RUTHFULLY YOURS

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

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/11/uncertainty-new-normal-katie-hopkins/

One thing we all like in life, whether we admit it or not, is some degree of certainty.

Many like to be super-certain. Every little detail needs to be known, planned and re-confirmed in order for them to feel in control enough to get going.

For others, routines and norms create a kind of easy, everyday certainty that allows them to keep a handle on the muddles of life and get useful things done. It is easier to concentrate on work knowing the washing machine is empty or the parking meter is paid.

For a small minority, a passport, small bag, credit card and toothbrush are all that’s needed to feel certain they have everything they could possibly need. I put myself in this last category— although I’d add Tylenol to the packing list because pain is a secret thief of time and patience.

Whatever our own appetite for certainty, it is based on some notion of consistency in our wider lives. Whatever goes on inside our heads or our hearts or indeed our homes, we kind of expect the stuff outside our front door to trundle along in the same predictable way as it has done for years.

It is reassuring in some ways that winter will turn to spring, traffic will always be hideous on Friday, your mother will always feel left out of something and solicitors will overcharge for everything. Or, as my father enjoys reminding the family at celebratory moments, “the only certainties in life are death and taxes.” (I wonder if he realizes how old he is.)

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/11/jewish-roots-thanksgiving-ingratitude-and-anarchy-don-feder/

“The left should be barred from celebrating Thanksgiving. Their bible is a manifesto. Their God is revolution. Their turkey has been declared the president-elect.”

When we form a mental image of the Pilgrims at this time of the year, it’s usually sitting at a table laden with food (even though they starved their first year on New England’s rocky coast) or walking to church in the snow, a Bible in one hand and a blunderbuss in the other.

A picture of the Pilgrim fathers lighting menorahs and spinning dreidels does not come readily to mind.

And yet, Thanksgiving has Jewish origins. Its roots are Biblical. Philosophically, it expresses the essence of Judaism.

The first Thanksgiving took place not at Plymouth in the 17th century but in the land of Israel more than 3,000 years ago.

 In Deuteronomy (26:1-4) Moses tells the Children of Israel: “When you have entered the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance and have taken possession of the land and settled in it, take some of the first fruits  of all that you produce from the soil of the land” to “the place the Lord your God will choose” and give them to the priest who will place them on the altar. This is called an offering of thanksgiving.

Who were the Pilgrims thanking? Not King James (they were fleeing his persecution) or the captain of the ship that brought them to Cape Cod, but the God who led them to that “good and spacious land.”

The Pilgrims strongly identified with their predecessors.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/11/time-give-thanks-bruce-bawer/

Dare I suggest that many of us aren’t feeling terribly inclined to be thankful this year? The months of lockdown have sapped our spirits and then some, taking a psychological toll of a kind that has yet to be fully appreciated, let alone properly diagnosed. The utterly insane Antifa and BLM riots – plus the spineless public officials who refused to quell them, and the disgraceful journalists who called them “mostly peaceful” – made many of us ask, in genuine bafflement and alarm: what on Earth has happened to America? And the possibility that rampant electoral fraud will deny the best president of our lifetimes a second term has caused widespread bitterness – not to mention astonishment and disillusion at the thought that so many American election officials could be capable of such Third World-level corruption.

There are other reasons for dismay. During the Trump years, we’ve learned that almost everyone in our national news media is simply not to be trusted. We’ve learned that Barack Obama, in an audacious act of treason that had the support of Biden, Hillary, and others, actively sought to unseat his successor. The idea that these traitors will probably get off not only scot-free but bathed in enduring adulation is grounds for a major funk.

Add to all this the prospect of a Biden-Harris administration, with everything that that signifies – including the re-empowerment of China, the reversal of Trump’s economic triumphs, a return to a Palestinian-centered Middle Eastern policy, an end to responsible border controls, and the acceleration of poisonous left-wing cultural developments at home – and it’s far from a formula for good cheer.

As 2020 approaches its close, in short, there’s plenty of cause for concern about the direction America will take in 2021 and afterwards.

All the more reason, then, to turn away from the news, at least for a day, and embrace Thanksgiving. Bah and humbug to the autocratic governors and mayors who are ordering us not to gather together. The hell with those social-justice warriors for whom Thanksgiving is nothing other than an opportunity to accuse America of racism and genocide.

https://thepostmillennial.com/jim-mattis-rejects-america-first/

Among the many things that General Jim Mattis would like to see done differently under Biden administration, a transition away from a United States international policy of America First makes the top of his list.

Former Secretary of Defense and Four-Star General Mattis wrote an op-ed in Foreign Affairs on Monday, explaining why the United States should prioritize stronger relations with its allies instead of putting its interests above those of the international community.Mattis’ contention is that, as powerful as the United States might be militarily, its interests are best served when it can count on a group of reliable allies to further its goals instead of a threat of force. 

Over the past four years, Mattis believes that an “America First” mentality has hindered the investment necessary to create that kind of international network and has left the United States disconnected.

Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) noted that it will be hard to push through this agenda reversal when there are more than 70 million Americans who support America First.

Under the Trump administration, the United States has pulled back from NATO, demanding that Euopean nations not leave the US to foot the bill for their protection. The Trump administration pulled funding from the World Health Organization over its poor handling of informing the global community about the pandemic. The US also withdrew from the Asia-Pacific trade pact. These are actions Mattis sees as characteristic of a US-first international policy.

“Continued failure to adequately invest in relationships with allies and partners and to cooperate with them to shape the international environment risks the erosion of this network… Even worse, it could result in the emergence of other, competing networks, presaging an international order from which the United States is excluded, unable to influence outcomes because it is simply not present,” Mattis said.

Mattis’ proposal for a Biden administration would be a significant departure from the last four years—one that many, like Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), vehemently disagree with. He stated his support of an international foreign policy that emphasizes US interests abroad.