RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/another-promising-vaccine-this-one-from-johnson-johnson-11612131877?mod=opinion_lead_pos7

Some good news this week: Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine looks likely to become the third U.S. Covid-19 vaccine to enter the market. The company released data this week showing the vaccine is about 70% effective against the virus, and its version requires only one shot. The Food and Drug Administration will need to review the evidence thoroughly, but the preliminary data is promising. The company is collecting more information to determine whether a booster shot could provide even better protection.

Crushing Covid will require making the most of the different vaccine candidates, which come with their own pros and cons, and tweaking them to stay ahead of viral mutations. The vaccines all follow a similar basic approach, putting into arms the spike protein found on the surface of the coronavirus. But Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine takes a slightly different approach to delivery than vaccines produced by Pfizer and Moderna. (I am on the board of Pfizer.) The biotech company Novavax is pursuing a vaccine candidate with its own special delivery system. All four might be available by the summer, which would mean an ample supply.

Americans will wonder which one works best? It will be tempting to compare data across trials. But that isn’t apples to apples; the vaccines and the data aren’t all the same. And new variants of Covid may demand vaccines that offer slightly different layers of protection and target slightly different parts of the virus.

The regulatory process must encourage this kind of portfolio diversification, while allowing tweaks to keep ahead of the virus’s twists and turns. The FDA is working on guidance to address new variants, which will include a pathway for updating vaccines.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/02/tsunami-hate-david-horowitz/

“America will not be healed until the Democrat Party returns to its senses, repudiates its current racist attitudes, and stops demonizing its opponents as what Speaker Nancy Pelosi has called “enemies of the state.”

Everybody agrees that our country is in crisis –  and agrees that it is the worst crisis since the Civil War. But at the same time, we tell ourselves a comforting tale about the source of the crisis that perpetuates the problem instead of providing a path to ending it. We say our politics are “divisive” and talk about “unity and healing” as though that would miraculously be achieved if everybody stopped … what? Disagreeing? All politics is divisive. That’s the healthy basis of our constitutional order: the freedom to disagree. To suppress disagreement, to outlaw it – as many Democrats and their Big Tech and media allies are demanding these days – is to end democracy as we know it.

The problem is not that we disagree. We are not suffering as a nation from healthy disagreement. We are suffering from a Tsunami of Hate emanating from the Democrat Party that seeks to demonize, criminalize and extinguish dissent from the 75 million supporters of Donald Trump. It is now official Washington dogma that to question an election result – something the congressional Democrats have done in the face of every Republican presidential victory since 2000 – is now “insurrection” and “domestic terrorism,” or the incitement thereto, and needs to be prosecuted and suppressed.

https://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2021/01/28/dismiss_all_the_populist_gamestop_hype_short_sellers_are_heroes_658260.html

Back around 2007, investor John Paulson began to feel skeptical about the viability of mortgage securities. Though demand for them was much greater than supply, Paulson sensed that lending standards had plummeted so far that loan delinquencies were set to surge. The “third rate” hedge fund manager (that’s what those who covered him at top investment banks felt) proceeded to very inexpensively purchase insurance on mortgages. He was able to because the consensus in the marketplace was that he was very wrong.

As readers know, Paulson was subsequently vindicated in 2008. Funny about the billions he made on his bet was that all-too-many looked askance at his remarkable gains. Paulson was said to be profiting from the pain experienced by borrowers and lenders. In truth, Paulson was a hero.

His major investment gains sent a crucial signal that lenders should shrink their exposure to home loans. Realistically billions were diverted from a form of lending that, at the time, was no longer viable. Translated, Paulson’s billions helped avert what would have been a much bigger economic crash if the faulty lending had continued.

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/02/01/bare-knuckle-brawl-over-gamestop-pits-americas-elites-vs-deplorables/

Only someone living under a rock hasn’t heard about the GameStop stock market shorting scandal. While the mechanics of the stock market battle are interesting, they’re nothing new. What’s new is this: The battle this time is being waged by Deplorable America vs. Elite America. And Elite America isn’t at all happy about it.

It’s well known that the stock market isn’t controlled by small investors, but by massive financial institutions. Recent data show that mutual funds, pension funds, hedge funds, Wall Street investment banks, public pensions and the like control more than 80% of all shares traded. They are always the elephant in the room.

The little guys with trading portfolios of less than $100,000 or so, often operating online at lightning speed on no-commission trading sites – such as Robinhood – have a small piece of all the trading. They win only by exploiting cracks in a system dominated by big firms.

Which makes it all the more amazing that they were able to take out a major hedge fund with a short position in GameStop, a troubled chain of computer gaming stores that still has a big following on Reddit.

First, in case you don’t know what “shorting” a stock is, it’s basically borrowing a number of shares of a given stock to sell at the current price. The borrower sells the shares, then promises to pay back the lender the same number of shares at a later date.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/trump-names-new-lead-lawyers-for-impeachment-defense-team_3678854.html?utm_source=news&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=breaking-2021-01-31-4

Former President Donald Trump on Sunday named two attorneys who will lead his impeachment defense legal team.

The two lawyers who will represent the former president in the upcoming Senate trial are David Schoen, an attorney from Alabama, and Bruce Castor Jr., a former prosecutor in Pennsylvania.

This comes a day after media reports, citing anonymous sources, said an earlier group of attorneys from South Carolina were no longer participating in the defense.

South Carolina-based lawyer Butch Bowers had previously been tapped to lead the president’s legal team but parted ways over differing opinions on the direction of the defense arguments, the reports said. Other lawyers on the team who also left were Deborah Barbier and former federal prosecutors Greg Harris, Johnny Gasser, and Josh Howard.

The Epoch Times reached out to the lawyers for confirmation about their departure.

Jason Miller, a Trump adviser, confirmed the reports of a reshuffle on Saturday evening, saying that the “final decision on our legal team” had not yet been made.

On Sunday, Trump’s office released a statement saying that Schoen and Castor would now lead the team, and that Schoen had already been working with Trump and other advisors in preparing for the upcoming trial.

“It is an honor to represent the 45th President, Donald J. Trump, and the United States Constitution,” Schoen said in the statement.

The question is, why are they doing it so early?

In one-party states such as the old PRI-ruled Mexico, the stealing tended to start late. Before a Mexican president was escorted out for the next, he and his would sweep the presidential palace for everything not nailed down — the lightbulbs, the toilet seats, the doorknobs and more. There were exceptions, but it was generally the known narrative. In more than one Latin American country, the last-minute asset grab on the way out actually had a name — “La Pinata.” After all, as former PRI mayor of Mexico City, Carlos Hank Gonzalez, used to say: “A politician who’s poor is a poor politician.” 

Which brings us to Joe Biden, and his family’s unusually fast scramble to profit from his public office right out the gate.

Son Hunter still has his 10% China equity fund stake, contrary to what had been reported, and a new art gig just perfect for bringing in money from non-transparent sources, as the New York Post, in this excellent report notes, all because his blow-pipe ‘art’ done as his personal art therapy is somehow so very valuable. 

Brother Frank, meanwhile, is advertising his connections to old Joe for Florida law firm he’s connected with, using Joe’s name in a bid to drum up business. As New York Post columnist Michael Goodwin reported:

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/01/democrats_get_ready_to_unleash_the_irs_for_selective_enforcement_on_political_opponents.html

Democrats have an amazing array of third-world dictator tricks targeting their Republican opponents.

Item A is their bid to use the IRS to cut off Republican freedom of assembly.

According to Judicial Watch:

Reminiscent of the Obama Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) witch hunt of conservative groups, a U.S. Senator who sits on the committee that oversees the tax agency is pushing it to revoke a student charity’s nonprofit status. The veteran lawmaker, Rhode Island Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse, says the conservative student organization, Turning Point USA, should lose its nonprofit rating because it held large events that could help spread COVID-19. In a letter to IRS Commissioner Charles P. Rettig the senator describes the gatherings as “superspreader” events. He specifically mentions a Palm Beach, Florida winter gala at the Mar-a-Lago Club famously owned by former President Donald Trump.

“According to press reports and social media posts, many participants gathered and mingled indoors without wearing masks, in violation of Palm Beach County’s COVID-19 regulations,” Whitehouse, a member of the Senate Finance Committee, writes to the IRS chief. The powerful chamber has oversight over the IRS, among many other government agencies. “In holding these ‘superspreader’ events, Turning Point USA knowingly exposed hundreds of young people and staff working at the events to serious risk of infection,” the letter continues. The legislator asks the IRS to review whether the group, which has more than 250,000 student members, should continue to enjoy its tax-exempt nonprofit status. “Established law has long held that an organization is not eligible for tax exemption under section 501(c)(3) if a purpose of the organization is contrary to public policy or is illegal,” the letter states, reminding the IRS commissioner of a three-part test established to determine whether an organization’s activities are consistent with tax exemption under the code.

Which is a pretty impressive way of shutting conservative groups down. They’re so concerned about superspreader events, they want to permanently shut down conservative groups themselves for thier events so that conservatives can’t assemble at all. Sounds pretty convenient for their purposes.