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50 STATES AND DC, CONGRESS AND THE PRESIDENT

Pentagon, Biden Transition Team Spar Over Canceled Meetings By Rick Moran

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2020/12/19/pentagon-biden-transition-team-spar-over-canceled-meetings-n1221011

Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller has canceled all planned meetings between the Biden transition team and Pentagon officials, setting off some hysterical handwringing from the media.

The move is temporary, according to Pentagon officials, but Biden’s transition lackeys are apparently still in campaign mode. They are  “concerned” about “an abrupt halt to the already limited cooperation,” which sounds more like a candidate surrogate complaining than someone trying to set up a government.

Defense News:

Axios first reported Friday morning that acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller, who was installed at the Pentagon days after the Nov. 3 election, had ordered scheduled meetings to be canceled. After the initial report, the Pentagon pushed back, saying the pause was a rescheduling of meetings for Friday due to “competing priorities” for officials, and that meetings would open up again in the new year, following what was described as a planned two-week Christmas break.

What might those “competing priorities” be? The Pentagon says they have an agreed-upon pause in the discussions as they break for the Christmas holidays for two weeks.

“After the mutually-agreed-upon holiday pause, which begins tomorrow, we will continue with the transition and rescheduled meetings from today,” the statement added. “Again, I remain committed to a full and transparent transition — this is what our nation expects and the DoD will deliver AS IT ALWAYS HAS.”

However, at a Friday briefing, Biden transition spokespeople Yohannes Abraham and Jen Psaki denied there was an agreed upon holiday pause and called for the Pentagon to immediately restart the discussions.

Lockdowns Do Not Control the Coronavirus: The Evidence

https://www.aier.org/article/lockdowns-do-not-control-the-coronavirus-the-evidence/

The use of universal lockdowns in the event of the appearance of a new pathogen has no precedent. It has been a science experiment in real time, with most of the human population used as lab rats. The costs are legion. 

The question is whether lockdowns worked to control the virus in a way that is scientifically verifiable. Based on the following studies, the answer is no and for a variety of reasons: bad data, no correlations, no causal demonstration, anomalous exceptions, and so on. There is no relationship between lockdowns (or whatever else people want to call them to mask their true nature) and virus control. 

Perhaps this is a shocking revelation, given that universal social and economic controls are becoming the new orthodoxy. In a saner world, the burden of proof really should belong to the lockdowners, since it is they who overthrew 100 years of public-health wisdom and replaced it with an untested, top-down imposition on freedom and human rights. They never accepted that burden. They took it as axiomatic that a virus could be intimidated and frightened by credentials, edicts, speeches, and masked gendarmes. 

The pro-lockdown evidence is shockingly thin, and based largely on comparing real-world outcomes against dire computer-generated forecasts derived from empirically untested models, and then merely positing that stringencies and “nonpharmaceutical interventions” account for the difference between the fictionalized vs. the real outcome. The anti-lockdown studies, on the other hand, are evidence-based, robust, and thorough, grappling with the data we have (with all its flaws) and looking at the results in light of controls on the population. 

The Banality of BILL BARR Thomas J. Farnan

https://thenationalpulse.com/commentary/the-banality-of-bill-barr/

In June, Attorney General Bill Barr sat for an interview in CNN’s Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer and predicted widespread fraud with mail in voting.

He said: “People trying to change the rules to this, to this methodology – which, as a matter of logic, is very open to fraud and coercion – is reckless and dangerous and people are playing with fire.”

At the time, Barr was the nation’s top law enforcement officer with an obligation to prevent election fraud under a bevy of federal statutes.

What He Could’ve Done.

Maybe an investigation of Silicon Valley billionaires ballot harvesting in black neighborhoods, for starters, and then a warrant for surveillance cameras at counting facilities in Philadelphia, Milwaukee, Atlanta and Detroit, with federal agents on hand to double check the chain of custody of boxes coming through the back door.

Instead, election integrity was preserved with federal investigations to prevent nonexistent seditious activity emanating from dubious white militias. The “reckless and dangerous” mail-in ballot operation the Attorney General warned about was ignored.

Trump’s political rise is because our institutions no longer work for the common good and instead serve the idiosyncratic preferences of the sclerotic establishment. Picking a bombastic outsider is the only way that 75-million Americans know to tell them to cut it out.

Jeffrey Toobin and the Media’s Curious Code of Decency By Mark Heimingway

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/12/19/jeffrey_toobin_and_the_medias_curious_code_of_decency_144888.html

Some 3,000 Americans a day are dying of COVID-19, a significant chunk of the country won’t accept November’s election results, and Russian hackers appear to have compromised much of the federal government. Amid this mayhem, the mainstream media found time to address an issue that most Americans haven’t given a second thought: Will Jeffrey Toobin’s career survive?

In case you haven’t heard – or have mercifully forgotten – during an Oct. 15 New Yorker magazine staff meeting held on Zoom, the 60 year-old Toobin “was seen lowering and raising his computer camera, exposing and touching his penis, and motioning an air kiss to someone other than his colleagues,” according to a New York Times report. Dozens of staff members from the venerable magazine were assembled online for an election simulation exercise, which in retrospect sounds like an unfortunate euphemism.

On Nov. 11, Condé Nast, which owns The New Yorker, fired Toobin from a job he’d held for 27 years. Although he’s on self-imposed leave at CNN, he is still employed as its chief legal analyst. “Three CNN employees say that network president, Jeff Zucker, is a big fan of Mr. Toobin’s and a believer in second chances,” reports the Times.

Society’s blithe acceptance of ubiquitous Internet pornography might make an inadvertent indiscretion in front of your home computer seem understandable to many. However, for Toobin this isn’t a first transgression – it’s déjà vu all over again. His smarmy behavior has been public knowledge for a very long time. The Times recounts how in 2003 the married Toobin asked out a colleague. Before they could even go out, he left her an answering machine message explicitly describing in vulgar detail the sex acts he wanted to perform with her.

In 2008, Toobin had an affair with Casey Greenfield, the much-younger daughter of veteran political journalist Jeff Greenfield. When Casey Greenfield became pregnant, Toobin reportedly offered her money to have an abortion. When she refused, he told her he would make her regret the decision. After the child was born, Toobin had to be dragged into court and forced to pay child support.

The never-ending smugness of the NeverTrumpers They knew they were right even when they were wrong Douglas Murray

https://spectator.us/nevertrumpers-betrayal/

In March 2016 as Donald Trump looked likely to be the Republican party’s nominee to run for president, more than 100 foreign policy professionals signed a letter vowing not only that they wouldn’t work for him should he become president but that they would work ‘energetically’ to prevent his election. As the months wore on, the light in which the signatories appeared often shifted. Once Trump became the nominee, and then the President, these representatives of the ‘national security community’ appeared to have demonstrated one of the most damaging things any such group could demonstrate: their own irrelevance.

It turned out that more than a decade and a half into a set of wars that the world’s most advanced military had managed to fight to various draws, the American public did not much want to hear from foreign policy professionals.

Once Trump was actually in office the whole thing appeared in another light. A Republican president was in the White House, but 120 people who would normally have filled the administration of such a president had already signed a document vowing not to work for him. A number of people who would have been crucial in specific roles were overlooked because they had signed this and other similar letters.

Shortly after this vetting was becoming clear, I met with one of those who had convened the biggest NeverTrumper list. In retrospect, I asked, was it wise of him to have invited so many people who could have been of serious service to their country to effectively remove themselves from the running? The convener had no qualms. The Trump team were struggling already — and would struggle for another four years — to fill up many of the key foreign policy positions. But it was worth it. The NeverTrumpers were not cooperating. All they needed to do was to sit back and be seen to be right. Though few did fully sit back. For four years, the NeverTrumpers formed groups and pacs, filed columns and blogs and launched many a derisive tweet. But at least they had not contaminated themselves.

Governor Cuomo Should Take a Polygraph Test, Just Like He Demanded of Brett Kavanaugh By Matt Margolis

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2020/12/18/governor-cuomo-should-take-a-polygraph-test-just-like-he-said-brett-kavanaugh-should-have-n1215636

I’m not fond of recovered memories of sexual harassment, nor, of some the definitions of harassment, but it is satisfying to see the Guv hoist on his own petard…..rsk

Governor Andrew Cuomo is reportedly on Biden’s shortlist for attorney general.

He’s also been accused of sexual harassment by a former aide.

The governor has denied the allegations, of course, but there still ought to be an investigation.

But if Cuomo really is potentially going to be the attorney general of the United States, the top law-enforcement officer of the nation, we need some answers quickly. Perhaps he should follow his own advice and take a polygraph test.

Back during the Brett Kavanaugh hearings, when Democrats tried to thwart his nomination with bogus accusations of sexual assault, Governor Cuomo had a grand idea that Kavanaugh should take a polygraph test.

“President Trump, you said you would watch the hearings today. I believe Dr. Ford’s testimony is very compelling. Only a political skeptic could find a reason to disbelieve her,” Cuomo said. “What is her possible motive to lie? In any event, I fear this will just increase the political polarization. Whatever happens, your decision will be tainted for history and with it the credibility of the Supreme Court.” He went on to say:

“Here is one basic fact that badly hurts Judge Kavanaugh: Why won’t he take a polygraph? Dr. Ford did. If he does not take a polygraph test, it is the ultimate, ‘he said, she said.’ It is the one powerful piece of evidence that seriously damages his credibility and the credibility of his Republican supporters, including yourself. You can and should ask him to take the test. If he refuses, you should pull the appointment. It will show at least a modicum of fairness on your part. If you do not insist that Judge Kavanaugh take a polygraph, it will be further evidence that you are putting political motivation over your constitutional obligation. Do not aid and abet a lie. Demand a polygraph.”

The Court Stands on Principle The Justices toss a census case ginned up by Democratic states.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-court-stands-on-principle-11608334424?mod=opinion_lead_pos2

The fuss over President Trump’s order to exclude undocumented immigrants from the decennial reapportionment may be much ado about nothing. That’s essentially what a 6-3 majority on the Supreme Court said Friday in dismissing a legal challenge (Trump v. New York) by Democratic states for lack of standing.

“A foundational principle of Article III is that ‘an actual controversy must exist not only at the time the complaint is filed, but through all stages of the litigation,’” the Court noted in an unsigned ruling with Justices Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor dissenting.

Democratic states claimed they would lose federal funding and Congressional seats if the President’s order was implemented, though these harms are speculative. President Trump’s order directed the Commerce Secretary to gather information “to the extent practicable” and exclude undocumented aliens “to the extent feasible.”

The Justice Department conceded during oral arguments this month that the government lacked records on many of the 10.5 million or so undocumented immigrants in the country. It was also unclear whether the Census Bureau could even mesh the records in its possession with the decennial enumeration.

In other words, the order might not even be implemented, let alone harm Democratic states. “At present, this case is riddled with contingencies and speculation that impede judicial review,” the Court noted.

Supreme Court Green-Lights Trump Removal of Illegal Aliens From Census Count By Matthew Vadum

https://www.theepochtimes.com/supreme-court-green-lights-trump-removal-of-illegal-aliens-from-census-count_3624432.html?utm_source=news&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=breaking-2020-12-18-3

The Supreme Court ruled that the federal government may remove illegal aliens from the 2020 Census count, which eliminates that population from the process of allocating congressional seats and Electoral College votes that officially determine the presidency.

The 6-3 decision in Trump v. New York issued Dec. 18 is a victory for the Trump administration.

Placed on a judicial fast track because various census-related deadlines are nearing, oral argument took place telephonically before the nine justices on Nov. 30.

The Trump administration wanted illegal aliens removed from the decennial census count to prevent them from having an impact on the apportionment of political power among the states.

States and local governments, including so-called sanctuary jurisdictions, which refuse to cooperate with federal immigration officials, sued to prevent the administration’s plan from moving forward. They argued that President Donald Trump, a Republican, was attempting to interfere with the count and prevent Democratic-leaning areas with large illegal-alien populations from gaining congressional seats.

But the high court found that their challenge was premature because they could not demonstrate any so-called concrete injury they might suffer. The ruling apparently leaves open the possibility of further challenges in the future and acknowledges the Trump administration may have difficulty implementing its policy.

The New England Journal of Medicine is now fully woke By Andrea Widburg

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/12/the_new_england_journal_of_medicine_is_now_fully_woke.html

Although it’s seemingly good news that there’s a Wuhan virus vaccine available, not everyone is embracing it. After all, they’ve seen the medical establishment, from Fauci on down, make one mistake after another during this difficult year. Worse, many in the medical establishment are proving to be insane as only leftists can be. The latest example is the once prestigious and reliable New England Medical Journal, which published an article declaring biological sex irrelevant.

In the latest issue of the NEMJ, two doctors and a lawyer have written that it’s time to do away with putting a newborn baby’s biological sex – as demonstrated by its external genitalia – on birth certificates. The article is behind a paywall, but the summary is there for all to see:

Sex designations on birth certificates offer no clinical utility, and they can be harmful for intersex and transgender people. Moving such designations below the line of demarcation wouldn’t compromise the birth certificate’s public health function but could avoid harm.

First, let’s meet the authors. Vadim Shteyler is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine at Brown University. He’s a hospitalist, which means he’s a regular internal medicine doctor who doesn’t have an office practice but works only in a hospital.

AMA Lied – How Many Died? By Brian C. Joondeph, M.D.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/12/ama_lied__how_many_died.html

The American Medical Association has been adamantly against hydroxychloroquine as a therapeutic for COVID for the past year. Just a few days before the presidential election they reversed course, reversing their opposition. Did they suddenly realize HCQ might have benefit in certain patient groups or were they lying for the past year? How many individuals died as a result of being denied potential lifesaving treatment?

The AMA is synonymous with organized medicine, despite myriad specialty societies that may better represent the needs of its member physicians. In fact, only 12 percent of practicing physicians belong to the AMA due to concerns that the AMA is more interested in its own finances and politics than the concerns of doctors.

When the AMA talks, media and the public listen, due to their perceived clout. Last spring, the AMA issued a statement critical of hydroxychloroquine as it was being used off-label in the treatment of COVID, not FDA-approved for this purpose with supposed “dangerous side effects.”

Quietly at the end of October, the AMA issued a new statement, conveniently overlooked by the media, giving the green light to doctors prescribing HCQ to their COVID patients.