RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://swtotd.blogspot.com/

Many believe democracy is threatened. Those on the left cite the narcissistic and dreaded Donald Trump as the instigator of the January 6 protest that devolved into a disgraceful, though unarmed, attack on the Capitol. Those on the right, like me, bring up cancelled conservative speakers on college campuses, property-destroying riots and rising murder rates in cities across the nation, lockdowns and mandates relative to COVID, and a “wokeness,” which redacts speech, expurgates books, and removes art that is not grounded in race-and-gender consciousness. But perhaps both sides are mistaken? Perhaps democracy is stronger than we believe? Perhaps it can withstand these assaults? But both sides owe the public apologies.

The one-year anniversary of the January 6 riot has filled the media with reports on the “insurrection” that failed. Of course, it did. The protesters were unorganized and unarmed. They had no acknowledged leader on their march to the Capitol. In fact, members of ANTIFA accompanied the Trump supporters. The Capitol police, oddly, were unprepared, even though the march was widely publicized. The protesters did not have the military behind them, nor did they have media support. One person was shot, and that was a female, a veteran, who was shot by an unnamed member of the Capitol police. In fact, the cynic in me whispers that the episode has been welcomed by progressives, as it manifested proof (in their minds) of their claimed autocracy of Donald Trump and his supporters.

https://weingarten.substack.com/p/democrats-cling-to-j6-mania-because?token=

If the truth supported the narrative, why not charge the accused with insurrection, sedition, and/or terrorism?

From President Joe Biden’s pretentious speeches to schizophrenic media coverage to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s sham committee, the left has used Jan. 6 as the shaky scaffolding on which to railroad the rest of the country, in part because it serves as the singular manifestation of its fever dreams – that there is a coup around every corner and a frothing-mad MAGA monster under every bed.

The problem is that Jan. 6, as shameful, pathetic, and unacceptable as were the actions of its worst offenders, was not comparable to 9/11, or Pearl Harbor, or the worst of the Civil War. By scope, violence, and destruction, it pales in comparison to the summer riots of 2020.

The hyperbolic comparisons are a charade – and not just because the facts belie the claims of a murderous insurrection of armed terrorists, as the federal judges most perturbed by Jan. 6 have lamented. (That is, judges are upset prosecutors can’t make legal cases to match the ruling regime’s political one.)

If the Narrative Were True, Why All the Trickery?

We also know it is a charade because of the dishonesty and obfuscation around it. If the truth supported the narrative, why not charge the accused with insurrection, sedition, and/or terrorism?

https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-histrionics-and-melodrama-around?token=

The number of people killed by pro-Trump supporters at the January 6 Capitol riot is equal to the number of pro-Trump supporters who brandished guns or knives inside the Capitol. That is the same number as the total of Americans who — after a full year of a Democrat-led DOJ conducting what is heralded as “the most expansive federal law enforcement investigation in US history” — have been charged with inciting insurrection, sedition, treason or conspiracy to overthrow the government as a result of that riot one year ago. Coincidentally, it is the same number as Americans who ended up being criminally charged by the Mueller probe of conspiring with Russia over the 2016 election, and the number of wounds — grave or light — which AOC, who finally emerged at night to assure an on-edge nation that she was “okay” while waiting in an office building away from the riot at the rotunda, sustained on that solemn day.

That number is zero. But just as these rather crucial facts do not prevent the dominant wing of the U.S. corporate media and Democratic Party leaders from continuing to insist that Donald Trump’s 2016 election victory was illegitimate due to his collusion with the Kremlin, it also does not prevent January 6 from being widely described in those same circles as an Insurrection, an attempted coup, an event as traumatizing as Pearl Harbor (2,403 dead) or the 9/11 attack (2,977 dead), and as the gravest attack on American democracy since the mid-19th Century Civil War (750,000 dead). The Huffington Post’s White House reporter S.V. Date said that it was wrong to compare 1/6 to 9/11, because the former — the three-hour riot at the Capitol — was “1,000 percent worse.”

Indeed, when it comes to melodrama, histrionics, and exploitation of fear levels from the 1/6 riot, there has never been any apparent limit. And today — the one-year anniversary of that three-hour riot — there is no apparent end in sight. Too many political and media elites are far too vested in this maximalist narrative for them to relinquish it voluntarily.

The orgy of psychodrama today was so much worse and more pathetic than I expected — and I expected it to be extremely bad and pathetic. “House Democrats [waited] their turn on the House floor to talk to Dick Cheney as a beacon for American democracy,” reported CNN’s Edward-Isaac Dovere; “One by one, Democrats are coming over to introduce themselves to former VP Dick Cheney and shake his hand,” added ABC News’ Ben Siegel. Nancy Pelosi gravely introduced Lin-Manuel Miranda and the cast of Hamilton to sermonize and sing about the importance of American democracy. The Huffington Post’s senior politics reporter Igor Bobic unironically expressed gratitude for “the four legged emotional support professionals roaming the Capitol this week, helping officers, staffers, and reporters alike.” Yesterday, CNN’s Kaise Hunt announced: “Tomorrow is going to be a tough one for those of us who were there or had loved ones in the building. Thinking of all of you and finding strength knowing I’m not alone in this.” Unsurprisingly but still repellently: Kamala Harris today compared 1/6 to 9/11.

https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/more-bad-news-on-covid-vaccines-and/comments

A huge new study has found the risk of serious heart problems called myocarditis in men under 40 soars with each dose of a Covid mRNA vaccine – and is sharply higher than the risk from a coronavirus infection itself.

The findings call into sharp question the efforts by American colleges and universities to make their students receive booster shots before returning to school this January – especially since other studies have shown that the risk of post-vaccine myocarditis is concentrated not merely in men under 40 but in those aged 16-25.

The study, which British researchers released in late December, showed that the risk of myocarditis almost doubled after the first Pfizer shot in men under 40. Then it doubled again after the second and doubled again after the third – to almost eight times the baseline risk.

For the Moderna vaccine, the risks were even higher, reaching 16-fold after the second shot. (The risk of a third Moderna shot could not be calculated because too few people received it.)

Because each Moderna shot contains 100 micrograms of mRNA, while each Pfizer shot contains 30, the findings suggest strongly that the heart risks are dose-related and likely to continue to rise with each additional shot.

The study also contained some evidence that post-vaccine myocarditis might be more dangerous than other forms of myocarditis. It showed a trend towards higher death rates in people hospitalized for myocarditis after vaccination compared to other myocarditis cases.

https://thefederalist.com/2022/01/06/jan-6-and-the-curse-of-whataboutism/

The importance of learning nothing and forgetting nothing.

A year on, there are numerous valid and important questions about what happened on Jan. 6 and why. There are questions to be asked about the decisions that led directly to what was a peaceful political protest turning into a violent riot. The language used by its popularizers as an attempted coup — insurrection, threat to democracy, seconds from losing the country, etc. — are all meant to elide this point.

Time’s Molly Ball says it here: without a massive breakdown in policing and security, this would be a day no one remembered.

So the questions that present themselves are: why were Capitol Police so unprepared for a rally that made crystal clear its intentions to go to the Hill? Why did multiple requests and offers of additional support go rebuffed? Why do so many of the agitators, some of them armed, remain free and at large instead of under arrest? Why were so many individuals allowed into the building without being stopped? And — and this one bothers me most of all — what can the possible excuse be, in the most surveilled area in the most surveilled American city, for not knowing who the attempted pipe bomber is after all this time?

A commission that was interested in the answers to these questions could be valuable, even worthwhile, in a way that nearly every after-action commission is not. But the unconstitutional January 6th Commission, which exists primarily as a way to channel Liz Cheney’s score-settling and Nancy Pelosi’s thin reed of 2022 hopes, is not interested in any of this. They’re not even interested in ensuring the implementation of the Inspector General’s report on Capitol Police failures, which they are still ignoring.

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/public-health/2022/01/a-five-step-program-to-beat-covid/

EXCERPT

When bureaucrats are telling doctors how they are to treat patients, and giving the doctors themselves no leeway to vary the treatment, then it is not the patient who is ill, it is society that perpetrates such outrages. We desperately need to allow doctors and patients to chart their mutually agreed treatment pathways. 

The second step along the pathway to freedom from COVID is to abandon that one-dimensional vaccination pathway.  Any rational person would have to admit by now that the vaccinations are not working as billed. Remember how we wee told the double-jab vaccines were coming and how they would stop the virus in its tracks?  Then the same oracles of epidemiology said we’d need a booster after the impact of the first two jabs waned to zero, or even incurred a negative, after a relatively short six months.  Governments are now promising the booster will be the end of it, but we only have to look overseas to see many countries are well into implementing the second booster, or, if one keeps count, the fourth.  One could fairly question our own government about the integrity of the promise that the booster will be the end of it, when it has purchased sufficient supplies to keep us boosted every three months for several years into the future.  The inoculated have turned out to be just as contagious as unvaccinated people, and hospital numbers are skyrocketing among the vaccinated. Today (Jan 5), for example, the two most populous states, NSW and Victoria, are reporting 35,054 and  17,636 cases respectively.

To abandon the face mask/lockdown/vaccinate paradigm adopted by almost all state governments, a suitable alternative must be on offer.  There are any number of early treatment protocols that are used in other parts of the world, but which are banned by the Therapeutic Goods Administration and health bureaucrats here in Australia.  The early treatment protocols include medications and supplements in various doses involving ivermectin, fluvoxamine, aspirin, Vitamin D, quercetin, zinc, monoclonal antibodies, and steroids.

As I said at the start of this article, I am no medical specialist, but I am sure there are plenty of doctors out there who would love to provide packages made up with some of these protocols.  If a government is keen to spend money on fixing the problem, rather than pouring billions of dollars into failing vaccines, perhaps GPs and hospitals could be provided with packages that contain, in appropriate dosages, some or all of the above-mentioned medications and supplements.  Just to keep everyone happy, I would include a set of masks, as well as antiseptic hand wash, all with instructions about the need to isolate and maintain good hygiene within the patient’s domicile.

The third step on the path to normalcy is probably the toughest, as it is going to require politicians, health bureaucrats and the media to admit that they have got it wrong.  The first thing they need to do is stop discovering cases.  That’s right! Stop discovering cases.  Once that happens they will stop reporting on “cases”, and stop the incessant fearmongering that has been going on in our communities for the past 24 months.  The easiest way to stop discovering cases is to close down the numerous public testing facilities.  Similarly, all the contact tracing can then be put aside.  People will not have to check in to every place they visit.  The reality of the virus now is that the Omicron strain is by far and away the dominant strain, and its symptoms appear to be comparable with the common cold — albeit, in some cases, a severe cold.

https://amgreatness.com/2022/01/05/cuomo-skates-on-sex-and-mass-murder/

Albany District Attorney David Soares on Tuesday announced he would be dropping the last sexual harassment charge against former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. D.A.s from other New York counties announced the same thing last week. So, that enormous folder of harassment charges, which were the stated cause for Cuomo’s resignation in August, were as thin and unprosecutable as they appeared. 

Of far greater importance, no charges have been filed against Cuomo for the deliberate or negligent killing of 15,000 senior citizens  who had the bad luck to be housed in New York state nursing homes as COVID-19 invaded our shores.  I suppose this was to be expected.

Surely, we are too sophisticated to assume that any such politically motivated wrongdoing, critical to the imposition of lockdowns and other general deprivations of freedom and traditional liberties, would be punished. Still, it’s worth re-examining the facts we have, and the   presumptive deals that got Andy off any hook at all. 

In August, when it became clear that Cuomo would be forced to resign for various petty acts of “sexual harassment,” I noted that it was a ploy to get the obnoxious Andrew off the political stage. 

That had two benefits for his allies and bosses: First, from the point of view of the D.C. cabal running our country, it removed from contention a man who, despite his visible flaws, might have been a threat to Biden-Harris in 2024. Remember, the media loved him, his “leadership,” and his flamboyant “Cuomosexuality.” Second, in return for his exit, the cabal made clear it would ensure that Cuomo never faced charges for this heinous act of what looks like mass murder. Why else would the egomaniacal Cuomo have agreed to exit? The harassment charges were always thin. 

Et voilà. It’s a new year, and  we see that Cuomo will not be prosecuted for the one sexual harassment charge that looked provable. Or the 15,000 deaths. The presumptive deal held. Though one wonders how these women who were encouraged to gin up real anger about Andrew’s patting and comments feel today. Do they feel foolish or manipulated? Probably not. Half of them likely were in on the joke. The other half actually believe that a comment about a dress constitutes rape.

It is important to remember that the D.C. cabal, which may theoretically have requested that  Cuomo  institute policies that would kill those seniors, needed those deaths in order to make the case for a national lockdown and to institute mail-in voting practices that would allow Democrats to get rid of Trump. 

It remains true that this case—the deaths—which is central to all that is happening to deprive Americans of real self-government and constitutional freedom due to various COVID mandates—should have led to indictments and discovery. 

https://amgreatness.com/2022/01/05/who-are-the-real-insurrectionists/

Recently, Democrats have been despondent over Joe Biden’s sinking polls. His policies on the economy, energy, foreign policy, the border, and COVID-19 all have lost majority support. 

As a result, the Left now variously alleges that either in 2022, when they expect to lose the Congress, or in 2024, when they fear losing the presidency, Republicans will “destroy democracy” or stage a coup. 

A cynic might suggest that they praise democracy when they get elected—only to claim it is broken when they lose. Or they hope to avoid their defeat by trying to terrify the electorate. Or they mask their own revolutionary propensities by projecting them onto their opponents.

After all, who is trying to federalize election laws in national elections contrary to the spirit of the Constitution? Who wishes to repeal or circumvent the Electoral College? Who wishes to destroy the more than 180-year-old Senate filibuster, the over 150-year-old nine-justice Supreme Court, and the more than 60-year-old, 50-state union? 

Who is attacking the founding constitutional idea of two senators per state?

The Constitution also clearly states that “When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside.” Who slammed through the impeachment of Donald Trump without a presiding chief justice?

Never had a president been either impeached twice or tried in the Senate as a private citizen. Who did both?

The Left further broke prior precedent by impeaching Trump without a special counsel’s report, formal hearings, witnesses, and cross-examinations.

Who exactly is violating federal civil rights legislation?

New York City’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene in December decided to ration potentially lifesaving new COVID-19 medicines, partially on the basis of race, in the name of “equity.” 

The agency also allegedly used racial preferences to determine who would be first tested for COVID-19. 

Yet such racial discrimination seems in direct violation of various title clauses of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

That law makes it clear that no public agency can use race to deny “equal utilization of any public facility which is owned, operated, or managed by or on behalf of any State or subdivision thereof.” Who is behind the new racial discrimination?

In summer 2020, many local and state-mandated quarantines and bans on public assemblies were simply ignored with impunity—if demonstrators were associated with Black Lives Matter or protesting the police.

Currently, the Biden Administration is also flagrantly embracing the neo-Confederate idea of nullifying federal law. 

The Biden Administration has allowed nearly 2 million foreign nationals to enter the United States illegally across the southern border—in hopes they will soon be loyal constituents.

The administration has not asked illegal entrants either to be tested for or vaccinated against COVID-19. Yet all U.S. citizens in the military and employed by the federal government are threatened with dismissal if they fail to become vaccinated.