RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/coronavirus-pandemic-us-death-toll-passes-100000/

More than 100,000 people have died of the coronavirus in the U.S. as of Wednesday, with almost 1,700,000 infections confirmed throughout the country.

As of May 22, 43 percent of coronavirus victims were residents of nursing homes or assisted-living facilities, according to an analysis conducted for the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity. In the state of New Jersey alone, one-tenth of all long-term care residents in nursing homes have died during the pandemic.

The state of New York, which has seen over 5,000 coronavirus deaths in nursing homes, along with New Jersey and Michigan, have compelled nursing homes to readmit coronavirus patients discharged from the hospital. That policy stood in contrast to Florida, where state health officials worked to keep coronavirus patients out of nursing homes. At least 650 Florida nursing home residents have died of coronavirus.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/cuomo-claims-obligation-is-on-the-nursing-homes-to-reject-covid-patients-despite-his-march-order-prohibiting-testing/?utm_

New York governor Andrew Cuomo on Wednesday said that nursing homes are obligated to transfer coronavirus patients if they cannot provide “adequate care.”

“The obligation is on the nursing home to say, I can’t take a COVID-positive person,” Cuomo said at a press conference. “The regulation is common sense: if you can’t provide adequate care, you can’t have the patient in your facility and that’s your basic fiduciary obligation — I would say, ethical obligation — and it’s also your legal obligation.”

Cuomo’s March 25 executive order forbid nursing homes from rejecting Covid-positive patients or even testing prospective patients for Covid after they were released from the hospital.

“No resident shall be denied re-admission or admission to the [nursing home] solely based on a confirmed or suspected diagnosis of COVID-19. [Nursing homes] are prohibited from requiring a hospitalized resident who is determined medically stable to be tested for COVID-19 prior to admission or readmission,” the order states.

New York health commissioner Howard Zucker said at the Wednesday press briefing that he was not aware if the state’s Health Department had received any requests from nursing homes to transfer coronavirus patients to other facilities.

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/499586-new-fbi-document-confirms-the-trump-campaign-was-investigated-without

Late last week the FBI document that started the Trump-Russia collusion fiasco was publicly released. It hasn’t received a lot of attention but it should, because not too long from now this document likely will be blown up and placed on an easel as Exhibit A in a federal courtroom.

The prosecutor, U.S. Attorney John Durham, will rightly point out that the document that spawned three years of political misery fails to articulate a single justifiable reason for starting the “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation.  

Those of us who have speculated there was insufficient cause for beginning the investigation could not have imagined the actual opening document was this feeble. It is as if it were written by someone who had no experience as an FBI agent.

Keep in mind the FBI cannot begin to investigate anyone, especially a U.S. citizen or entity, without first creating a document that lists the reasonably suspicious factors that would legally justify the investigation. That’s FBI 101, taught Day 1 at the FBI Academy at Quantico, Va.

To the untrained eye, the FBI document that launched Crossfire Hurricane can be confusing, and it may be difficult to discern how it might be inadequate. To the trained eye, however, it is a train wreck. There are a number of reasons why it is so bad. Two main ones are offered below (if you would like to follow along, the document is here):

First, the document is oddly constructed. In a normal, legitimate FBI Electronic Communication, or EC, there would be a “To” and a “From” line. The Crossfire Hurricane EC has only a “From” line; it is from a part of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division whose contact is listed as Peter Strzok. The EC was drafted also by Peter Strzok. And, finally, it was approved by Peter Strzok. Essentially, it is a document created by Peter Strzok, approved by Peter Strzok, and sent from Peter Strzok to Peter Strzok.

https://thefederalist.com/2020/05/27/advice-to-keep-d-c-schools-closed-until-theres-a-vaccine-proves-weve-been-gaslit/

Former Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff is advising D.C.’s mayor not to fully reopen schools until there’s a vaccine for COVID-19.

“The idea is at least in Stage 1 to have distance learning…but then over the next 2 stages….we would slowly begin to bring students in,” he told Margaret Brennan on “Face the Nation” Sunday. Eventually, schools would “basically reopen but in a very measured and deliberate way.”

D.C faces unique challenges, Chertoff explains, given that people from all over the world visit for work and can be vectors for transmission. He didn’t explain how outbreak mitigation efforts are served in any significant way by keeping schools closed to children, who are not only local but at extremely low risk for becoming seriously ill from the disease and are, contact tracing studies show, less likely to spread it.

But we can no longer expect scientific explanations for such absurd recommendations, much less why pandemic mission creep has gone unchecked over the past two months. I’m sure the Homeland Security secretary under George Bush would know nothing about that.

https://thefederalist.com/2020/05/27/legal-scholars-embarrass-themselves-in-pompous-letter-attacking-michael-flynn/

Twenty legal luminaries led by Harvard professor Laurence Tribe have written a brief urging Judge Emmet Sullivan to reject the government’s motion to dismiss the Michael Flynn case.

Twenty legal luminaries calling themselves “Separation of Powers Scholars” and led by Harvard Professor Laurence Tribe have written a brief urging Judge Emmet Sullivan to reject the government’s motion to dismiss the Michael Flynn case and to proceed to sentencing.

The brief is a shoddy piece of work. It tells little about the Flynn case, even misleading on that score, but it triggers disturbing ruminations about the sad state of current legal academia.

How We Got Here

Here’s a quick review of the case. For more detail, visit the roster of documents compiled by Flynn’s lawyer, Sidney Powell.

Flynn, Trump’s first national security advisor, was charged with lying to the FBI. After great pressure was put on him in threats of extensive jail time, possible indictments of his son, and financial ruin from lawyers’ fees, he, advised by the D.C. establishment firm of Covington and Burling (headed by former Obama Attorney General Eric Holder), agreed to plead guilty in exchange for a government recommendation of no jail time.

$100 billion+ of your taxpayer dollars will be funding this behemoth effort – an army of contact tracers.Malkin (Jewish World Review) asks some poignant questions and makes a few astute observations:

1) What happens when “experts” get diagnoses and assessments wrong? 2) Is this an opt-in or opt-out intrusion into your life? 3) What about built-in privacy considerations?  MTX, the software company with a mega contract to monitor vaccinations, treatment and testing, has already expanded into monitoring jobless claims and childcare facilities.  What’s next?4) Big Pharma and other businesses now have access to your previously protected personal health care information.5) Texas governor, Greg Abbott failed to provide advanced notice to the state legislature of the almost $300 million MTX deal (funded by taxpayer dollars). Janet Levy,

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/05/27/cashing_in_on_contact_tracing_143298.html

Ca$hing In on Contact Tracing-Michelle Malkin

Look out. An “army of contact tracers” is about to be unleashed on America. Corporations, political lobbyists and government bureaucracies all win. Privacy, freedom and family autonomy all lose. Big time.

You may have already heard of the aptly named House Bill 6666, sponsored by Illinois Dem. Bobby Rush. Known as the Testing, Reaching and Contacting Everyone (TRACE) Act, the legislation would allocate $100 billion in public funding to “eligible entities” to “conduct diagnostic testing for COVID-19, and related activities such as contact tracing, through mobile health units and, as necessary, at individuals’ residences, and for other purposes.”

The cash could be used to hunt down infected individuals, quarantine them in their homes for undefined periods under unknown conditions and subsidize a hiring spree of untold thousands of trackers from nonprofits, schools and medical facilities.

https://amgreatness.com/2020/05/26/smoothing-the-bumpy-road-to-reopening/

It is clearly past time to rein in the baseless, arbitrary restrictions that have been imposed by some politicians, as they can only inspire disrespect and non-compliance.

Every day seems to bring some new, unexpected, unpleasant revelation about the SARS-CoV-2 and the illness it causes, COVID-19. 

The infection has a long, often asymptomatic incubation period, high transmissibility, the ability to infect many human tissues, and, frequently, rapid deterioration of the clinical course. Some curious aspects of the infection, such as long duration of symptoms, multi-organ involvement, blood clots, and patients’ ability to tolerate extremely low blood oxygen levels have put critical care doctors on a steep learning curve, trying to understand how best to keep patients from falling off a cliff.

If the clinical aspects of the disease have been difficult to catalog and manage, the public health considerations have been equally vexing. We know enough now, however, to offer improved guidance for setting public health policy. Rather than using projections of cases and fatalities to guide policy decisions, the focus should be on the granular level of how the virus physically spreads. It is time to relegate the COVID-19 epidemiological models primarily to projecting required hospital and ventilator capacity and supplies of personal protective equipment.  

Based on a survey recently in New York, it appears that a very high percentage of new cases can be traced to individuals’ homes and to care facilities such as nursing homes. The survey found that 83 percent of new cases came from unemployed or retired individuals who are largely sheltered in place, while almost a quarter (22 percent) of these cases originated in long term care facilities. In the nation overall, 11 percent of COVID-19 cases have occurred in long-term care facilities, while deaths from the infection in long-term care facilities account for more than one-third of the country’s pandemic fatalities.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/05/its_time_to_checkmate_runamok_covid19_states.html

Hopefully, many of the things that lay heavy upon the nation right now will be in our collective rear-view mirror in the near future. These things include constant mention of pandemic and crisis, hourly radio reports and TV news reports of coronavirus infections and deaths, face masks, the pronouncements of “experts” like the little gnome man and the scarf lady, and ubiquitous signs and messages that implore us to stay home and stay safe (OBEY!) 

All of this is aimed at creating and reinforcing a state of fear and panic because scared people are easier to manipulate.  
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What will not, and must not, fade from our memory and consciousness is the stench of the actions of state governors and state officials who acted with little regard for the constitutional rights of their citizens. They imposed state-of-emergency edicts that were arbitrary, illogical, capricious, inconsistent and had little, if any, effect in controlling the virus “crisis.” It is hard to fathom why small businesses have had to close while Costco, Target, Home Depot, Lowe’s and other giant stores were allowed to stay open. Small businesses, whose owners have invested their lives and fortunes, were ordered closed in a fiat which jeopardized their very existence. These businesses were declared “non-essential,” but they are quite essential to their owners and very often their customers! The effect of thid business shut-down by state officials has been incredibly costly and as effective as medieval blood draining. The social costs haven’t even begun to be known.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/05/kafkafornia-clamps-down-lloyd-billingsley/

“Gun violence is the last thing our communities and children should have to fear during a public health crisis. Background checks can save lives and DOJ’s firearms operations help make that happen. At the California Department of Justice, we’ll keep doing our part to keep firearms out of the hands of violent and dangerous individuals.”

That was California attorney general Xavier Becerra last week, but his announcement failed to cite any example of actual “gun violence.” The former congressman, once on Hillary Clinton’s short list as a running mate, was hailing raids that confiscated firearms from people who had committed no crime.

According to the Sacramento Bee, the state DOJ mounted “a dozen operations to confiscate firearms and ammunition possessed by owners who failed background checks.” This is the background check California requires for all purchases of ammunition. Failing this particular check is not the same as committing a crime.

From last July 1, when the program kicked in, until December, 2019, the state ran 345,000 background checks and rejected a full 62,000 Californians legally entitled to purchase ammunition. The 62,000 included off-duty sheriff’s deputies purchasing shotgun shells to hunt ducks. Database discrepancies meant the 62,000 had somehow “failed” a background check, implying malfeasance. The law-abiding gun owners then became “prohibited persons,” barred from purchasing ammunition and exercising their Second Amendment rights. 

Attorney Ari Freilich of the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, told reporters that dangerous people were “committing a serious crime trying to acquire a product designed to take human life,” and that the background check system was working as intended. The outright confiscation of firearms in April, 2020, confirms that this is the case.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/cuomo-coronavirus-order-forcing-nursing-homes-to-take-covid-19-patients-scrubbed-from-new-york-state-website/

The New York Department of Health has apparently deleted a March order issued by Governor Andrew Cuomo that forced nursing homes to admit Covid-positive residents.

The order, which was implemented on March 25, stated that “no resident shall be denied re-admission or admission to a nursing home solely based on a confirmed or suspected diagnosis of COVID-19,” and also prohibited nursing homes from requiring testing prior to admission or readmission. But the order is no longer visible on the state’s website.

Other outdated guidelines, including a February order stating “there is no need to cancel school or social events, and there is no need for students or school staff to wear surgical masks at school,” remain active on the site.

The New York Department of Health and Cuomo’s office did not respond to requests for comment as to why the order was deleted.

New York leads the country with over 5,000 nursing home deaths due to coronavirus, and earlier this month admitted to quietly changing its criteria to count only those cases in which the individual died at the nursing home, rather than at the hospital. News of the policy has resulted in calls for an investigation from conservative lawmakers.

Cuomo, who said in April that he was not aware of his state’s own policy, reversed it earlier this month. “We’re just not going to send a person who is positive to a nursing home after hospital visit. Period. If there’s any issue, the resident must be referred to the department of health which will find alternative care,” he announced on May 10.