RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://pjmedia.com/culture/tyler-o-neil/2020/07/06/statue-honoring-frederick-douglass-in-his-home-city-toppled-on-anniversary-of-his-famous-speech-n608041

Protests over the horrific police killing of George Floyd infamously devolved into riots and looting that destroyed black lives, black livelihoods, and even black monuments. The iconoclastic vandals who began by toppling Confederate monuments moved on to defacing statues of America’s Founders, Indian nationalists like Mahatma Gandhi, and even a monument to the 54th Massachusetts regiment, the first black volunteers to fight for the Union in the Civil War. Yet one of the most grotesque acts of vandalism came on Sunday when vandals toppled a statue of former slave Frederick Douglass in Rochester, N.Y.

Vandals somehow removed the Douglass statue from its base and dropped it near the Genessee River gorge, the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle reported. Located in Maplewood Park, the statue “had been placed over the fence to the gorge and was leaning against the fence” on the side of the river, Rochester police said in a statement. Authorities found the statue about 50 feet from its pedestal.

The vandals dislodged the statue exactly 168 years after Douglass delivered one of his most important speeches. He delivered “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July” on July 5, 1852, speaking to the Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society at Corinthian Hall in Rochester. Douglass, who escaped slavery in 1838 and settled in Rochester, lamented the horrific institution and the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. The black community in Rochester celebrated American independence on July 5, rather than July 4.

Protests over the horrific police killing of George Floyd infamously devolved into riots and looting that destroyed black lives, black livelihoods, and even black monuments. The iconoclastic vandals who began by toppling Confederate monuments moved on to defacing statues of America’s Founders, Indian nationalists like Mahatma Gandhi, and even a monument to the 54th Massachusetts regiment, the first black volunteers to fight for the Union in the Civil War. Yet one of the most grotesque acts of vandalism came on Sunday when vandals toppled a statue of former slave Frederick Douglass in Rochester, N.Y.

Vandals somehow removed the Douglass statue from its base and dropped it near the Genessee River gorge, the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle reported. Located in Maplewood Park, the statue “had been placed over the fence to the gorge and was leaning against the fence” on the side of the river, Rochester police said in a statement. Authorities found the statue about 50 feet from its pedestal.

The vandals dislodged the statue exactly 168 years after Douglass delivered one of his most important speeches. He delivered “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July” on July 5, 1852, speaking to the Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society at Corinthian Hall in Rochester. Douglass, who escaped slavery in 1838 and settled in Rochester, lamented the horrific institution and the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. The black community in Rochester celebrated American independence on July 5, rather than July 4.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/07/05/frederick-douglass-statue-rochester-new-york-vandalized/5381093002/

On the same weekend in which famed abolitionist Frederick Douglass 168 years ago delivered one of his most historically resonant speeches, a statue of Douglass was toppled from its base and left near the Genesee River gorge.

Located in Maplewood Park, the statue “had been placed over the fence to the gorge and was leaning against the fence” on the river side, according to a statement from Rochester police. The statue was left about 50 feet from its pedestal.

The base and lower part of the statue were damaged, as was a finger on the statue’s left hand. The statue has been taken from the park for repairs, according to Lt. Jeffrey LaFave II.

There were no signs of graffiti at the statue or anywhere in the park, police said.

Across the United States, Douglass’ July 5, 1852 speech, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July,” has been shared widely on social media and elsewhere as a reminder of the country’s legacy of slavery and racism.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/07/06/the_fierce_fight_over_

Americans do more than tolerate calls to live up to our highest ideals. We embrace them. Martin Luther King knew that when he spoke at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963. “When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. … So we have come to cash this check.”

Honoring that check brings together Americans of all political stripes. Most think, rightly, that King’s dream is the American dream. They do not believe the dream itself is a fraud, an opiate for the masses. They reject this frontal assault on America’s history and basic values. They see it every day on television and, more privately, when their children come home from school and say what they are being taught.

Most Americans think our nation’s history and aspirations are good, sometimes noble, sometimes flawed, not rotten to the core. They recognize the cruelties, such as slavery and Jim Crow, and want them taught, not glossed over. But they do not think our republic was founded to perpetuate those cruelties. Rather, they think our collective story is one of hope and progress, of confronting and overcoming the worst abuses. It is a story of expanding opportunities, sometimes too slowly but ultimately for everyone.

https://thefederalist.com/2020/07/06/cdc-after-10-week-decline-in-covid-19-deaths-it-may-soon-no-longer-be-an-epidemic/

The United States now has so few deaths due to COVID-19 that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Friday it is approaching the threshold for dipping below the level of an epidemic.

The CDC defines an epidemic as an outbreak from which the number of deaths per week exceeds a given percentage of total deaths within the nation. The number of deaths from COVID-19 has steadily declined since hitting its peak in early May after it began spiking in the second week in March.

That threshold death rate for COVID-19 and other diseases such as influenza and pneumonia fluctuates, ranging typically from 5 to 7 percent at the height of flu season. The CDC said the Wuhan flu death rate had, during the last week in June, become equal to the epidemic threshold of 5.9 percent, reaching its lowest point since the end of last year.

The agency warned this is likely to change as more death certificates from recent weeks are processed, but it could mean hopeful news for the upcoming weeks. The total number of deaths due to COVID-19 has been declining for 10 straight weeks, concluding with week 26 that ended June 27. This suggests the United States could be on the verge of not being considered in an epidemic.

 http://goudsmit.pundicity.com/24366/made-in-china  http://goudsmit.pundicity.com

http://lindagoudsmit.com

Made in China is a mutating phrase depending upon its political context. At one time, made in China inferred precision manufacturing and low prices. If clothing was made in China the stitches were precise, uniform, and accurate. Tools, computers, sports equipment, shoes, furniture, virtually anything made in China was considered high quality low price. What happened?

China’s Cultural Revolution is the “sociopolitical movement in China from 1966-1976. Launched by Mao Zedong, Chairman of the Communist Party of China (CPC), its stated goal was to preserve Chinese Communism by purging remnants of capitalist and traditional elements (imperialism) from Chinese society, and to reimpose Mao Zedong thought (Maoism) as the dominant ideology in the CPC.”

Chairman Mao was ideologically a Marxist-Leninist, a hybrid political philosophy of gradualism that seeks to establish a socialist state in preparation for an eventual communist state. Communism is the collectivist socio-political system marketing itself as, “a classless system with common ownership of the means of production, with full social and economic equality of all members of society.”

The seductive narrative of the Chinese Cultural Revolution was that capitalism was evil and had to be removed by violent class struggle. Mao engaged young people to participate in “purging” the country through widespread destruction of historical, religious, and cultural artifacts. Sound familiar? It should. China’s Cultural Revolution was a reeducation campaign designed to erase China’s history and culture.

Mao’s Marxist-Leninist dogma is the source of the “social justice” and “economic equality” narrative taught in American universities, in American high schools, in American middle schools, and even elementary schools K-12. Marxist-Leninist dogma is the root of the slogans that indoctrinated Americans echo like parrots at political protests, and that paid political anarchists shout while burning American cities.

https://amgreatness.com/2020/07/05/a-second-wave-of-stupidity/

The coronavirus panic was starting to ebb after the successful state reopenings of May and enthusiastic public protests of June. Rather than acknowledging this good news story, the same lunatics are clamoring to tighten the screws again.

First we were warned about an exponential increase. Cases were doubling and tripling in as many days. Soon millions would be sick and dying. Then we were warned of rising deaths, even though many of these deaths had other causes.

We were told to flatten the curve. We needed to stay home. We should not wear masks. Then we should wear masks.

The whole experience has been dizzying.

The Testing Solution

The media and experts then began selling tests as the key. Why exactly was unclear, with the vast majority of people having mild symptoms, no cure or vaccine in sight, and no realistic way for our decrepit public health system to do contact tracing. But tests it would be.

We now conduct a lot of tests. “Drive-by” testing has happened in some locales. Private companies, local walk-in clinics, and county health departments are all offering tests. So far, 36 million coronavirus tests have been administered.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/07/lefts-soviet-insane-asylum-non-mask-wearers-jamie-glazov/

EXCERPT:

The former Soviet Union possessed many imaginative mechanisms to deal with the problem of enemies of the people who obstructed the path to socialist utopia – now known as “social justice.” One of those mechanisms was the practice of confining individuals who were thinking the wrong thoughts to insane asylums. Indeed, if you caused any trouble for the commissars, a good inoculation of neuroleptics (powerful drugs used to “quiet” the symptoms of schizophrenia), forcibly administered through a tube in the nose, could do wonders in bringing your politically incorrect behavior to a halt.

Dissidents such as Valeriya Novodvorskaya, Natalya Gorbanevskaya, Pyotr Grigorenko, Vladimir Bukovsky, Alexander Esenin-Volpin and Joseph Brodsky were all among the brave freedom-fighters who bore the brunt of the Soviet practice of institutionalizing dissidents in mental hospitals and force-feeding them mind-shattering drugs. Novodvorskaya was confined in the prison psychiatric hospital in Kazan for her dissident activites – and she described her harrowing experience in this hospital in her collection of writings, Po Tu Storonu Otchayaniya (Beyond Despair). Gorbanevskaya was committed to a psychiatric hospital for attending the 1968 Red Square demonstration against the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. Grigorenko suffered the same fate for criticizing the Khrushchev regime. Bukovsky was confined to a psychiatric hospital for “anti-Soviet agitation.” Brodksy was sent to mental hospitals for not writing the right kind of poetry; his treatments involved “tranquilizing” injections, sleep deprivation and forced freezing baths. Esenin-Volpin was institutionalized in the Leningrad Special Psychiatric Hospital for his anti-Soviet thoughts.

Today’s progressive Democrats are also faithfully journeying on an uplifting odyssey. Horrified by Trump’s opposition to Obama’s “fundamental transformations,” they have found their own neuroleptics in the form of the 25th Amendment and a bill seeking to impeach the president for being mentally unsound. Indeed, Trump has to be mentally deranged and unfit for office, because what other reason could possibly explain his frightening disagreement with the Left’s un-American creed of identity politics – race and gender uber alles? What other factor could possibly be at play in his embrace of individual freedom and responsibility – and in his rejection of group privileges and racial/gender hierarchies that, as David Horowitz has noted, can only be manifested after America’s Constitution is null and void?

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/07/blms-violence-death-americas-cities-john-perazzo/

The police-hating rhetoric of the openly and proudly Marxist “Black Lives Matter” (BLM) movement is doing exactly what it did five years ago – creating a massive increase in violent crime and homicide throughout urban America. You may recall that back in 2015-16, BLM’s anti-police protests and riots – particularly in the aftermath of the 2014 police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri – intimidated officers nationwide into becoming much less proactive in dealing with criminal suspects. A Pew Research Center report titled “Behind the Badge” – which tabulated the results of a questionnaire that was sent to thousands of officers – confirmed that 85 to 95 percent of law-enforcement officers in large police departments became highly reluctant to engage criminals except where absolutely necessary.

The consequences of the new timidity of law-enforcement were monumental:
 

In 2015, America’s 56 largest cities experienced a 17% rise in homicides.
Twelve cities with large black populations saw their murder totals spike even more dramatically – e.g., by 54% in D.C., 60% in Newark, 72% in Milwaukee, 83% in Nashville, and 90% in Cleveland.
Robberies surged in America’s 81 largest cities during the 12 months that followed the shooting of Michael Brown.
During the first quarter of 2016, homicides in America’s 63 largest cities increased by 9%, while nonfatal shootings were up 21%.
 

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/stacey-lennox/2020/07/03/lies-damn-lies-and-covid-19-statistics-n603433

As beaches are closed for the 4th of July and even Texas starts to roll back towards COVID-19 lockdown, it sure seems like the goalposts have shifted. The purpose of public health policy went from slow the spread, to flatten the curve, and now seems to stop the spread altogether. Dr. Scott Atlas, a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, says the idea of preventing infection is not just unnecessary; it is irrational.

As much as Democrats and the media want to keep us locked down and scared, the current situation does not warrant any of this. According to Dr. Atlas, political leaders and policymakers need to take a much closer look at the data. He is quite optimistic about how state reopenings have progressed to date.

In an interview with Larry O’Connor, Dr. Atlas gives a detailed assessment of the data and provides a great perspective on what data we should use to hold leaders accountable. It isn’t rising case numbers. With more mingling and more testing, rising cases were inevitable.

O’Connor and Dr. Atlas got into a discussion about how misleading the case metric is. It merely means a positive test. In the context of COVID-19, where approximately half of the cases are asymptomatic, it is a meaningless statistic. Further, as testing has become proactive, or required in some cases, and more widely available, saying there is a new case doesn’t denote illness.

https://thehill.com/homenews/news/505896-protesters-tear-down-statue-of-christopher-columbus-in-baltimore?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: ‘“To destroy a monument is to desecrate our common inheritance. In recent weeks, in the midst of protests across America, many monuments have been vandalized or destroyed. Some local governments have responded by taking their monuments down,” Trump’s order reads. “These statues are not ours alone, to be discarded at the whim of those inflamed by fashionable political passions; they belong to generations that have come before us and to generations yet unborn.” 

A group of protesters in Baltimore tore down a statue of Christopher Columbus on Saturday then threw it into the city’s Inner Harbor, The Baltimore Sun Reports.

Video shows protesters tearing down the statue near Baltimore’s Little Italy neighborhood as Fourth of July fireworks explode in the distance. The monument was torn down using rope and then protesters rolled it into the water.