RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://amgreatness.com/2020/07/14/nevertrump-parasites-wont-give-up-on-destroying-their-host/

“And yet without this president, NeverTrump will go back to the political wilderness, loathed by the Right and ignored by the Left.”

The past several days have been filled with accolades and attention for NeverTrump, the wee collection of self-proclaimed “conservatives” working against the president, in the corporate media. The Washington Post published a lengthy puff piece on two new nonprofits that are targeting not just President Trump but Trump-supporting Republican senators up for re-election. Post reporters, without evidence, referred to NeverTrump as a “sudden campaign force” that should make Team Trump shudder with fear.

Frank Bruni, far from a conservative or anything close to one, swooned over NeverTrumpers in his latest New York Times column. “That’s why, when I look at them, I see patriotism,” Bruni cooed.

That’s funny—most people on the Right, when they look at NeverTrump, see a sad collection of losing campaign managers, failed magazine editors, and third-rate pundits hanging on for dear life by giving the false impression a big chunk of Republicans oppose Donald Trump.

When President Trump looks at them, he sees “human scum.” And when Democrats see NeverTrump, they see useful idiots.

As I write in my new book, “Disloyal Opposition: How the NeverTrump Right Tried and Failed to Take Down the President,” NeverTrumpers have aided and abetted Democrats at every turn during the Trump era. From first seeding the imaginary Russian collusion ruse to backing impeachment, NeverTrump acts as the Democratic Party’s waterboys, cheering from the bench and wiping down sweaty brows hoping for a few atta boys on MSNBC.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/07/how_to_end_the_covid19_epidemic_in_the_us.html

Hydroxychloroquine + Azithromycin (HCQ + AZ), with optional Zinc, given upon early symptoms, is a cure for COVID-19. This combination is a strong antiviral against the Wuhan coronavirus, quickly reducing the viral load and risk of transmission to other persons. It is a cure both for the treated patient and the epidemic in the country when it adopts this treatment widely, including middle age and young adult population.

Brazilian authorities are inclined to agree that early chloroquine / hydroxychloroquine treatment helps to “bend the curve”:

“There is evidence that in some cities and some states early drug treatment was applied and that was exactly what contributed to the decrease in this curve, in this evolution of the epidemic curve in these states,” he [Executive Secretary of the Ministry of Health, Élcio Franco] said at a news conference. The use of chloroquine in the treatment of covid-19 patients with mild symptoms has been recommended by the Ministry of Health since May 20.  [translation via Google Translate]

If a large fraction (30%–70%) of COVID-19 patients receive HCQ-based treatment early and isolate themselves for 5–7 days (until the viral loads drops to a reasonably safe level), the virus reproduction rate R drops below 1. The number of cases drops exponentially, and the epidemic ends. This has happened in Italy, Spain, and other countries that adopted this treatment when the infection was already widespread. When the epidemic ends, COVID-19 will likely remain endemic, but easily treated disease, like a common cold or flu. On the other hand, if presumed COVID-19 patients are not treated early, the coronavirus is free to replicate and spread as now, with the risk that it will mutate into something horrible.

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/07/15/covid-19-shows-how-to-create-a-pandemic-panicand-keep-it-going/

This week, California, which has a death rate that is less than half the national average, is rolling back its reopening amid an increase in coronavirus cases. Elsewhere, we’re awash in stories about how states have reopened “too soon.” Why the continued panic when we know that the disease is far less lethal than originally feared?

If nothing else, the coronavirus pandemic is a textbook example of how to create fear and anxiety that is out of proportion to the threat, and spur panic-induced policies that needlessly kill people (like seniors in New York nursing homes). It also demonstrates how to keep the panic going, even as evidence piles up that the initial fears were wildly exaggerated.

Before anyone accuses us of being indifferent to COVID-19 deaths, or of being conspiracy mongers, we feel the need to point out that we aren’t saying that the coronavirus isn’t a serious public health threat. It obviously is. The question is whether the risk is being exaggerated and whether public policies enacted in the wake of it are necessary or effective.

Here are five steps that the got the coronavirus panic started and why it continues to this day.

1. Wildly exaggerate the deadliness of the disease. Most perceptions of the coronavirus were formed when the World Health Organization announced that the fatality rate was above 3%. If true, there would be millions of people dead. But it wasn’t even close to accurate. Based on ever greater amounts of data, we know that that the death rate is more like a bad flu season than the plague. Then there was the report from the Imperial College of London in March that claimed that even with draconian lockdowns in place, a million people in the U.S. would die from the coronavirus. That model has since been debunked, but the combination of the two extremely dire forecasts set the public’s perception of the disease and acceptance of draconian control measures.

2. Overcount deaths and undercount cases. These perceptions have continued because of the way cases and deaths are counted. On the one hand, the number of “confirmed” cases is a fraction of the actual number of people who’ve contracted the disease. That’s because many have symptoms that are minor or nonexistent, and so they never bother to get tested. In fact, one reason for the increase in “confirmed” cases is the fact that testing is more routine, even for those who are asymptomatic.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16239/district-attorneys-investigate-presidents

It should come as no surprise, therefore, that presidents are exempted from certain laws that are applicable to the rest of us. They cannot be prosecuted while serving in office. That, too, is the law.

The argument against allowing state prosecutors to rummage through a sitting president’s papers and documents is that there is no limiting principle…. A president who received subpoenas from hundreds or thousands of local jurisdictions could become overwhelmed by the task of assisting his lawyers in thoroughly vetting them for claims of privilege. This is not a fanciful prospect in our current age in which the criminal justice system has been weaponized by both parties seeking partisan advantage.

So the Supreme Court’s decision…. may also constitute a setback for the power of the presidency and our system of separation of powers and federalism.

Despite the unanimity of the justices, I think the case was wrongly decided. If a sitting president cannot constitutionally be tried for a crime, it should follow that he should not be compelled to be a defendant in a civil case, since civil cases can be brought by anybody for nearly anything. I think the recent case was wrongly decided as well. No sitting president should be burdened by an unlimited number of subpoenas from an unlimited number of local district attorneys, at least some of whom may be motivated by partisan or self-serving considerations.

It is a truism that no person is above the law, but under our Constitution certain office holders are exempt from certain laws. That does not place them above the law. That is the law.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/07/the-shameless-gaslighting-by-andrew-cuomos-defenders/

There is no measurement at our disposal and no level of gaslighting that will change the fact that Cuomo-led New York was an utter failure.

On March 25, New York governor Andrew Cuomo made one of deadliest mistakes of the coronavirus crisis, signing an executive order forcing nursing homes in his state to accept patients who tested positive for coronavirus. Around 4,800 New Yorkers died from COVID-19 in those nursing homes from March to May — approximately 25 percent of all fatalities in the state.

Many medical professionals opposed the policy. A report by ProPublica, certainly no right-wing outlet, found that deaths had spiked after Cuomo’s order. States issuing similar policies — Michigan and New Jersey — saw similar disasters unfold.

By any standard, the New York tristate area’s numbers are the worst in the country. By most measures, the numbers are some of the worst in the world. As the New York Times noted in May, New York City seeded the wave of outbreaks across the nation. Some of the carnage was likely unavoidable, but we can attribute the high number of nursing-home deaths, at the very least, to Cuomo’s ineptitude.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/evaluating-faucis-record/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=featured-content-trending&utm_term=first

“Dr. Anthony Fauci has a spottier record on predicting the course of pandemics than the media would have you believe. ”

The White House is getting a lot of heat by pointing out that Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s top infectious-disease official, has a spottier record on predicting the course of pandemics than the media would have you believe. “White House officials now want to rein in Fauci by cherry-picking instances in which they can take Fauci out of context to use the uncertainties of the pandemic against him,” noted the Washington Post.

I understand that “cherry-picking” issues over the course of someone’s career can lead to a distorted picture. But one problem with coverage of Fauci is that the coverage has rarely offered any context beyond glowing profiles of the 79-year-old career civil servant and his behind-the-scenes clashes with Trump officials.

Dr. Fauci was challenged a bit on Sunday’s Meet the Press when the top U.S. coronavirus-testing official, Admiral Brett Giroir, said Fauci is “not 100 percent right” because his calls for now reinstituting lockdowns in some states come from “a very narrow public-health point of view.” Giroir argued that as an epidemiologist Fauci “admits that (he doesn’t) have the whole national interest in mind.”

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/07/roger-stone-commutation-judge-demands-clarification-from-president/

“I do wonder, though, whether any federal judges have intervened to make sure that the terrorists whose sentences were commuted by Presidents Clinton and Obama are reporting to their probation officers.”

The judge is no doubt disturbed by the commutation. Legally, she cannot do anything about it, but politically, she is not letting it go.

  W ell, it wouldn’t be the Trump era — indeed, an election year in the Trump era — if a federal judge simply accepted a lawful presidential action that Trump critics found upsetting.

So it is that, Monday morning, Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the federal district court in Washington, D.C., the Obama appointee who presided over Roger Stone’s trial and imposed the 40-month sentence that President Trump commuted Friday night, has demanded that the president clarify the extent of his clemency order.

Specifically, Judge Jackson has ordered the Justice Department and Stone’s counsel to provide the court with a copy of the executive order commuting the sentence, and to address its “scope,” meaning, “whether it involves the sentence of incarceration alone or also the period of supervised release.”

Supervised release is a term of years during which the probation office monitors a convict after the incarceration phase of a sentence is completed.

With a few important exceptions not relevant to this discussion, a trial judge’s role in the defendant’s imprisonment ends when she imposes sentence. The execution of a sentence is mainly an executive function, overseen by the Justice Department’s Bureau of Prisons. That’s why, when a judge pronounces a prison sentence, it is customary to say the defendant is “committed to the custody of the attorney general” for some term of months or years.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamandrzejewski/2020/06/30/the-trouble-with-speaker

Membership in the U.S. Congress is an exclusive club that comes with lucrative, taxpayer-funded privileges. Retirement perks include a lifetime pension and a taxpayer-matched savings plan with taxpayer-paid contributions of up to five percent of salary.

As the longest-serving member of Congress, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) would qualify for a yearly pension of $167,040 if he retired today. Former speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) was eligible to draw a $84,930 pension when he turned 50 in January after serving for twenty years and retiring at age 48.

Critics question the necessity of such a system. Why are U.S. taxpayers providing public pensions to millionaire members of Congress on top of a 401(k)-style plan? (The median net worth for a member recently exceeded $1.1 million.)

Our auditors at OpenTheBooks.com broke down benefits received by leaders from both parties: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY).

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (net worth est. $50 million to $72 million): She’ll reap $153,967 a year in public pension and social security benefits at retirement. In addition, Pelosi could cash out an estimated $1 million lump sum through her federal saving account – and that’s just the portion of the account that was taxpayer-funded.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/stephen-green/2020/07/13/hcq-helps-contain-covid-19-cases-new-evidence-and-a-major-retraction-n636361

Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) — the controversial COVID-19 treatment touted by President Donald Trump — might be gaining new traction in the fight against the Wuhan coronavirus.

The latest positive results come from Vadodara, India, where city officials have conducted a major study involving more than 300,000 people, including “health workers and other frontline staff.”

The Indian Express reports:

The administration has analysed a sample of over 1 lakh [lakh = 100,000] residents, who were mostly close contacts of positive persons and the effect of HCQ in containing the transmission of the virus. According to the analysis, of the 48,873 close contacts of positive patients who took one dose of HCQ, 102 turned Covid-19 positive and 12 succumbed to the infection whereas 48 of the 17,776 close contacts of positive patients who took two doses of HCQ turned positive and only one died. The study also states that of the 33,563 close contacts of patients who took three HCQ doses, 43 tested positive and one died.

Local health official Dr. Devesh Patel told the paper, “It has shown positive results. We have the numbers and not one person has complained of complications. The only side effect reported is mild gastritis, which is common with administering heavy medicines and can be effectively handled.”

In other words, anyone who has taken the much more common azithromycin antibiotic for a simple sinus infection has probably suffered about the same distress — all gastric — as a subject of the Vadodara study.

Dr. Mohammad Hussain, who runs Vadodara’s Faith Hospital, told the Express, “There are conflicting studies about the use of HCQ. While initially the US studies rejected it and cited side-effects, European countries backed its prophylactic use. In Vadodara, it has shown positive results. We have been able to restrict cases in clusters. Nagarwada no longer has a huge number of cases.”

Hussain reiterated that no serious side effects were reported.

Judicial Watch’s Tom Fitton noted on Friday that Trump Derangement Syndrome almost certainly cost lives in the fight against COVID-19: