RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2020/11/27/music-legends-van-morrison-and-eric-clapton-team-for-anti-lockdown-anthem-stand-and-deliver/

Rock music legends Van Morrison and Eric Clapton have teamed up for “Stand and Deliver,” a song that takes coronavirus lockdowns to task.

“There are many of us who support Van and his endeavors to save live music; he is an inspiration,” Clapton said according to Variety. “We must stand up and be counted because we need to find a way out of this mess. The alternative is not worth thinking about. Live music might never recover.”

Clapton also said that the end of live entertainment due to coronavirus lockdowns is “deeply upsetting.”

Proceeds for the track — set to be released on December 4 — will go to Morrison’s Lockdown Financial Hardship Fund, which works to lend financial assistance to musicians left struggling during the global pandemic and the mitigation lockdowns imposed across the world.

“It is heartbreaking to see so many talented musicians lack any meaningful support from the government, but we want to reassure them that we are working hard every day to lobby for the return of live music, and to save our industry,” Morrison added upon release of news of his Clapton collaboration.

According to his website, Morrison’s fund has already disbursed its first allotments. Still, the group promises that more money will soon be raised for a second round of donations to struggling artists.

Van Morrison has already released several songs that are critical of the lockdowns, including “Born To Be Free,” “As I Walked Out,” and “No More Lockdown.”

Morrison’s criticism of lockdowns has stirred controversy in certain circles, especially among government officials. The “Moondance” singer recently drew criticism from Northern Ireland’s health minister Robin Swann who called the protest songs “dangerous.”

“I don’t know where he gets his facts. I know where the emotions are on this,” Swann told BBC in September, “but I will say that sort of messaging is dangerous.” As Rolling Stone reported, Morrison has for decades voiced grievances through song, but “this time, Morrison’s preferred method of venting might also cause harm to others.”

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Facebook at: facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2020/11/27/johns-hopkins-study-saying-covid-19-has-relatively-no-effect-on-deaths-in-u-s-deleted-after-publication-n1178930

Conventional wisdom is that COVID-19 has caused thousands of deaths in the United States and nearly 1.5 million worldwide. This perception has been directly challenged by a study published by Johns Hopkins University on November 22.

Genevieve Briand, assistant program director of the Applied Economics master’s degree program at Johns Hopkins University, critically analyzed the impact that COVID-19 had on U.S. deaths. According to Briand, the impact of COVID-19 on deaths in the United States can be fully understood by comparing it to the number of total deaths in the country.

According to the study, “in contrast to most people’s assumptions, the number of deaths by COVID-19 is not alarming. In fact, it has relatively no effect on deaths in the United States.”

Wait, what?  Really?

That’s what it says.  And, it should come as no surprise that the study was deleted within days.

Luckily, a back-up copy remains on The Wayback Machine, and we can still read the study.

https://thefederalist.com/2020/11/27/carter-page-sues-doj-fbi-james-comey-and-others-behind-crossfire-hurricane-fisa-abuse/

In an eight-count complaint filed Friday in the D.C. District Court, Carter Page seeks damages of no less than $75 million from the U.S. government, the Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigations, and individuals responsible for obtaining four illegal Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act orders against Page.

Page’s 59-page complaint lists as defendants a veritable “Who’s Who” of the SpyGate scandal, including former FBI Director James Comey, Assistant Director Andrew McCabe, and the disgraced team of Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. Also singled out were Kevin Clinessmith, who earlier this year pleaded guilty to falsifying an email to hide Page’s past service as a source to the CIA, and FBI Agents Joe Pientka, Stephen Somma, and Brian Auten, with additional defendants identified merely as John Doe 1 – 10 and Jane Doe 1 – 10.

­The first four counts of his complaint allege claims under FISA, with one count seeking damages for each of the four FISA court orders the defendants obtained against Page. FISA provides a private right of action to allow “an aggrieved person. . . who has been subjected to an electronic surveillance or about whom information obtained by electronic surveillance of such person has been disclosed,” to sue those responsible.

In addition to stating a civil claim for damages under FISA, Page’s attorneys note in the complaint that FISA makes it a criminal offense to illegally “engage in electronic surveillance under color of law.”  While only the government can prosecute a criminal violation of FISA, the allegation is a stark reminder that other than Clinesmith, no criminal cases have resulted from the illegal targeting of Page and the Trump campaign—at least not yet.

Page’s fifth cause of action alleges a claim under the Federal Tort Claims Act which provides that the United States is liable for civil wrongs “in the same manner and to the same extent as a private individual under like circumstances.” In other words, Page can sue the government and its agents for wrongful conduct, just as he could a private person.

This count seeks damages for the individual defendants who “committed an abuse of process because they acted with an ulterior motive in using the FISA warrant process to accomplish an end unintended and not permitted by law, to wit, to spy on the Trump presidential campaign by unlawfully invading the privacy of Dr. Page without probable cause.” And yes, contrary to the corporate media’s continued denial, the Obama-Biden Administration intended to, and did, spy on the Trump campaign, including by obtaining the illegal FISA orders to surveil Page.

http://A Call for Late Justice for Col. Larry Franklin

Last month, in a small town in West Virginia, a 74-year-old husband and his invalid wife were hospitalized for several days after eating rotten food the husband fished out of a dumpster.

For the past decade and a half, former Pentagon intelligence analyst and operative Col. (retired) Lawrence (Larry) Franklin and his wife Patricia have lived in utter destitution. During his 35 years of service, Col. Franklin was celebrated as a brilliant, fearless intelligence officer by his colleagues and bosses at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), in the U.S. Air Force and in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Now, the aging hero who saved countless U.S. servicemen lives in war zones is a broken man. Col. Franklin subsists on the meager wages he earns from washing dishes, cleaning septic tanks and parking cars, while also taking care of his invalid wife.

Col. Franklin’s fall from grace is a tale that cries out for justice.

In 2003, Col. Franklin, a survivor of the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon, was working as the Iran desk officer in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld needed constant information on Iran: namely, its efforts to undermine the U.S. war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, its sprawling terror networks and its burgeoning nuclear weapons program.

In the framework of his duties, Col. Franklin was authorized to share intelligence with U.S. allies, including Israel. He had a long-standing, warm relationship with Israeli military and intelligence officers dating back to his tenure as Air Force Defense Attaché in Israel during the 1990s. Col. Franklin also had close contacts with officials who worked on Iran-related issues for the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/when-the-experts-fail-everyone-else-pays-the-price-11606519279?mod=opinion_lead_pos7

The wealthy and powerful must constantly expand their operations. But even if they let their capital sit, they will need accountants, auditors, stockbrokers and consultants. How will they choose these subordinates? According to the opinions of other advisers. Those closest to the boss will have the most influence—and they can keep it, even in failure, by flattery and deference. 

This is the case with governmental power. We are all, in a sense, fools, since no one person can know everything. We all have to trust others for their expertise, and we all make mistakes. The horror of a command economy is not that officials will make mistakes, but that those mistakes will never be acknowledged or corrected.

What about our allegedly market economy? Who will be held accountable for destroying it? No doubt the destruction was carried out in good faith, but the shutdown didn’t accomplish what it was supposed to accomplish. 

We have seen shameless incompetence rewarded before.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/2020/11/obama-my-racist-mentors-god-damn-america-taken-out-daniel-greenfield/

During the 2008 election, it was an uphill battle getting Barack Hussein Obama to disavow his racist mentor, Jeremiah Wright.

After giving a speech defending Wright, and falsely accusing America and his grandmother of racism, he was finally forced to condemn him in a very narrow sort of way, falsely stating, “I reject outright the statements by Reverend Wright that are at issue.”

The political elites, including the media, backing Obama heaved a huge sigh of relief and pretended that it was over.

Wright went on to closely embrace Farrakhan, he had been a former Black Muslim, and spew hate. But the Wright issue resurfaced again as Warnock, the Democrat Senate nominee in Georgia, had been out there defending Wright.

Michelle Obama, in her latest memoir, appeared to distance herself from Wright.

“This wasn’t helped by the fact that ABC News had combed through twenty-nine hours of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s sermons, splicing together a jarring highlight reel that showed the preacher careening through callous and inappropriate fits of rage and resentment at white America, as if white people were to blame for every woe. Barack and I were dismayed to see this, a reflection of the worst and most paranoid parts of the man who’d married us and baptized our children” her memoir states.

“Seeing an extreme version of his vitriol broadcast in the news, though, we were appalled. The whole affair was a reminder of how our country’s distortions about race could be two-sided — that the suspicion and stereotyping ran both ways.”

https://www.jpost.com/author/ruthie-blum

A new exhibit at a Holocaust museum in Maitland, Florida, is the latest among many attempts to universalize the genocide of the Jews at the hands of the Nazis.

The exhibit features photographs taken in the wake of the May 25 killing of African-American George Floyd by the white, now-former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, whose colleagues stood motionless as he cruelly suffocated the subdued 46-year-old.

Though Floyd, a petty burglar and ex-con, was in the process of being arrested for what a shopkeeper alleged was the passing of a counterfeit $20 bill, he was already lying face-down on the pavement in handcuffs when Chauvin knelt on his neck for nearly nine full minutes.

Despite Floyd’s fentanyl and methamphetamine use – in addition to his suffering from arteriosclerotic and hypertensive heart disease, as well as having tested positive a few weeks earlier for the virus that causes COVID-19 – the medical examiner ruled his death a homicide as a result of “cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression.”

Chauvin thus was charged with “second-degree unintentional murder and second-degree homicide.” He is currently out on bail and awaiting trial.

Floyd’s painful, unnecessary end sparked race riots and looting across the United States, while spurring protests around the world. Indeed, his memory was turned into a symbol of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. His last words – “I can’t breathe” – became a global logo, printed on T-shirts, painted on posters and chanted at demonstrations.

More importantly, Floyd’s murder was exploited by BLM and Antifa radicals to incite and gather momentum for the cancel-culture revolution they have been launching against America.

https://www.ft.com/content/89acf0bb-8dac-4f73-8962-5780546eadca?segmentId=b385c2ad-87ed-d8ff-aaec-0f8435cd42d9

Sitting in the shadow of the  health department building in Washington, with only a leather jacket for protection against an autumnal breeze, Moncef Slaoui cuts a defiant figure. Six months after the former GlaxoSmithKline executive left the private sector to become President Donald Trump’s coronavirus vaccine tsar, Mr Slaoui feels his decision has been vindicated, and critics of the ability of Operation Warp Speed to develop a vaccine in record time having been proved wrong.

“The easy answer for experts was to say it was impossible and find reasons why the operation would never work,” he told the Financial Times. But the vaccine push is now hailed as the bright spot in the Trump administration’s Covid-19 response, as products from Pfizer and BioNTech, Moderna, and AstraZeneca and Oxford university move closer to approval.

Operation Warp Speed is a more than $10bn investment programme with a remit to fund vaccines, therapeutics — such as two recently approved antibody treatments — and diagnostics. So far it has spent the vast majority of its money on Covid-19 vaccines. The entire planet is going to benefit from it. We’re going to . . . hopefully have a vaccine available in France and Spain and Italy, all paid for by the US government Stéphane Bancel, Moderna chief executive As well as funding some vaccine developers directly, it has also signed pre-orders for the products others are working on, guaranteeing them an income from an approved vaccine when the normal commercial decision might be to not take the risk.

https://stanfordreview.org/scott-atlas-stanford-response/

I was disappointed to learn that the Faculty Senate of Stanford University on November 19, 2020 adopted a resolution criticizing my work for the United States government.  We all wish to guide our nation through this pandemic with the best advice and knowledge that we can bring to bear. It is for this reason that I accepted the request of the President of the United States to serve as an advisor since August of this year.  I have been honored to serve our country during these difficult months for our nation and the world.

I am a health policy scholar, medical scientist and doctor.  I have always used science and factual evidence to help generate the best possible policies to save lives. My views in favor of the careful protection of our nation’s most vulnerable while safely re-opening society are far from contrary to science. These views are held by some of the world’s top epidemiologists from Harvard, Oxford, and Stanford itself, as well as by thousands of medical and public health scientists from around the world. I have also repeatedly recommended mitigation measures, including social distancing and mask-wearing when one cannot distance. Media reports to the contrary are simply false.

It should be no surprise that scientists and doctors may disagree over the best response to the unprecedented challenges of the pandemic.  But in responding to COVID-19, we cannot sacrifice the free exchange of ideas, the essential process to discover the scientific truths allowing us to fight the disease. America and its universities must allow differing views without intimidation or rebuke if it hopes to successfully develop responses to such crises and to solve the public health threats of the future.

I wish to correct the misinterpretation of my social media posts that allegedly endangered citizens and public officials.  I have made it clear that this was not my understanding or intent.  I would never urge or support violence.  This manufactured controversy only distracts from what should be our shared goal: to save lives and reduce the harms from this pandemic. My intent was never to divide us, nor to do any harm.

Unfortunately, the Stanford Faculty Senate has chosen to use its institutional voice to take sides in the debates over the complex scientific and medical questions raised by the pandemic. I fear that this precedent could further embroil the University into politics and raises the threat that the University will criticize other faculty who disagree with Stanford’s institutional views on these or other issues.

– Scott W. Atlas, MD