RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-hypocrisy-of-the-lefts-attacks-on-the-ottawa-truckers/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=featured-content-trending&utm_term=first

Where were all these experts — and the journalists eager to quote them — when genuinely violent protest movements swept the country?

If you were to read the mainstream coverage of the Ottawa trucker convoy — or more specifically, to listen to the long line of researchers and academics who have been trotted out by the mainstream media to provide their expert insights — you’d think that the protests here are a hotbed of frothing-at-the-mouth right-wing extremism.

Here’s NPR: The Ottawa trucker protest is rooted in extremism, a national security expert says. Alternatively: Experts say online conversation around trucker convoy veering into dangerous territory, CTV News warns. “Canadians ought to be worried about whether crowdfunding websites could be used to finance hate groups and other extremist organizations, financial crime and security experts warn,” writes Canada’s Global News. A Politico headline informs readers that Ottawa truckers’ convoy galvanizes far-right worldwide, citing the influence of “American far-right influencers like Dan Bongino and Ben Shapiro” — Ben Shapiro! — as contributing to the convoy’s momentum. “Experts raise concerns about far-right, racist views arising from protests against vaccine mandates for truck drivers,” Al Jazeera reports. A national-security expert tells the New York Times that “this was an extremist movement that got mainstream attention.” The Washington Post announces that Canada’s Trumpian trucker protests show the global radicalization of anti-vaxxers.

http://www.swtotd.b;ogspot.com

In 1863, on a cool, sunny November day in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, four months after the Battle of Gettysburg, President Abraham Lincoln gave a four-minute address. In it he reminded the audience: “Democracy is the government of the people, by the people, for the people.” The freedom we experience in this 233-year-old experiment, which is the United States, is based upon the individual citizen being the ultimate source of power, expressed through their representatives in municipalities, states and Washington, D.C. Granted, in times of emergency, presidents and governors have assumed exceptional powers, as did Lincoln when he signed the Habeas Corpus Suspension Act of 1863. Nevertheless, fundamental to our democracy is a belief that the people have a greater understanding of their self-interests than do the politicians, bureaucrats and experts who operate the machinery of government. It is, collectively, the wisdom of the people that combine to produce the political strength of our communities, states and nation.

All elections are important and as usual we are being told that the current one is critical, because the two sides are so far apart in how they define individual freedom and in their visions for the future. Democrats, too often, believe that government bureaucrats and “experts” can better decide what people should do than individuals themselves: lockdowns, mask and vaccine mandates, what courses should be taught children in public schools, what forms of energy we should consume, and what opinions should be allowed on social media. Republicans, in general, believe that people make wise choices when offered alternatives: to mask or not; to take a vaccine or not; to have their children learn Critical Race Theory or not; to buy a hybrid, a gas-guzzler or an electric vehicle. They want options in school choice and be able to weigh alternatives.

https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/how-to-save-science-from-covid-politics?token=e

Scientific knowledge is supposed to accumulate. We know more than our ancestors; our descendants will know far more than us. But during the Covid-19 pandemic, that building process was severely disrupted.

Federal agencies and their officials have claimed to speak on behalf of science when trying to persuade the public about policies for which there is little or no scientific support. This ham-handedness—and especially the telling of “noble lies”—has gravely undermined public trust. So has the hypocrisy of our elites. Look no further than the Super Bowl, at which celebrities and politicians had fun mask-free, while the following day children in Los Angeles were forced to don masks for school.

The upshot is that science and public health have become political. We now face the very real danger that instead of a shared method to understand the world, science will split into branches of our political parties, each a cudgel of Team Red and Team Blue.

We cannot let that happen.

Thanks to protective vaccines, a huge number of Americans with natural immunity, and a less lethal strain of the disease, now is the time to talk about how to undo the grave damage that has been done. To avoid similar pitfalls when we are faced with the next public health emergency—and to rectify the mistakes that are still unfolding—here are ten crucial lessons:

https://townhall.com/columnists/timgraham/2022/02/16/john-durham-almost-the-m

No one can ever claim that the notion of Trump-Russia collusion and the Mueller investigation were downplayed or ignored by the press. It was the opposite. The story was enormous and incessant.

Rich Noyes of the Media Research Center found that from Jan. 20, 2017, through July 20, 2019, the evening newscasts at ABC, CBS and NBC alone devoted an astounding 2,634 minutes to the Trump-Russia narrative.

On Feb. 12, the conservative media reported a “bombshell.” Well, the term “bombshell” is almost copyrighted as a journalism term for “Republican scandal deepener.”

Special counsel John Durham, tasked with investigating the origins of the FBI’s probe into Donald Trump and Russia, reported a client for Hillary Clinton’s law firm, Perkins Coie, was monitoring internet traffic at Trump Tower, Trump’s Central Park West apartment building and the Executive Office of the President. They wanted information to sell a “narrative” of Trump-Russia collusion.

ABC, CBS and NBC coverage? None. Other networks and major newspapers balked. Then they tiptoed in to deny it meant anything.

From the beginning, liberal partisans like Rep. Adam Schiff have trashed Durham’s probe as “tainted” by Trump’s desires for an investigation. On ABC in 2019, Schiff denounced it as automatically “illegitimate” because “when you win an election, you don’t seek to just prosecute the losing side, but this is what Bill Barr is seeking to do.”