it compare to USA - does germany have lower tolerance for COVID death toll.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-germany-lockdown-idUSKBN2BU1C7

Y / BS: Serving for Trump is a resume killer. Because, you know, karma. 

RP’s reflections on this will be particularly good, I’m sure. Because he knows this world way better than any of us...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/04/07/former-trump-cabinet-officials-corporate-seats/

there’s a saying “you’re known by the company you keep”. in the case of covid and poor leadership, the US is looking at some pretty bad bedfellows. from the absurd to the disturbing, tom and rp look into the direct effect leaders have on the people they are meant to lead. at tnp, conversation rules. tnp.us

EPISODE NOTES

INTRO // HEADLINES

Covid Vaccine – logic of going through the pain 

• 0 people have died from adverse effects of Moderna and Pfizer 

What was the #1 topic of conversation at the Scott family Easter gathering? 

• Who is this guy R.P. Eddy?

• rp daily: helps listeners navigate certain things 

Social media is ripping our country apart – sharing facts across the nation now hijacked with people who have embedded interests 

• Tristan Harris Social Dilemma Problem 

• National Security 

• Sway interview with Kara Kisher – Mossberg; Android biggest violator of privacy 

• Relationship between big news media and social media 

Derick Shoven trial – hopeful for a positive outcome?

• Controversy

• How can people argue what you saw is not what you saw? 

• If convicted, what is he convicted of? 

Unemployment rate 

• 916,000 jobs were added in March 

• Unemployment rate is 6% 

• 8.4 M less jobs in the US right now than there were pre-pandemic 

Capitol police officer killed

• Random and unrelated tragedy? 

• The murderr was affilated with Nation of Islam; so if we are going to look at the next school shooting and say the person had a MAGA hat on and that is an exmaole of far right violence, than we cant say that this 

US and Iran are having indirect meetings right now 

• What does that mean? 

• Bi-lateral negotiations

• Track 2 diplomacy  

• Indirect: Another country who are representing our interested to a fourth party of Iran 

• • Purpose? We believe in the US gov. That when the US meets with a foreign entity, you are bestowing a certain amount of prestige on that person (foreign leaders beg to have White House dinners/meetings) in some countries that is a very big deal, in other countries its the opposite (makes you loose an election) 

  • Its a start, we are getting there; we did a lot of damage to ourselves; the way we left was messy and harmful

Yes or BS

Yes or BS: Countries where authoritarian leaders have done terrible job: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/03/30/which-world-leader-has-worst-pandemic-record-competition-is-fierce/

Donald Trump – US

Javiar Bolsenaro – Brazil 

• Horrible leader 

• Worst C19 response 

• Puts the whole world at risk, because of the mutant strains that come out of that reservoir 

Alexander Lukashenko – Belarus 

• Totalitarian 

• Very poor response 

Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow – Turkmenistan 

• No one has gotten C19 

• Can't use the word “Corona” 

• Full mask ban – can't wear them 

Yes or BS: Janet Yellen – Global Minimum Tax Rate, will this protect race to the bottom? 

• Will there be one in the next 10 years? No. Would it prevent the race to the bottom? Sure. 

• Will there ever be a Global Minimum Tax Rate? Maybe. 

• If you are Janet Yellen you want that money back, making it unattractive for it to be anywhere else – we are all playing at the same level 

• Problem: its almost like the War on Drugs… the demand will never go down, until you get everyone to come on board the demand will always be there and there will usually be one outlier 

• Big spending on infrastructure? 

Yes or BS: Voting and Georgia 

• Georgia Bill: Is this a nontroversy? 

• Thematic: “it is my view of the spirit of democracy that as many people as possible should be able to vote” 

• How can we create a system where as many people as possible can vote AND ensure the security of the vote itself

• Georgia has liberalized up? Maybe due to COVID? 

• Sacrosanct; Votes are very secure; Republicans believe more votes = more democratic victories (SCIENCE DOES NOT AGREE) 

• Are they able to display the virtue of saying “even if its against my self interest I am going to make sure every vote is sacrosanct and there is minimal fraud” 

Yes or BS: Publix Picked As Vaccine Provider After Giving $100,000 To Gov. DeSantis PAC: ‘60 Minutes’

https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/546408-desantis-spars-with-60-minutes-over-vaccine-rollout-what-youre-saying-is

• The headlines mad me feel “wow this is going to be a big reveal” – not what I saw 

• • Wow that is a big problem, you would think we want to solve that 

  • Vaccine across the country is not going to the people who most need it by a racial basis, its going to those who tend to be whiter and richer 

• There was a decision that DeSantis made (Jan 15) some states decided we are not going to make the next round to frontline workers – just go down the age brackets

• Minorities are way underrepresented in Vax roll out… 

State by state… this is real. 

Hard to get vax anyway… 

Poverty = no computer, no car.. 

• Florida was there when it was free for all

Did different communities get early access or not?

Did it correlate to wealth, or not? 

• Desantis' move to all over 65 first is debatable. 

Ergo did the #s on this for econ and death… 

Actually depends on how may are already infected…

Good, kind, Gov’s went to all over 65 first.. 

BUT IT clearly doesn't help increase the equity gap

***US 3RD WORST RESPONSE = FAILURE/INCOMPETENCE OF LEADERSHIP 

Yes or BS: there’s nothing wrong with pharmacies making money while they’re providing a public service.

https://fortune.com/2021/03/26/cvs-walgreens-vaccine-rollout-rollout/

Yes or BS: its OK for pharmacies to collect data

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/04/03/pharmacy-covid-vaccine-customer-data-478977

green is the thing - the economy, the future, and yes the money it will take to pay for it. tom and rp talk spending bill - what’s in, what’s not and what it will take to get it passed. watch, discuss, share. tnp.us

as sigmund freud put it, “if youth knew; if age could.” tom and rp talk spring break spike, a white house office of warnings, and how thinking of your life in months can put a fresh perspective on mortality. watch, share, discuss.

if you’re a fan of rp daily, you know rp eddy knows his shit. who else could trace the origin of memes to an evolutionary biologist in 1976? in today’s mental meme, rp unmasks non-troversy, the disinformation tool rampant among cable news, hyper-partisan politicians and social media charlatans.

we are a dying breed. literally. tom and rp talk mortality rates, genetic science and technologically modified cyborgs. just your average “what will america’s role be in the future of civilization” type conversation. thoughts? drop them here, on tnp.us or email [email protected].

• How many people die a year? 

• • Top causes 

  • • Heart disease 

    • Cancer 

    • Respiratory 

    • Car accidents 

    • Suicide 

  • Preventable and delayable? 

  • • All except for all timers 

• Headlines: 

• • US/China 

  • • Tony Blinken; met in Alaska – bilateral meeting 

    • • You have no right to talk to us like a superpower, but maybe not even as an equal (big news that they are saying this to us now) 

      • Would not compartmentalize negotionas 

    • Rising China; multisectoral approach; known theme of economic dev. In the next decade – rules will get written in the next 2-3 years 

    • • Known = we don't know what we don't know 

    • Bias: bi-partisan sentiment (individuals may not agree) 

    • • This is not the same in other countries, not concerned about a rising China 

    • Example of accelerations: 

    • • Genetic Science, last gen. of pure homosapiens; next gen. With be technologically modified 

      • • Cyborgs; we will become more improved/advanced 

      • Mishandling of pandemic = caused a massive loss of prestige of US globally

      • • Why does this matter? 

        • Highly talented Chinese who have come to US to learn, are much more willing (in last year) to not contribute to the growth of America, they want to go back to China = that is where the growth is, the future, where the action is (current gen feels this way but previous gens did not) 

    • Southern Border 

    • • Still major ongoing issues – progress with immigration? 

      • Very very young children at the border without parents 

1. Yes or BS: FDA should give emergency use authorization for AstraZeneca

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/03/22/world/covid-vaccine-coronavirus-cases?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage#the-astrazeneca-vaccine-protects-fully-against-covid-19s-worst-outcomes-new-study-shows

• All vaccines are emergency approved; none are FDA approved 

• • Public health is about communication, almost more than medicine 

  • • Errors in communication: masks, graphs, 

  • Don't have long-term data about what these vaccines can do or will do 

1. Yes or BS: Capitol Riot was “Sedition”

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/21/us/politics/capitol-riot-sedition.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage 

1. Yes or BS:  It’s time to start carving Joe Biden into Mt Rushmore.

https://www.businessinsider.com/biden-first-100-days-could-be-great-american-president-historians-2020-12

Biden has already defied expectations 

Objectively speaking already one of the greatest presidents 

Low-ego president 

Great leadership starts with low-ego 

1. Yes or BS: Senator Disinformation

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/21/us/politics/ron-johnson-wisconsin-misinformation.html