RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/07/blms-violence-death-americas-cities-john-perazzo/

The police-hating rhetoric of the openly and proudly Marxist “Black Lives Matter” (BLM) movement is doing exactly what it did five years ago – creating a massive increase in violent crime and homicide throughout urban America. You may recall that back in 2015-16, BLM’s anti-police protests and riots – particularly in the aftermath of the 2014 police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri – intimidated officers nationwide into becoming much less proactive in dealing with criminal suspects. A Pew Research Center report titled “Behind the Badge” – which tabulated the results of a questionnaire that was sent to thousands of officers – confirmed that 85 to 95 percent of law-enforcement officers in large police departments became highly reluctant to engage criminals except where absolutely necessary.

The consequences of the new timidity of law-enforcement were monumental:
 

In 2015, America’s 56 largest cities experienced a 17% rise in homicides.
Twelve cities with large black populations saw their murder totals spike even more dramatically – e.g., by 54% in D.C., 60% in Newark, 72% in Milwaukee, 83% in Nashville, and 90% in Cleveland.
Robberies surged in America’s 81 largest cities during the 12 months that followed the shooting of Michael Brown.
During the first quarter of 2016, homicides in America’s 63 largest cities increased by 9%, while nonfatal shootings were up 21%.
 

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/stacey-lennox/2020/07/03/lies-damn-lies-and-covid-19-statistics-n603433

As beaches are closed for the 4th of July and even Texas starts to roll back towards COVID-19 lockdown, it sure seems like the goalposts have shifted. The purpose of public health policy went from slow the spread, to flatten the curve, and now seems to stop the spread altogether. Dr. Scott Atlas, a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, says the idea of preventing infection is not just unnecessary; it is irrational.

As much as Democrats and the media want to keep us locked down and scared, the current situation does not warrant any of this. According to Dr. Atlas, political leaders and policymakers need to take a much closer look at the data. He is quite optimistic about how state reopenings have progressed to date.

In an interview with Larry O’Connor, Dr. Atlas gives a detailed assessment of the data and provides a great perspective on what data we should use to hold leaders accountable. It isn’t rising case numbers. With more mingling and more testing, rising cases were inevitable.

O’Connor and Dr. Atlas got into a discussion about how misleading the case metric is. It merely means a positive test. In the context of COVID-19, where approximately half of the cases are asymptomatic, it is a meaningless statistic. Further, as testing has become proactive, or required in some cases, and more widely available, saying there is a new case doesn’t denote illness.