RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://nypost.com/2020/05/30/st-patricks-cathedral-desecrated-with-protest-graffiti/

Is nothing sacred?Protesters desecrated St. Patrick’s Cathedral with graffiti Saturday, staining stairs and spewing hatred on two walls.

The graffiti on one wall on Fifth Avenue and 51st Street read “F–k F–k” in red letters. On an adjacent wall, vandals scrawled “BLM” — for Black Lives Matter — along with “NYPDK” in red letters and “No justice no peace” in black letters.

One of the stairs was spray-painted with “George Floyd” in black letters.

A Post reporter spotted the vandalism at around 6:30 p.m. Police at the scene declined immediate comment.

The sacrilegious scrawl was more than likely etched while protesters marched down Fifth Avenue past the Cathedral earlier Saturday.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/05/what-we-do-and-dont-know-now-about-george-floyds-death/

The official complaint submitted to a Minnesota district court answers some questions, but raises others.

Things are often more complicated than they appear at first blush. That is certainly the case with the murder of George Floyd, with which former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was charged in a complaint filed on Friday.

For one thing, contrary to most people’s assumption, Mr. Floyd appears not to have died from asphyxia or strangulation as Chauvin pinned him to the ground, knee to the neck. Rather, as alleged in the complaint, Floyd suffered from coronary-artery disease and hypertensive-heart disease. The complaint further intimates, but does not come out and allege, that Floyd may have had “intoxicants” in his system. The effects of these underlying health conditions and “any potential intoxicants” are said to have “combined” with the physical restraint by three police officers, most prominently Chauvin, to cause Floyd’s death.

As I’ve noted in a column on the homepage, Hennepin County prosecutors have charged Chauvin with third-degree depraved-indifference homicide. Now that the complaint has been released publicly, we see that a lesser offense was also charged: second-degree manslaughter. This homicide charge involves “culpable negligence creating an unreasonable risk” of serious bodily harm, and carries a maximum sentence of ten years’ imprisonment.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamandrzejewski/2020/05/29/perks-members-of-congress-give-to-themselves–the-selfie-report/#7958e694270f

Once elected to Congress, members are in a rare and exclusive club. In the history of our nation, there have only been 10,363 House members and 1,307 U.S. Senators.

And that club certainly has its benefits.

Our new OpenTheBooks Oversight Report, “Congressional Membership Has Its Privilege — Salaries, Pensions, Travel, and Other Taxpayer-Funded Perks” quantifies and breaks down the lavish perks associated with serving in Congress.

An exclusive club — members of Congress have a lot of privileges.

Here are five major benefits each member of Congress receives:

SALARY: The House Speaker makes $223,500, Majority and Minority Leaders earn $193,400, and the President Pro Tempore makes $193,400. Regular members earn $174,000.

Outside income is restricted to eliminate conflicts-of-interest. However, we found significant loopholes in the ethics laws. Who knew that powerful members can be employed by federal contractors based in their districts?

PROMOTED

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

First of all, a disclaimer: In stark, unmistakable contrast to the narrative being promulgated by the so-called news networks, I am not conflating rioting (with its subsets of looting, burning and pillaging) and protesting.

If there was one positive thing provided by the death of George Floyd, it was the sheer universality of the condemnation of the shameful, inhuman behavior of the police officer and his colleagues in whose custody Mr. Floyd met his end (I say “if there was” instead of “if there were” because that one positive thing is already a thing of the past).

It was the one thing that distinguished this incident from every other one that has inspired widespread protests, be it the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Freddie Gray or any of so many others. In every one of these preceding incidents, there were voices disputing the “victim” status of the departed, and often making a viable case. Not everyone was on board with the protests, even before they degenerated into riots.

But in the case of George Floyd there was nobody who was not outraged at the barbarity of the tactic used on him. Everyone, regardless of race, ethnicity or political persuasion, felt and expressed the same degree of disgust at the cruelty we all witnessed. Even the law enforcement community, famous for closing ranks to defend one of its own (sometimes justifiably, sometimes not), saw the incident as an atrocity, and its members weren’t the least bit shy about saying so. There was not a single voice even attempting to blame Mr. Floyd or to put a positive spin on the actions of the police officers.

https://babylonbee.com/news/scientists-confirm-coronavirus-only-spreads-at-conservative-protests

WHO scientists have confirmed that the coronavirus only spreads at problematic protests, like conservative rallies, Trump campaign events, and Second Amendment rights demonstrations. The study found that the coronavirus will not spread at progressive protests or violent riots.

The WHO study showed that only Republicans, 2nd Amendment demonstrators, and Trump supporters can spread dangerous viruses when they break lockdown to assemble and protest, not any other kind of protesters.

“You only want people to die if you go protest for conservative causes — otherwise, you’re safe,” said a W.H.O. scientist as he mixed two differently colored liquids together. They exploded and his hair went straight back, burning his face. “AHHHHH!!!”

Unfortunately, the scientist was later discovered to be a bunch of raccoons in a lab coat, so the results of the study may be suspect.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/05/29/us_covid-19_death_toll_is_inflated.html

The latest Centers for Disease Control data show that the COVID-19 fatality rate is 0.26% — four times higher than the worst rate for the seasonal flu over the past decade. That is dramatically lower than the World Health Organization’s estimate of 3.4% and Dr. Anthony Fauci’s initial guess of about 2%.

When the CDC projected 1.7 million deaths back in March, it used an estimated death rate of 0.8%. Imperial College’s estimate of 2.2 million deaths assumed a rate of 0.9%. The fear generated by the projections drives the public policy debate. The Washington Post headline, “As deaths mount, Trump tries to convince Americans it’s safe to inch back to normal,” were part of a steady diet of such fare. When Georgia opened up over a month ago, the Post warned: “Georgia leads the race to become America’s No. 1 Death Destination.”

The CDC currently puts the number of confirmed deaths at about 100,000. But even the “best estimate” 0.26% fatality rate is a significant overestimate because of how the CDC is counting deaths. The actual rate is fairly close to a recent bad year for the seasonal flu. And though public health officials have been transparent about how they are counting coronavirus deaths, the implications for calculating the infection fatality rate are not appreciated.

“The case definition is very simplistic,” Dr. Ngozi Ezike, director of Illinois Department of Public Health, explains. “It means, at the time of death, it was a COVID positive diagnosis. That means, that if you were in hospice and had already been given a few weeks to live, and then you also were found to have COVID, that would be counted as a COVID death. It means, technically even if you died of [a] clear alternative cause, but you had COVID at the same time, it’s still listed as a COVID death.”