RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/10/13/covid-19-lockdowns-have-been-a-disaster-end-them-now/

Lockdowns to slow or even halt the coronavirus pandemic have been the focus of an intense debate since early this year. But in recent weeks and months, both the scientific and economic discussions have come down hard on one side: The lockdowns have been an immense failure, costing the economy trillions of dollars and, more importantly, thousands of lives. Time to put an end to this craziness.

For those who don’t recall, the initial lockdowns were sold to the public as an emergency move to “flatten the curve” for 15 days during March to keep hospitals from being overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients. Americans, wanting to do their part, grudgingly agreed to the two-week suspension of normal economic and social activities.

Unfortunately, governors used the opportunity to keep their economies closed indefinitely, in some cases clearly for political reasons. In California, where the shutdown has been devastating, recent re-opening guidelines included “equity measures” ranging from gauging neighborhoods’ “tree canopy” to alcohol availability and voting statistics.

To be absolutely clear, these benchmarks have nothing whatsoever to do with COVID-19. They are merely an effort by far-left California Gov. Gavin Newsom to pander to his increasingly extreme base of voters.

Such arbitrary actions have severe economic consequences. A recent research paper from the American Institute for Economic Research found substantial damage to the U.S. economy’s various sectors at the state, local and national levels. including measures of GDP, imports, exports, business formations, unemployment, industrial output and capacity use,

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/2020/10/chicago-gets-its-deadliest-month-25-years-95-daniel-greenfield/

Black Lives Matter. Say their names. Rest in power.

Last month, Chicago recorded its deadliest September in more than 25 years as the city approaches 600 homicides in 2020 with a quarter of the year still left to go.

The Chicago Police Department on Thursday reported there were 81 homicides last month — the most for any September since 1993 when there were 84 — as well as 309 shooting incidents and 400 victims.

Through the first nine months of 2020, Chicago has reported 2,470 shootings — which have left 3,110 victims — and 588 homicides. The city already surpassed 2019’s homicide total by the end of August.

The number of September 2020 shooting incidents and shooting victims are also up 48% and 60%, respectively, over September 2019 totals.

Shootings and murders are up 50%. And they’re beating the nationwide increases. The victims are mainly “people of color”.

  The nation’s second-largest county has recorded more homicides this year than in all of 2019, the majority of which – 95% – were people of color, the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office announced this week.

Sorry, these are not the black lives that Democrats are looking for.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/10/scotus-front-war-faith-bruce-thornton/

The Senate confirmation hearings on Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to the Supreme Court are an opportunity for progressives to indulge their irrational bigotry against faith, as well as try to block the appointment of a constitutionalist justice to the court. They are right to be in panic mode, for if Barrett is confirmed, the originalists will have a 6-3 advantage, meaning conservatives can afford John Roberts completely morphing into Anthony Kennedy.

Politics, of course, lies behind the Democrats’ attempts to obstruct Barrett’s confirmation by any means possible, and potentially damage Donald Trump’s chances of reelection. The hearings give them an opportunity to bash Trump and recycle the patent lies­­––the President’s refusal to condemn the marginal number of white supremacists, and other DNC duplicitous talking-points like his alleged bungling of the coronavirus pandemic. And don’t forget the patently specious claims serially flogged on Monday that nominating Barrett in an election year somehow violates some sacrosanct tradition. The only authority for what presidents and Congressmen do is the Constitution, and its enumerated powers of the executive do not cease until his last day in office.

More broadly, Democrats are worried that Obamacare and, more importantly, Roe v. Wade and other pro-abortion decisions, may be up for review and possibly overturned. Hence the usual preposterous rhetorical tropes like “coat-hangers” and “back-alley” abortions supposedly prevalent in pre-Roe times. In fact, natural toxic abortifacients like pennyroyal were probably more prevalent. But “pennyroyal” lacks the gruesome frisson of “coat-hangers.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/coronavirus-latest-updates-10-13-2020-11602576041

The U.S. reported the smallest increase in new coronavirus infections in a week, while hospitals in some parts of the country are seeing rising numbers of Covid-19 patients.

The total number of coronavirus cases in the U.S. topped 7.8 million, as the nation reported more than 41,000 new cases for Monday, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. The death toll surpassed 215,000.

U.S. hospitalizations, meanwhile, are at the highest level since Sept. 2, according to data from the Covid Tracking Project. As of Monday, there were 35,056 patients hospitalized across the country, more than 16% higher than the level a week earlier. While hospitalizations are rising, they are still lower than July’s daily highs of more than 59,000.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/dr-fauci-protests-too-much-11602541864?mod=opinion_lead_pos3

In the case of Anthony Fauci vs. Donald Trump, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) doctor and the media say the Trump campaign is running an ad that takes Dr. Fauci’s words in vain. Readers can decide, so let’s go to the videotape.

The 30-second Trump ad released last week says “President Trump is recovering from the coronavirus, and so is America” and goes on to note “together we rose to meet the challenge, protecting our seniors, getting them life-saving drugs in record time.” It then features Dr. Fauci saying “I can’t imagine that anybody could be doing more.”

The quote was pulled from a Fox News interview in late March when Dr. Fauci was asked if he had ever seen as large a public response by an Administration to such a health threat. He responded: “We’ve never had a threat like this, and the coordinated response, and there are a number of adjectives to describe this, impressive, I think is one of them. We’re talking about all hands on deck.”

He went on to detail the White House coronavirus task force’s ’round-the-clock phone calls and meetings. “So I can’t imagine that under any circumstances that anybody could be doing more,” he concluded.