RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/06/29/will-governors-make-the-same-mistake-twice-with-lockdowns/

With a recent spike in coronavirus infections, no doubt due to the nationwide riots and demonstrations whipped up by the Democrats since late May, some governors are reversing their earlier easing of economic restrictions. It’s a huge and costly mistake.

At least 10 states and cities are either putting their reopenings on hold or actually imposing new lockdown rules.

Arkansas, Delaware, Idaho, Louisiana, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon and Washington have hit the “pause” button, according to recent press reports. Meanwhile, the U.S.’ three most populous states, California, Florida and Texas, have reversed their reopenings, in essence reimposing a lockdown.

Supposedly it’s a response to 27 states reporting big rises in new coronavirus cases.

But those spikes have two main causes: One, more testing finds more infections. So cases are naturally “spiking”. Two, recent demonstrations, riots and other non-socially distanced activities led to an increase — with nary a peep from the Democratic “progressive” left, which cynically hopes to ride the wave of coronavirus cases into the White House and a congressional majority.

In fact, the data are clear. The lockdowns had no real impact on the virus’ spread. But they did have a devastating impact on the economies where they were introduced.

“Residents and business owners in states under a COVID shutdown mandate from their governors are suffering far more job loss,” according to data crunched by the Kansas Policy Institute. “May private-sector employment in those 43 states was 13.1% lower than a year ago, but the states not shut down by their governors only lost 7.7% of their private job base.”

So, if politicians do their citizens the non-favor of re-closing parts of their economies in the mistaken belief that doing so will halt the spread of coronavirus, they will be making a major error, one that will cost us dearly as a nation.

“Even if lockdowns were the best strategy, the authorities, espousing and imposing them repeatedly, undermined their legitimacy,” wrote former U.S. Treasury official (and Issues & Insights contributor) J.T. Young on The Hill web site. “Authorities have so discredited the lockdowns that there is little chance lockdowns can be reimposed at their prior level — even if they are needed.” 

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/06/reparations-fallacy-joseph-klein/

Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) said during a speech on the floor of the House of Representatives last week that “Black Lives Matter is a mandate from the people. It’s time. Pay us what you owe us.” Pressley is a demagogue. We are not living in a mob-run democracy of the “people.” We live in a constitutional republic. Americans don’t owe Pressley (speaking for “us”) anything except her salary – even that’s a stretch given her performance.

Nikole Hannah-Jones, the leader of the New York Times’ historically flawed 1619 Project on black slavery as the central theme of America’s identity, at least tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to present persuasive arguments and selective bits of history in support of her call for reparations. She wrote an extensive cover story for the June 28th edition of The New York Times Magazine, entitled “What is Owed.”

Nikole Hannah-Jones demands recompense in the form of an unspecified amount of reparations for the “centuries of meticulously orchestrated inequities” that she says still persist. She claims that these inequities give white Americans a “centuries-long economic head start that most effectively maintains racial caste today.” Hannah-Jones further argues that “the lack of wealth has been a defining feature of black life since the end of slavery,” which has been caused by “400 years of racialized plundering.” She plays down the significance of legal progress on civil rights during the last 70 years, beginning with the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education school desegregation decision and including legislation prohibiting discrimination in housing, employment and voting rights.

https://pjmedia.com/columns/stacey-lennox/2020/06/29/remdesivir-gets-a-price-tag-of-3210-despite-showing-no-evidence-of-decreasing-covid-19-deaths-n586084

EXCERPT:

Hydroxychloroquine

Another drug that costs a fraction of what remdesivir does is hydroxychloroquine. It is used in combination with azithromycin and zinc. This drug was highly politicized early in the pandemic because the president expressed hope that it could be effective.

At that time, doctors in the United States who were using the drug combination were clear. It should be used early in the infection, especially in those in high-risk groups. However, the emergency use authorization given by the FDA provided the drug to individuals suffering from severe disease. As discussed above, many of these patients are suffering from a complex, multi-system illness that requires more than a drug combination that slows viral replication.

However, Yale researcher Harvey Risch, M.D., Ph.D., has done a review of studies where the drug combination was used in an outpatient setting. Five studies, including two controlled clinical trials in process, convinced him to conclude in his abstract (emphasis mine):

Hydroxychloroquine+azithromycin has been used as standard-of-care in more than 300,000 older adults with multicomorbidities, with estimated proportion diagnosed with cardiac arrhythmias attributable to the medications 47/100,000 users, of which estimated mortality is <20%, 9/100,000 users, compared to the 10,000 Americans now dying each week. These medications need to be widely available and promoted immediately for physicians to prescribe.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/stacey-lennox/2020/06/29/sidney-powell-drops-a-bomb-or-two-on-the-glaring-problems-with-the-flynn-case-n588095

Sidney Powell won a significant victory when her writ of mandamus was granted by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals requiring Judge Sullivan to dismiss the case against General Michael Flynn. At this time, Judge Sullivan has not entered the dismissal. Powell sat down with Jan Jakielek for an extended interview about the case and dropped a few bombs in the process.

Powell began by saying it is extraordinary that Judge Sullivan has not complied with the order. In her experience, this would typically occur within 24-48 hours. The briefing and hearing schedule have both been canceled, but the case has not been formally dismissed. She added the full court could review the case, but in this circumstance, it would be unprecedented.

Her interest in the case was ongoing before she signed on the replace General Flynn’s prior defense team. Powell reports having ongoing concerns about the case, especially related to Andrew Weismann. Referring to him as the “lead villain” in her book “License to Lie,” she explained the prosecutor had a long history of making up crimes, hiding exculpatory evidence, and railroading people with the enormous power of the federal government.

https://www.ajc.com/news/local/opinion-hello-outrage-atlanta-shootings-surge-but-not-the-cops/pUYKjFGY8LcxSVlrHZpb4H/

https://www.ajc.com/news/local/opinion-hello-outrage-atlanta-shootings-surge-but-not-the-cops/pUYKjFGY8LcxSVlrHZpb4H/

The exchange was surreal, a sign that the wheels may be falling off public safety in Atlanta.

Fittingly, it happened Monday during the City Council’s Public Safety Committee hearing as council members and interim Police Chief Rodney Bryant were grappling with the unrest plaguing the city.

Councilman Antonio Brown, who represents the district just west of downtown, was getting ready to speak in the virtual meeting when he told the chief: “I was just notified there was a young man who was just shot and killed at 377 Westchester Boulevard. Can you get a unit out there? He’s been on the ground and there’s no police who have come. He’s dead already, he’s on the ground and the residents have put a sheet over him and the police still haven’t arrived.”

It sounds like Afghanistan: Can you please come and pick up the body?

But there’s more.

On June 13, as angry protesters milled around the south Atlanta Wendy’s the day after Rayshard Brooks was shot in the parking lot by a cop — and hours before the restaurant was burned down — there was a wild shootout in the Edgewood neighborhood in east Atlanta. Five people were wounded and two were killed. Residents reported hearing perhaps 40 gunshots.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/police-investigating-protesters-after-confrontation-with-armed-st-louis-homeowners/

A couple pointed guns at protesters who were on private property outside their home Sunday night, as the demonstrators marched past on their way to St. Louis mayor Lyda Krewson’s residence to demand her resignation. Police are now investigating the incident to determine whether the protesters committed trespassing and fourth-degree assault by intimidation.

Mark and Patricia McCloskey stood outside their home on Portland Place, a private street, as hundreds of protesters, some of them armed, marched by and chanted. The McCloskeys had been inside their home when they heard loud activity outside and saw “a large group of subjects forcefully break an iron gate marked with ‘No Trespassing’ and ‘Private Street’ signs,” St. Louis police said.

“The group began yelling obscenities and threats of harm to both victims,” the police said. “When the victims observed multiple subjects who were armed, they then armed themselves and contacted police.”

Law experts have noted that Missouri’s Castle Doctrine allows homeowners to use deadly force to defend their private property from intruders.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/06/supreme-court-abortion-decision-chief-justice-john-roberts-misrules/

“One can only speculate why Chief Justice Roberts has engaged in his contortions. Perhaps he believes that this decision will somehow strengthen the legitimacy of the Supreme Court as an institution above political strife. Instead, he has reinforced the impression, on all sides of our national debates, that he is the most politically calculating of the justices. He has diminished the belief in the impartiality of judges among those Americans who have been most reluctant to give it up. What he has accomplished for his institution is further disgrace.”

The Constitution does not prohibit Louisiana from requiring abortionists to have admitting privileges in hospitals near where they operate. We know this fact from reading it; from the debates over the ratification of its provisions, none of which suggest that anyone believed that it could be used in such a fashion; and from the fact that for many decades states prohibited abortion altogether without anyone’s even alleging that they were violating the Constitution. Now five justices of the Supreme Court have conceded this obvious point.

The Court will not allow Louisiana this regulation anyway. Chief Justice John Roberts is one of the five justices who do not believe the law conflicts with the Constitution, rightly interpreted. He voted in 2016 that an identical Texas law should be upheld, and his opinion in the Louisiana case says that he still agrees with his reasoning then. Nevertheless, he claims to believe that the Louisiana law is too similar to the law that his colleagues in 2016 struck down over his dissent. The force of precedent, he maintains, requires the law to be nullified. Otherwise, Americans would lack confidence in the rule of law. It is, on the other hand, wonderfully inspiring to that confidence for a justice to strike down a law that he concedes the state had the constitutional authority to enact.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/one-mans-supreme-court-11593472794?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

So much for all those crocodile fears about the end of abortion rights. The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 Monday that a state can’t even require abortion providers to have admitting privileges at a hospital. And the logic of the concurring opinion from Chief Justice John Roberts, who provided the fifth vote, suggests not even de minimis regulation of abortion will survive his Court’s scrutiny.

A woman’s right to abortion wasn’t at issue in June Medical Services v. Russo. No woman seeking an abortion was a plaintiff. The case was brought by abortion providers, who claimed that Louisiana’s requirement that they have admitting privileges at a hospital would be an undue burden on the ability of women to obtain an abortion.

Here’s the stunner: Four years ago a different Court majority overturned a similar Texas statute, with then Justice Anthony Kennedy joining the four liberals. Chief Justice Roberts dissented in that case. Yet on Monday the Chief joined the liberals, citing his duty to follow precedent.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/cortneyobrien/2020/06/29/elise-stefanik-isnt-done-tearing-apart-cuomos-nursing-home-policy-n2571505

“We all know people who have died in New York nursing home,” Fox News anchor Steve Doocy said on “Fox & Friends” Monday morning.

In fact, one of Doocy’s colleagues, Fox News meteorologist Janice Dean, has been very candid about how both of her in-laws died in a New York nursing home in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) has heard her share of similarly tragic stories from several of her constituents. And there was one common denominator: Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s mandate that forced nursing home facilities to accept COVID-positive patients once they were discharged from the hospital. 

In the aftermath of the policy, several thousand nursing home residents have died, having been unnecessarily exposed to the virus. Dean has no doubt in her mind that Cuomo’s policy is what doomed her husband’s parents. That’s why, when Gov. Cuomo demanded an investigation into a young man who unknowingly spread the virus to a few classmates at his high school graduation, Rep. Stefanik called the governor “hypocritical.” 

“The governor refuses to be held accountable for the thousands and thousands of seniors who lost their lives because of the failed and fatal nursing home policy…It really is hypocritical that the governor is pointing fingers at this high school student,” Stefanik said. 

https://us7.campaign-archive.com/?e=a9fdc67db9&u=9d011a88d8fe324cae8c084c5&id=39eed4756e

Back in April I wrote several posts on the subject of the severity and expected mortality from the Covid-19 pandemic. It is fair to say that I expressed a high degree of skepticism that the pandemic was of sufficient severity to justify the extreme economic suppression that was being undertaken at that time (much of which still remains in place today). Here is my post from April 16 titled “What Is The Proof That This Covid-19 Thing Really Is A ‘Crisis,’ Or That Economic Suppression Is The Solution?”; and here is one from April 27, titled “What Is The True Level Of Mortality Caused By The Covid-19 Virus?”

I have been holding off revisiting the subject because I have not been able to find data that answer the principal questions that I asked in those posts. In particular, I made this statement in the April 27 post:

The best indication we will get [of the true death rate from this virus] will come when the CDC issues final data for deaths from all causes in the U.S. for the month of April. When we get that number, we can subtract from it the approximate “normal” number of deaths that would have occurred anyway during April. The difference will be a good estimate of the number of excess deaths attributable to the virus.

At this writing I still cannot find those data. If anyone can point me to a source, I will appreciate it.