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Ruth King

JAMES AGRESTI:CENSOR THIS-SCIENCE SAYS MASK MANDATES DON’T WORK

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/02/03/censor-this-science-says-mask-mandates-dont-work/

Allegations that “masks work” and “don’t cause harm” have been enforced by governments and corporations around the world for more than 18 months through arrests, firings, censorship, fines, and denial of access to schools, supermarkets, hospitals, streets, and other public spaces. This has made it virtually impossible for many people to live without complying with mask mandates.

In recent weeks, however, more medical scholars and media outlets are coming to grips with facts about masks that Just Facts has been documenting for more than a year and painstakingly compiled in a September 2021 article sourced with more than 50 peer-reviewed science journals. Here’s a sample of people who are speaking up about the facts and their implications:

Dr. Vinay Prasad – an associate professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco – has written an article that examines the scientific evidence for masking children and concludes that:

“Most of the masks worn by most kids for most of the pandemic have likely done nothing to change the velocity or trajectory of the virus.”
“There are downsides to face coverings for pupils and students, including detrimental impacts on communication in the classroom.”
“Masking is now little more than an appealing delusion.”
Decisions to mask schoolchildren are “ignorant, cruel, fearful, and cowardly.”

Amnesty International Wants to End the Jewish State by Richard Kemp

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18199/amnesty-international-israel

Unfortunately for the inveterate peace-processors and their followers, the Arab world has moved on from their own opposition to Israel. They see the country for what it is: a source of stability and prosperity in the region. They understand the dangers of continuing Palestinian intransigence and animosity and have denied them a veto on progress — a veto that Amnesty and its fellow Israel rejectionists want to see reinstated.

This report will also provoke increased violence, abuse and boycotts against Jews in Israel and Jews who support Israel in the diaspora, in an era where antisemitic attacks are already at a high point and on the rise. That may not be Amnesty’s aim in producing this twisted document, but they cannot be so blind as to fail to see its bloody consequences, which have played out over decades following similar distorted reports, debates, resolutions and media fabrications.

The definition of antisemitism by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) includes: “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a state of Israel is a racist endeavor”. The British government has signed up to the IHRA definition. Amnesty is based in the UK and the UK police should now investigate it for spreading these grievous antisemitic lies.

The latest grotesque exhibition of anti-Israel vitriol among NGOs is this week’s publication of a report by Amnesty International that recycles tired, repeatedly disproven yet deliberately provocative antisemitic tropes and accusations of racism. This from an organization that was itself last year branded as “systemically racist”.

The title of the report, “Israel’s apartheid against Palestinians: a cruel system of domination and crime against humanity”, is not only a blatant and unsubstantiated lie but also an insult to black South Africans who suffered so horrifically under a genuinely apartheid regime. Few will read this 200+ page diatribe of falsehoods, distortions and half-truths, but many will see and absorb its title, which has already been plastered greedily across left-leaning newspapers and disseminated to millions in social media. The BBC, for example, trumpeted “Israel’s policies against Palestinians amount to apartheid” in an online article, giving full weight to Amnesty’s claims, quoting several people who support them, but allowing only the briefest opposing view from the Israeli government at the end.

Tom Cotton Freezes Confirmation of DOJ Nominees Over Failure to Address Antifa Riots By Eric Lendrum

https://amgreatness.com/2022/02/02/tom-cotton-freezes-confirmation-of-doj-nominees-over-failure-to-address-antifa-riots/

At least eight of Joe Biden’s nominations for the Department of Justice have been placed on hold by Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), due to the Department’s failure to answer Cotton’s questions about its inaction over the Antifa and Black Lives Matter riots of 2020.

As reported by Fox News, Cotton’s criticisms have focused specifically on the DOJ’s failure to properly defend a federal courthouse in Portland, Oregon, which ended up under siege by far-left domestic terrorists on a daily basis throughout 2020 and even into 2021. Cotton has already sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland pointing out that, on top of letting the courthouse itself be attacked, the DOJ has not offered any legal assistance to several U.S. Marshals who have been sued for defending the courthouse against rioters.

“These courageous officers were attacked by left-wing street militants with weapons such as mortar fire, ball bearings, and blinding lasers,” Cotton’s letter reads in part. “A refusal to represent these Deputy Marshals would violate the Department’s long-standing practice — not to mention its moral duty — to defend law-enforcement officers when they’re sued for actions in the line of duty.”

Cotton imposed a deadline of 3:00 PM EST on Tuesday for the Department to provide him with a “satisfactory answer.” When the Department failed to respond in time, he followed through on his threat to use his role on the Senate Judiciary Committee to block multiple nominations to the DOJ. Of the eight nominees, four are U.S. attorney nominees currently waiting on full Senate votes, two are U.S. attorney nominees still waiting to be approved by the committee, and the remaining two are U.S. Marshal nominees also waiting for the committee vote. Although they cannot be delayed indefinitely by a single senator, Cotton’s actions could see these nominations delayed by weeks.

Promoting the Grooming and Sexualization of Children Woke literature infects public schools. Richard L. Cravatts

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/02/promoting-grooming-and-sexualization-children-richard-l-cravatts/

Each year, public school libraries face angry parents and school boards upset with the presence of reading materials they find objectionable. These attacks on specific books have included classics such as often-banned Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (for its repeated use of the n-word), Catcher in the Rye (for what in today’s culture are its mild references to sexuality and its vulgarity), and other literary works whose value and reputation, despite occasional challenges, have made them logical additions to a school’s reading list.

Just last month, for example, The Mukilteo School Board near Seattle voted unanimously to remove Harper Lee’s classic examination of racism, To Kill a Mockingbird, from the required reading list for ninth graders because, as the American Library Association has noted, the book includes “racial slurs and their negative effect on students, featuring a ‘white savior’ character, and its perception of the Black experience.”   

Also last month, the McMinn County Board of Education in Tennessee made the troubling decision to remove the Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel about the Holocaust by Art Spiegelman, Maus, from the school system’s curriculum. In justifying its decision to remove the book, the Board claimed it was “because of its unnecessary use of profanity and nudity and its depiction of violence and suicide,” although the anthropomorphic characters in the novel are mice (Jews) and cats (Nazis), and the nudity in question referred, of course, to a naked mouse.

The Scientist Who Challenged Fauci Over AIDS Right from the start, Dr. Doom was a bust on medical science. Lloyd Billingsley

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/02/scientist-who-challenged-fauci-over-aids-lloyd-billingsley/

In his home office, Dr. Anthony Fauci sits facing a life-sized portrait of himself that falls short of his actual self-image. The Biden advisor, a government bureaucrat since 1968, now claims “I represent science,” therefore those who criticize him are criticizing science itself. That invites a look at  Dr. Charles A. Thomas, the first biomedical scientist to challenge Fauci, and what that means for embattled Americans in 2022.

Charles Thomas, who preferred to be called “Charlie,” earned a chemistry degree from Princeton and a doctorate in physical chemistry from Harvard. Thomas taught physics at the University of Michigan then Johns Hopkins tapped him as professor of biophysics. Harvard then brought back Thomas as professor of biological chemistry, and after 11 years he became chairman of the cellular biology department at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California.

Thomas and his colleagues were the first to demonstrate that virus particles contained a single molecule of nucleic acid. His work showed that viral DNA molecules were terminally repetitious, beginning and ending with the same sequence of nucleotides. Thomas’ work also centered on the unusual structures formed by telomeric DNA sequences. The background of Dr. Anthony Fauci is somewhat different.

Anthony Fauci earned a medical degree in 1966 but if he ever practiced medicine it was only for a short time. In 1968, to avoid treating wounded American soldiers in Vietnam, he hired on as “yellow beret” with the NIH. Fauci’s bio showed no advanced degrees in molecular biology or biochemistry, vital for the study of virology. Even so, in the early 1980s Fauci became the government’s point man on AIDS and claimed the cause was a retrovirus known as HIV.

Diversity: Still Politicized After All These Years Will the Supreme Court finally end discrimination in education admissions – or kick the can down the road? Bruce Thornton

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/02/diversity-still-politicized-after-all-these-years-bruce-thornton/

This term the Supreme Court will soon hear two challenges to affirmative action policies used in almost every university and college admissions and hiring procedures. These protocols have long been obvious violations of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, as well as the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of “equal protection of the laws.”

Yet ever since the Regents of the University of California v. Bakke decision in 1978 green-lighted discrimination in admissions to further “diversity,” subsequent challenges to affirmative action policies in university admissions have ordered only cosmetic changes in various discriminatory practices, while leaving intact their legality and rationale.

Whether the current suit will yet again kick the can down the road, or finally end discrimination in higher education admission criteria, will depend on confronting the central begged question that since 1978 has justified affirmative action: the importance of “diversity” in improving educational outcomes.

But 44 years after Bakke, there still has not been a rigorous, empirically based definition of “diversity,” or demonstration of the “educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body,” as Justice Sandra Day O’Conner assumed in  Grutter v. Bollinger (2003), that create a “compelling state interest” justifying discrimination on the basis of race.

In contrast to “diversity,” real diversity is a timeless fact of human existence, based on numerous criteria such as culture, mores, language, religion, geography, political philosophies, social organizations, values, and economic status. Ethnicity, not “race,” is the basic unit of human identity, and it is comprised of  these elements. The “diversity” we talk about today is based on the superficial physical differences like skin color or hair texture, and duplicates the crude, reductive “race” categories of post-Darwinian “scientific racism” based on skin colors like “black,” “white,” “brown,” or the all-purpose, utterly vague and meaningless “person of color.” Ignored are the more important differences of culture and ethnicity. How people live is what creates their identities, not how they look.

WHEN WILL FREEDOM ARRIVE IN THE UNITED STATES?

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/02/02/when-will-freedom-arrive-in-the-u-s/

Feb. 1 is the Danes’ new independence day. On Tuesday, Denmark rid itself of all of its remaining pandemic restrictions. But liberty in America, the nation that pioneered the guarantee of freedom to its people, is still under assault.

Denmark is the first country in Europe to reopen its boxed-in, abused, and drained society. No more indoor mask mandates, or vaccine passports for entry into private establishments. Other European nations have lifted some restrictions, as well, but only Denmark has gone all the way and dropped a self-isolation requirement for those who test positive.

Apparently the Danes learned the lesson that after nearly two years most nations haven’t been able, or willing, to figure out. Finland isn’t far behind.

But not America.

Yes, most U.S. states have freed their residents. Yet much of the country is still under the government boot.

Justice Department Continues to Go Easy on 2020 Rioters Biden’s prosecutors may be fooling themselves—and federal judges auditioning for a promotion—but they are not fooling the majority of Americans. By Julie Kelly

https://amgreatness.com/2022/01/31/justice-department-continues-to-go-easy-on-2020-rioters/

No matter how much the Biden regime and news media want Americans to forget what happened during the “social justice” protests of 2020, the public remembers. A poll taken last summer shows overwhelming support for investigations into the nationwide looting and rioting following the death of George Floyd, which caused an estimated $2 billion in damages and cost dozens of lives..

According to an analysis by a coalition of police chiefs, at least “8,700 protests occurred across 68 major cities . . . and 574 involved acts of violence,” in just a two-month span of 2020.

There is absolutely no comparison between the violence that terrorized the country throughout 2020 and the four-hour disturbance at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021; any Democrat or Republican who equates the two events should be tossed out of office. (Here’s looking at you, Governor Chris Sununu.)

And while top law enforcement officials fixate on the so-called “insurrection” they continue to downplay the murder and mayhem of 2020.

During a recent Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Jill Sanborn, assistant director of the FBI’s national security branch, struggled to answer how many people face federal charges related to the 2020 riots. Sanborn admitted that the FBI has arrested “just north of 250 people” in connection with the “violence that we all saw around the peaceful protests,” as she described them.

Tulsi Gabbard Slams Biden over Pledge to Nominate Black Woman to Supreme Court: ‘Identity Politics Is Destroying Our Country’ By Zachary Evans

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/tulsi-gabbard-slams-biden-over-pledge-to-nominate-black-woman-to-supreme-court-identity-politics-is-destroying-our-country/

Former Democratic congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard attacked President Biden on Monday for making key personnel decisions on the basis of race and gender, citing his selection of Kamala Harris as vice president on the basis of her immutable characteristics and suggesting that the mistake may be replicated with Biden’s nominee to replace Justice Stephen Breyer on the Supreme Court.

“Biden chose Harris as his VP because of the color of her skin and sex—not qualification. She’s been a disaster,” Gabbard wrote on Twitter. “Now he promises to choose Supreme Court nominee on the same criteria. Identity politics is destroying our country.”

Gabbard made similar comments regarding the Supreme Court nomination process on Saturday.

Biden “should not be choosing a Supreme Court justice based on the color of their skin or sex, but rather on their qualifications & commitment to uphold our Constitution & the freedoms guaranteed to all Americans in that document which is the foundation of our nation,” Gabbard wrote on Twitter.

J.P. Morgan and our gilded age The house of Morgan — the literal house of Morgan — is tying itself into knots to ‘prioritize’ all things black Peter Wood

https://spectatorworld.com/book-and-art/jp-morgan-library-gilded-age-museums-deia/

John Pierpont Morgan is the glowering face of the Gilded Age. He may have glowered at pesky men with cameras because he was too busy to sit still, but he was also self-conscious because his nose was deformed from rhinophyma. He liked beautiful things, and he was not beautiful.

Born into banking family, Morgan rose to become the greatest financier of his time, building much of his empire on railroads. But he was far more than a shrewd businessman. Fluent in French and German and holding a degree in art history, he became a prodigious collector of books and art, a large portion of which were kept at his house on Madison Avenue and 36th Street — what is now the Morgan Library & Museum.

Given the scale of New York City, the Morgan Library must be counted among Manhattan’s smaller treasures, but the actual library — three tiers of rare and ultra-rare books connected by secret passageways is a wonder to behold. The “museum” portion of the house presents small-scale shows, often with literary themes, and often worth the detour from the city’s more celebrated gigantic warehouses of the arts.

What brings the Morgan Library & Museum to my attention right now is a notice that arrived in my inbox a few weeks ago. The director, Colin B. Bailey, wrote to explain how the Morgan had been moved to respond to the “murder of George Floyd” by undertaking important work “for greater diversity, equity, access and inclusion (DEAI).” In October 2020, the Morgan had launched its “first six-month DEAI Action plan.” First, mind you. But the novelty for me was the “A.” Over here in the world of education, it always just DEI, but I can see that “access” may be a good buzzword for libraries and museums.