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Ruth King

The Real Center of the Pandemic Saving nursing homes from Covid-19 Chris Pope

https://www.city-journal.org/coronavirus-super-spreaders-nursing-homes

The Trump administration has called nursing homes “ground zero for Covid-19,” and the analogy is apt—one New York City facility has seen 98 residents die from the disease, while more than two-thirds of Massachusetts nursing homes have reported infections. Though the link to long-term care facilities from deaths after hospitalization is not always recorded, 19 percent of those dying from the virus in Hungary, 51 percent in France, and 62 percent of those in Canada were identified as nursing-home residents.

The population in nursing facilities is vulnerable, and the disease is easily transmitted through extensive personal care in crowded quarters from staff who travel back and forth from the wider community. Several innovative senior homes have secured their facilities by paying bonuses to staff to stay on-site during the most hazardous phase of the crisis. Many lives could be saved if Congress were to support expanding these efforts. Indeed, preventing nursing homes from acting as super-spreaders might help broader communities more swiftly return to normal, too.

In 2016, nursing homes housed 1.3 million Americans, 39 percent aged 85 or over; 800,000 more lived in assisted-living facilities. Nursing-home residents are extremely vulnerable to the coronavirus due to multiple comorbidities: 72 percent have hypertension, 38 percent heart disease, and 32 percent diabetes. Even under normal circumstances, this population faces disproportionately high mortality risks: in 2016, while nursing-home residents made up just 0.4 percent of the U.S. population, they accounted for 19 percent of deaths.

Protecting Obama By Peter Kirsanow

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/protecting-obama/

A review of weekend news coverage and commentary shows that mainstream media have gone into full “Protect Obama” mode.

Evidence released last week — including, but not limited to, House Intelligence Committee transcripts showing that multiple top-level Obama administration officials were lying to the public for three years about Russian collusion — indicates that former president Barack Obama wasn’t merely aware of what was going on; he was hip-deep in what increasingly appears to be one of the greatest political scandals in American history.

For other than the most sycophantic and credulous media personalities, Obama’s involvement isn’t much of a surprise. The August 5, 2016 email from Peter Strzok to Lisa Page stating, “the White House is running this,” followed by the September 2016 Page text to Strzok stating, “POTUS wants to know everything we’re doing” suggested the obvious: An operation targeting a presidential campaign and then an incoming presidential administration isn’t a mere freelance effort cooked up by a few rogue FBI personnel in their spare time. An operation of that magnitude and import must be blessed from the very top.

Indeed, the January 5, 2017 White House meeting with President Obama, vice president Joe Biden, FBI director James Comey, deputy attorney general Sally Yates, director of national intelligence James Clapper, CIA director John Brennan, and national security adviser Susan Rice (which meeting was the subject of Rice’s mother-of-all C.Y.A. emails to herself on Inauguration Day) suggests that Obama wasn’t merely kept informed of the Russia collusion fraud, he was providing direction.

Why Did Obama Tell The FBI To Hide Its Activities From The Trump Administration? Margot Cleveland

https://thefederalist.com/2020/05/11/why-did-obama-tell-the-fbi-to-hide-its-activities-from-the-trump-administration/

Even after Barack Obama had left office and James Comey had a new commander-in-chief to report to, Comey obeyed Obama by withholding intel from President Trump.

In 1980, a teenage Amy Carter left a burnt cake in the oven of the White House’s family quarters in a reflex of childish revenge for her father’s landslide loss to Ronald Reagan. In 2017, Barack Obama and Joe Biden avenged Donald Trump’s surprise victory over Hillary Clinton by leaving what they claim was a Russian agent in the West Wing.

That conclusion inevitably follows if one accepts as credible the FBI’s supposed predicates for launching the Crossfire Hurricane investigation into the Trump campaign and the four related probes into George Papadopoulos, Carter Page, Paul Manafort, and Michael Flynn.

On July 31, 2016, the FBI opened the Crossfire Hurricane counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign, purportedly to learn if members of the Trump team were “coordinating or cooperating” with the Russian government to influence or interfere with the 2016 elections. By August 16, 2016, the FBI had opened four subsidiary investigations on individuals connected to the campaign, claiming their connections to Russian businesses, pro-Russian factions, or Russian-owned entities “reasonably indicated” they “may wittingly or unwittingly be involved in activity on behalf of the Russian Federation which may constitute a federal crime or threat to the national security.”

Obama Laments Flynn Dismissal . . . after Granting Clemency to FALN Terrorist Andrew McCarthy

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/obama-laments-flynn-dismissal-after-granting

” He recruited and trained a small army of terrorists to murder his fellow Americans. He built bomb factories. He taught the young and impressionable how to make devices that would kill and maim. . . . When he was put on trial, he admitted to doing all he had been accused of — he showed no remorse.”

The best defense is a good offense. That was my first thought on learning that former president Barack Obama has decided to make himself heard on the dismissal of the prosecution of Michael Flynn. As I’ve been noting for years, notwithstanding his pretensions about never interfering in FBI investigations, Mr. Obama was smack in the middle of his administration’s investigation of the Trump campaign. This week, in the exhibits appended to the Justice Department’s Flynn dismissal motion, it was revealed that Obama was neck-deep in the investigation of Flynn, concocted into a collusion caper by his intel advisers and the FBI. It is not a spotlight the former president covets, so he’s lashing out . . . and the usual wagons are circling.

My friend Joe Connor, whose father was killed by FALN, reminds me that in one of his last official acts, Obama granted clemency to Oscar Lopez Rivera, one of that Marxist terrorist organization’s front-men. Ben Domenech put it well at the time:

” He recruited and trained a small army of terrorists to murder his fellow Americans. He built bomb factories. He taught the young and impressionable how to make devices that would kill and maim. . . . When he was put on trial, he admitted to doing all he had been accused of — he showed no remorse.”

Why dismiss the Flynn case? Because the FBI can’t prove it Andrew McCarthy

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/497064-why-dismiss-the-flynn-case-because

The guiding tenet of the criminal justice system is that the government bears the burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. All of the system’s rules are rooted in this principle. These include the prosecutor’s ethical obligation to dismiss a charge in the absence of a good-faith belief that a rational jury could convict the accused based on the government’s evidence.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) last week dismissed the prosecution of Michael Flynn, who fleetingly served as President Trump’s first national security adviser. In all the heated commentary over this decision, scant attention has been paid to the most compelling reason for vacating Flynn’s 2017 guilty plea to one count of making false statements to FBI agents: The government wouldn’t have a prayer of convicting Flynn at trial.

Allowing the conviction to stand would have been a travesty. This basic fact, this utter lack of sufficient evidence, is obscured by the DOJ’s heavy reliance on a legal rationale for dropping the case. In its 20-page memorandum in support of dismissal, the DOJ contends that any false statements by Flynn could not have been material because there was no legitimate basis to investigate or interview him. Federal law makes materiality an essential element of a false-statements charge.

The sky is falling, run for your life, shelter in place – you fools! Diane Bederman

https://dianebederman.com/the-sky-is-falling-run-for-your-life-shelter-in-place-you-fools/

This is the way the world ends, not with a bang, but a whimper. ~ T.S Eliot

Two men and one Global organization managed to accomplish what two world wars could not, the near destruction of Western culture and the end of freedom. With the flick of a switch, millions of people peacefully gave up their freedom; yes, sir, no sir, anything you say, sir, because of a paralyzing fear of an invisible enemy, an enemy not clearly understood nor defined.

Our actions demean, denigrate and disrespect the sacrifice of millions of men and women who sacrificed their lives for our right to live freely and free from government overreach.

There is a reason for the statement in the Bible “Do not fear, for I am with you,” because fear takes away individual moral agency; free will, allowing others to rule over us. And it can take years to recover from that fear.

We allowed two men, Ferguson and Fauci, aided and abetted by the WHO, the propaganda arm of the Chinese government, who brought forth the Chinese Virus, to frighten all of us, especially our leaders, to shut down our economies and end our freedom of movement. Except for one country, Sweden.

There had been predictions that 2.2 million would die in America, alone!  As of May 9, 2020, the GLOBAL death toll is 275,000. In a world of 7.8 billion.

Who are these two men?

New York has mismanaged COVID-19 from top to bottom Stephen L. Miller

https://spectator.us/new-york-mismanaged-covid-19-andrew-cuomo-bill-de-blasio/

Andrew Cuomo is having the time of his life. His approval ratings are through the roof and he’s being talked about as a replacement for Joe Biden should Joe wander off somewhere without his Visiting Angel, never to be found again. Hipster merchandise featuring his face is exploding on Etsy and he’s getting a nightly hour with his own brother on CNN to chat about oh, this and that, and whatever is happening in his day at the given moment. It’s quite the arrangement! Andrew doesn’t ask his brother why he broke quarantine, literally endangering lives and the younger Fredo doesn’t ask him about 1,700 previously uncounted COVID related deaths in New York nursing homes, or why he didn’t authorize disinfecting subway cars until early May, a full 90 days after the first cases were reported on March 1.

Governors in Florida, Texas and Georgia bear the brunt of media criticism for their handling of testing, shutdowns and hospitalizations. In each instance, no outbreak or death count in those states has come close to matching New York. National media went to plaid over Jacksonville’s reopened beaches, while glossing over the hordes of impatient hipsters grouping together throughout New York parks, the entire time lavishing praise on the governor of the moment.

Media Find In Coronavirus A Crisis They Can’t Waste

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/05/11/media-find-in-coronavirus-a-crisis-they-cant-waste/

Are we alone in feeling as if the media are enthusiastic cheerleaders of the coronavirus pandemic? We can’t be the only ones who sense the glee with which the news about the body count, the Democrats’ wailing over the president’s handling of the crisis, and the “new normal”  are delivered across our screens. Nor is it possible that no one else is noticing that the states that believe reopening is necessary to survival are being portrayed as communities of rubes who deserve to suffer the sting of mass death.

The coronavirus coverage goes beyond the “if it bleeds it leads” tenet of sensationalized media coverage. It’s a handy means for them to extend the cultural and political divides that have made the 50 states less united than they have been in any of our lifetimes. To paraphrase Col. Nathan R. Jessup, they want COVID-19 death, they need COVID-19 death.

The media elitists are culture warriors of the worst sort . After Georgia revealed in late April its plans to reopen, Dana Milbank’s Washington Post column was headlined “Georgia leads the race to become America’s No. 1 Death Destination.” A few days later, The Atlantic said the state was beginning an experiment in “human sacrifice.” The message is that the red states are lousy with hicks who don’t care about human lives, even their own.

Like all good crusaders, the media aren’t straying from the campaign. Shortly after some restrictions were lifted, The Hill reported: “More than 1,000 new coronavirus cases were diagnosed the day Gov. (Brian) Kemp reopened Georgia.” Other outlets took an Associated Press report and wrote similar headlines.

Unbearable Truths About Our Current Political Moment What happens to a people when it can’t handle the truth? By Victor Davis Hanson

https://amgreatness.com/2020/05/10/unbearable-truths-about-our-current-political-moment/

“You can’t handle the truth!”
—Col. Nathan R. Jessep, “A Few Good Men”

Sometimes the truth is like mythical kryptonite. It radiates power and yet promises great destruction. And so reality is to be left alone, encased in lead, and kept at bay.

Take the Chinese genesis of the COVID-19 epidemic. We started in February with the usual Chinese deceptions about their role in the birth, transmission, and worldwide spread of the virus.

No one, apparently except Mike Bloomberg and Bill Gates, was surprised by the accustomed politically correct prevarications of the Chinese-purchased World Health Organization, whose transparent lies were passed off as truth—and led to tens of thousands of deaths.

On cue, our own obsequious media accepted Chinese and globalist myths—their shared antipathy for President Trump meant whatever he is for or says, they are against and deny.

But by late March the bits and pieces of the truth had emerged. All that gobbledygook talk of a Chinese wet market, of patient-zero bats, snakes, pangolins and such, were likely ruses to deflect attention from a conveniently nearby level-4 Chinese virology lab.

We are beginning to learn that Chinese scientists were conducting research on—surprise, surprise—coronaviruses in general, and in particular, methods to enhance their lethality, all for the ostensibly exalted humanitarian aim of discovering cures and vaccinations, although how that was to be so was never quite disclosed.

China’s patient zero almost weekly was backdated by communist party officials from late January to mid-November. When the lying is exhausted, we may well learn the virus was known to the Chinese even earlier.

In addition, we learned that China variously threatened to cut off medical supplies in transit to the United States. It stopped all flights in and out of Wuhan on January 23, but called America racist for waiting a week until January 31 to issue a travel ban on China—including, but not limited to, ending direct flights to the United States from Wuhan. Consider the Chinese communist logic: running-dog American capitalists mimicked Beijing in forbidding Chinese from flying—but only after a week-long interlude of bourgeoise debate and puerile reflection.

Were the Chinese embarrassed that they had accused Washington of being racist for belatedly doing exactly what they had done earlier? Of course not. In their eyes, weak decadent Westerners welcome such help in aiding their own self-abnegation and debasement.

Palestinian Leaders: A Policy of Piracy, Blackmail and Plunder by Khaled Abu Toameh

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16005/palestinian-leaders-piracy-blackmail

The Palestinian leader’s critics and political rivals say that Abbas is the one engaged in piracy, political extortion and theft of Palestinian money.

Palestinian human rights organizations have strongly condemned Abbas for using the salaries and pensions as a means of extortion against his political rivals and critics.

Cutting salaries and pensions to political opponents for daring to speak out against corruption and the epic policy failures of the Palestinian leadership is doomed to drive these people into the open arms of terrorist groups such as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

The next time Abbas accuses Israel of “piracy” and “theft” of Palestinian money, the international community might inquire into the Palestinian leader’s own practice of depriving his people of their livelihoods because of their political affiliations and resistance to his policy of plunder.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has spent the past few years accusing Israel of “piracy,” “theft” and “blackmail.” What is all the name-calling about?

Abbas, it seems, is furious about Israel’s decision to deduct millions of dollars from the Palestinian Authority’s tax revenue dues as a punishment for paying part of the money to families of Palestinian terrorists.

Under the terms of the Oslo Accords, signed between Israel and the PLO in 1993, Israel collects duties on imports that reach the West Bank and the Gaza Strip via Israeli ports, in addition to other taxes, and forwards a large sum of it to the Palestinian Authority, after deducting payments for water and electricity.