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May 2020

Why Are Government Employees Supposedly Immune To Layoffs? Francis Menton

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2020-5-6-why-are-government-employees-supposedly-immune-to-layoffs

It’s the time of the coronavirus, and as we all know, that means that it is the moral responsibility of all governors and state health officials to issue “lockdown” commands, compelling all “non-essential” businesses to close until further notice. Although the sweep and severity of these “lockdown” commands has varied from state to state, at this point the governors of most states have ordered the closure of nearly all restaurants, bars, hotels, gyms, hair salons, and thousands of similar businesses. Obviously, the immediate result of these orders was going to be that the employees of the businesses would get furloughed or laid off. Some 26 million new unemployment claims had been filed by late April, with more undoubtedly to be revealed in the next weekly report.

Of course, with thousands of businesses shuttering, and their revenues disappearing, state and local tax revenues are also falling off a cliff. So if the same rules apply to these governmental entities as to private businesses, they would be about to make massive layoffs as well.

And yet, if you look at discussion about how state and local governments should deal with their own financial issues, somehow the whole idea that government workers might get laid off is beyond the purview of polite discussion. The same people who have effectively ordered the layoff of close to 30 million people in the private sector at the same time think that every single job of a civil service bureaucrat is somehow sacrosanct.

Justice Department Drops Case against Michael Flynn By Tobias Hoonhout

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/justice-department-drops-case-against-michael-flynn/

The Justice Department has moved to withdraw its case against former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn, citing “newly discovered and disclosed information,” according to a new court filing.

The move, first reported by The Associated Press, comes less than an hour after the top prosecutor on the case, Brandon Van Grack, submitted his withdrawal from the case. The decision said that the White House interview Flynn gave to the FBI, which ultimately led to his guilty plea, was “conducted without any legitimate investigative basis.”

Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx Used Imperial College Model — NOW CONFIRMED AS A COMPLETE FRAUD — To Persuade President Trump to Lock Down Entire US Economy! Jim Hoft

www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/05/huge-news-dr-fauci-dr-birx-used-imperial-college-model-now-confirmed-complete-fraud-persuade-president-trump-lock-entire-us-economy/

** Dr. Tony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx used the Imperial College Model to persuade President Trump to lock down the ENTIRE US ECONOMY.
** The fraudulent model predicted 2.2 million American deaths from the coronavirus pandemic
** The authors of the Imperial College Model shared their findings with the White House Coronavirus task force in early March
** Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx then met with President Trump privately and urged him to shut down the US economy and destroy the record Trump economy
** A new critique of the Imperial College Model finds the study is “completely unusable for scientific purposes” — The study is a sham
** Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx pushed a garbage model on the White House and the American public and destroyed the US economy

As reported weeks ago — in mid April Dr. Fauci admitted that it was he and Dr. Birx who persuaded President Trump to lock down the US economy knowing the massive destruction this would cause in jobs, lives and commerce.

Neil Ferguson’s ‘Error of Judgment’ By Madeleine Kearns

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/05/neil-fergusons-error-of-judgment/

A tale of death, sex, and lousy leadership.

Yesterday, the news that the U.K. now has the worst coronavirus death toll in Europe coincided with the Telegraph’s revelation that Neil Ferguson, the lead epidemiologist at Imperial College and key adviser to the British government, had been caught with his pants down, breaking his own social-distancing rules.

Ferguson, you may recall — sometimes nicknamed “Professor Lockdown” — was the chap who warned the government that there could be up to 500,000 deaths if it didn’t immediately change course, maneuvering from a mitigation to a suppression strategy against COVID-19. Such was his influence that, almost overnight, the government abandoned its pursuit of herd immunity, rolling out the biggest restrictions of healthy and law-abiding people’s civil liberties that the country has ever seen. Ferguson strongly believed that his advice would save countless lives, and perhaps it has. But why, then, didn’t he follow it himself?

All while lecturing the public on the importance of cooperating with nationwide house imprisonment, Ferguson was conducting an affair with his married lover, who travelled across London on multiple occasions to “visit” him. The timeline provided by The Telegraph, who broke the story, leaves little room for excuses. It shows that while Ferguson briefed the country to stay put, his lover, superbly cast as the 38-year-old Antonia Staats (get it?), a left-wing activist, was traveling to and fro between her husband, their kids, and her $2 million home for her quarantine rendezvous with her favorite government scientist. As if this story couldn’t get any more bourgeois, the husband apparently wasn’t bothered by this, because the couple have an “open marriage.” It is the kind of story the British press love. Hypocrisy, stupidity, and a brilliant distraction from more pressing (and depressing) matters.

Biden Has Become an Albatross for the Democrats . By Victor Davis Hanson

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/05/joe-biden-albatross-for-democrats-2020-election/

Joe Biden is the apparent Democratic presidential nominee. After all, he had a seemingly insurmountable lead in delegates going into the rescheduled August convention in the postponed Democratic primary race.

Biden was winning the nomination largely because he was not the socialist Bernie Sanders, who terrified the Democratic establishment.

Biden was also not Michael Bloomberg. The multibillionaire former New York City mayor jumped into the race when Biden faltered and Sanders seemed unstoppable. But Bloomberg spent $1 billion only to confirm that he was haughty, a poor debater and an even worse campaigner. He often appeared to be an apologist for China and seemed clueless about the interior of the United States.

The least offensive candidate left standing was Biden. Many Democratic primary voters initially had written him off as an inept retread, a blowhard and an impediment to the leftward, identity-politics trajectory of the newly progressive Democratic party.

On the campaign trail, Biden insulted several voters, using insults such as “fat,” “damn liar” and, weirdly, “lying dog-faced pony soldier.”

Israeli disinfectant kills 100% of viruses, bacteria The Israel Institute for Biological Research developed a disinfectant that kills 100% of viruses and bacteria By Tamar Beeri

https://www.jpost.com/health-science/israeli-disinfectant-kills-100-percent-of-viruses-bacteria-627242

A state-of-the-art disinfectant developed by the Israel Institute for Biological Research and distributed by Tera Novel is capable of killing 100% of bacteria, viruses, molds and some fungi, including the novel coronavirus.

“Our disinfectant works in a very different way from many others,” Tera Novel chairwoman Karen Cohen Khazon told The Jerusalem Post. “We also use hypochlorite, but in a very high [concentration] and we add some [additional ingredients] so that anywhere the disinfectant is sprayed, it becomes a very white film of gel which keeps the [material] on the surface for a while.”
To clean it off, she explained, you simply need to rinse it off with water or clean it off with a towel or paper towel.

Hazon explained that the disinfectant works well on walls, ceilings, floors, toilets, restrooms, spas, airport bathrooms, and now, mikvaot (ritual baths).

The company began a test run in Bnei Brak as part of the effort to slowly ease the coronavirus restrictions in the region by using the disinfectant in mikvaot in the ultra-Orthodox city. The pilot is seemingly a success, as the town plans on reopening mikvaot in the coming days.

Dumb and dumber in Michigan education By Bill Weckesser

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

The state’s social justice warriors don’t allow coronavirus crisis to go to waste.

On April 1st Gretchen Whitmer wiped out the rest of the K-12 school year.  Teachers remained on the payroll, of course, and each of Michigan’s 587 school districts was tasked with implementing an on-line program.  In East Lansing the plan meant an end to letter grades; instead students will receive a “CR” (for credit) or an “I” for incomplete.

Ironically, the district’s social justice warrior school board president has sparked a near revolt by administrators and fellow board members for having the audacity to suggest that “credit” or “incomplete” isn’t fair.  Erin Graham presented evidence that East Lansing schools would be an outlier by nixing grades.

About two hours into the unusually tense meeting, (board member Terah) Chambers questioned the whole discussion, suggesting that we are all facing much more pressing issues with record levels of unemployment and food insecurity. She suggested the conversation was focusing on the privileged.

But Graham argued that a lack of a letter grade could affect more than college-bound students, affecting students who may want to join the military or take on entry-level positions in health care. In these cases, grades could determine eligibility, pay grade, and benefits, and disadvantages could compound over time.

San Fran Health Dept Delivering Drugs and Booze to Homeless Daniel Greenfield

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/2020/05/san-fran-health-dept-delivering-drugs-and-booze-daniel-greenfield/

I’m sorry.

We make fun of the absolute horrid socialist insanity in Venezuela, Cuba, and North Korea, but parts of our own country are positively making them look sane. It’s no secret that lefties have used the pandemic to push their own policy agendas.

Public officials in San Francisco have decided to use the pandemic to justify housing homeless in hotels and delivering booze and drugs to them. 

If you ever wanted a reason to never visit San Francisco or try one of its overpriced hotels again, here you go.

San Francisco’s health department confirmed Wednesday that the city was administering alcohol, tobacco, medical cannabis and other substances in an effort to prevent a handful of people quarantined or isolating in city-leased hotels from going outside to get the substances themselves.

Administering. People. Isolating.

Compared to the San Fran Chronicle, the Ministry of Information in 1984 was the soul of clarity and meaning.

What the Chronicle means is that junkies are getting deliveries of drugs, ciggies, and booze while staying in hotels. They’re not being “administered” to them unless there’s a doctor or a nurse carefully dosing booze into a cup for them.

The Castration of a Nation When the state pays your wages – and the sun is shining – what’s the rush to get back to “normal”? Katie Hopkins

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/05/castration-nation-katie-hopkins/

Sometimes I think I need to read this in black and white to actually believe it might be true.

A quarter of the British workforce is sitting at home in its pajamas receiving 80% of its pay, up to a maximum of £2,500 ($3,000) a month, guaranteed by the government until the end of June.

A similar scheme has been put in place for the self-employed.

The prime minister’s official spokesman said: “Since the launch, 800,000 employers have used the Job Retention Scheme to furlough 6.3 million jobs. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) estimated that the scheme would cost the Treasury a total £39bn.”

This incredibly over-generous scheme by the British government was grasped at hungrily by big business eager to retain labor without any of the costs.

Even small- and medium-sized business owners, usually reluctant to turn to the state for support and with resilience built into their models, caved to the scheme. It was simply too generous to refuse. The state now holds their employees in its warm embrace, just as with all the rest.

As for the employees, most have been delighted, and with good reason. In their minds, government money is free money, the invisible golden goose in the sky is laying golden eggs to pay for them to stay-cation with their family.

Prohibited from working under the furlough scheme, the need to do any work at all, or to feel any kind of guilt about taking money for doing nothing, has been completely absent from these sedentary fools.

They fail to see that what they are actually gobbling up, along with their takeaways and Netflix box sets, is almost as much cash as it costs to fund our NHS (National Health Service) on a monthly basis.

Talk to any head teacher or NHS manager and they will tell you the same woeful story of “key-workers,” fearful of being asked to work through the lockdown while others sit at home, self-isolating on day one due to “a vulnerable adult at home” showing “symptoms.” Give many the opportunity to do nothing without penalty, and that is exactly what they will do.

Big Tech is Strangling Us By Eileen F. Toplansky

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/05/big_tech_is_strangling_us.html

How ironic that the 1984 iconic advertisement that Apple used to introduce the Macintosh computer “played on imagery from George Orwell’s 1984 novella [sic] presenting Apple as rebels fighting a technocratic elite.  The spot certainly was a lot gloomier than the company’s previous commercials, that used Apple celebrity spokesman Dick Cavett.” In truth, “there was nothing cuddly about the new Macintosh ad, which was firmly rooted in the burgeoning dystopian cyberpunk aesthetic.”

Ostensibly the advertisement’s intention was “to remove people’s fears of technology [.]” In fact, Apple claimed that they “wanted to democratize technology, telling people that the power was now literally in their hands.”

How things have changed as the tech giants have morphed into near-totalitarian giants controlling far too much of our lives.  Like serfs, we bend to their will or are punished. Thus, Candace Owens is suspended from Twitter for challenging Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer while  Facebook flags the Declaration of Independence as ‘”hate speech.”

In 2016, Aaron Renn reported that both conservative and leftwing groups are pulled down at Twitter. In 2019 “YouTube blocked some British history teachers from its service for uploading archive material related to Adolf Hitler, saying they [were] breaching new guidelines banning the promotion of hate speech. The video-sharing website announced that it would remove material glorifying the Nazis from its platform in an attempt to stop people being radicalised. In the process however, it also deleted videos uploaded to help educate future generations about the risks of fascism.”