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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION

50 STATES AND DC, CONGRESS AND THE PRESIDENT

Emperor’s New Clothes, Anyone? Joan Swirsky

https://canadafreepress.com/article/emperors-new-clothes-anyone

Every night for over 100 days, the entire American (and international) public has seen the criminals of Black Lives Matter (BLM) and Antifa getting away not only with arson and theft and assault and harassment, but murder.

While this or that reporter stands directly in front of a government building or independent black- or white-owned business that has been set on fire, with flames soaring into the sky, and the sound of gunfire causes that reporter to flinch, duck, or run for cover, he or she insanely and steadfastly maintains that We the People––the highly intelligent American public––are not seeing what is right before our eyes!

When the leftist media tell us that the “protests” we’re seeing in dozens of Democrat-run cities throughout our country are “peaceful,” do these media lackeys really think we’re that stupid…or blind?

Every day and night for all these months, we’ve seen these bought-and-paid-for leftist media whores try to convince us that up is down, black is white, bad is good. Just a small sample of these electronic and print media fakes include:

CBS-TV
NBC-TV
ABC-TV
MSNBC-TV
CNN-TV, et al …
NPR radio…
The NY Times
The Washington Post
The Los Angeles Times
The Chicago Sun-Times, et al.

 

Emperor’s New Clothes, anyone?

When Wish Replaces Thought Here is the indigestible truth for the Democrats. Donald Trump has had the most successful first term of any president in memory, maybe ever. By Roger Kimball

https://amgreatness.com/2020/09/05/when-wish-replaces-thought/

Don’t you just love Paul Krugman? One of loudest of the many anti-Trump hysterics employed by the New York Times, the former economist has been a reliable source of comedy at least since election night 2016. Once the worst was certain and the world learned that Donald Trump had indeed been elected president of the United States, Krugman pondered the markets, which had plunged overnight. “When might we expect them to recover?” he asked. “A first-pass answer is never . . . So we are very probably looking at a global recession, with no end in sight.”

What a card! I think we all deserve a Nobel Prize in economics. If Krugman can snag one, why not Stanley down at the bar? He says a lot of stupid things, too. 

Krugman never disappoints. On Thursday, September 3, he published an opinion piece in the Times called “Trump and the Attack of the Invisible Anarchists.” The burden of the piece was twofold. On the one hand, having picked up that week’s propaganda memo from Democratic National Committee headquarters, he parroted the new talking point about the riots ripping (Democratic) cites apart. 

Earlier this summer, the gospel was that there were no riots, only justly aggrieved citizens exercising their First Amendment rights to protest the heinous, cold-blooded murder of the violent career criminal and fentanyl abuser George Floyd. (Oops, that was from the teacher’s version of the manual: scrap “violent career criminal and fentanyl abuser.”) 

At some point, that narrative was canceled. The new narrative admits that there are riots, but insists that they are all Donald Trump’s fault because . . . 

Excuse me, we’re having trouble with reception. Forget that last bit: scratch “because” and just listen to the great Nobel laureate explain what’s really going on.  

Enjoy a sleight of hand show? How’s this? The “anarchists” that Donald Trump and other knuckle-dragging neanderthals are trying to scare mama with don’t really exist, not really. Look again, those people rampaging on the streets of Portland, St. Louis, Seattle, Chicago, Oakland, Washington, D.C., Kenosha, New York: they’re invisible. Paul Krugman can’t see them. He walked across Central Park to his doctor and encountered no mayhem, none. “It was a beautiful day,” he noted, “and the city looked cheerful . . . Central Park was full of joggers and cyclists.” An aspiring if wayward disciple of Bishop Berkeley, Krugman seems to have adopted a variety of the esse est percipi. If Krugman doesn’t perceive something, it doesn’t exist. 

A Night in D.C. That Should Never Have Happened in America: Time to Investigate Rabbi Aryeh Spero

https://thefederalist.com/2020/09/04/what-i-saw-when-the-mob-attacked-after-tr
What I Saw When The Mob Attacked After Trump’s Speech In Washington DC

Washington DC’s mayor and police failed to provide basic protections to American citizens from an angry and extremely well-funded leftist mob.

The highlight of the last night of the Republican National Convention was President Trump’s acceptance speech of his party’s nomination on the South Lawn of the White House. My wife and I attended this magical event. I say magical because the White House was lit up splendidly as nightfall fell over the sprawling verdant grounds surrounding the magnificent building.

The president was introduced by his daughter, Ivanka. Attendees endured a purposeful and loud noise from the street contiguous to the White House to the east. The hooligans making this noise did so to distract the speakers and discomfort the attendees. It went on for a very long time.

This purposeful and high-pitched, overbearing noise would never have been allowed had a Democrat been president. The mayor and the police department would never have permitted such an indignity to happen.

Beyond that, there are “nuisance laws” in every locale in this country forbidding people from taking over neighborhood streets, especially late at night, and creating explosive noises that make it impossible for the residents of the neighborhood to live a normal life. Why these nuisance laws were ignored and denied to the president and his guests was inexplicable.

Kyle Goes to Kenosha: A Folk Hero Is Born By Ilana Mercer

https://amgreatness.com/2020/09/04/kyle-goes-to-kenosha-a-folk-hero-is-born/

Tired of waiting on a neutered, coopted, infiltrated and compromised police to come to the rescue? Let law-abiding taxpayers hire private protection of Kyle Rittenhouse’s caliber.

Having done an about face against rioting, CNN’s sanctimonious Don Lemon giggled and smirked his way through a segment about “racist” white suburbanites who had the gall to imagine any self-respecting rioter would bother with their ugly abodes. Hey, racists, there is no Gucci merchandise where you bunk down, taunted CNN’s silly man.

Desperate, suddenly, to appear on the side of normies, the Fourth Estate is currently yearning for a Sister Souljah moment. Sister Souljah had expressed sympathy for the 1992 Los Angeles rioters. If only black people would turn to killing whites instead of one another, lamented that eponymous rapper.

Back then, Bill Clinton—a master politician, and a conservative by the standards of Democrats today—diffused her weasel words. Candidate Clinton called the rapper a racist as bad as David Duke. As a master of triangulation, he managed at once to appease whites (who mattered back then) without alienating black Americans. 

And, unlike Anderson Cooper, Bill Clinton felt your pain.

Behold the puzzled look on Cooper’s bewildered face, as he is told by an ordinary, working American what it means to lose your life’s work to louts and looters. The silver-haired Cooper, also a CNN celebrity anchor, is the son of heiress Gloria Vanderbilt. He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Perhaps he cannot comprehend the concept of private property owners defending their modest residences and meager businesses given the fact that he grew up in a castle.

Black Lives Matter protesters riot in Manhattan, cause $100,000 damage: NYPD amage: NYPD By Larry Celona and Vincent Barone

https://nypost.com/2020/09/05/black-lives-matter-protesters-riot-in-manhattan-cause-100000-damage/

Eight people were arrested Friday night when a group of 150 Black Lives Matter protesters smashed windows and graffitied the storefronts of Lower Manhattan chain stores and banks, police sources said.

At least two Starbucks, five banks and a Duane Reade had their windows busted, causing an estimated $100,000 in damage.
Police recovered two stun guns, smoke grenades, and burglary and graffiti tools.

The protest had been advertised on Twitter by groups calling themselves the “New Afrikan Black Panther Party” and the “Revolutionary Abolitionist Movement.”

One of the arrested protesters was from Portland, Ore., and another was from Iowa, the sources said.

All were charged with rioting; some were additionally charged with weapons and burglary tool possession.

The protest began at 6 p.m. at Foley Square; protesters lit trash can fires and scrawled graffiti — including the word “Abolition” — as they made their way north.

“Every city, every town, burn the precinct to the ground,” the group was recorded chanting at one point.

Three of the banks damaged were on Seventh Avenue, between 14th and 20th streets, police sources said.

One source noted that the marchers bypassed the home of City Council Speaker Corey Johnson, who lives at 15th Street and Seventh Avenue.

Johnson has called for an investigation into counter-protesters who plowed a car into a crowd of BLM protesters in Times Square on Thursday night.

“They’re breaking his neighbors’ windows — how come he’s not calling for an investigation now?” the source asked The Post wryly.

Security footage obtained by NBC4 shows a protester in a balaclava using a tool to smash windows of a shop as others held umbrellas to shield the vandal from view.

“We call on everyone who stood up during the #GeorgeFloyd uprising and all supporters to come out to say #DropTheCharges for all who have fought for our liberation!” wrote one of the groups that organized the event, RAM NYC, while promoting the protest on Twitter late last month.

Payrolls increase by nearly 1.4 million as the unemployment rate tumbles by Jeff Cox

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/04/jobs-report-august-2020-.html

Nonfarm payrolls increased by 1.37 million in August vs. Dow Jones estimates of 1.32 million.
The unemployment dropped to 8.4% from 10.2% in July and well below expectations of 9.8%.
Government hiring led the way, with gains also coming in retail and education and health services.

Nonfarm payrolls increased by 1.37 million in August and the unemployment rate tumbled to 8.4% as the U.S. economy continued to climb its way out of the pandemic downturn.

The unemployment rate was by far the lowest since the coronavirus shutdown in March, according to Labor Department figures released Friday. An alternative measure that includes discouraged workers and those holding part-time jobs for economic reasons also fell, down to 14.2% from 16.5% in July and 22.8% at the peak in April.

Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been expecting growth of 1.32 million and the jobless rate to decline to 9.8% from 10.2% in July.

Restore our lives using medical science, data and common sense By Scott W. Atlas

https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/514948-restore-our-lives-using-medical-science-data-and-common-sense

Americans are anxious to get back to work and to send their children to school. The science backs them up. We have learned a lot over the past months, and we are putting that knowledge to use. We are capitalizing on the advanced capabilities that we have developed, as we redouble our efforts to protect vulnerable populations and deliver new and effective treatments in record time.

Here’s what we now know: 

We know who is at risk. Only 0.2 percent of U.S. deaths have been people younger than 25, and 80 percent have been in people over 65; the average fatality age is 78. A JAMA Pediatrics study of North American pediatric hospitals flatly stated that “our data indicate that children are at far greater risk of critical illness from influenza than from COVID-19.”

We may see more cases as social interactions pick up, because this is a contagious disease. However, the overwhelming majority of cases are now occurring in younger, low-risk people — decades younger, on average, than seen in the spring. And the vast majority of these people deal with the infection without consequence; many don’t even know they have it.

While we saw more cases in July and August, we are not seeing the explosion of deaths we saw early on. An analysis of CDC data shows that the case fatality rate has declined by approximately 85 percent from its peak. 

That is partly because we are much better now at protecting our most vulnerable, including our senior citizens. States have learned from those that experienced outbreaks before them, and they have implemented thoughtful policies as a result.

We are doing much better with treating hospitalized patients. Lengths-of-stay are one-third the rate in April; the fatality rate in hospitals is one-half of that in April. Fewer patients need ICUs if hospitalized, and fewer need ventilators when in ICUs.

Trump Was Right, The Woke Mob Is Coming For The Washington Monument

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/09/04/trump-was-right-the-mob-is-coming-for-the-washington-monument/

Remember a few years ago, when the left scoffed at President Donald Trump for suggesting that mobs tearing down Confederate statues wouldn’t stop there?

“This week it’s Robert E. Lee. I noticed that Stonewall Jackson is coming down. I wonder, is George Washington next week, and is it Thomas Jefferson the week after? You really do have to ask yourself: ‘Where does it stop?’”

NPR even did a “fact check” to prove Trump was nuts for saying that. Others blasted the president for comparing the nation’s founders to slave-loving traitors, suggesting that it was another example of Trump’s racism.

Well, a working group appointed by Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser released a report this week that called for removing or relocating (or “contextualizing”) the Washington Monument and the Jefferson Memorial because Washington and Jefferson have been deemed “persons of concern.”

The DC FACES report says the two founders fall into a broader group of historical figures who’ve now been found guilty of “participation in slavery, systemic racism, mistreatment of, or actions that suppressed equality for, persons of color, women and LGBTQ communities.”

The report also calls for toppling statues and scrubbing the names of Ben Franklin, George Mason, Andrew Jackson, Alexander Graham Bell, Francis Scott Key, and many others from D.C. buildings and parks. (The complete list of undesirables is below.)

In their place, the report says, should be names that “include more women, people of color and LGBTQ Washingtonians.”

We Have Had Enough Lockdown Julie Kelly

https://amgreatness.com/2020/09/03/we-have-had-enough-lockdown/

Take off the masks and remove the “social distancing” circles from the floors. Open the schools, liberate college campuses, fill the restaurants and the gyms and the churches and the salons. Enough.

If 2020 wasn’t twisted enough, the current political imbroglio centers around a verboten visit to a California boutique for a routine blow-out. Americans are lining up either behind House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who claims she was “set up” to visit the San Francisco salon, or the salon’s owner, a woman struggling to keep her business alive amid cruel and unscientific edicts issued by her governor months ago.

The incident is the latest in a series of “rules for thee but not for me” gut punches from the ruling class; whether it’s mask-free trips to the park or crowded funerals for anointed heroes or casual meals munched indoors, the government-ordered shutdowns apply to everyone except the sadists running government who order said shutdowns.

But here’s the rub: No one should be talking about Pelosi’s coif controversy because it should not even be a story. It shouldn’t have happened in the first place. Erica Kious should never have been forced to close her business, fire her stylists, and sneak in customers like some 1940s underground operation hiding from the nation’s modern-day face covering and social distancing Gestapo. Pelosi should be able to get her hair done whenever and wherever she pleases without concocting a preposterous excuse that she was framed for fluffy follicles.

Almost a half a year ago, Americans were asked to suspend their personal freedoms, business pursuits, and schooling for 15 days to “flatten the curve” of rising cases of the novel coronavirus. Americans, fearful of the unknown and willing to do what they imagined was the right thing to protect themselves and their family, acquiesced.

That was 172 days ago. What has happened since will be studied and debated for decades with one likely conclusion: Global lockdowns, particularly in the United States, were one of the costliest man-made disasters of all time. The decision was rooted in unscientific hocus pocus that resulted in economic, educational, mental, physical, and emotional catastrophes on a scale that can never be fully quantified—not to mention the way stay-at-home orders fueled racial and civil unrest across America months before a national election.

The Case Against Covid Tests for the Young and Healthy Hunting for asymptomatic cases encourages pointless shutdowns. Protect the vulnerable instead.By Jay Bhattacharya and Martin Kulldorff

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-case-against-covid-tests-for-the-young-and-healthy-11599151722?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

Dr. Bhattacharya, a physician and economist, is a professor at Stanford Medical School. Mr. Kulldorff, a biostatistician, is a professor at Harvard Medical School.

Should people who aren’t sick be tested for Covid-19? In August the Centers for Disease and Control Prevention revised its guidance to suggest focusing on the elderly and patients with symptoms. One may be excused for thinking that more testing is always better, but that isn’t true. Anyone can be infected with the virus, but there is a thousandfold difference in the risk of death between the young and the old. Testing strategy should reflect that.

There is little purpose in using tests to check asymptomatic children to see if it is safe for them to come to school. When children are infected, most are asymptomatic, and the mortality risk is lower than for the flu. While adult-to-adult and adult-to-child transmission is common, child-to-adult transmission isn’t. Children thus pose minimal risk to their teachers. If a child has a cough, a runny nose or other respiratory symptoms, he should stay home. You don’t need a test for that.

What would routine Covid-19 testing of children accomplish? A child with no symptoms who tests positive would be sent home and deprived of an education. Enough asymptomatic cases would lead to school closures. Yet the public-health consensus is that classroom learning is important, and closures are highly detrimental. That’s especially true for working-class children, whose parents can’t afford tutors or learning “pods,” but must instead make difficult choices between supervising their children’s education and paying the bills.

Sweden was the only major Western country that kept schools open for kids 15 and younger throughout the pandemic, with no masks or mass testing. How did it turn out? Zero Covid-19 deaths among 1.8 million children attending day care or school. Teachers didn’t have an excess infection risk compared with the average of other professions.