RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/u-consumer-prices-increase-further-133924174.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall

U.S. consumer prices rose solidly in November as Americans paid more for food and a range goods, leading to the largest annual gain since 1982, posing a political nightmare for President Joe Biden’s administration and cementing expectations for the Federal Reserve to start raising interest rates next year.

The report from the Labor Department on Friday, which followed on the heels of a slew of data this month showing a rapidly tightening labor market, makes it likely the U.S. central bank will announce that it is speeding up the wind-down of its massive bond purchases at its policy meeting next week.

With supply bottlenecks showing little sign of easing and companies raising wages as they compete for scarce workers, high inflation could persist well into 2022. The increased cost of living, the result of shortages caused by the relentless COVID-19 pandemic, is hurting Biden’s approval rating. The White House and the Fed have characterized high inflation this year as transitory.

“There’s not much room to explain away this inflation from pandemic or reopening anomalies,” said Will Compernolle, a senior economist at FHN Financial in New York. “Inflation is a tax, gas and food are among the most regressive aspects of it. Lower-income Americans spend disproportionately on both.”

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/12/why_does_pfizer_want_its_vaccine_research_protected.html

Go look at the VAERS COVID Vaccine Mortality Report to know why Pfizer wants FDA protection for its vaccine research along with 75 years of document secrecy. While there are all sorts of ways to interpret the VAERS data, and it’s entirely possible that the vaccine is safer than COVID, not only have many people probably died from the vaccine but there’s also still no way of knowing what the vaccine’s long-term effects are.

Some experts have calculated that only about 1% of adverse reactions are ever reported for various reasons in the US. This could be due to very minor symptoms, unfelt symptoms, or the amount of time and bureaucracy a doctor must go through to make a report. Some reasonable conservative estimates are that deaths due to the COVID vaccine in the US are around 140,000. Keep in mind that this analysis does not distinguish the factor that deaths are much more highly likely to be reported in VAERS than more minor symptoms.

If you assume that 80% of deaths are reported (80/20 rule) and that VAERS reports 19,552 deaths, then the number of COVID deaths due to vaccines is much more likely around 24,440 between 2020/21. The number of adverse deaths per prior years was about 400, or something over 5,200 deaths during the previous 30 years. At first look, these numbers are startling.

Consider, however, that ~100,000,000 million Americans were vaccinated in 2020-21, and if there were 24,440 deaths, then the probability of near-term death from the vaccine is very low. The Adverse Reaction Fatality Rate (ARFR) is about .0002% (2 in 10,000).

This is much lower than the general COVID Infection Fatality Rate (IFR) of .013% (130 in 10,000). Using the VAERS reported 19,552 numbers, the probability is virtually the same as my number at .0002% of near-term death (2 in 10,000).

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/12/chaos_and_the_threat_to_democracy_.html

Among politics’ strangest alliances are those between the elite and the mob. They don’t happen often. The few times they have occurred produced devastating effects. The most notable of them was the rise of the Nazi party, which recruited its original and most loyal adherents from the outcasts of society.

When the Nazis became mainstream, Hitler himself remarked how he missed the passionate street fighters of old who had been replaced by political opportunists and office seekers.

There is a method to this odd partnership. It is built on mobilizing the periphery, creating chaos, and enhancing chaos where it already exists.

The Nazi example finds its parallel much earlier in the coup of Louis Bonaparte, the nephew and pretender, who overthrew the French Republic in 1852 and became the last emperor of France. Bonaparte created, from the dregs of the socio-economic system, the foundation of a mass movement. He called it the Society of December the 10th. He just as well could have called it the Brownshirts. Hitler would have easily recognized it.

Revolutionary mobilization of the periphery does not occur in a day. And, in a legitimate democratic society, it will most likely bring chaos, dislocation, and division, but it will not bring about major political change. Nonetheless, for those committed to an ideological view of the world where chaos is the paving stone to revolution, means are significant.

https://amgreatness.com/2021/12/09/the-republican-partys-multiethnic-working-class-coalition-is-taking-shape/

In the 2016 Republican Party presidential primary, decades of dissonance between the party’s aggrieved grassroots and its blinkered elite spilled out into the open. For years, the chasm widened between the GOP’s heartland base, the river valley-dwelling “Somewheres” from David Goodhart’s 2017 book, The Road to Somewhere, and the party’s bicoastal “Anywhere” rulers. The foot-soldier Republican “Somewheres,” disproportionately church-attending and victimized by job outsourcing and the opioid crisis, felt betrayed by the more secular, ideologically inflexible Republican “Anywheres.”

Donald Trump, lifelong conservative “outsider” and populist dissenter from bicoastal “Anywhere” orthodoxy on issues pertaining to trade, immigration, and China, coasted to the GOP’s presidential nomination. He did so notwithstanding the all-hands-on-deck pushback from leading right-leaning “Anywhere” bastions, encapsulated by National Review magazine’s dedication of an entire issue to, “Against Trump.” Trump’s subsequent victory in the 2016 general election sent the conservative intellectual movement, as well as the Republican Party itself, into a deep state of introspection.

Trump’s victory was primarily propelled by a white working-class revolt, but the emergence during his presidency of a deeply censorious and anti-American left—epitomized by the Democrats’ outrageous conduct during the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court confirmation battle and the destructive “1619 riots” last summer—opened the door for a broader working-class, pro-America political coalition. By Election Day 2020, that multiethnic, working-class conservative coalition had begun to take more definite shape. Trump lost a nail-biter of an election, but the GOP made massive inroads in crucial black and Hispanic communities, such as Florida’s Miami-Dade County and the heavily Mexican counties dotting Texas’ Rio Grande Valley.

https://amgreatness.com/2021/12/09/antiracist-hate/

In a recent article for The Atlantic, Ibram X. Kendi argues that those of us who are calling out the increasingly blatant and barefaced anti-white bigotry of many powerful figures on the woke Left are merely echoing a long-standing white supremacist trope. 

“[T]hat anti-racism is harmful to white people is one of the basic mantras of white-supremacist ideology,” Kendi argues, and then proceeds to plunge readers into a historical mishmash in which decontextualized statements by actual white supremacists are juxtaposed and conflated with similarly decontextualized statements by entirely mainstream figures across the political spectrum to manufacture white supremacist guilt by association. 

Kendi, certainly no stranger to bad arguments, is one of America’s foremost racial extremists. Among other things, he has absurdly called for the establishment of a Chinese Cultural Revolution-style federal “Department of Antiracism” charged with investigating private racism and monitoring racist speech. He is part of a larger woke Left counteroffensive that aims to label as white supremacists all those who question the divisive poison injected into our collective bloodstream by critical race theory and its many knowing and unwitting adherents. 

The ruse undoubtedly has succeeded in gaslighting many well-meaning Americans, who have no desire to stand on the same side of history as white nationalists, segregationists, Nazis, neo-Nazis, and Klansmen. But, beyond all its other flaws, Kendi’s broad-brush painting fails insofar as it implicitly imagines that all the practitioners of what goes by the name of “antiracism” are either on the side of the devil or else, as he thinks, of the angels. As ever, the devil is in the details—and the details reveal lots of angry little devils at work. 

Martin Luther King, Jr., after all, was also fighting for “antiracism” when he crusaded against segregation and genuine injustice and planted his battle-flag on the noble ground of judging each person as an individual, not a color. Most everyone today would agree that such a view embodies and expresses love, not hatred, whether of white people or of anyone else. 

It is equally plain, however, that not everyone who might have been or might be identified with the cause of civil rights falls into that same hallowed category, whether in the 1960s or today. The black nationalist Nation of Islam—along with its Rev. Elijah Muhammad, so unforgettably depicted by James Baldwin in The Fire Next Time—categorized as a hate group by even the far-left Southern Poverty Law Center, is a clear example of people deploying the mantle of civil rights to perpetuate antiwhite race hatred. Kendi’s obfuscation notwithstanding, there are many similar examples hiding in plain sight among us today.

The key question is how to tell the difference. How do we differentiate between, on the one hand, genuine, progressive efforts aimed at the ultimate goal of moving towards a harmonious, post racial republic and, on the other hand, divisive racial bigotry masquerading as progressive politics? The answer, alas, is that there is no formula that cracks the code. 

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/12/wealthy-leftists-demand-poor-white-kids-appalachia-daniel-greenfield/

The son of a bank vice president decided to teach about “white privilege” to his students in Sullivan County, Tennessee where the per capita income is $28,429.

After he was fired, the media decided to turn him into a victim.

“He Taught About White Privilege and Got Fired. Now He’s Fighting to Get His Job Back,” the headlines blared. A GoFundMe for Matthew Hawn by his sister, a principal in the Tennessee public school system, has already raised over $55,000 of its projected $85,000 goal.

That’s more money than a lot of the locals in Appalachia would be likely to earn in a year’s time.

Sullivan County is 95% white and 2% black. The rate of hungry children in the region is double the national rate and a third of those children live in Sullivan County.

At Sullivan Central High School, where Hawn decided to teach about white privilege, 96% of the students are white, 1% are Hispanic, another 1% are Asian, and the number of black students is too small to count.

41% of the students are eligible for the free lunch program. That means their parents meet federal poverty guidelines. Another 9% qualify for the reduced lunch program which indicates that their parents don’t earn very much.

Even though half the student body at Sullivan Central is low income, the graduation rate is 90% and the students rank in the top 20% for reading proficiency.

You can understand why Hawn, who had taught for 16 years, decided to introduce them to the concept of white privilege.

The article that helped debut Hawn’s sob story to the wealthy progressives of the nation who showered his GoFundMe with cash began by describing the  “social studies teacher in rural Tennessee” who “was driving to work listening to NPR” which was going on about racism.

It’s hard to envision a better summary of the culture clash between lefty elites and America.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18022/supreme-court-political-cases

No one has a legitimate right to prevent people from making sexual and marital choices that do not involve other people.

The argument that a fetus is a person who is entitled to the right to life goes too far — even for the justices, such as Neil Kavanaugh, who would have the Supreme Court be “neutral” on abortion and leave it to the states. Under that argument, no state would have the right to deny life to a fetus and abortions would be unconstitutional throughout America, regardless of state legislation.

But the public would never accept a national ban on all abortions. That’s why pro-lifers want it left to the states, where they would get half a loaf.

Overruling or severally limiting Roe v. Wade would increase the likelihood that Democrats will try to pack the Supreme Court. It would be widely viewed as an unprincipled act of partisan power as distinguished from a proper exercise in legal judgment. The commission appointed by US President Joe Biden to explore this among other options did not make a recommendation regarding court packing, though some of members favored it. It would get more support from Democratic voters if a woman’s right to choose abortion were severely curtailed. It would also diminish the standing of the High Court.

This fear was expressed by liberal members of the Court’s minority and is almost certainly of deep concern to Chief Justice John Roberts. The High Court’s standing in polls has dropped considerably since its transparently partisan decision in Bush v. Gore 21 years ago. Since that time, it has rendered controversial decisions, both increasing and undercutting fundamental rights such as gay marriage, and religious freedom. It has also dramatically expanded gun rights. During this period, the pendulum has swung quite narrowly. Justices appointed by Republican presidents have occasionally voted with those appointed by Democratic presidents and vice-versa.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/12/omarovas-failed-nomination-hints-at-the-lefts-long-game/?itm_campaign=

While we ask why Biden would risk damaging Democrats’ electoral hopes by nominating Marxists for top jobs, progressives laugh . . . and transform our society.

C harles C. W. Cooke’s column on Wednesday compellingly noted all the reasons why it seems crazy for President Biden to have nominated Saule Omarova, an unreconstructed Marxist, to be comptroller of the currency. But I think there’s a rational calculation behind the apparent madness, which is why, as Charlie points out, only 10 percent of Senate Democrats voted Omarova’s nomination down. For the rest, as for Biden, supporting the inevitable loser was a solidarity-signaling freebie.

The problem is what Charlie aptly describes as “the lunatics and fabulists” in Biden’s party. The sad fact is that they represent the Left’s energy, its muscle, and a lot of its money. These Bolsheviks cede no ground to norms: doxing opponents, making mayhem at their homes, harassing their children, giving them no peace upon encountering them at a restaurant or a store, unabashedly defending allies who riot and perjure themselves, etc.

Funny thing about extortion: It works.

Biden and congressional Democrats are not going to be able to give these people the utopia they demand. But unfortunately, establishment Democrats are not just afraid of the Bolsheviks, they need them. The hard Left is less of a fringe than we’d like to think. It is a meaningful minority bloc of voters, and it is now powerful enough that, having thrashed the Democratic establishment in many elections, it runs several major American cities. It makes the blue states blue.

So, as a very relevant someone famously asked, “What is to be done?”

Biden figures that he must signal he is with the hard Left, and congressional Democrats figure that they must vote accordingly. Omarova is a case in point. She wasn’t going to be confirmed regardless, so her nomination gave Biden and Senate Democrats a cost-free way of keeping their crazies on board.

Cost-free? I must be nuts, you’re thinking, because when the next election rolls around, voters will remember that so many Democrats backed an out-and-out socialist. Maybe, maybe not. No one ever went broke underestimating the memory of voters, after all. But consider the alternative scenario: What if Biden and establishment Democrats lost the hard Left by refusing to engage in these gestures? The result would be internal fracturing, primaries, and the party establishment on the receiving end of the tactics for which the Bolsheviks are notorious. (You may have noticed that it wasn’t conservatives who ran the Cuomo brothers out of their powerful gigs.)

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/12/the-unmitigated-gall-of-ilhan-omar/

It’s worth asking why Democrats consistently have the audacity to demand the other party enforce standards that they don’t themselves follow.

I lhan Omar is demanding that Congress censure a colleague over offensive remarks. This is a real demand happening right now, and reporters write about her demands without peppering their prose with incredulous exclamation marks.

House progressives, in fact, are reportedly planning to introduce a resolution that would strip Republican representative Lauren Boebert of committee assignments over her stupid and bigoted joke about Omar.

“I have had a conversation with the speaker, and I’m very confident that she will take decisive action next week,” Omar had the temerity to tell CNN’s Jake Tapper last weekend. The same congresswoman, who claimed criticism about her smear that Jews were brainwashing the world was “all about the Benjamins,” says it’s “important for us to say, this kind of language, this kind of hate cannot be condoned by the House of Representatives. And we should punish and sanction Boebert by stripping her of her committees, by rebuking her language, by doing everything that we can to send a clear and decisive message to the American public that, if the Republicans are not going to be adults and condone — condemn this, that we are going to do that.”

First of all, Democrats have already created a new norm — stripping Paul Gosar and the Rothschild-laser-curious Marjorie Taylor Greene of committee seats. They probably deserved this. And if Republicans have any spine, they will — perhaps as early as 2022 — begin throwing Jew-baiting progressives and conspiracy theorists such as Omar and Rashida Tlaib off their perches, as well. Democrats struggle to comprehend that they won’t be in perpetual power.

https://www.aier.org/article/omicron-means-enough/

We don’t know much about it yet, but Omicron is already prompting many governments to reimpose travel bans – a useless gesture. By the time these bans are in place, the variant is likely already past national borders. Like most of what we’ve done in the “fight against Covid,” travel bans are theater.

The real issue here is how long will we allow variants to be exploited to maintain a permanent Covidocracy?

Omicron does appear to be highly unstable, which is bad. But instability is part and parcel to Covid, much more so than even flu, and vastly more so than most pathogenic viruses from smallpox to measles that appear never to mutate in any appreciable sense.

The apparent good news is that the pharmaceutical companies can deploy a new vaccine to deal with new variants in just 100 days. That’s a fantastic leap in medical science.

And it looks like 100 days is going to be enough for Omicron, and for pretty much any other variant that spreads worldwide. But keep in mind that after 11 months of vaccinating, far less than half the world’s population is fully covered. And many of the unvaccinated simply don’t trust their governments and Big Pharma, and see this as a way to control and jab them forever. Pfizer expects an incredible $36 billion this year alone in pre-tax revenue from its Covid vaccine. The unvaccinated will doubtlessly view further rounds of injections suspiciously.