RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/joe-bidens-lockdown-lobby-11605223647?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

Did you enjoy the days at home from mid-March to May? The 22 million lost jobs, the shuttered storefronts, the neighborhood shops out of business, the kids unable to attend school, and the near economic depression? Well, congratulations, a reprise may be coming your way if Joe Biden heeds his Covid-19 advisory team.

We’ve told you about Ezekiel Emanuel, the advisory committee member who wanted new lockdowns during the summer flare-up in the Sunbelt states. Lucky for the country that his only power then was appearing on MSNBC.

Then there’s Michael Osterholm, also a member of the Biden Covid committee, who now wants a new nationwide lockdown for as many as six weeks. Dr. Osterholm is director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. CNBC quoted him as suggesting that we are about to enter “Covid hell” and the government should lock everyone up as we await a vaccine.

“We could pay for a package right now to cover all of the wages, lost wages for individual workers for losses to small companies to medium-sized companies or city, state, county governments. We could do all of that,” Dr. Osterholm said, according to Yahoo Finance. “If we did that, then we could lock down for four to six weeks.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/we-dont-need-government-mandates-for-covid-vaccination-11605222059?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

Covid-19 vaccines are almost here. Pfizer announced Monday that its vaccine has proved more than 90% effective in clinical trials. But vaccines are useless unless people take them, and it’s likely many will refuse.

The drumbeat is growing louder for the government to mandate vaccination. On Saturday the New York State Bar Association urged Albany to require Covid-19 vaccines for all New Yorkers regardless of religious objection. While courts have upheld state vaccine mandates in the past, a societywide mandate would be overbroad and unduly coercive. Private initiatives will work better.

Only 45% of American adults get vaccinated for influenza annually. Concerns about side effects and doubts about effectiveness are the two main reasons people skip the vaccine, according to the University of Chicago’s NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. In a NORC survey conducted at the height of the pandemic in May, Americans expressed similar concerns about a prospective Covid-19 vaccine. While a majority claimed they would likely be vaccinated, far fewer were a definite yes. Less than half said they would definitely be vaccinated, and doubts about safety and effectiveness were common.

The Biden campaign and others have alleged that vaccine makers and the Food and Drug Administration are moving too fast toward approval—claims the FDA and drug companies vehemently deny—further eroding public trust in an eventual vaccine. A Pew Research Center poll found that the number of Americans who would definitely or probably be vaccinated fell to 51% in September from 72% in May.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamandrzejewski/2020/11/12/nancy-pelosis-heroes-act-gives-top-50-richest-towns-in-america-a-350-million-coronavirus-bailout-why/?sh=360dee7cc8d3
Atherton, California, is the richest town in America with an average annual household income of $525,000. Located 20 miles from Silicon Valley, the San Francisco suburb is home to the many tech titans of Google GOOG +0.1% and Facebook.
Knowing this, Americans would be right to ask why Nancy Pelosi’s Heroes Act shelled out $3.8 million in coronavirus “aid” money to Atherton. We contacted Speaker Pelosi and the Atherton city manager for comment and did not receive a response.
Atherton isn’t the only rich suburb to receive bailouts from American taxpayers. Our auditors at OpenTheBooks.com cross-referenced the nation’s 50 richest communities listed in the Bloomberg 2020 Richest Places with Heroes Act coronavirus bailouts.

We found the 50 richest places in the country received $350 million in bailouts.
In these wealthy communities, the average household income ranged from #1 Atherton, CA ($525,324) to #50 Darnestown, MD ($262,988). Other top places included:

https://www.theepochtimes.com/trump-paid-tributes-to-veterans-in-the-rain-at-arling

President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump participated in Veterans Day Observance at Arlington National Cemetery Wednesday morning in the rain.

Trump was accompanied by Vice President Mike Pence and Second Lady Karen Pence. Robert Wilkie, Secretary of Veterans Affairs, also joined Trump in the ceremony.

Trump approached the wreath and saluted at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, stood for a moment of silence, then retreated and saluted again.

This is the first official public event Trump attended since the election.

“America’s veterans have fought to defend our country, its values, and its interests since the first days of our founding. They have defeated tyrants, eliminated terrorists, and secured freedom at home and abroad,” Trump said in a proclamation released by the White House.

“The gravity of their contribution is immeasurable and so is our debt to every single one of our Nation’s veterans,” Trump continued in the proclamation.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/11/does_anyone_care_about_the_truth_anymore.html

Ferreting out political and historical truth from the welter of partisan voices and official disinformation, so far as this is possible, is no easy task. Not many of us are capable or desirous of doing so. This is perhaps the major debit in a prosperous democratic polity, many of whose citizens, like pampered children, have grown spoiled and lazy.

Common sense is needed, along with moral fortitude and the willingness to dig for documentary sources and artifacts that are not easily falsified. One cannot allow the media to do one’s homework for one but must instead subject what one is told to believe to hard scrutiny and diligent research. This process is not only an epistemic necessity but also a moral demand. As C2C editor Patrick Keeney writes, “we can only arrive at what we ought to do by appeals to moral reasoning.” We might say that thoughtfulness is an aspect of moral character.

In the political world especially, one must be skeptical of the left and its popular sobriquet, socialism. For socialism is all about radical egalitarianism, the expansion of welfare dependency, the destruction of the nuclear family and the establishment of single-party rule. The study of history and the current geopolitical theater is dispositive in this regard.

Opponents of the Left are regularly denounced as belonging to the “far right.” But what is called the “far right” in the current political environment is a will o’ the wisp, a false construct serving the interests of the demagogic impulse associated with the left, for there is no temporizing with the left’s totalitarian basis no matter how moderate it may appear in some of its presumably acceptable forms.

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/11/10/sacrifices-to-secure-liberty/

On Veterans Day, we honor those who have risked their lives in military service for America. Such commemorations of the valor of servicemen and women are not unique to us. But the vision that Americans have fought for sets Nov. 11 apart. From revolutionary times, our military forces have fought to defend something unprecedented – “a new nation conceived in liberty.”

A good way to honor those who have served to protect America’s unique vision is to remember Patrick Henry, because America’s “Orator of Liberty” reminds us of the cause that justifies what our veterans have sacrificed for.

Henry’s 1775 “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death” speech sparked the revolution in Virginia. “The Voice of the Revolution” was the first person to condemn England for taxation without representation. He led the attack against the Stamp Act in 1765, and in every subsequent protest against British tyranny and every movement for colonists’ rights. He helped draft the Virginia Constitution and the May 1776 declaration favoring independence. He led in campaigning for a bill of rights. He was instrumental in bringing to life the ideal that became America, which our armed forces have fought to defend ever since.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/sasse-beyond-disgusting-that-cuomo-thinks-its-bad-news-vaccine-may-come-out-under-trump/

Senator Ben Sasse (R., Neb.) on Monday issued a harsh rebuke of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s comments that it is “bad news” that a coronavirus vaccine may come out while President Trump is still in office. 

“What on earth is Governor Cuomo talking about?” Sasse said in a statement. “This is great news and everyone — Republicans and Democrats and apolitical folks – should all be jointly thrilled about the possibility of an effective vaccine.”

He continued: “After this nasty virus has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans and put millions out of work, it is beyond disgusting that Governor Cuomo would use a glimmer of hope for another worn-out ‘Trump is bad’ talking point. When we get a vaccine, we’re going to need all hands on deck distributing it as fast as possible — shamelessly politicizing this is dangerous and stupid.”

Earlier on Monday, Pfizer and BioNTech announced that their vaccine was 90 percent effective according to preliminary data, and that they could request emergency approval from the Food and Drug Administration by the end of November. Cuomo used the news as an opportunity to take a shot at the Trump administration.

“The good news is the Pfizer tests look good and we’ll have a vaccine shortly. The bad news is that it’s about two months before Joe Biden takes over and that means this administration is going to be implementing a vaccine plan,” Cuomo told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on Good Morning America. “The Trump Administration is rolling out the vaccination plan and I believe it’s flawed. I believe it learns nothing from the past.”

“They’re going to take this vaccine and they’re going to go through the private mechanism,” he added. “Through hospitals, through drug market chains, et cetera. That’s going to be slow and that’s going to bypass the communities that we call health care deserts,” Cuomo said. “If you don’t have a Rite Aid or a CVS then you’re in trouble and that’s what happened the first time with COVID.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-jobs-keep-coming-11604706131?mod=opinion_lead_pos2

Friday’s labor report showing that employers added 906,000 private jobs in October again beat forecasts. The economy’s resilience is befuddling the pessimists, much as Tuesday’s election results confounded media pollsters.

The jobless rate fell to 6.9% last month from 7.9% in September even as labor force participation ticked up 0.3 percentage points to 61.7%. Total employment rose 638,000 despite a 268,000 decline in government jobs—mostly education and temporary Census. No surprise, schools on remote learning need fewer workers.

Private job growth was broad-based and especially strong in leisure and hospitality (271,000), retail (104,000), construction (84,000), health care and social assistance (79,000) and transportation and warehousing (63,200). As state restrictions have eased, businesses have continued to increase hiring. Grocery and home-improvement stores employ more than they did a year ago.

Keynesians at the Federal Reserve and on Wall Street have continued to predict the economy would fall off a demand cliff without trillions in new government spending. But their forecasts keep missing. The Fed June jobless rate prediction for the end of the year was 9.3%, which it cut to 7.6% in September, but the rate is already 6.9%. Too many people are still out of work, but progress has been remarkable since the government-induced recession. The economy will continue to grow as long as the U.S. avoids policy mistakes, including another lockdown.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/u-labor-market-extends-gains-134130082.html

The U.S. labor market strengthened in October, defying expectations for more subdued gains amid an intensifying pandemic and lack of additional fiscal relief.

Nonfarm payrolls increased by 638,000 after an upwardly revised 672,000 gain the prior month, according to a Labor Department report Friday. That compared with the 580,000 median estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg, and reflected a decline of 147,000 in temporary Census workers.

The unemployment rate fell by 1 percentage point to 6.9% — a bigger drop than economists projected and double the prior month’s decline — though the number of long-term jobless Americans surged and now makes up a third of those out of work.

Progress in the U.S. labor market is holding up as household savings help fuel spending and business investment rebounds, putting the economy in better shape than many analysts expected just six months ago. The improvement, though, may have come too late to help President Donald Trump, who’s on the verge of losing to Democrat Joe Biden in this week’s election.