RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/05/lets_demand_a_recountof_covid_deaths.html

How deadly is the SARS-COV-2 virus? Part of the equation depends on accurately determining just who has died from COVID-19 infection. It turns out that, thanks to changes the Centers for Disease Control (“CDC”) made to its rules, along with Congressional incentives, America’s COVID-19 counts are almost certainly inaccurate.

America counts COVID-19 deaths differently from other countries. According to Dr. Deborah Birx, speaking at the start of the pandemic, “if someone dies with COVID-19, we are counting that as a COVID-19 death.”

However, we must acknowledge that there is a difference between dying from COVID-19 and dying with COVID-19. This is a familiar uncertainty for doctors during the winter flu season.

In most states, 40-60% of the people dying of SARS-COV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, are elderly persons with multiple medical problems who live in nursing homes. A portion of this same cohort dies every year from the seasonal influenza virus. When that happens, did the flu kill them or their cancer, heart failure, strokes, or liver problems? Doctors use their best judgment to fill out the death certificate correctly, but they do not categorize all of them as “flu” deaths.

According to the CDC, only 6% of those who died with the COVID-19 infection had no other pre-existing health conditions. The other 94% had an average of four medical conditions already affecting their health.

This does not mean that only 6% of these deaths resulted from COVID-19. But it also does not mean that 100% of the deaths among people with other medical conditions should be counted as death from COVID-19 either. If we counted each death that tested positive for flu or had symptoms of flu as an “influenza death,” we would also have hundreds of thousands of flu deaths each year.

When it comes to the flu, though, we don’t tally either the 6% or the 100%. The real answer is in the middle. Applying that same logic to COVID-19 means that conservatively 25-50% of the deaths labeled from COVID-19 more likely died with COVID-19.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/05/lefts-war-procreation-don-feder/

Last week, the left’s war on procreation was headline news.

In the April 29th British edition of Vogue, Nell Frizzell wrote a pean to population control: “Is Having a Child Pure Environmental Terrorism?” – a shameless piece of virtue signaling.

Frizzell confessed that when she was pregnant, she “worried feverishly about the strain on the Earth’s resources that another Western child would add.”

The author went on to agonize about the amount of electricity her child would use in his lifetime, the food he would consume and what it would take to grow it – and how the future consumer would add to air pollution, global warming and depleted resources.

It was painful to read and depressing to contemplate – that someone so indoctrinated in the cult of Carbon Footprints can display their ignorance in the mass media.

Then there was the news that Microsoft founder Bill Gates and his wife Melinda, America’s Woke power couple, are getting a divorce. Unfortunately, the work of The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will continue. With $43.3 billion in assets (larger than the economies of most countries) the Foundation is dedicated to making the world a more barren place.

Its target isn’t Western children but kids in Africa, which, in a way, makes sense. Africa is the only continent with above-replacement fertility.  In conjunction with the United Nations Population Fund, the Gates Foundation sponsored a series of international conferences pushing population control, including abortion.

At one in Addis Ababa in 2013, there was, according to UNFPA, “a focus on universal access to reproductive health (code for abortion and government-sponsored contraception), especially for young people and other vulnerable groups.”

Bill’s interest in young people was reflected in his friendship with the late Jeffrey Epstein, already convicted of soliciting sex from minors when the two first met in 2011.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/05/calling-moderate-democrats-david-limbaugh/

Everyone knows President Joe Biden ran as a moderate and is governing as a leftist radical, yet we see little evidence of Democrats, including the liberal media, breaking ranks from him. Why?

I’ve previously written about the lack of Democrats’ dissent from their party’s undeniable extremism and have always been met with the response that they don’t dissent because there are no longer any moderate Democrats. Yet when I talk to my Democratic friends, they vehemently deny that they personally are extremists. Are they, or might they just as well be?

Rank-and-file Democrats can no longer blame their rank partisanship and extremism on Donald Trump, who is no longer president. It’s past time for them — and never-Trump Republicans, for that matter — to answer for Biden’s disastrous policies.

Let’s look at Biden’s border debacle as one of many flagrant examples of raging Democratic and media hypocrisy, for they’re giving Biden a complete pass and even defending him on the very policies for which they berated Trump.

Biden wholly owns this border train wreck, though he disingenuously continues to blame Trump. Trump’s border policies were working. We had seen major progress in sealing the border; fewer migrants were entering the United States, and cartels were being stymied. But Democrats, wedded to their open-borders agenda and their faux compassion for illegal immigrants, castigated Trump as a racist and particularly zeroed in on his allegedly inhumane treatment of children. Now the cartels are flourishing, and our borders are being overrun. And we know all the hyperventilating over the children had nothing to do with any genuine concern for them but with demonizing and defeating Trump — and cynically promoting Democrats’ policies to flood the borders with future Democratic voters.

We know this because the Biden administration is doing nothing to address this growing and dangerously out-of-control border situation. This crisis is a direct result of Biden’s virtual invitation to migrants to come on up, his promises of amnesty and welfare for illegals, and his emasculation of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Purely for appearances’ sake, as we now know, Biden put Vice President Kamala Harris in charge of this crisis, and she has done nothing except cackle when asked about her progress.

https://amgreatness.com/2021/05/11/new-york-style-justice-disarms-the-victims/

In Times Square on Saturday, a street vendor named Farrakhan Muhammad got in an argument with his brother and tried to shoot him. With the surgical precision for which petty criminals are known, the man instead wounded three bystanders, including a four-year-old girl. One of the victims said she is unlikely to visit New York again until the city has stricter gun laws.

But New York City already has some of the strictest gun laws in the country. Muhammad was carrying an illegal gun illegally—that is, the gun was illegally owned and illegally carried. If he had obtained the gun legally, Muhammad would have been required to attend a government-approved safety class in which he would have learned that you may not discharge a weapon indiscriminately in Times Square while attempting to murder your brother (this is covered on the first day).

If the gun had been legal, it would also have meant Muhammad had paid hundreds of dollars in permitting fees, had obtained letters of recommendation from friends attesting to his good character, had been fingerprinted by the police, had waited several months to obtain the permit to purchase this particular pistol (on which he would have had to put down an advance deposit, its serial number having been submitted to the state), and he would then have had to wait a year after obtaining the permit to apply for a further permit to carry the weapon, for which he would have had to demonstrate to the satisfaction of New York a valid reason for needing to do so. 

I very much doubt that Muhammad did any of this. 

And when someone is already breaking four or five different laws, it’s hard to imagine a sixth law on the same subject being the deciding factor.

It’s also hard to imagine how gun laws could become stricter in New York. In fact, any weapon that might be remotely useful for self-defense is prohibited. That includes pepper spray, tasers, blackjacks, batons, nunchucks, coshes of any sort, including a coin purse that has a handle, slingshots, and sandbags. Don’t get caught trying to defend yourself in the city with an illicit sandbag: That’s criminal possession of a weapon in the fourth degree. 

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/05/12/joe-biden-is-turning-out-to-be-a-jimmy-carter-reboot/

Joe Biden was the first senator to endorse Jimmy Carter for president.  Now Biden appears bent on recreating Carter’s disastrous presidency. The parallels are striking.

What characterized Carter’s one-term presidency? Disasters at home and abroad. At home, the country suffered a self-inflicted energy crisis, with gas shortages and long lines. Inflation surged even as unemployment climbed, making the “Misery Index” a household term. Abroad, America’s adversaries sensed Carter’s weakness as Commander in Chief and the world was thrown in chaos – from the Iranian Revolution to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Carter’s response to these disasters was to tell people to turn down their thermostats. He blamed Americans for what he called a “crisis of confidence.”

What’s happened after just over three months with Biden in the White House?

Both the unemployment rate and the inflation rate have been on the rise and the world is getting more dangerous.

This week, the stock market suffered two days of heavy losses as inflation fears mounted.

Forbes quoted Sophie Griffiths, a market analyst at Oanda, as saying that “The overriding fear is that pandemic stimulus combined with reopening economies will spark a sharp drive high in inflation, forcing central banks to take action, tightening policy and potentially slowing down the economic recovery.”

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2021/05/12/the_elephant_and_donkey_go_plunging_over_the_cliff_145744.html

In the 19th century, when political parties worried about voters who couldn’t speak English or read campaign flyers, they adopted animal symbols. Despite originally being a symbol of ridicule, the Democratic Party came to embrace its inner donkey. Likewise, the Republican Party grew to love the elephant. It was an easy way to identify their candidates. Today, the elephant and donkey are less-beloved mascots and more like Wile E. Coyote, who continually plummets over the cliff in futile pursuit of the Roadrunner.

The GOP pachyderm took the plunge on Jan. 6. Outgoing President Donald Trump sat unsteadily atop the beast, where he remains, and contributed mightily to losing two Senate seats in Georgia. His behavior after the November election alienated many undecided voters and even some erstwhile supporters. He fumed and fulminated, contested the election results without winning in court, and stampeded GOP congressional leaders over the size of the next round of stimulus checks. His refusal to accept certified vote totals challenged basic constitutional norms. That behavior hurt the candidates he ostensibly backed in Georgia, costing his party its Senate majority. Outgoing Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was furious and said so publicly. Most of his Republican colleagues agreed but remained silent. They knew Trump would retaliate for any criticism and his die-hard supporters would back him.

The giant splat of the elephant hitting the canyon floor was the sound of Republicans losing the upper chamber. That loss has had immense political consequences. It is the dominant fact of Joe Biden’s presidency so far. The only way to moderate his agenda, aside from court decisions, would have been Republican control of the Senate.

With their slender majority, Democrats gained control of all Senate committees and held the sole power to conduct hearings and subpoena witnesses. Since Democrats already controlled the House of Representatives, albeit narrowly, they found themselves in control of both Capitol Hill and the White House. That gave them free rein, something donkeys are unused to, and they used it to reign freely. They proceeded to do exactly what Trump had done after November: gallop at full speed toward the cliff’s edge.

http://www.swtotd.blogspot.com

Recently, while walking around Boone Hall Plantation and Gardens, in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, my son and his family came across an alligator. They watched it, but wisely did not approach it. Risk aversion can be a wise decision. Seth Klarman, president of Baupost Group once wrote: “In contrast to speculators preoccupation with rapid gains, value investors demonstrate risk aversion by trying to avoid loss.” But as Paul Singer, another wise investor, remarked regarding the role of government in our economy: “…the forces of risk aversion and constant conflict serve to stultify and narrow the range of ideas up for debate.” We must walk the line, avoiding obvious risks, but being unafraid to speak out and take risks. “Security,” wrote Helen Keller, “is mostly a superstition. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.” Eleanor Roosevelt’s advice: “Do one thing every day that scares you.”

Every day we make hundreds, perhaps thousands, of decisions that involve risk. Many, if not most, are subconscious – standing on one leg to put on our trousers, reaching high for a coffee cup, ignoring the slippery spot on the floor, crossing a street. Do we take the short cut over the mountain, or the longer but safer route? Determining risk is a measurement of success versus failure. In investing, businesses calculate the potential for profit against the possibility of loss, which is why the Biden Administration’s proposal to strip Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson and Johnson of their patent protections for COVID-19 vaccines add risk to all future investments drug companies make in research. If patent protection can be breached, what does that say to those who invest in scientific research, and to those who risk everything in the creative arts, all of which are supposed to be protected by intellectual property rights?

At a time when hesitancy has caused the number of daily vaccinations to decline by almost two thirds, the President, who was fully vaccinated in December, should not have worn a mask when outside and not surrounded by others. Yet he did just that last week when he and his wife left Jimmy and Roslyn Carter’s home. The message: the vaccine does not assure safety. When the FDA ordered Emergent BioSolutions to suspend production of Johnson & Johnson’s single dose vaccine because seven out of seven million vaccinated patients developed life-threatening blood clots, was the risk worth the cost of scaring people off being vaccinated? On Jimmy Kimmel’s show last week, Dr. Anthony Fauci said he was frustrated that nearly 26% of the population won’t get the vaccine, yet he said he would not dine in an indoor restaurant, despite being fully vaccinated. What kind of a message was he sending? Being vaccinated will not eliminate all risk of getting COVID-19, but it greatly reduces it. Responsible leaders lead, not inject fear.

https://amgreatness.com/2021/05/10/why-is-the-government-hiding-january-6-video-footage

Joe Biden calls it the worst attack since the Civil War. Attorney General Merrick Garland compares it to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. The FBI is breaking down the doors of Iraq War veterans and small business owners who have no criminal records, and some are hauled off to rot in solitary confinement in a fetid D.C. jail, for their involvement in the alleged travesty.

The event, of course, is the roughly four-hour-long disturbance at the U.S. Capitol on January 6. As mostly nonviolent Americans dared to protest Congress’ certification of a clearly fraudulent presidential election in a place that once was considered “The People’s House,” lawmakers scurried for cover as reporters and photographers captured part of the ruckus on video and still shots to wield as political ammunition against Donald Trump and his supporters.

But have we seen a full and fair depiction of exactly what happened that day? The answer, as evidenced by an ongoing coverup by the U.S. Capitol Police and the Justice Department, clearly is no.

Almost all the January 6 video seen by the public isn’t from official government sources but by social media users and journalists on the scene. For example, the widely viewed footage of protestors occupying the Senate chamber was recorded by a New Yorker journalist.

But thousands of hours of real-time footage is in the hands of the Capitol Police—and that agency, along with government lawyers and federal judges, is using every legal trick possible to keep the trove hidden from the public even as clips are presented in court as evidence against hundreds of January 6 defendants.

According to an affidavit filed in March by Thomas DiBiase, the Capitol Police department’s general counsel, the building is monitored 24/7 by an “extensive system of cameras” positioned both inside and outside the building as well as near other congressional offices on the grounds.

The system captured more than 14,000 hours of footage between noon and 8 p.m. on January 6; the archive was made available to two Democratic-controlled congressional committees, the FBI, and the D.C. Metropolitan Police department. (After a request by Congress, the agency reportedly handed over footage from the entire 24-hour period.)

Capitol Police also produced selective clips for Democratic House impeachment managers to use in the trial against Donald Trump.