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Arizona COVID-19 hospitalizations plunge by 14%; ventilator usage drops by 25% It’s the first drop in hospitalizations in 10 days.

Posted By on June 28th, 2020

https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/coronavirus/arizona-covid-19-hospitalizations-plunge-12-ventilator-usage-drops-25

Reported coronavirus hospitalizations plunged in Arizona on Friday, falling 14% in the state’s first reduction in hospitalized COVID-19 patients in over a week. 

A total 2,110 coronavirus patients statewide were listed as hospitalized on Thursday per the Arizona coronavirus dashboard, dropping from 2,453 on Wednesday. The dashboard’s data is on a one-day lag. 

That’s the most significant drop in COVID-positive inpatients in Arizona since the state started keeping track in early April, according to the dashboard data. It also breaks a 10-day steady increase in hospitalized patients in the state, part of a steady uptick Arizona has had since the second week of June. 

Arizona has received national attention in recent weeks as one of several states with worrisome coronavirus trends. Texas, California and Florida have also been noted for their increasing case rates, though deaths in those states have remained largely flat. 

The number of ventilators being used by “positive or suspected COVID-19 patients” dropped even more steeply, falling 25% from 415 patients to 312, Arizona numbers show.

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Eric Hoffer And Black Lives Matter Harold F. Callahan *****

Posted By on June 28th, 2020

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/06/27/eric-hoffer-and-black-lives-matter/

Within the last month, events have propelled Black Lives Matter into a major cause, with a great deal of clout, both directly and indirectly. That influence and the anger it is associated with has also made it very risky for people to disagree with BLM even in limited ways, because of threats to objectors’ reputations, safety and livelihoods. That presents the public with a very biased conversation. As a result, perhaps only someone who has already passed on can safely air concerns.

There is one such person known for his insight into group movements – Eric Hoffer, who died in 1983. Known as the “longshoreman philosopher” for the manual labor he performed for most of his life, Hoffer wrote eleven books, beginning with 1951’s “The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements,” which focused on the allure of a seemingly ennobling collective cause, and the coercive power which it puts in the hands of leaders and their discontented followers, in contrast with freedom, which is the only milieu in which creative individuals can flourish and find fulfillment.

Consider some of what the Presidential Medal of Freedom holder had to say about such causes:

The desire for freedom … says: leave me alone and I shall grow, learn, and realize my capacities.

Freedom of choice places the whole blame of failure on the shoulders of the individual.

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‘Disease Burden’ Is The New ‘Flatten the Curve!’ Bob Maistros

Posted By on June 28th, 2020

Flatten the Curve!”

It was the watchword of the wildly overreactive COVID-19 lock-down-everything-that-moves strategy – along with “Stay Safe. Stay Home” and the colossally annoying “We’re All in This Together” (uh, no we’re not, you eight-figure morning news anchors safely broadcasting from the Hamptons while the help watched the kids – and 30 million-plus regular folks lost their jobs).

Remember? We were all staying safely home apart together (or was it together apart?) for 15 days (or was it 30 days? or two months? or six months? or indefinitely?). The expressed goal: keep the “curve” of new cases, hospitalizations and intensive-care unit use from rising too quickly and overwhelming the health care system.

Been there. Done that.

Now, a new phrase is needed to explain why, amid the utter media panic so presciently predicted here, America should calm the [expletive deleted] down and stay open for business.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who rightly earned kudos for his handling of the virus from anyone with a lick of fairness or common sense (which excepts 100% of Democrats and 150% of the mainstream news media), in a Friday press conference provided just such a catchall catchphrase – one widely recognized by the global public health community.

“Disease Burden.”

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Netanyahu Is a Peacemaker—and Don’t Think the Left Will Mention It By P. David Hornik

Posted By on June 28th, 2020

https://pjmedia.com/columns/p-david-hornik/2020/06/28/netanyahu-is-a-peacemaker-and-dont-think-the-left-will-mention-it-n583470

The “last decade,” notes James Sinkinson in a perceptive article, has seen a “sea change” in Israel’s ties with “key Arab states.”

And that last decade is also the one in which Benjamin Netanyahu (again, after a stint in the 1990s) has been Israel’s prime minister — specifically since March 2009.

True, conditions for enhanced Arab-Israeli ties have been propitious — particularly the behavior of regional bully Iran, a common enemy; the Obama administration’s courting of Iran and signing of a nuclear deal with it that scared the wits out of both Israelis and Arabs; and the Trump administration’s ambivalence about the U.S. role in the Middle East. Sunni radicalism in the form of ISIS, the Muslim Brotherhood, and others is another common enemy of Israel and Arab states.

Added to that are Israel’s ever-intensifying military activity against Iran, particularly in Syria, which Arab governments watch with approval, along with Israel’s dramatically growing military, economic, technological, and diplomatic clout in general, to the point that in 2019 US News and World Report ranked it — despite how tiny it is — the world’s eighth most powerful country.

But ripe conditions are one thing; the ability to convert them into results is another. And the repeatedly reelected Netanyahu is little less than a diplomatic genius, under whose tenure Israel’s ties have surged not only with Arab states but also with India, China, Russia, as well as East European, African, and South American countries — basically in every niche of the world.

In the Arab sphere, as Sinkinson notes, “Israel’s cooperation and communication with the leadership of eight…nations — the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Oman, Morocco, Bahrain, and Sudan — is greater than ever.”

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2008 Nobel Prize for Medicine Winning Dr Luc Montagnier Says Covid-19 was “manipulated” for HIV Research

Posted By on June 28th, 2020

https://thejewishvoice.com/2020/04/2008-nobel-prize-for-medicine-winning-dr-luc-montagnier-says-covid-19-was-manipulated-for-hiv-research/

According to Professor Luc Montagnier, winner of the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 2008 for “discovering” HIV as the cause of the AIDS epidemic together with Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, the SARS-CoV-2 responsible for the Covid-19 pandemic  is a virus that was manipulated and accidentally released from a laboratory in Wuhan, China, in the last quarter of 2019. According to Professor Montagnier, this laboratory, known for its work on coronaviruses, tried to use one of these viruses as a vector for HIV in the search for an AIDS vaccine,  Gilmore Health reported after Montagnier was interviewed on a medical podcast.

Dr Luc Montagnier  discovered the HIV virus back in 1983.

“With my colleague, bio-mathematician Jean-Claude Perez, we carefully analyzed the description of the genome of this RNA virus,” explains Luc Montagnier, interviewed by Dr Jean-François Lemoine for the daily podcast at Pourquoi Docteur,  adding that others have already explored this avenue: Indian researchers have already tried to publish the results of the analyses that showed that this coronavirus genome contained sequences of another virus, … the HIV virus (AIDS virus), but they were forced to withdraw their findings as the pressure from the mainstream was too great.

In a challenging question Dr Jean-François Lemoine inferred that the coronavirus under investigation may have come from a patient who is otherwise infected with HIV. No, “says Luc Montagnier,” in order to insert an HIV sequence into this genome, molecular tools are needed, and that can only be done in a laboratory.

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Massive Explosion Rocks Suspected Nuke Site in Iran By Rick Moran

Posted By on June 28th, 2020

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2020/06/28/massive-explosion-rocks-suspected-nuke-site-in-iran-n583607

The Associated Press is reporting that a huge explosion occurred on Friday that rattled Tehran and lit up the horizon. The site of the blast was a region where many nuclear experts believe Iran conducted high-explosive tests relating to its nuclear program.The explosion happened in the Alborz mountains, just east of the city. Satellite photos show the massive extent of the blast.

Fox News:

Satellite photos of the area, some 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) east of downtown Tehran, showed hundreds of meters (yards) of charred scrubland not seen in images of the area taken in the weeks ahead of the incident. The building near the char marks resembled the facility seen in the state TV footage.

The gas storage area sits near what analysts describe as Iran’s Khojir missile facility. The explosion appears to have struck a facility for the Shahid Bakeri Industrial Group, which makes solid-propellant rockets, said Fabian Hinz, a researcher at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey, California.

The footage on Iranian TV shows charred gas canisters and not much else.

One of its journalists stood in front of what appeared to be large, blackened gas cylinders, though the camera remained tightly focused and did not show anything else around the site. Defense Ministry spokesman Davood Abdi blamed the blast on a leaking gas he did not identify and said no one was killed in the explosion.

For a gas explosion, the Iranian government treated it as a security problem. Civilian firefighters were banned and access was extremely limited.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

As They Disband CHOP, Its Leaders Insist Their Anarchy That Enabled Rape And Murder Was Successful By Kylee Zempel

Posted By on June 28th, 2020

https://thefederalist.com/2020/06/25/as-they-disband-chop-its-leaders-insist-their-anarchy-that-enabled-rape-and-murder-was-successful/

They came, they saw, they killed and raped and pillaged. CHOP was clearly a wild success.

“CHOP,” Seattle’s lawless Capitol Hill Occupied Protest, is no longer occupied.

The “Solidarity Committee” of CHOP, the six-block cop-free area previously named CHAZ for Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, addressed their “Comrades in the struggle” on Twitter Wednesday to break the news: “The CHOP project is now concluded.”

An important message from #CHOP #CHOPSeattle. Please amplify. Thank you for your support over the last two weeks. #ChopWasASuccess #CHOPcomms #CHOPCHAZ ☂️☂️☂️ #BlackLivesMatter pic.twitter.com/7e5ISrWvX6

— Capitol Hill Occupied Protest (Official Account) (@CHOPOfficialSEA) June 24, 2020

“Over the last two weeks, we achieved what no one thought possible. We successfully built a self-governing community and convinced city leaders to enact meaningful police reform, including substantial budget cuts to the SPD,” the committee said of their “beloved CHOP,” where very few demonstrators remain. The committee noted that their morning “census” revealed fewer than two dozen CHOP occupants near the police precinct and only 11 near Seattle’s Space Needle.

“Thank you to everyone for your support over the last two weeks and congratulations on your victories. You should feel proud!” the statement continued, accompanied by the hashtag #ChopWasASuccess on the announcement tweet.

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In First Weekend Of Riots, Looting Damage In 20 Major Cities Exceeded $400 Million By Jordan Davidson

Posted By on June 28th, 2020

https://thefederalist.com/2020/06/28/in-first-weekend-of-riots-looting-damag

Looting costs in America’s 20 largest metropolitan areas exceeded $400 million from the first weekend of rioting, according to a new report from the Anderson Economic Group.

“This includes property damage, lost inventory, cleanup and reconstruction costs, and closure-related lost wages,” the report stated. “[The study] did not assign any costs to peaceful protests or demonstrations.”

The report, published June 5, used “news publications to identify where looting occurred…and estimate the total costs of looting between May 29 and June 3.” The report authors say this value could be severely underestimated.

“Our estimates are based on observed patterns of looting in the 20 largest metropolitan areas across the country. We did not estimate costs in smaller metro areas that may have also experienced looting,” stated Brian Peterson, the firm’s director of public policy and economic analysis. “Furthermore, our estimates do not include costs to state or local governments that experienced property damage or incurred increased emergency service costs.”

According to an approximation given to Market Watch by Property Claim Services, damage incurred by riots in just Minnesota could total more than $25 million.

“We hope that those businesses that experienced looting and damage will be able to bounce back, but we know that some will not make it,” said Peterson. “That means empty storefronts and the loss of jobs at those businesses, which ultimately hurts local communities.”

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Is this the end of history? George Floyd was a pretext, not a cause. The cause was destruction of our civilization Roger Kimball

Posted By on June 28th, 2020

https://spectator.us/end-history-george-floyd-civilization/

Midway through Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, there occurs this exchange between two characters:‘“How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked.“Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually, then suddenly.”’

The process of civilizational bankruptcy takes a similar course. Casual, seemingly isolated attacks on the fabric of civilization feel at first like so many harmless insect bites. A speaker is shouted down. A statue is vandalized or removed. A college course once deemed essential is rebaptized as offensive: first it is pilloried, then it is canceled. People start quoting Tocqueville’s warning that in a democracy, as large inequalities dissolve, small inequalities are magnified, growing both rancid and rancorous. Political posturing is everywhere. At first it seems effete and merely silly; then it grows muscles and claws. The posturing now comes with bricks, baseball bats and Molotov cocktails. Grievances blur and lose their specificity. Every slight becomes a pretext for boundless rage. The ‘system’ — ordered liberty and the rule of law — is rudely shoved into the dustbin of history. Civility itself — the social compact that makes society possible — is tossed aside as an impediment to justice.

Is this the precipice upon which we now are perched? HBO has pulled the movie Gone With the Wind because the classic Civil War story is a ‘product of its time and depicts some of the ethnic and racial prejudices that have, unfortunately, been commonplace in American society’. And while you get your mind around that nugget of politically correct virtue signaling, note that Cops, a TV show that depicts the police in a positive light, is being summarily canceled ‘amid nationwide anti police protests after Mr Floyd’s killing’, according to the Wall Street Journal.

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Where are the deaths? The drum beat to halt the reopenings gets louder by the day. It should be resisted Heather Mac Donald

Posted By on June 28th, 2020

https://spectator.us/where-deaths-coronavirus-wave/

The coronavirus doomsayers could not even wait until the fall for the apocalyptic announcements of the dreaded second wave. Because the red states recklessly loosened their lockdowns, we are now told, the US is seeing a dangerous spike in coronavirus cases. ‘EXPERTS SKETCH GLOOMY PICTURE OF VIRUS SPREAD: FAUCI TELLS OF “DISTURBING” WAVE, WITH A VACCINE MONTHS AWAY,’ read the front-page lead headline in the New York Times on Wednesday. ‘VIRUS SPREAD AKIN TO “FOREST FIRE”’ read another front page headline in the Los Angeles Times on Monday, quoting Michael Osterholm, one of the media’s favorite public health experts. Osterholm had told NBC’s Meet the Press: ‘I’m actually of the mind right now — I think this is more like a forest fire. I don’t think that this is going to slow down.’

The ‘this’ is an uptick in daily new cases from 19,002 on June 9 to 38,386 on June 24. The high to date in new daily cases was on April 24 — 39,072. Since April 24, the daily case count started declining, then began rising again after around June 9. What virtually every fear-mongering story on America’s allegedly precarious situation leaves out, however, is the steadily dropping daily death numbers — from a high of 2,693 on April 21 to 808 on June 24. That April high was driven by New York City and its environs; those New York death numbers have declined, but they have not been replaced by deaths in the rest of the country. This should be good news. Instead, it is no news.