RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/05/15/the_costly_failure_to_update_sky-is-falling_predictions_143215.html

On March 6, Liz Specht, Ph.D., posted a thread on Twitter that immediately went viral.  As of this writing, it has received over 100,000 likes and almost 41,000 retweets, and was republished at Stat News.  It purported to “talk math” and reflected the views of “highly esteemed epidemiologists.” It insisted it was “not a hypothetical, fear-mongering, worst-case scenario,” and that, while the predictions it contained might be wrong, they would not be “orders of magnitude wrong.” It was also catastrophically incorrect.

The crux of Dr. Specht’s 35-tweet thread was that the rapid doubling of COVID-19 cases would lead to about 1 million cases by May 5, 4 million by May 11, and so forth.  Under this scenario, with a 10% hospitalization rate, we would expect approximately 400,000 hospitalizations by mid-May, which would more than overwhelm the estimated 330,000 available hospital beds in the country.  This would combine with a lack of protective equipment for health care workers and lead to them “dropping from the workforce for weeks at a time,” to shortages of saline drips and so forth. Half the world would be infected by the summer, and we were implicitly advised to buy dry goods and to prepare not to leave the house.

Interestingly, this thread was wrong not because we managed to bend the curve and stave off the apocalypse; for starters, Dr. Specht described the cancellation of large events and workplace closures as something that would shift things by only days or weeks.

Instead, this thread was wrong because it dramatically overstated our knowledge of the way the virus worked; it fell prey to the problem, common among experts, of failing to address adequately the uncertainty surrounding its point estimates.  It did so in two opposing ways. First, it dramatically understated the rate of spread. If serological tests are to be remotely believed, we likely hit the apocalyptic milestone of 2 million cases quite some time ago.  Not in the United States, mind you, but in New York City, where 20% of residents showed positive COVID-19 antibodies on April 23.  Fourteen percent of state residents showed antibodies, suggesting 2.5 million cases in the Empire State alone; since antibodies take a while to develop, this was likely the state of affairs in mid-April or earlier.

https://thefederalist.com/2020/05/15/new-report-unveils-the-extent-to-which-the-cdc-and-fda-lost-focus/

A new report from the conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) peels back the curtain on just how much the nation’s preeminent public health institutions have pivoted to controlling lifestyle choices over preventing infectious diseases such as COVID-19.

CEI Senior Fellow Michelle Minton found that a vast majority of congressional funding allotted to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) went towards reinforcing public behavior while only a fraction of the agency budgets were targeted towards fighting emerging pathogens that have given rise to the public health pandemic today.

Of the roughly $7 billion granted to the CDC in 2019, just less than half went to infectious disease efforts where most went to fight existing viruses. More than $600 million focused on animal-related diseases, only a third of which was directed towards emerging threats. In other words, CDC resources for rising pathogens such as the novel Wuhan coronavirus, which is supposed to strike at the core of the CDC’s mission, received far less concern than hyping a moral panic around vaping.

“As its original name, the Communicable Disease Center implies, the initial purpose of the CDC was to assist the states in the control of infectious disease,” Minton wrote, noting that it came to be from efforts to combat malaria. Since its creation in 1946 Minton wrote, he CDC’s focus has expanded “to include conditions and diseases not caused by the spread of dangerous pathogens, but by lifestyle factors such as heart disease, cancer, and diabetes.”

The FDA meanwhile, is no less guilty. With a broader role to play in protecting the nation’s public health, the agency’s role in perpetuating healthy lifestyle choices such as maintaining a healthy diet and proper nutrition is far more justifiable. Alas, its aggressive action propelling hysteria surrounding electronic cigarettes led by former administrator Scott Gottlieb remains far off from the FDA’s goals or public interest and is killing smokers. Electronic cigarette use is the single most effective form of smoking cessation offering a lifeline to those trapped under addiction to combustible cigarettes which is the leading cause of preventable death in the United States.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/05/no-justice-no-freedom-bruce-thornton/

The opening credits of the Perry Mason television drama featured a statue of justice as a blindfolded woman raising aloft a pair of scales. This common visual metaphor captures the two critical dimensions of justice: balancing the punishment with the crime, and the equality of all under the law.

Four years ago the Obama administration and rogue partisans in the FBI and DOJ abused their powers in order to keep Donald Trump from being elected, and then to hamstring and sabotage his administration. Now we are nearing the end of the investigations into those crimes, and the truth long obvious to many will finally be confirmed. But if the verification of these crimes is not followed by indictments and the malefactors put on trial, our political system will be seriously damaged, and we citizens will lose faith in the integrity of our justice system and its role in protecting our political freedom

Like freedom, our view of justice as embodying fairness and balance has not been universal to all peoples. They may have had laws, but those laws were not necessarily just. Our notion of justice arises from the creation of constitutional states that first took form in ancient Greece. Before then, power over others was a personal possession of rulers based on their assumed superiority of wealth or birth, and as such was unaccountable to the masses. These rulers made the laws and enforced them, but they were not always subject to the same laws nor were they enforced fairly. Like governing, applying justice, then, was a function of the ruler’s status and privilege, or his alleged connection to the all-knowing gods. Justice, like political power, resided in men, not in laws equally applied.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/05/challenging_anthony_fauci.html

“I don’t think you are the one person who gets to make a decision. We can listen to your advice but there are people on the other side saying there’s not going to be a surge and we can safely open the economy.” 

The speaker was Sen. Rand Paul, in the hearing with the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions on Tuesday. Sen. Paul, a medical doctor, was addressing Dr. Anthony Fauci of the president’s coronavirus task force. Dr. Fauci did not appreciate the challenge. 

“I’m a scientist, a physician and a public health official,” Fauci said. The millions of Americans struggling to get their lives back might quibble with the order, and a key part of the description is missing. 

Anthony Fauci earned a medical degree from Cornell University in 1966. He does not list advanced degrees in molecular biology so, strictly speaking, Anthony Fauci is not a virologist. 

In 1984, a full 36 years ago, Fauci hired on with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). 

There Fauci made a name for himself with the claim that AIDS would ravage the heterosexual community. That turned out to be wrong and for background see The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS, by Michael Fumento, and Inventing the AIDS Virus by Peter Duesberg, who is a molecular biologist. 

On Fauci’s watch, NIAID became a major funder of research for what is now known as HIV/AIDS. Dr. Fauci could often be found testifying before Congress, which is where the money comes from. Lately his ability to get things wrong has been on full display.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/05/police_state_dry_run_a_huge_success.html

When the coronavirus landed on our shores, communist China came with it.

We have become part of a mass scale human experiment in government control and it turned out that stripping away our freedom wasn’t all that difficult. Under the guise of concern for our health and well-being, tyrants came out of the woodwork.  Our Constitution, our Bill of Rights, and our lives are being destroyed as the left solidifies and expands their oppressive powers. We’ve been herded around like cattle, threatened, isolated, confined, silenced, and arrested. You name it, it’s happening.

You tell me if what follows sounds like the United States, or China.

We’ve been told who can work and who can’t, with language that separates us according to who is and who isn’t “essential” as the almighty State supersedes individual rights and the family unit.

We’ve been physically and verbally harassed, threatened, fined, detained, arrested, jailed, and/or placed in forced quarantine. Business licenses have been revoked. Going to work without the permission of the government is now a crime. So is going to the park or a beach. Children playing together is also in defiance of the government. So is placing flags on the graves of veterans. The list of infractions goes on and on and on and on. Examples read like the manifesto of a demented madman.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/judge-sullivan-vs-justice-ginsburg-11589498942?mod=opinion_lead_pos2

“Justice Ginsburg’s argument is that the job of judges is to judge, not to substitute for prosecutors.”

In his zeal to convict Michael Flynn of something, federal Judge Emmet Sullivan is harming his own reputation. He’s also violating the law, as he’d know if he had read Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s opinion last week overturning the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

On Wednesday Judge Sullivan appointed an ex-judge to explore whether former Mr. Flynn should be held in criminal contempt for perjury even though prosecutors have sought to drop the charges against the former national security adviser. The relevant case is U.S. v. Sineneng-Smith, in which the Supreme Court reversed a Ninth Circuit ruling striking down a criminal statute involving immigration as unconstitutionally overbroad. The case was overturned because instead of adjudicating the issues raised by the parties, the Ninth Circuit panel invited outside groups to brief them about a defense the defendant never raised.

This is akin to what Judge Sullivan is trying to do with Mr. Flynn by asking outside parties to make new arguments for prosecution—and even appointing former judge John Gleeson, who has shown clear public bias (in an op-ed) against Mr. Flynn, to make the case. Judge Sullivan’s abuse is more egregious given that the real prosecutors now say they don’t believe they can honestly prosecute Mr. Flynn.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16025/judge-emmet-sullivan

In the Flynn case, the prosecution and defense both agree that the case should be dropped. Because there is no longer any controversy between the parties to be resolved, there is no longer any case properly before the judge. His only job is to enter an order vacating the guilty plea and dismissing the case with prejudice.

Under our constitutional system of separation of powers, the new prosecutor has no standing…. the separation of powers…. allocates the power to prosecute to the executive not judicial branch.

It makes no constitutional difference that Flynn pleaded guilty — even if his plea was voluntary, which is questionable in light of the threats against his son.

The Justice Department has the constitutional authority to dismiss a prosecution that it has brought at any time and for any reason, without being second-guessed by the judicial branch.

[Sullivan] is endangering our system of separation of powers and he should be stopped by a writ of mandamus or a motion to recuse. Judges, too, are not above the law or the Constitution.

Judge Emmet Sullivan’s decision to appoint a retired federal judge to argue against the Justice Department’s entirely proper decision to end the criminal prosecution of General Michael Flynn is designed to circumvent the constitutional limitation on the jurisdiction of federal judges. The Constitution limits this jurisdiction to actual cases and controversies. There must be disagreement between the parties that requires resolution by a judge. If the parties agree, there is nothing for the judge to decide.

https://thefederalist.com/2020/05/14/the-constitution-requires-judge-emmet-sullivans-lawless-amicus-order-against-michael-flynn-be-overturned/

The U.S. Constitution makes clear that the judiciary has no business second-guessing prosecutorial decisions. That’s what Michael Flynn judge Emmet Sullivan decided to do.

On May 13, Judge Emmet Sullivan issued a blatantly biased and unconstitutional order in the long-lasting Michael Flynn criminal case. To preserve the rule of law and our constitutional separation of powers, the Department of Justice has no choice now but to seek a writ of mandamus from the D.C. Circuit Court ordering the criminal charge against Flynn dismissed and reassigning the case to another judge.

On Tuesday, Judge Sullivan shocked court watchers when he entered an order stating that, “at the appropriate time,” he intended to enter a scheduling order permitting “amicus curiae” or friend of the court briefs to be filed in Flynn case. Flynn, who more than a year ago pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI, was seeking to withdraw his guilty plea when the Department of Justice filed a motion to dismiss the criminal charge against Flynn.

The government’s motion to dismiss highlighted new evidence uncovered by an outside U.S. attorney, Jeff Jensen, and detailed the government’s position that even if Flynn had made false statements to FBI agents about his conversations with the Russian ambassador, as a matter of law there was no crime because the false statements were not “material” to a legitimate investigation.