RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2020/05/strange-times/

“Did Nero, Robespierre, Hitler, Stalin, Castro, Mao, Pol Pot or Pinochet ever dream of such power as has been ceded to our various public health officers? The dictators of old would be green with jealousy to see entire populations reduced to meek compliance without the threat of torture and death.”

Does anyone feel like me? More aggrieved and irritated at the behaviour and demeanour of politicians loosening restrictions than when they were imposing them. ‘We in our magnificence deign that you can now congregate in larger groups than two, five, or ten, provided you remain distant from each other, constantly wash your hands, sneeze into your elbows, and don’t stand up in pubs or restaurants or hang about too long. And none of that dangerous singing in church, if we ever allow you again to partake of those primitive rituals.’

Yes, m’lord and m’lady. No, m’lord and m’lady. Three bags full, m’lord, m’lady.

At the same time, I have to say that journalists who know what’s best for us run politicians a close second in the irritating-beyond-words stakes. Best not to speak about the unspeakable – public health officials. Is there any group of people more blinkered, less empathetic? Haven’t come across one.

Just opened my Weekend Australian at the op-ed page.  Gerard Henderson is there, hurrah. Then we have (to me) the insufferable PVO, Katrina Grace Kelly telling us that “home sweet work is the new normal” and Fiona Harari telling us that “keeping our distance is not natural but it’s for our own good.” Yuk!

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

Congress is tossing around trillion-dollar relief packages, as we might a car or student loan, or a loan from Aunt Sally. A trillion is a big number, difficult even to conceive. Five thousand round trips to the sun would amount to less than a trillion miles. A trillion hours is greater than 100 million years, which would take one back to the Cretaceous Period when dinosaurs roamed the earth. A stack of a trillion one-dollar bills would reach 67,866 miles into the sky. The earth contains seven and a half billion people, a big number but less than one percent of a trillion

Here in the land of make-believe, the Democrat-led House of Representatives just passed the $3 trillion HEROES Act. A month earlier, Congress passed, and the President signed, the $2 trillion CARES Act. Combined, that Five trillion exceeds the 2020 federal budget. It exceeds, in current dollars, what we spent to conduct World War II. “Desperate times call for desperate measures,” is an ancient adage. However, do American taxpayers fully comprehend the size of the obligation to which Congress has committed them, their children and grandchildren? Senator Everett Dirksen (1896-1969 – R-Il) is alleged to have said: “A billion here, a billion there and pretty soon you’re talking real money.” Here it is, two generations later, and we’ve upped the ante a thousand-fold. In a time of crisis, Americans should not be parsimonious, but we expect our representatives to be prudent and respectful about spending money that is not theirs. To use this money to bail out profligate states and extend already generous benefits to public employees should not be the purpose. America needs to get back to work.

Government generates no income. That is hard to believe, given the lifestyles and the prodigality with which politicians toss money around. Government takes from taxpayers, and it borrows on behalf of those same taxpayers who are legally committed to pay it back. With a median annual household income in the U.S. of $63,000, and assuming a four-person household, the proposed borrowing for COVID-19 and its economic fallout amounts to just under a year’s income for the average household. And, that $5 trillion is on top of total federal debt of $22 trillion, growing at a rate of $1 trillion a year. Unfunded pension and health benefits compound the debt problem for the American taxpayer. Depending on the discount rate one uses, unfunded liabilities approach $50 trillion. Where will the money come from? There are only three answers: one, growth in GDP, which requires free markets, rule of law and limited but sensible regulation; two, higher taxes, which inhibit economic growth, and/or three, a depreciated dollar, which will reduce future living standards.

I woke up this morning and asked myself, “what am I doing arguing about Hydroxychloroquine?”   I had been having a never-ending discussion about HCQ.  Neither of us were influenced by the other.

HCQ is a medical-scientific question.  It either works all of the time, some of the time or none of the time.  It is either dangerous all of the time, some of the time or none of the time.  I cannot have any effect on the question 0f HCQ.  I was able to have an effect on getting the Neo-Nazis and KKKers off AOL.  I was able to have an effect on destroying the Jew-Hating forum of MoveOn.org.  I will turn my efforts to more productive things.

It occurred to me that this widespread battle started because President Trump made a favorable comment about HCQ early in the epidemic.  Trump-Haters cannot stand anything that Trump shows any indication of supporting.  They do not have this reaction to any other medicine in the world and they all have the same question and they all have possible side effects.

An American I know who is living in Paris, France tells me that Americans are not well informed, unsophisticated and believe in propaganda from one source.  While Fox is not specifically mentioned it is alluded to.  After all, all the other prime media, like CNN, are always against Trump.   Never mind that I am not influenced by the news readers but by videos, audios and writings of original participants in interviews and events, people like politicians.  I am also influenced by investigative reporters who have consistently been proven right, by documents obtained under freedom of information requests (FOIA), and by lawyers telling us what the laws are.

https://amgreatness.com/2020/05/23/rage-and-recriminations-in-the-wake-of-covid-19/

In the middle of my tiny neighborhood on the Connecticut shore, there is a nobbly, plinth-like stone about 2 feet high surrounded by a circle of grass and some simple decorative stonework. On one side of the stone there is a brass plaque to “the eternal memory” of the 26 men from the neighborhood who fought in World War I, “the great conflict between liberty and autocracy.” On the other side, a plaque commemorates the 17 men who fought in World War II “that mankind might live in freedom.”

Every year for the more than two decades we’ve lived here, the neighborhood has marked Memorial Day with a little celebration: some children parade, place flowers by the stone, someone makes a few remarks at the clubhouse across the street. This year, there’s been no talk of getting together for a Memorial Day celebration because getting together is verboten. Our ancestors fought for liberty against the forces of autocracy, “that mankind might live in freedom.” We cower in our homes, constantly told to “practice social distancing,” and not to venture out of doors without a mask. 

In a recent neighborhood survey, 86 percent of the respondents (but not your faithful correspondent) were in favor of people keeping “a minimum 6-foot distance” from one another (my emphasis), 60 percent were in favor of “limiting large group gatherings on common properties.” 

One respondent noted that she (I feel sure it was a “she,” though the posted responses were anonymous) would be “happy to wear a mask in the neighborhood” but wanted “guidelines.” For example, “should I wear one in my front yard?” I would say yes, she should. “What about when running?” Definitely when running. Also when showering or eating. 

http://dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/4011/What-To-Do-About-the-IC-Big-Lie-That-Russia-Hacked-the-DNC.aspx

Back in October, I abandoned an essay I had begun about Andy McCarthy’s book, Ball of Collusion, especially regarding his statement of faith in the so-called Intelligence Community and Mueller Report finding that “Russia” “hacked” the DNC (see below). As many will recall, the evidence for this finding is a redacted draft report submitted to the FBI by a DNC contractor, Crowdstrike. 

After the recent release of December 2017 testimony by Crowdstrike co-founder (and Mueller protege) Shawn Henry in which he admits that Crowdstrike had no evidence for this foundational charge, I wondered how we might approach the colossal course correction, news correction, history correction, the admission requires, not to mention the questions it raises about this testimony having remained locked away from public sight for two and half desperate years. After all, this charge — that “Russia” “hacked” the DNC — was the basis of the entire Trump-Russia disinformation campaign that served as the Obama administration cover for its anti-Trump conspiracy.

It was all but universally promoted, set in play and driven by the DNC, the “IC,” the Hillary Clinton campaign, the media complex, and “accepted,” as in the case of Andy McCarthy (as he describes below), on faith by almost all Republicans — even including by the Nunes committee in its final report on Russia and the election in March 2018. (This is more than passing strange given Shawn Henry’s testimony in December 2017 before that same committee.)

This same claim was also the basis of the first line of the attack on the legitimacy of President Trump’s electoral victory and his presidency, his own loyalty to this country, and that of his supporters. It was also one of the conspirators’ primary justifications for the Stasi-like surveillance and subversion of the Trump campaign and White House.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/05/the-arts-of-government-criminality/

Destroying or altering evidence, lying under oath, leaking classified info … but no pre-dawn televised raid for any of the wrongdoers.

In the entire 2016–19 efforts to derail the Trump campaign, transition, and presidency, Hillary Clinton, Christopher Steele, and the FBI, Department of Justice, CIA, and other government bureaus have consistently sought to distort reality. Some of our best and brightest have destroyed evidence, altered documents, lied, leaked, and pled amnesia when questioned about their reprehensible conduct. At each stage, they were aided and abetted by a compliant media.

The dissimulation over the past four years has fallen into four rough categories. Here are a few examples of each.

Deletion of Evidence

Christopher Steele, who bragged for years of his meticulous research and whose work has been quoted chapter and verse as proof of Trump wrongdoing, recently testified under oath to a British court that he now has no records of his supposed conversations with “sub source” Russian informants. His lawyers previously had insisted that his sources were “meticulously documented and recorded.” Now Steele sheepishly admits that such an assertion was a lie, given that he can produce no evidence at all for his meticulous allegations. He admits that his emails and documents were wiped clean from his devices by January 2017.

FBI operatives working with the Mueller investigation team admitted that thousands of undisclosed text messages between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page simply disappeared. In addition, the phones of Strzok and Page apparently were wiped clean after Strzok was dismissed from the Mueller team. Most of these mysterious losses, according to the Mueller investigation, were supposedly a result of a software glitch or other computer malfunctions.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/05/coronavirus-pandemic-ok-to-acknowledge-good-news/

Among progressives and journalists, there’s a widespread sense that no one should say things have gotten better . . . or people are going to die.

It’s not March anymore.

The coronavirus has taken a heartbreaking toll on Americans, but the course of the virus is not the same as it was a few months ago. We are on the other side of the curve. There are encouraging signs all over the country, and no early indications of a reopening debacle.

The question now is whether the media and political system can absorb good news on the virus, which is often ignored or buried under misleading storylines.

The press has a natural affinity for catastrophes, which make compelling viewing and good copy. The pandemic is indeed a once-in-a-generation story. So, the media are naturally loath to shift gears and acknowledge that the coronavirus has begun to loosen its grip.

Meanwhile, progressives and many journalists have developed a near-theological commitment to the lockdowns, such that any information that undermines them is considered unwelcome, even threatening. This accounts for the widespread sense that no one should say things have gotten better . . . or people are going to die.

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/coronavirus-facebook-youtube-control-information-alex-berenson

As coronavirus lockdowns enter their third month, social media giants are tightening censorship against people who protest lockdowns and raise evidence the virus may be less risky than initially thought.

YouTube has pulled videos from scientists and physicians, even those with top-tier credentials. Meanwhile, Facebook has blocked efforts to organize protests against lockdowns.

Facebook’s stance is particularly problematic because as the largest social media network, it may gain from lockdowns, which force friends or community groups to rely on virtual gatherings instead of real-life meetings.

Investors certainly seem to believe the lockdowns have not hurt Facebook. Its stock rose 5 percent to an all-time high on Wednesday. Shares in Google’s parent company, which also owns YouTube, also are near an all-time high.

Twitter, the third major social media company, is taking a more open and pro-free speech stance. Twitter allows debate about whether the societal risks of lockdowns might be worse than the dangers of coronavirus. (My own Twitter following @alexberenson has grown 15-fold since March, and Twitter does not appear to be censoring me.)

As private corporations, social media outlets are not bound by the First Amendment and can remove speech that violates their guidelines. However, given their reach and the growing political battle over lockdowns amid questions about their efficacy, their censorship actions leave them at risk of backlash.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/05/22/miscalculating_risk_confusing_scary_with_dangerous.html

The coronavirus kills, everyone knows it. But this isn’t the first deadly virus the world has seen, so what happened? Why did we react the way we did? One answer is that this is the first social media pandemic. News and narratives travel in real-time right into our hands.

This spreads fear in a way we have never experienced. Drastic and historically unprecedented lockdowns of the economy happened and seemed to be accepted with little question.

We think the world is confusing “scary” with “dangerous.” They are not the same thing. It seems many have accepted as fact that coronavirus is one of the scariest things the human race has ever dealt with. But is it the most dangerous? Or even close?

There are four ways to categorize any given reality. It can be scary but not dangerous, scary and dangerous, dangerous but not scary, or not dangerous and not scary.

Clearly, COVID-19 ranks high on the scary scale. A Google news search on the virus brings up over 1.5 billion news results. To date, the virus has tragically killed nearly 100,000 people in the United States, and more lives will be lost. But on a scale of harmless to extremely dangerous, it would still fall into the category of slightly to mildly dangerous for most people, excluding the elderly and those with preexisting medical conditions.

https://babylonbee.com/news/stacey-abrams-says-she-would-step-down-from-governorship-if-asked-to-run-for-vp

Sitting at the governor’s desk at the Georgia state capitol, Stacey Abrams told reporters she would step down from her governorship if asked to run for vice president.

“If Biden asks me to run, I’ll need to focus on that full-time,” she said. “As much as I love running this great state, if the country needs me, I’ll be there.”

A security guard patrolling the capitol building then entered the governor’s office. “Come on, Stacey. Time to go. How many times do we have to have this talk?”