RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://amgreatness.com/2021/02/18/politicized-science-is-not-science-at-all/

Most middle schoolers or high schoolers in America are taught a mode of empirical inquiry and knowledge attainment usually referred to as the “scientific method.” Although the discipline has origins dating back to classical antiquity, the term emerged in the 19th century and took on sustained life in the 20th century. The multistep “scientific method,” as it is generally formulated, amounts to something along the lines of: 1) problem; 2) research; 3) hypothesis; 4) experiment; 5) data collection; 6) analysis; and 7) conclusion.

Rational empiricism and a skepticism of the status quo inhere in the very process; they are baked into the entire enterprise. The purpose of the scientific method is to constantly contest and, when necessary, disprove flawed hypotheses and mistaken conclusions previously deduced about the workings of the natural world. A basic thought experiment is instructive: Imagine what sort of world we might have today had Copernicus, Galileo and all subsequent astronomers blindly accepted the erroneous, then-dominant belief in a geocentric universe.

True, as the conservative icon Edmund Burke taught, epistemological humility is a defining trait of political statesmanship. But science is not, contra the Left’s frequent hysterical shrieks, synonymous with politics. On the contrary, any scientist worth his salt must approach his discipline with something resembling the opposite of epistemological humility—skepticism, that is, of the legitimacy of the inherited status quo and an insatiable desire to challenge the status quo’s underlying precepts. Only through such intellectually unconstrained, methodologically rigorous testing can we approach confidence in the validity of any claimed scientific knowledge.

Alas, the Democratic Party, America’s would-be “party of science,” whose leading lights bellow, “Trust the science!” as an authoritative command akin to the tablet-bearing Moses’ descent from Mount Sinai, missed the memo. Whether the issue is climate change, COVID-19 mask mandates, pandemic-era school reopenings or any other number of issues, the Left browbeats its political opponents with the faux mantle of science and accuses those who have the temerity to ask questions as science “deniers.” Flat-earthers no doubt nod with approval, but Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein scowl from the grave.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/02/covid_therapies_versus_covid_vaccines_who_benefits.html

“Yes, they were feverishly working on a vaccine. But why were they not as frantically looking for a cure or treatment? And why were they continuous knocking down every possible treatment that was suggested? ”

I knew something was amiss when the pandemic hit. I have four degrees in the field of psychology including a PhD. My years of training and experience were telling me something wasn’t right. My BS detector as all the best psychologists would call it kept going off. I just kept wondering why our National health leaders kept putting the burden of handling the spread on us? 

Yes, they were feverishly working on a vaccine. But why were they not as frantically looking for a cure or treatment? And why were they continuous knocking down every possible treatment that was suggested? 

So, I did what any good academic would do. I started trying to figure out the answer to my questions. In my search I uncovered a trail of corruption, monetary incentives, secrecy, and lies. 

In 2018 Congress questioned the NIH (Anthony Fauci leads the NIH’s infectious disease research institute) and the CDC about ethical issues with both the CDC and NIH Foundations between 2014 and 2018 with regard to their collection of money from anonymous donors. 

For the CDC one of the donors turned out to be Coca Cola. They gave money for research involving whether unhealthy foods caused type 2 diabetes and obesity.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/2021/02/biden-pick-human-rights-undersecretary-worked-daniel-greenfield/

Another day, another antisemitic Biden nominee.

Earlier this month, I reported on Biden’s choice of Hady “I was inspired by the Palestinian intifada” Amr a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Israel-Palestine. Now, Alana Goodman at the Free Beacon digs into another problematic Biden nominee who has issues with Jews.

Uzra Zeya nominated for undersecretary of civilian security, democracy, and human rights compiled research for a book that argues that “the Israel lobby has subverted the American political process to take control of U.S. Middle East policy”

Zeya, a former U.S. diplomat who was nominated for undersecretary for civilian security, democracy, and human rights, worked for the Washington Report and its publishing group, the American Educational Trust, in 1989 and 1990. The news outlet is staunchly anti-Israel and has published articles questioning the national loyalty of American Jews and opposing taxpayer funding to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Sean Durns, a research analyst at the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, called the Washington Report a “fringe organization” that has “published content with anti-Semitic themes,” including claims that the Mossad was behind the JFK assassination and the Sept. 11 attacks…

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/2021/02/dems-introduce-bill-banning-president-trumps-daniel-greenfield/

Ugly. But ugly is Rep. Linda Sanchez’s middle name. 

Sanchez, whose husband was indicted on corruption charges, introduced H. R. 484 which she calls the No Glory for Hate Act which bars “the use of Federal funds for the commemoration of certain former Presidents”.

Which certain presidents? 

“any former President that has been twice impeached by the House of Representatives on or before the date of enactment of this Act ”

That’s convenient because it leaves out Bill Clinton and any Democrat that Republicans go on to impeach twice. But being impeached once is okay.

Sanchez, who found 13 Democrat co-sponsors for this vile ugliness, includes a ban on buying President Trump at Arlington, “the Secretary of Defense shall not approve a determination of eligibility for interment or inurnment in Arlington National Cemetery made by the Secretary of the Army that permits the interment or inurnment in Arlington National Cemetery of any former President that has been twice impeached by the House of Representatives.”

Co-sponsors for this include Rep. Schakowsky, Rep. Napolitano, Rep. Davis, Rep. Carson, Rep. Escobar, Rep. Lee, Barbara, Rep. Blumenauer, Rep. Hayes, 
Rep. Gallego, Rep. Connolly, Rep. Lowenthal, Rep. Williams, and Rep. Chu.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/02/war-trump-matthew-vadum/

The leftist NAACP, which never met a conservative it didn’t consider to be a racist hatemonger, is suing former President Donald Trump using an obscure law that was wielded against the Democratic Party-affiliated terrorists of the Ku Klux Klan who murdered blacks and their Republican enemies after the Civil War.

The Ku Klux Klan Act is an unusual tool to pull from a cobweb-covered chest of old laws nobody knew were still in existence. President Ulysses S. Grant (he’s the guy on the $50 bill, millennials!) used the statute to declare martial law, penalize terrorist organizations, and use military force to suppress the KKK after the Civil War.

Those who filed this baseless, pie-in-the-sky lawsuit don’t give a farthing’s cuss about justice. The Democratic National Committee needs a reason to keep squeezing its donors and Trump is the most impressive object of revilement Democrats have had to shriek at in decades.

This is just part of a long-running campaign of harassment aimed at destroying Florida’s own Trump, who was acquitted after an unprecedented two impeachment trials, besting the previous record-holding acquittees Andrew Johnson of Tennessee and Bill Clinton of Arkansas.

It comes after an armada of court-authorized fishing expeditions and emoluments lawsuits failed to take away the presidency that Hillary Clinton so devoutly wished had been hers.

We all know that The Left was fine with Trump until he got into politics on the Republican side. It bestowed a truckload of honors on him before he became president, including the Muhammad Ali Entrepreneur Award (2007) and alongside Rosa Parks, the Ellis Island Medal of Honor (1986). But these blindly hateful people need to keep busy and sewing quilts, downvoting disfavored books on Amazon, and throwing Molotov cocktails at cops and burns up so much of the day.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/notable-quotable-conservatism-is-now-a-public-health-risk-11613690706?mod=opinion_lead_pos11

From “Public policy and health in the Trump era,” a Feb. 10 report by the Lancet, a British medical journal:

Trump exploited low and middle-income white people’s anger over their deteriorating life prospects to mobilise racial animus and xenophobia. . . . His appeals to racism, nativism, and religious bigotry have emboldened white nationalists and vigilantes, and encouraged police violence and, at the end of his term in office, insurrection. He chose judges for US courts who are dismissive of affirmative action and reproductive, labour, civil, and voting rights; ordered the mass detention of immigrants in hazardous conditions; and promulgated regulations that reduce access to abortion and contraception in the USA and globally.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/return-of-the-swamp-creatures-11613690674?mod=opinion_featst_pos1

Washington doesn’t usually make it easy to pinpoint the moment when things went wrong. So thanks to Rep. Rosa DeLauro for publicly heralding the return of the swamp.

The announcement actually came from a spokesman for the House Appropriations Committee, which the Connecticut Democrat oversees. “Chair DeLauro supports Member-directed funding for community projects,” Evan Hollander told HuffPost this week. For those uninitiated in Washington doublespeak, earmarks are back.

A few other English words to describe what’s returning: Pork. Logrolling. Sleaze. Bridges to nowhere. Republicans banned earmarks in February 2011 after the term became synonymous with Congress’s embarrassing habit. The late Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma had led a yearslong campaign to expose earmarks as a “gateway drug” to greater spending and corruption. In the face of a tea-party revolt, his colleagues finally chose wisdom.

Democrats are choosing power. According to reports, Ms. DeLauro and Senate Appropriations Chairman Patrick Leahy will soon announce that earmarks are welcome in annual spending bills. Why would Democrats risk such a move? Politico explains that House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer has reassured his party that it won’t suffer, since the effort will be “bipartisan.” Democrats are banking on spend-thirsty Republicans to provide cover.

The question is whether the GOP will succumb, handing the Democratic leadership a uniquely powerful tool in today’s narrowly divided Congress. Republicans may botch their first opportunity to draw a stark contrast in governance, wield some real power, and energize their base.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/well-have-herd-immunity-by-april-11613669731?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

Dr. Makary is a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Bloomberg School of Public Health, chief medical adviser to Sesame Care, and author of “The Price We Pay.”

Amid the dire Covid warnings, one crucial fact has been largely ignored: Cases are down 77% over the past six weeks. If a medication slashed cases by 77%, we’d call it a miracle pill. Why is the number of cases plummeting much faster than experts predicted?

In large part because natural immunity from prior infection is far more common than can be measured by testing. Testing has been capturing only from 10% to 25% of infections, depending on when during the pandemic someone got the virus. Applying a time-weighted case capture average of 1 in 6.5 to the cumulative 28 million confirmed cases would mean about 55% of Americans have natural immunity.

Now add people getting vaccinated. As of this week, 15% of Americans have received the vaccine, and the figure is rising fast. Former Food and Drug Commissioner Scott Gottlieb estimates 250 million doses will have been delivered to some 150 million people by the end of March.

There is reason to think the country is racing toward an extremely low level of infection. As more people have been infected, most of whom have mild or no symptoms, there are fewer Americans left to be infected. At the current trajectory, I expect Covid will be mostly gone by April, allowing Americans to resume normal life.