RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1261728144018542592.html

” Thus, at this point if you are not both outraged and increasingly puzzled/disturbed by the path we are on and the way most big media outlets are presenting this, you aren’t paying attention. Reality will win. But only if we fight for it. ”

About two months ago we panicked and locked down the US and much of the world in a matter of days, mainly on the basis of computer simulations that proved completely inaccurate within weeks and – in theory – to reduce the strain on hospitals…
2/ It is now clear that outside New York City, US hospitals are not and were never in danger of collapse (and even in New York they were strained but most excess capacity was unused). Thus the rationale for the lockdowns has changed…
3/ To some vague theory that we need to reduce #SARSCoV2 infections and deaths to ~zero – a benchmark we have never even considered for influenza or TB or other respiratory illnesses – using a mix of massive testing (even though people aren’t using the testing now available)…
4/ Mask wearing (though masks probably do very little if anything to reduce spread), population-level tracking, and possible forcible removal of infected people from their families (not a conspiracy theory – this has been openly discussed)…
5/ While at the same time imposing broad population-level lockdowns that do extraordinary damage to our economy, educational system, children, and society…
6/ Even though the best estimates for #SARSCoV2 are now that if NOTHING were done to halt its spread, each American would lose 2 to 5 days of life on average. You read that right. Not years, DAYS. And that’s with no efforts to protect the vulnerable…
7/ That’s a comparable loss to two years of traffic accidents or one of overdoses. Meanwhile, the same people in the media who were screaming about the apocalypse two months ago continue to try to virtue shame those of us who point out these inconvenient facts…
8/ Thus, at this point if you are not both outraged and increasingly puzzled/disturbed by the path we are on and the way most big media outlets are presenting this, you aren’t paying attention. Reality will win. But only if we fight for it.

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2020-5-16-everything-important-in-life-involves-tradeoffs

One of the fallacies of progressivism that I frequently mock at this blog is the proposition that the government can operate without having to make meaningful tradeoffs of one goal or value versus another.

This fallacy appears, for example, in the illusion of infinite resources in the hands of the government. As individuals we all know that we face constrained budgets and limits on what we can do. Eat out too much, and you need to postpone getting the new TV or new car. Decide to become a lawyer, and you will need to forego becoming a doctor. Your money and your time only go so far. But somehow it can appear that the government is so huge and has such vast resources at its command that there are no practical limits, and no need for tradeoffs. And thus we get monstrosities like the Bernie Sanders (and Joe Biden?) program for a federal government that eliminates all downsides of human life by passing out the infinite free money. Or see the latest “Heroes Act” out of the House of Representatives — $3 trillion to take care of everyone’s pain from the coronavirus response; Medicare for All, Free College, and Batteries not included (yet).

Another aspect of the no-tradeoffs-necessary fallacy is the idea that the right thing for political leaders to do in a crisis is to rely on the “experts.” One problem with that is that so-called “experts” are as likely as not to have no idea what they are talking about.

https://taibbi.substack.com/p/democrats-have-abandoned-civil-liberties

Emmet G. Sullivan, the judge in the case of former Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, is refusing to let William Barr’s Justice Department drop the charge. He’s even thinking of adding more, appointing a retired judge to ask “whether the Court should issue an Order to Show Cause why Mr. Flynn should not be held in criminal contempt for perjury.”

Pundits are cheering. A trio of former law enforcement and judicial officials saluted Sullivan in the Washington Post, chirping, “The Flynn case isn’t over until a judge says it’s over.” Yuppie icon Jeffrey Toobin of CNN and the New Yorker, one of the #Resistance crowd’s favored legal authorities, described Sullivan’s appointment of Judge John Gleeson as “brilliant.” MSNBC legal analyst Glenn Kirschner said Americans owe Sullivan a “debt of gratitude.”

One had to search far and wide to find a non-conservative legal analyst willing to say the obvious, i.e. that Sullivan’s decision was the kind of thing one would expect from a judge in Belarus. George Washington University professor Jonathan Turley was one of the few willing to say Sullivan’s move could “could create a threat of a judicial charge even when prosecutors agree with defendants.”

Sullivan’s reaction was amplified by a group letter calling for Barr’s resignation signed by 2000 former Justice Department officials (the melodramatic group email somberly reported as momentous news is one of many tired media tropes in the Trump era) and the preposterous “leak” of news that the dropped case made Barack Obama sad. The former president “privately” told “members of his administration” (who instantly told Yahoo! News) that there was no precedent for the dropping of perjury charges, and that the “rule of law” itself was at stake.

Whatever one’s opinion of Flynn, his relations with Turkey, his “Lock her up!” chants, his haircut, or anything, this case was never about much. There’s no longer pretense that prosecution would lead to the unspooling of a massive Trump-Russia conspiracy, as pundits once breathlessly expected. In fact, news that Flynn was cooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller inspired many of the “Is this the beginning of the end for Trump?” stories that will someday fill whole chapters of Journalism Fucks Up 101 textbooks.