Displaying the most recent of 91404 posts written by

Ruth King

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

More Trouble Looms for Hong Kong China denounces the protest movement as a ‘political virus.’

By on May 11th, 2020

https://www.wsj.com/articles/more-trouble-looms-for-hong-kong-11589148219?mod=opinion_lead_pos4

Hong Kong’s political health took a turn for the worse last week, even as the city celebrated progress in its containment of coronavirus. Beijing knows that the rest of the world is distracted with the pandemic, and it is exploiting the opportunity to exert more control in Hong Kong.

On Wednesday China’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office denounced the protest movement as “a political virus in Hong Kong” and warned that Beijing would not “sit idly by with these recklessly demented forces.” The office’s new director, Xia Baolong, is known for making good on Beijing’s threats. Before taking Hong Kong, he oversaw the arrest of Christians, the demolition of churches and the toppling of crosses in Zhejiang Province.

On Friday pro-democracy and pro-Beijing lawmakers got into a physical altercation at the Legislative Council building. The tussle broke out over who will lead the powerful House Committee, but the underlying issue is whether pro-democracy lawmakers will be able to block legislation that would suppress speech by criminalizing disrespect of the national anthem. The scuffle ended with pro-democracy lawmaker Andrew Wan carried off on a stretcher by paramedics and with security forcibly ejecting other pro-democracy lawmakers.

Continue reading →
ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Barack Obama on Michael Flynn The lawyer President misstates the crime and the real threat to justice.

By on May 11th, 2020

https://www.wsj.com/articles/barack-obama-on-michael-flynn-11589148648?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

Barack Obama is a lawyer, so it was stunning to read that he ventured into the Michael Flynn case in a way that misstated the supposed crime and ignored the history of his own Administration in targeting Mr. Flynn. Since the former President chose to offer his legal views when he didn’t need to, we wonder what he’s really worried about.

“There is no precedent that anybody can find for someone who has been charged with perjury just getting off scot-free,” Mr. Obama said in the Friday call to about 3,000 members of the Obama Alumni Association. The comments were leaked to Yahoo News and confirmed by Mr. Obama’s spokeswoman to the Washington Post and other outlets. Mr. Obama added: “That’s the kind of stuff where you begin to get worried that basic—not just institutional norms—but our basic understanding of rule of law is at risk. And when you start moving in those directions, it can accelerate pretty quickly as we’ve seen in other places.”

Even discounting for Mr. Obama’s partisan audience, this gets the case willfully wrong. Mr. Flynn was never charged with perjury, which is lying under oath in a legal proceeding. Mr. Flynn pleaded guilty to a single count of lying to the FBI in a meeting at the White House on Jan. 24, 2017 that he was led to believe was a friendly chat among colleagues.

As for “scot-free,” that better applies to former President Bill Clinton who lied under oath in a civil case and was impeached for perjury but was acquitted by the Senate. We understand why Mr. Obama wouldn’t bring that up.

Continue reading →
ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

‘Social Distancing’ is Snake Oil, Not Science By William Sullivan

By on May 11th, 2020

Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York says that it’s “shocking” to discover that 66 percent of new hospitalizations appear to have been among people “largely sheltering at home.” 

“We thought maybe they were taking public transportation,” he said, “but actually no, because these people were literally at home.”

“Much of this comes down to what you do to protect yourself,” he continues.  “Everything closed down, government has done everything it could, society has done everything it could.”

It’s your fault, he says to the hospitalized New Yorkers who loyally complied with his government directive.  But here’s an interesting alternative theory as to why, mostly, old people who are staying at home are being hospitalized.  What if the government directive to close everything down and mandate “social distancing” actually made the problem worse?

Dr. David Katz predicted precisely this outcome on March 20, in an article that is proving every bit as correct in its predictions and sober policy recommendations as Dr. Anthony Fauci has been proven incorrect — which is another way of saying that the article has proven flawless, so far. 

Continue reading →
POLITICS Comments turned off

Gavin Newsom for President? By Eileen F. Toplansky

By on May 11th, 2020

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/05/gavin_newsom_for_president.html

If, as Rush Limbaugh has opined, there is no way the Democrat Party will hoist Joe Biden over the finish line, then what do the Democrats have up their sleeve to stay in power?  After all, “[t]he Democrats have no enthusiasm.  There’s no fire in their bellies.  They’re grumbling even as they’re defending Biden. …[T]hey really couldn’t give a damn about Joe Biden.”

Enter Gavin Newsom. 

The California governor certainly has the credentials.  From the beginning of his term, he blatantly ignored constitutional and immigration law.  He has proven that he is a radical illegal immigration advocate, thus adhering to the first rule of the Democrat Party: bring in as many people who will vote Democrat as you can, and you will own the country forever.  In the midst of the coronavirus, Newsom has stated that California “will give cash payments to immigrants [sic] living in the country illegally.”  He has announced, that “using a mix of taxpayer money and charitable contributions  [California will] give 150,000 adults $500 each.”

In fact, “California has an estimated 2 million immigrants [sic] living in the country illegally.  They are not eligible for the $2.2 trillion stimulus package approved by Congress last month, which gives cash payments to most Americans plus boosts unemployment benefits by $600 per week,” but Newsom asserts that he feels “a deep sense of gratitude for people that are in fear of deportations that are still addressing essential needs of tens of millions of Californians[.]”

Continue reading →
NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Democrats Are Out To Destroy the Presidency They Covet

By on May 11th, 2020

https://www.nysun.com/editorials/democrats-are-out-to-destroy-the-presidency-they/91125/

Sometimes we wonder whether the Democrats intend to run for the presidency on a campaign to bring back the New Jersey Plan. Not the plan to disrupt traffic on the New Jersey side of the George Washington Bridge. Rather, the famed plan presented to the real George Washington at the Constitutional Convention of 1787. It would have granted the executive power of the United States not to a single individual but to members of an executive committee.

What invites the question — however hypothetical — is the reaction of the Democrats to the decision of the United States to move to drop the criminal case against President Trump’s first National Security Adviser, General Michael Flynn. This has driven the New York Times to paroxysms of self-righteousness in an editorial headlined “William Barr’s Perversion of Justice.” It amounts to a geshrai over the constitutional concept of the unitary executive.

This is the idea that the Constitution grants the president all the executive power of the government. This drives the left crazy whenever there is a Republican in the White House. Yet it comports with the plain language of the Constitution. It is sketched in the first sentence of Article 2, which says: “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.” The Article commands the president to take care that the laws be faithfully executed.

Continue reading →
NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Remember when Gov. Kemp was excoriated for re-opening Georgia? Thomas Lifson

By on May 10th, 2020

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/05/remember_when_gov_kemp_was_excoriated_for_reopening_georgia_are_you_wondering_how_that_has_worked_out.html

It was just over 2 weeks ago that Georgia’s Governor Brian Kemp was a monster with blood about to be on his hands for greatly loosening the restrictions on residents of the Peach State? Even President Trump joined in, criticizing this move as risky.

Since then, we haven’t seen much about the disaster that was supposed to automatically result from ignoring the gospel of Dr.Fauci.

Which tells you what has happened in this era of corrupt and dishonest propaganda media.

Amanda Prestigiacomo of the Daily Wire fills in the details that any reasonable person would infer from the media blackout:

 Republican Governor Brian Kemp of Georgia celebrated the state’s lowest number of hospitalized novel coronavirus patients and the fewest number of COVID-19 patients on ventilators on Saturday, 15 days since the Republican loosened lockdown restrictions in the face of persistent attacks from the mainstream media and the public disapproval of President Donald Trump.

Respiratory symptoms of COVID-19 “typically appear an average of 5-6 days after exposure, but may appear in as few as 2 days or as long as 14 days after exposure,” per the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), UC San Diego Health notes.

“Today marks the lowest number of COVID-19 positive patients currently hospitalized statewide (1,203) since hospitals began reporting this data on April 8th,” Kemp posted to Twitter on Saturday. “Today also marks the lowest total of ventilators in use (897 with 1,945 available). We will win this fight together!”

Continue reading →
HISTORY Comments turned off

Blitzkrieg Lessons for 2020 By Taylor Dinerman

By on May 10th, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/05/coronavirus-pandemic-blitzkrieg-lessons-for-2020/

The problem is greater than just a few moments of panic.

  E ighty years ago, on May 10, 1940, Winston Churchill took over as Britain’s prime minister and Hitler launched his attack on Holland, Belgium, and France. The Blitzkrieg, as it became known, was a spectacular military success: In less than six weeks Nazi Germany defeated the Allied armies and occupied the Low Countries and a big part of France while at the same time kicking the British off the Continent.

How the Germans did it has been the subject of numerous books. But one thing that emerges is that, both at the time and later, the Allies, and the then-neutral Americans, failed to understand what really happened. A set of myths developed, many of which were believed and propagated by various military experts and intelligence services.

Most historians put the critical turning point on the morning of May 15, when in a moment of panic the French prime minister Paul Reynaud told Churchill, “We have been defeated.” The panic was based on mostly distorted and inaccurate information from the French army’s high command and from the intelligence services. The offensive was expected, but the location was not, with the attack coming about a hundred miles south of where the allies thought the main thrust would take place. The army’s command structure was unable to adapt quickly enough to the new situation, and this in turn created panic at the highest levels of government.

Today, with the Wuhan coronavirus presenting a completely unexpected challenge to governments all over the world, panic, or something like it, seems to be gripping leaders at all levels. In Michigan and Maine the governors have obviously tried to hide their panic behind masks of authoritarian bluster. In New York, Andrew Cuomo had a very public ventilator-shortage breakdown, though he recovered. The media naturally stuck the tape of his panic down the memory hole.

The problem is greater than just a few moments of panic. It involves the sad fact that some people who’ve been credentialed as experts are incompetent time-servers, men and women who fit the requirements of leading big organizations but lack the imagination and daring to deal with the unexpected. In war it is all too often the case that peacetime generals are just not up to the job. In the current time of plague, few of the public-health experts who are attached to what one might call “top-down” solutions have covered themselves in glory. Political leaders should have learned to be skeptical.

Continue reading →
NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Are Endless Lockdowns the Result of Malice or Stupidity? By David Solway

By on May 10th, 2020

https://pjmedia.com/columns/david-solway-2/2020/05/10/are-endless-lockdowns-the-result-of-malice-or-stupidity-n389548

In a harrowing article for PJ Media, Dennis Prager argues that the COVID-19 global lockdown is “possibly, the worst mistake the world has ever made,” leading to a mortality rate eclipsing anything the virus could have delivered. Widespread famine in Third World Countries and extreme poverty across the globe are now imminent, “all because of the lockdowns, not the virus.” A study released on May 4 by the nonprofit research institute Just Facts confirms Prager’s argument, concluding that “the total loss of life from all societal responses to this disease is likely to be more than 90 times greater than prevented by the lockdowns.”

Despair, anxiety, bankruptcies, suicide, reduced productivity, diminishment of life expectancy as well as “quality of life,” and postponement of elective surgeries (just one example of undoubted millions: my wife’s mother is going blind but corrective treatment has been put off indefinitely) are some of the consequences of the great “flattening.” 

When one factors in the economic costs and attendant suffering, the effect is almost too staggering to contemplate. How could our leaders have committed such a blunder? Prager is at pains to clarify that the economic catastrophe we are undergoing globally should be attributed not to evil intentions but primarily to rank incompetence. He is obviously invoking “Hanlon’s razor” that advises us: “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” 

Prager writes: “The lockdown is a mistake; the Holocaust, slavery, communism, fascism, etc., were evils. Massive mistakes are made by arrogant fools; massive evils are committed by evil people.” I suspect the razor applies to many government leaders who simply did everything wrong and then doubled down on their error rather than admit mortal fallibility. They were stupid—and too proud to acknowledge their mistake. They ensured that the remedy would be worse than the disease, but they cannot be blamed for malice aforethought.

Continue reading →
ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Ten reasons to end the lockdown now Lockdown is impairing our ability to live with the effects of this virus, while not changing the long game Dr John Lee

By on May 10th, 2020

https://spectator.us/ten-reasons-end-lockdown-now/

Writing in this magazine a month ago, I applauded the British government’s stated aim of trying to follow the science in dealing with COVID. Such promises are easier made than kept. Following science means understanding science. It means engaging with rival interpretations of the limited data in order to tease out what is most important in what we don’t know. Instead, the government in the UK (and many other places) seems uninterested in alternative viewpoints. The chosen narrative — that lockdown has saved countless lives — has been doggedly followed by all spokespeople. No doubt is allowed. We have been seeing the groupthink response to a perceived external threat that Jonathan Haidt describes so lucidly in his excellent book on human moral thinking, The Righteous Mind.

It has now become a matter of faith that lockdown is vital. Not only is it believed to be causally responsible for ‘flattening the curve’, but it is feared that releasing it too soon may cause a second spike in cases and ‘economic disaster’ (presumably due to further huge numbers of deaths). On what evidence is this made?

Even if you could understand why lockdown was imposed, it very rapidly became apparent that it had not been thought through. Not in terms of the wider effects on society (which have yet to be counted) and not even in terms of the ways that the virus itself might behave. But at the start, there was hardly any evidence. Everyone was guessing. Now we have a world of evidence, from around the globe, and the case for starting to reverse lockdown is compelling. Here are 10 reasons why I believe that it is wrong to continue with lockdown and why we should start to reverse it immediately and rapidly.

1. You cannot understand the significance of this virus simply by looking at the raw death figures

Continue reading →
WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

No end to lockdown yet but ‘careful’ easing begins, British PM Johnson says Kylie MacLellan

By on May 10th, 2020

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-britain/britains-johnson-to-set-out-five-tier-coronavirus-warning-system-idUSKBN22M07D

LONDON (Reuters) – British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Sunday the coronavirus lockdown will not end yet, urging people to “stay alert” to the risks as he outlined plans to begin slowly easing measures that have closed down much of the economy for nearly seven weeks.

While his government was giving directions for England, it wants the United Kingdom’s other constituent nations – Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland – to take the same approach. But there were immediate divisions, with Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon saying she was sticking with the existing “stay at home” message.

Johnson announced a limited easing of restrictions, including allowing people to exercise outside more often and encouraging those who cannot work from home to return to their jobs.

“This is not the time simply to end the lockdown this week,” he said in a televised address. “Instead we are taking the first careful steps to modify our measures.”

Johnson’s government has faced criticism from opposition parties and others over its handling of the pandemic and the prime minister is wary of taking the brakes off too soon. Britain’s coronavirus death toll – 31,855 – is the second highest in the world, behind only the United States. The bulk of the cases and deaths have been in England.

The government’s decision to replace its “stay at home” slogan, drummed into the public for weeks, was criticised by opposition parties who called the new “stay alert” message too ambiguous.

Continue reading →