RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-inflation-surge-continues-consumer-prices-rise-cpi-president-biden-joe-manchin-11636496052?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

“Congress ignores inflation because it doesn’t want to admit that its policies are the leading cause. Kill the bill and rescue the American middle class.”

For something we’re told is “transitory,” inflation sure is persistent. The latest evidence arrived with a jolt Wednesday when the Labor Department reported that consumer prices jumped 0.9% in October, or 6.2% from a year ago and the fifth straight month higher than 5%.

That’s also the fastest rate since 1990, despite reassurances since March from the White House, Federal Reserve and Keynesian economists that inflation would soon vanish. It follows Tuesday’s report that wholesale prices rose 0.6% in October, or 8.6% from a year earlier. Producer prices flow into consumer prices, assuming businesses believe they have enough market power.

That’s not all the bad news. In a separate report Wednesday, the Labor Department said average hourly earnings after inflation fell 0.5% in the month. Real wages are down 2.2% since January. American purchasing power has declined, and the average standard of living has fallen, despite unheard of levels of government spending.

Or we should say because of that spending. It’s important to understand that the current burst of inflation isn’t an accident, like getting hit by a reckless driver. This is the result of reckless policy.

https://www.city-journal.org/scientific-merit-and-the-equity-cult

Another day, another retraction of a scientific paper for violating the code of diversity. On November 1, astronomer John Kormendy withdrew an article from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), after a preprint version that he had just posted on the web drew sharp criticism for threatening the conduct of “inclusive” science. Three days later, the preprint version was scrubbed as well (though a PDF can still be found here.) The paper had passed the journal’s three-person peer-review system and was awaiting publication. Kormendy’s forthcoming book on the same topic had also passed peer review and had been printed for distribution. Now distribution of the book has been put on hold, likely permanently.

Kormendy, an expert on supermassive black holes and professor emeritus at the University of Texas at Austin, acknowledges no errors in his research. “I didn’t do anything [methodologically] wrong,” he told me. “I trust my techniques; I trust the results. I checked for bias in great detail.” Nevertheless, he issued an apology on November 1: “I now see that my work has hurt people. I apologize to you all for the stress and the pain that I have caused. Nothing could be further from my hopes. I fully support all efforts to promote fairness, inclusivity, and a nurturing environment for all.”

What was so hurtful in his article? Kormendy had aimed to reduce the role of individual subjectivity in scientific hiring and tenure decisions. He created a model that predicted a scientist’s long-term research impact from the citation history of his early publications. He tested the results of his model against a panel of 22 prestigious astronomers, many of whom had advised the federal government on scientific research priorities and had served as jurors on high-profile astronomy prizes. That panel rated the research impact of the 512 astronomers whom Kormendy had run through his model; the panel’s conclusions closely matched the model’s results. Kormendy’s paper stressed that hiring decisions should be made “holistically.” Scientific influence was only one factor to consider; achieving gender and racial balance in a department was also a legitimate concern, he wrote.

Formulas for quantifying scientific influence on the basis of a citation record are hardly new. PNAS itself published the proposal for one such well-known measure, known as the “h-index.” But that was in 2005. In 2021, a different standard for evaluating ideas applies: Do they help or hinder females and underrepresented minorities in STEM? Kormendy’s model, tweeted an astrophysicist at the City University of New York, “JUST TOOK ANY TINY STEPS WE ARE MAKING TOWARDS EQUITY AND THREW THEM OUT OF THE WINDOW” (capitalization in the original). An astronomer in Budapest objected that Kormendy had failed to consult with “relevant humanities experts” about cumulative bias against females and minorities. Equally damningly, Kormendy had suggested that the profession should overcome its underrepresentation problem by hiring female and minority scientists, who, in the words of the Budapest astronomer, “match the success rate of the majority (i.e., men).”

https://amgreatness.com/2021/11/08/where-are-the-neon-hatted-proud-boys/

A steady drip of information continues to reveal that the Federal Bureau of Investigation played a much larger—perhaps central—role before and during the Capitol protest than initially believed. And unanswered questions as to why certain co-conspirators or alleged instigators have not yet been charged while others who played a far lesser role face serious charges are fueling mounting suspicions that January 6 was an inside job rather than an “insurrection” incited by President Donald Trump.

After months of speculation about the use of FBI assets, first raised by Darren Beattie at Revolver News, the New York Times confirmed in September that at least two informants embedded with the Proud Boys were in close contact with their FBI handlers that day. 

“In a detailed account of his activities contained in the records, the informant, who was part of a group chat of other Proud Boys, described meeting up with scores of men from chapters around the country at 10 a.m. on Jan. 6 at the Washington Monument and eventually marching to the Capitol,” reporter Alan Feuer wrote, adding, “the F.B.I. also had an additional informant with ties to another Proud Boys chapter that took part in the sacking of the Capitol.”

A new investigative series published by the Washington Post disclosed at least one FBI informant was working with a separate so-called “militia group,” the Three Percenters. “A confidential informant voluntarily sent his FBI contact dozens of exchanges the next day between self-described members of the Three Percenters,” the Post reported last week, referring to a text exchange on a December 20 group chat. The Post also described the activities of “a bureau informant in the Midwest” who was tracking chatter among “militias” planning to travel to Washington for the January 6 rally and protest.

Verification that FBI assets infiltrated the Three Percenters before January 6 not only bolsters claims that the agency was more deeply involved than the public believes—and that officials such as FBI Director Christopher Wray have suggested—but provides another connection to the FBI-concocted plot to “kidnap” Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer in 2020: a longtime FBI informant and convicted felon who aided the scheme by organizing and paying for events related to the hoax also was a frontman for the Wisconsin chapter of the Three Percenters.

In fact, the “militias” Wray still insists pose a dire threat to national security have been under government surveillance for almost two years. 

Wray launched Operation Cold Snap in spring 2020, ostensibly to foil violent anti-lockdown rallies in capital cities across the country. “[The] FBI began an investigation earlier this year after becoming aware through social media that a group of individuals was discussing the violent overthrow of certain government and law enforcement components,” the Justice Department said in an October 2020 press release.

It’s increasingly apparent, however, that Operation Cold Snap was less a safety mission and more like human fly paper.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/11/the-constitution-just-keeps-frustrating-obama-and-the-dems/

Obama helped popularize and normalize the idea that executive overreach was acceptable if the president claimed there was moral imperative to act.

I f it’s not the Supreme Court, or the Electoral College, or states’ rights, or equal Senate representation, or most of the Bill of Rights standing in the way of “progress,” it’s the Treaty Clause. Without it, Barack Obama would already have slowed the oceans’ rise and allowed our beleaguered planet to heal. Just ask him.

This week, the former president, owner of multiple homes — including an $11.75 million mansion on 30 acres in Martha’s Vineyard — had some complaints at the United Nations Climate Change Conference about our profligate habits. Then he said this:

It takes some nuclear-powered audacity for Barack Obama, of all people, to whine about unilateral governance. The only reason Donald Trump was able to “unilaterally” withdraw from any international agreement was that the previous president had enlisted the nation in said agreement without the consent of Congress. The Paris Accord is allegedly the most critical international agreement ever forged by mankind, and yet it wasn’t quite important enough to be subjected to genuine national debate or the checks and balances of American government.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/should-vaccinate-children-covid-19-infection-natural-immunity-vaccine-mandate-coronavirus-11636384215?mod=opinion_lead_pos7

If you’re agonizing about whether to have your young child vaccinated against Covid-19, be reassured: The risk is extremely low either way. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 42% of U.S. children 5 to 11 had Covid by June 2021, before the Delta wave—a prevalence that is likely greater than 50% today. Of 28 million children in that age range, 94 have died of Covid since the pandemic began (including deaths before newer treatments), and 562 have been hospitalized with Covid infections.

Serious complications are so uncommon in this age range that of 2,186 children in the Pfizer vaccine study, no child in either the vaccine or placebo group developed severe illness from Covid. Sixteen of the 663 unvaccinated children developed Covid infections, compared with only three of the 1,305 vaccinated ones—an effectiveness rate of 90.7% against infection. Thus it’s safe to assume that vaccinating a healthy child would take his extremely low risk of serious disease and drive it down even lower.

There’s an important exception, though: If a child already had Covid, there’s no scientific basis for vaccination. Deep within the 80-page Pfizer report is this crucial line: “No cases of COVID-19 were observed in either the vaccine group or the placebo group in participants with evidence of prior SARS-CoV-2 infection.” That’s consistent with the largest population-based study on the topic, which found that natural immunity was 27 times as effective as vaccinated immunity in preventing symptomatic Covid. Natural immunity is likely even more robust in children, given their stronger immune systems. An indiscriminate Covid vaccine mandate may result in unintended harm among children with natural immunity.

As with adults, pediatric Covid deaths and hospitalizations tend to come among those with comorbidities. If your child has a medical risk factor for Covid illness (including obesity), or lives with someone who does, the vaccine’s benefit outweighs the risk.

Side effects in the study were significant but not life-threatening. The overall adverse-event rate following vaccination in the Pfizer study was 10.9%. Notably, fever (as high as 104 degrees) occurred in 6.5% of kids following the second vaccine dose. One case of leg numbness was reported in the vaccine group.

We’d like to know if adverse events were clustered in children who had circulating antibodies from prior Covid infection, but Pfizer didn’t provide that data. There were no cases of myocarditis (heart inflammation), but the sample size was too small to rule out a complication that was found in 1 in 7,000 adolescent boys.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/11/bidens-influential-lenin-sisters-lloyd-billingsley/

“I’m told I should start with AP, Zeke Miller,” said Joe Biden in Rome last month. Back in August, Biden told reporters “I was instructed” to call on Kelly O’Donnell from NBC. Biden didn’t reveal the identity of his instructors, but it’s not a tough call.

The lead puppeteer is doubtless the composite character David Garrow described in Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama. As Drew Allen notes, this is Obama’s third term, but another leftist star is pulling Biden’s strings on matters more important than a press conference.

During the 2020 campaign, Angela Davis supported Joe Biden as the candidate “who can be most effectively pressured into allowing more space for the evolving anti-racist movement.” As parents have noticed, the Biden Junta is all-in with BLM and 1619 Project indoctrination. Embattled parents, smeared by the Biden DOJ as domestic terrorists, might wonder about this person who wields such influence.

In her Women’s March speech in January, 2017, Davis (pictured above) proclaimed “history cannot be deleted like web pages.” That invites review of episodes from Davis’ own history.

Davis gained fame for supporting Black Panther George Jackson, who killed a guard at Soledad Prison. In 1970, Davis brought the arsenal of weapons for Jackson’s brother Jonathan, who charged into a Marin County courtroom and took hostages. In the ensuing shootout, four people were killed and judge Harold Haley’s head blown off.