RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/04/its-the-presidents-prerogative-to-name-a-co

Another media non-story shows the double standard of presidential appointments for Republicans vs. Democrats.

And now, the latest melodrama: Media shrieking over President Trump’s removal of an Obama holdover who had been designated to be the inspector general overseeing the gargantuan spending authorized by the coronavirus relief legislation.

That official, Glenn Fine, a longtime Democratic favorite, is currently working in the Defense Department’s Office of Inspector General.

The $2 trillion bill signed by the president in March creates an $80 million fiefdom known as the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee. The PRAC will audit government spending. By law, its chairman must be an inspector general or acting inspector general of one of the executive branch departments or agencies. Up until Tuesday, Fine had been DoD’s acting inspector general, a position he assumed during the Obama administration.

Last week, what the New York Times describes as “an umbrella group of agency inspectors general across the executive branch” got together and named Fine to be the PRAC’s chairman. On Tuesday, however, President Trump pushed Fine out as acting IG. That renders him ineligible for the PRAC post.

The president did this by replacing Fine at DoD with Sean O’Donnell, who is currently the Environmental Protection Agency’s IG. Trump also nominated Jason Abend to become DoD’s IG. Pending Abend’s confirmation, O’Donnell will be DoD’s acting IG while continuing to wear his EPA IG hat. Meanwhile, if Fine chooses to stay in government, he will revert to his former position as DoD’s deputy IG. That is the job in which President Obama installed him in 2015. Fine became DoD’s acting IG the next year, but he was never confirmed.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/04/the-supreme-courts-misunderstood-ruling-on-wisconsins-coronavirus-primary/

There seems to be some confusion about the Supreme Court’s ruling on Monday in connection with Tuesday’s Wisconsin primary. This owes to reporting that suggests, or at least could lead its audience to believe, that the Court’s five conservative-leaning, Republican-appointed justices, over the strident objection of its four left-leaning, Democratic-appointed justices, directed that the primary proceed with in-person voting, despite the coronavirus threat.

That is not what happened.

The state government of Wisconsin, led by Governor Anthony Steven Evers, a Democrat, made the decision to go forward with the primary, and with in-person voting. As the Court’s majority emphasizes, that was not the Court’s call, nor is it the Court’s place to opine on the wisdom of the state government’s decision.

The majority’s unsigned opinion explains that the issue the Court was called upon to decide was a narrow one, pertaining to absentee ballots. Specifically, at the urging of Democratic Party organizations concerned about the COVID-19 pandemic’s effects on voting, federal district judge William Conley (an Obama appointee) extended the deadline for receipt of mail-in ballots from Tuesday April 7 (the primary-election day) to Monday afternoon, April 13. That aspect of the district court’s ruling was not in dispute. Judge Conley, however, directed that that absentee ballots were eligible to be counted regardless of when they were mailed in or otherwise delivered, as long as they came in by the April 13 deadline. In effect, that meant absentee ballots could be cast after in-person primary voting had closed on April 7.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/04/the_dubious_dr_fauci.html

On January 26, speaking about the coronavirus, Dr. Fauci said the risk to Americans was low, that there was nothing to be worried or frightened about, and that we were prepared (here: 5:08 mark, audio).

By mid-February, Fauci was more concerned about the seasonal flu and continued to say the coronavirus risk to Americans was low, and there was no need, for example, to avoid going to Chinese restaurants.

He also noted that things could change (as if we need an expert to tell us that).  By making such (obvious) statements, he covers himself by leaving the door open to whatever may happen down the road à la, you see, I told you things could change (here).

On April 3, in direct contradiction to a statement made just a few days prior by Dr. Birx that initial reports coming out of China were suggestive of a SARS-like virus and not a global pandemic (here), Fauci claimed that it was clear to him in early to mid-January that this virus was transmittable from human to human, that transmission was very efficient, and that it wasn’t just another SARS or MERS (here: 13:20 mark).

Huh?

https://www.theepochtimes.com/we-are-now-bending-the-curve-daily-hospitalizations-from-covid-19-drop-in-new-york_3303914.html

Social distancing measures in New York are working so well that the projected curve of COVID-19 is bending, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said on Wednesday, describing “mixed emotions” as he also reported the state’s largest single-day death toll from the new disease.

COVID-19, caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, commonly known as novel coronavirus, led to just 586 new hospitalizations overnight, as New York officials continued reporting more discharges than new admissions.

“What we have done and what we are doing is actually working and is making a difference,” Cuomo told reporters at a press conference in Albany. “There’s no doubt that we are now bending the curve.”

The curve refers to the rise in any one of several measures, such as infections or hospitalizations, followed by a peak before the number falls.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/04/josh-hawley-has-a-good-idea-for-phase-four/

To protect public health, governments throughout the country are shutting businesses down. It is not just morally right, but also important to a quick recovery, that those businesses be kept afloat and connected to their workers.

That is why we supported the $2 trillion “Phase Three” relief bill, and it’s why we support efforts to improve these policies or replace them with something better. Lawmakers should especially study a new proposal from Josh Hawley that would take an entirely different approach to the rescue.

The Phase 3 bill makes loans available to struggling businesses and promises to forgive those loans to the extent the companies retain their payrolls. There are some early snags, though things seem to be getting better with time: Some of the banks charged with administering the loans were slow to start lending; the Small Business Association, which oversees the program, scrambled to clarify the rules; and some businesses are finding that their employees would rather get expanded unemployment benefits than stay on the payroll. It’s also likely the program’s money will run out before the lockdowns are over and businesses have recovered, and 10 million people have already filed for unemployment.

There are two ways forward.

The South Korean solution to the COVID-19 virus (widespread testing and the hydroxychloroquine-zinc cure) is beginning to work in the United States. Americans, like South Koreans, will soon be back at work and school. But at Monday’s Coronavirus Task Force press briefing, Dr. Anthony Fauci ignored the success.

Instead, he pretended that the only way the U.S. could get back to normal was through vaccines and new therapies. He was responding to a question directed to him, and him only, by reporter Jonathan Karl at the 37:37 mark of this video:  HERE. 

Karl: Will we truly get back to normal before there’s a vaccine available to everybody?…

Fauci: … I believe with the therapies that will be coming online, with the fact that I feel confident that over a period of time we will get a good vaccine, that we will never have to get back to where we are right now. So, if that means getting back to normal, then we’ll get back to normal.

Fauci was being disingenuous. His own organization NIAID (one of the institutes of NIH) is slow walking both therapies and vaccines. For example, NIAID is currently conducting a study on the effectiveness of Remdesivir, a drug which, along with chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, proved effective against COVID-19 in the Chinese test-tube studies.Here’s NIAID’s schedule for completing Phase 3 of its approval process:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/04/07/new-york-coronavirus-deaths-data-shows-most-had-underlying-illnesses/2960151001/

ALBANY, N.Y. – The majority of New York’s more than 4,700 deaths due to coronavirus were among men, and 86% of all deaths were among people who had underlying illnesses, such as hypertension and diabetes, new state data shows.

The statistics released late Monday offered the latest glimpse into how the rapidly spreading virus has impacted New York and made it the epicenter for COVID-19 in the nation.

Of the 4,758 deaths in New York since the first on March 14, 61% were men and 39% were women, the state Department of Health reportedon its new data portal.

In addition, 63% of the deaths were among those age 70 and older, while 7% of the cases were those 49 and younger.

And 4,089 of those who died had at least one other chronic disease, the records showed:

The leading underlying illness was hypertension, which showed up in 55% of the deaths.
Next was diabetes, which was diagnosed in 1,755 deaths, or about 37% of the cases.
Other top illnesses found in those who died from coronavirus were hyperlipidemia; coronary artery disease; renal disease and dementia.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/07/us/tennessee-truck-stop-stabbing.html
Law enforcement officials investigated a multivictim stabbing at a Pilot truck stop near Knoxville, Tenn., on Tuesday.Credit…Calvin Mattheis/Knoxville News Sentinel, via Associated Press

A truck driver went on a stabbing spree Tuesday morning at a highway truck stop in eastern Tennessee, killing three employees and wounding a customer before he was fatally shot by a law enforcement officer, the authorities said.

The attack happened just before 7 a.m. at a Pilot Travel Center off Interstate 40 in Knox County, according to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, which did not immediately offer a motive for the stabbings.

The suspect, Idris Abdus-Salaam, 33, of Durham, N.C., was holding a knife and refused to drop it when law enforcement officers confronted him in the truck stop’s parking lot, the bureau said. One of the officers fired several shots at Mr. Abdus-Salaam, who died at the scene, according to the bureau. It did not say how many rounds hit Mr. Abdus-Salaam.

The three truck stop employees who were killed were Joyce Whaley, 57; Patricia Denise Nibbe, 51; and Nettie R. Spencer, 41, investigators said. All three women died at the scene. The condition of the fourth victim, who the authorities said was hospitalized and was a customer, was not released.