RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/01/25/the-bitter-fruit-of-pandemic-paranoia/

One media report says “the U.S. economy dropped down to a slower gear in January” due to the Omicron variant. But that’s being overly charitable. This is President Joe Biden’s economy. And his party’s. Leaving them in charge of federal policy beyond 2022 will lead to years if not decades of regret.

Surveys of senior business executives provide “the first clear indication of the damage done to the U.S. economy in the first month of the new year,” MarketWatch said Monday. “A ‘flash’ index of service-oriented companies tumbled to an 18-month low of 50.9 from 57.6 in the final month of 2021 … a similar gauge of manufacturers dropped to 55 from 57.7 in December – a 15-month low.”

The article goes on to say “Omicron clearly dented the economy in January,” as “millions” missed work “and the virus disrupted already strained supply chains.” The hardest punches connected on the jaws of “restaurants and other businesses that ‘serve’ customers directly.”

It didn’t have to be this way.

Biden swore he was going to shut down the virus but not the economy. The former was a promise no one could possibly keep. The latter, however, was easily reachable.

https://amgreatness.com/2022/01/24/did-the-justice-department-lie-about-pence-and-harris-location-on-january-6/

Of the more than 725 Americans arrested so far for various crimes related to the Capitol protest on January 6, 2021, nearly every defendant faces the same two misdemeanor charges: “entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds” and “disorderly conduct in a restricted building or grounds.”

The basis for the offenses is not, as the American people repeatedly have been told, that the building was closed to the public that day. After all, hundreds of people were allowed inside as Capitol police stood by; no signage or official announcements alerted the public that the building was off-limits.

Instead, the Justice Department has argued that the presence of both Vice President Michael Pence and incoming Vice President Kamala Harris rendered entry into the Capitol on January 6 a federal crime under 18 U.S. Code section 1752. In every charging document, the government relies on section 1752 to define a “restricted building” as the location of the “President or other person protected by the Secret Service,” which would have included Pence and Harris.

For example, the initial indictment for Florida resident Howard Adams twice claimed that “the Vice President and Vice President-elect were temporarily visiting” the building that afternoon, which is why Adams was charged in May with two criminal counts under section 1752.

But a superseding indictment issued by prosecutors in December made a major correction to Adams’ case: the new filing omitted the term “Vice President-elect.” Why? Because Kamala Harris was not in the Capitol when Adams or any protester entered the building on January 6.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/01/in_her_defamation_trial_sarah_palin_might_want_to_challenge_her_judge_for_cause.html

Sarah Palin’s defamation lawsuit against the New York Times was finally set to go to trial yesterday. However, the trial’s start was delayed when Palin tested positive for COVID. Nowadays, that’s unexceptional. It’s what happened after that’s the problem. The judge’s sneering response when he heard about Palin’s positive test indicates that he is incapable of being impartial and needs to be challenged for cause.

Palin’s lawsuit had its origin in a smear the Times made against Palin in 2011. When a delusional man tried to murder Congresswoman Gabby Giffords and managed to kill a lot of other people in the process, the New York Times claimed the culprit was a Palin PAC flyer that showed, not Giffords, but her district, as well as several other districts across America, with a camera sight imposed over them. The PAC’s point was that the politicians in these districts were vulnerable to a GOP takeover:

There wasn’t a scintilla of evidence that the murderer had seen or was influenced by the flyer. Moreover, it quickly became clear that he was both insane and had a long-standing, obsessive hatred for Giffords. However, Palin didn’t sue over this smear.

In 2017, however, when a Bernie Bro attempted to kill the entire Republican House membership and ended up almost murdering Congressman Steve Scalise, the New York Times decided that the fault lay with Palin. Why? Because, wrote the Times, Bernie had never incited anyone to kill Republicans the way that Palin’s map had incited the attack on Gifford. Again, this was a complete and total lie.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/01/was_the_pandemic_caused_by_a_leaked_bioweapon_or_a_mishap_in_the_vaccine_race.html

The devastation wreaked by the Covid-19 virus on human life and the world economy – especially the way it made doomsday scenarios of contagion all too real – has made ordinary people anxious to know its origin.  Shockingly, there is enough evidence and reason to suspect that the pandemic might have been the result of a vaccine arms race that skirted dangerously close to bioweapons development.  And that a leak from a lab in Wuhan, China – inadvertent or, well, by design – may have been responsible for the pandemic.  The behind-the-scenes players were the U.S. government, Big Pharma, and China – which in essence means the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

This is no fuzzy conspiracy theory.  But it’s a complex story and calls for careful unraveling.  Conservative political commentator Glenn Beck does that in a stunning “chalkboard exposé” – his signature methodology for connecting the dots on important issues of the day.  Crimes or Cover-Up? Exposing the World’s Most Dangerous Lie, a two-hour production, has Beck unfolding the map and the timeline in three parts: 1) The Vaccine Arms Race, 2) The Pandemic Begins, and 3) Censorship and Cover-Up.  (Supporting documents are available here.)

There are four key dramatis personae: Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to the U.S. President; Dr. Ralph Baric, epidemiologist and expert on coronaviruses at the University of North Carolina; Dr. Peter Daszak, a zoologist whose EcoHealth Alliance channeled over $3 million from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the epicenter of the outbreak; and Dr. Zhengli Shi, a Chinese virologist at the Wuhan institute who was collaborating with Dr. Daszak. 

ttps://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/01/china-wins-gold-tyranny-terence-p-jeffrey/

When Ohio State played Utah at the Rose Bowl on New Year’s Day, 87,842 people packed into that stadium to watch the game.

On New Year’s Eve, 66,839 attended the Orange Bowl to watch Georgia take on Michigan, and 76,313 attended the Cotton Bowl to watch Alabama take on Cincinnati.

COVID-19 did not stop them.

When the 2022 Winter Olympics start in Beijing in a little more than two weeks, the various venues for that event will hold only those who the Communist government of the People’s Republic of China allows to be there.

No one will be allowed to buy a ticket for any contest at the Beijing Olympics.

Over the past month, the People’s Republic of China has repeatedly escalated the restrictions it will impose on who can attend the Olympic games and what they will be allowed to do there.

On Sept. 29, the International Olympic Committee announced that people from outside mainland China would not be admitted as spectators to the games.

https://www.city-journal.org/covid-origin-conspiracy

From almost the moment the Covid-19 pandemic broke out in the city of Wuhan, the medical-research establishment in Washington and London insisted that the virus had emerged naturally. Only conspiracy theorists, they said, would give credence to the idea that the virus had escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Now a string of unearthed emails—the most recent being a batch viewed by the House Oversight and Reform Committee and referred to in its January 11, 2022 letter—is making it seem increasingly likely that there was, in fact, a conspiracy, its aim being to suppress the notion that the virus had emerged from research funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), headed by Anthony Fauci. The latest emails don’t prove such a conspiracy, but they make it more plausible, for two reasons: because the expert virologists therein present such a strong case for thinking that the virus had lab-made features and because of the wholly political reaction to this bombshell on the part of Francis Collins, then-director of the National Institutes of Health.

The story begins with a January 31, 2020, email to Fauci from a group of four virologists led by Kristian G. Andersen of the Scripps Research Institute. The genome sequence of SARS-CoV-2 had been published three weeks before, giving virologists their first look at the virus’s structure and possible origin.

Andersen reported to Fauci that “after discussions earlier today, Eddie, Bob, Mike and myself all find the genome inconsistent with expectations from evolutionary theory.” Eddie is Edward C. Holmes of the University of Sydney; Bob is Robert F. Garry of Tulane University; Mike is Michael Farzan at Scripps Research. In their unanimous view, the virus didn’t come from nature and may instead have escaped from a lab.

We knew this much already from emails obtained in June 2021 by a Freedom of Information Act request, as well as from the fact that a teleconference took place the following day (February 1, 2020) to discuss the virologists’ conclusion. But something remarkable happened at the conference, because within three days Andersen was singing a different tune. In a February 4, 2020 email, he derided ideas about a lab leak as “crackpot theories” that “relate to this virus being somehow engineered with intent and that is demonstrably not the case.”

https://www.nysun.com/editorials/treasons-sibling/91966/

If we were President Trump’s lawyers — a stretch to be sure — we would be reading up on a Supreme Court case called Ex Parte Bollman. It centers on a conspiracy of treason in respect of Aaron Burr. A United States magistrate will today weigh whether to deny bail to the leader of the Oath Keepers, Elmer Stewart Rhodes III, on a charge — seditious conspiracy — that Harvard’s Laurence Tribe calls “treason’s sibling.”

Which is where Bollman comes in. It was the first treason ruling by the Supreme Court. Sedition is a lesser crime than treason, which the Constitution confines to levying war against the United States or adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. Yet if Mr. Rhodes et al are convicted, they could spend decades in prison. And so, Bollman warns, could Mr. Trump.

Prosecutors’ intentions to ensnare Mr. Trump in seditious conspiracy charges emerged in court filings for a defendant named Brandon Straka. In Justice Department interviews with Mr. Straka, his lawyer says, “the government was focused on establishing an organized conspiracy” between Mr. Straka, “President Donald J. Trump, and allies of the former president to disrupt the joint session of Congress on Jan. 6.”

This suggests the intention of prosecutors to “reach beyond those who took part in the melee on Jan. 6 and seek to build a case against Mr. Trump,” along with “his allies who helped inspire the violence that day,” the New York Times last week observed. If so, prosecutorial efforts to prove that Mr. Rhodes committed seditious conspiracy will serve as a preview of coming attractions for Mr. Trump.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/biden-calls-fox-news-reporter-a-stupid-son-of-a-b-for-asking-about-inflation-impact-on-midterms/

President Biden was caught insulting Fox News reporter Peter Doocy on Monday for asking if he believes inflation is a “political liability” in the midterms.

“That’s a great asset — more inflation,” Biden responded on a hot mic. “What a stupid son of a b****.”

Biden’s comment comes weeks after a Labor Department report showed inflation increased at the fastest rate in 40 years over the last twelve months. The report showed that the consumer price index, a major inflation gauge, for all items surged 0.5 percent in December and 7.0 percent for the last twelve months ending in December, representing the largest annual spike since June 1982, when inflation hit 7.1 percent.

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/01/24/ii-tipp-poll-americans-agree-mcconnell-pelosi-fauci-and-breyer-should-ride-off-into-the-sunset/

In a time marked by widening political differences across the country and growing ideological acrimony, it’s probably no surprise to anyone that politicians and other government officials have come under increasing critical scrutiny.

In a new I&I/TIPP Poll, we asked Americans which of four prominent public officials now making headlines should retire or leave office. Turns out, it’s all of them.

Poll respondents were asked the following question: “Should the following officials retire soon or continue?” People were then given the names of four major public officials: Republican Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Chief Presidential Medical Advisor Anthony Fauci, and Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer.

All of those named, it should be noted, have come under intense public pressure from both political interest groups, activists and media pundits to either retire or resign.

Do ordinary Americans agree?

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/science/articles/saving-democracy-from-pandemic

COVID-19 has killed millions and threatened the prospects of democracy for billions more. Since early 2020, the world has witnessed a marked expansion of governmental decision-making regarding health. Lockdowns and curfews were instated in many countries, and many freedoms were taken away under the justification of a major health threat. Health authorities and politicians alluding to or exploiting health authorities acquired extraordinary power to regulate society at large, including the application of mandates. A Freedom House report found that democracy grew weaker in 80 countries during COVID-19, and that in 2020 the number of free countries reached the lowest level in 15 years. Countries that regressed included ones you’d expect like China and Belarus, but also democratic bulwarks like the United States, France, Denmark, and the Netherlands. The United States was listed as one of the 25 countries that witnessed the steepest declines in freedom. Even if the pandemic enters a less threatening endemic phase (as may already be the case in several countries), the legacy of authoritarian measures and mandates may leave behind a more enduring threat to democracy.

Several governments responded to the lethal pandemic by undermining the very systems that were in place to ensure accountability and to protect public health and well-being. No single individual can be blamed for this—it was a systemic problem, as decisions taken by one government or government agency instantaneously affected the decisions of others. But the result was the restriction of basic freedoms and the normalization of scapegoating and exclusion, both historically a prelude to atrocities. While some extreme actions were justified as efforts to achieve otherwise laudable goals (like increasing rates of vaccination), the attempt to isolate vast numbers of people while whipping the general population into agreement on aggressive public health policies probably damaged even these goals.