Tuesday, July 14, 2020


A New York paradox

It would appear that a lot of New Yorkers broke the rules.  Avoiding one another in New York would be pretty difficult

At the beginning of March, a lively debate took place about whether Britain should pursue a strategy of "herd immunity" – allowing coronavirus to spread until so many people had developed antibodies that it no longer posed a threat to public health – or place the entire country under lockdown. As is well-known, Boris Johnson initially embraced the former, saying the public needed to take the virus "on the chin", then performed a U-turn and imposed a full lockdown on March 23.

But recent data coming out of New York reveals that this was a false dichotomy. Sixty-eight per cent of people who took antibody tests at a clinic in the corona neighbourhood of Queens received positive results, suggesting that, in this area at least, the population is already close to achieving "herd immunity". This is in spite of the fact that New York imposed one of the strictest lockdowns in the United States.

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Shock Poll Shows Trump on Track to Win Reelection

A new poll conducted by the Washington based Democracy Institute for the Sunday Express shows President Trump tied with his rival Joe Biden at 47 percent, but surpassing him in the electoral college 309 to 229.

These positive results for Trump come amid a constant drumbeat of negative media coverage in recent weeks that paints his electoral chances in November as virtually nil.

According to the shock poll, Trump is “on course to win the crucial swing states including Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin where he outpolls Vice President Biden by 48 percent to 44 percent.”

According to David Maddox, the political editor of the Sunday Express, the poll indicates that the Black Lives Matter riots have created a backlash that is helping Trump.

The poll was conducted Jul 1–3, before the president went to the Mount Rushmore to make a speech that was very well received by most Americans, but furiously derided by Democrats and their allies in the corporate media.

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A who’s who of conservative luminaries has unleashed a decidedly unwoke message for police-slamming, statue-toppling, history-canceling leftist protesters: “You will not prevail.”

This is a start but action rather than words is what is needed.  If State governors won't unleash their police on the vandals, Federal officers should be sent in

The six-minute video posted by the Media Research Center offered a “conservative answer to the mob,” featuring 15 leading figures on the right and Republican lawmakers responding to the “protesters, hoodlums and rioters out in force these last several weeks.”

“You will not prevail. America will prevail,” said MRC President Brent Bozell in the “We Hold These Truths: Our Answer to the Mob” video posted Tuesday. “Today, tomorrow and by the grace of God, forever.”

The speakers, working from a script by National Review’s Rich Lowry, praised Founding Fathers George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln, whose statues have recently come under attack, as well as the military, first responders, free speech, free markets and American values.

“This is the greatest country the world has ever known,” said David Bozell, president of ForAmerica. “A beacon of liberty, an engine of wealth.”

The video also features one of the last appearances by country singer Charlie Daniels, who died Monday at age 83. “You will not redefine America or frighten good, honest Americans into submission,” Mr. Daniels said in the video.

Sen. Marsha Blackburn, Tennessee Republican, cheered “America’s real heroes,” including the military, medical workers and law enforcement. Sen. Mike Lee, Utah Republican, warned that police were needed to “protect the vulnerable and to keep dangerous communities from descending into chaos.”

“Are there bad players? Of course,” said Tea Party Patriots co-founder Jenny Beth Martin. “But don’t lie about the police. Don’t smear them as racist. Don’t dismiss that they have to put their lives on the line every single day with lowlifes who harass and threaten them.”

Indeed, there was plenty of red meat for the base, including blasts at the “ignorant mob,” “your vandalism and cancellations,” and “the hateful rot of an ideology that you champion.”

“Who suffers the most from lawlessness?” asked syndicated radio host Dana Loesch. “It’s unquestionably the innocents in inner cities caught in the crossfire of thugs, gangs and rioting mobs.”

Said political commentator Deneen Borelli: “How dare you intimidate and beat people with whom you disagree.”

“We live in the last best home of mankind,” said Family Research Council President Tony Perkins. “And we’re not about to lose it to a bunch of fanatics aided and abetted by a complicit media and cowardly corporations.”

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Economic Lockdowns DON'T Save Lives – But They Kill Jobs and Wages

We now have three months of data from the 50 states which show unequivocally that economic lockdowns did not save lives, they are associated with much HIGHER death rates.

The death rates in the strict lockdown states were about FOUR TIMES higher than in states that didn’t lockdown at all or had minimal restrictions. Amazingly, there is a linear relationship here between lockdowns and deaths, but in the opposite direction, that shutdown advocates would expect.

One could argue that the northeast had the most exposure to coronavirus in the first place (true), and that by locking down, they lowered death rates from going even higher (false).

Strict lockdowns failed because they were put into effect AFTER the infection had spread. New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Illinois and Michigan had catastrophically high death rates because their governors were almost criminally negligent in protecting seniors in nursing homes. If Andrew Cuomo, Phil Murphy and JB Pritzker had kept seniors and those with pre-existing conditions safe, they could have saved far more lives than shutting down barber shops, stores, schools, and office buildings.

By the way, liberal states with strict lockdown orders have by far the highest unemployment rates today. So the blue states succeeded in blowing up their economies AND still suffered the highest death rates. Congratulations.

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COVID Panic Piece on Churches

The new COVID cases. It’s all the media can talk about—and it means nothing. Who cares about new cases? Is the death rate spiking? No. In fact, it’s low. Very low. Low enough that half of the country remains on their charted paths to reopening or they have reopened. And notice that it’s always the cases that are highlighted. Memo to the media, new cases don’t mean new deaths no matter how much you want it to be. You want another lockdown. You want more job losses. You want more economic despair. And you especially want more people to die. Sorry, but that’s not going to happen. For starters, the credibility behind the lockdowns met a quick death when y’all decided to just stop reporting on COVID for two-to-three weeks to give George Floyd rioters positive coverage. Don’t go outside, unless you’re going to protest…or riot, right?

The flip-flop from you and the equally shameless “medical experts” on this exposed this whole circus act. It’s not a big deal, is it? Because it certainly cannot be apocalyptic, which is what we’ve been told. Also, does this virus have a non-transmittable phase? If so, why did it only occur when the lefty mob was rioting? These “medical experts” are no better than the clowns we see on CNN bashing Trump. And when propaganda blows up, people simply do not care. It’s time to get back to living our lives, folks. Keep reopening and keep bringing those jobs back.

Speaking of propaganda, let’s take a look at this New York Times piece on places of worship. We cannot go back to church. It’s a bed of infection, right? Well, with the new cases, the NYT decided to create a panic, noting a spike in cases—the publication went after churches for spreading the virus:

Weeks after President Trump demanded that America’s shuttered houses of worship be allowed to reopen, new outbreaks of the coronavirus are surging through churches across the country where services have resumed.

The virus has infiltrated Sunday sermons, meetings of ministers and Christian youth camps in Colorado and Missouri. It has struck churches that reopened cautiously with face masks and social distancing in the pews, as well as some that defied lockdowns and refused to heed new limits on numbers of worshipers.

Pastors and their families have tested positive, as have church ushers, front-door greeters and hundreds of churchgoers. In Texas, about 50 people contracted the virus after a pastor told congregants they could once again hug one another. In Florida, a teenage girl died last month after attending a youth party at her church.

More than 650 coronavirus cases have been linked to nearly 40 churches and religious events across the United States since the beginning of the pandemic, with many of them erupting over the last month as Americans resumed their pre-pandemic activities, according to a New York Times database.

Yeah, so what? As some noted on Twitter, “that’s fewer than half the cases Florida alone has linked directly to travel from New York to Florida.”

Can you contract the virus in a church or place of worship? Sure. Is it a site for the supposed massive spread? No. It’s not. It’s yet another attempt by the Acela Media to scare you and to pivot away from the fact that New York is the mecca for COVID infections and deaths. It still is a total mess and their order to force nursing homes to accept COVID patients led to thousands of deaths. Forty-three percent of all COVID deaths in the U.S. come from nursing homes. Want to guess the party affiliation of the governors who said that had to happen? New York is the epicenter of the US-based outbreak, and it’s still a mess. It’s now dealing with the Big Apple suffering the fallout from the Floyd riots.

The media is doing all they can to keep us in fear. By their standard, no one should ever go outside again. That’s not going to happen. And we’re not going to stay inside until there’s a vaccine, of which I’m sure a good chunk of this nation wouldn’t even consider getting vaccinated due to the debate with that subject. Make it compulsory? Oh, well, talk about opening another can of worms.

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IN BRIEF

Joe Biden and Sanders release leftist "unity platform" for Democrat Party (U.S. News & World Report)

If Biden follows platform compromises from task forces, he'll be "most progressive president since FDR," Sanders says (Breitbart)

Biden says he would restore pre-Hobby Lobby contraceptive mandate in wake of Little Sisters ruling (Fox News)

Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, key figure in the impeachment charade, announces his retirement in scathing statement (AP)

Trump meets Mexican president at White House despite Democratic objections; it's Trump and Lopez Obrador's first face-to-face meeting (Fox News)

Surge in virus hospitalizations strains hospitals in several states (The Washington Post)

CDC weighs early vaccine access for minorities and others at risk (The New York Times)

Atlanta mayor defies the governor, orders masks to be worn in public spaces (NPR)

Ivy League rules out playing all sports this fall due to pandemic (ESPN)

One-third of American families missed their July rent and housing payments and 10% fear they could lose their homes in the next six months (UK Daily Mail)

New Yorkers look to the suburbs and beyond. Other city dwellers may be next. (NPR)

New York City councilwoman freaks out over white man holding black child: "It hurts people" (The Federalist)

Andrew Jackson statue to be removed from City Hall in namesake Mississippi capital (The Daily Caller)

Seattle held segregated training session for white staff aimed at "undoing their whiteness" and told them "not to take undeserved promotions" to be better allies for racial justice (UK Daily Mail)

Communist China's leash on Hong Kong tightens, choking an accountability broadcaster (The New York Times)

Trump has 91% chance of winning reelection, political science professor calculates (Mediaite)

Policy: How we will ward off 21st-century adversaries (Senator Rick Scott)

Anti-Rule of Law protagonist Nancy Pelosi shrugs off mob destruction in Baltimore: "People will do what they do" (The Washington Free Beacon)

Joe Biden maneuvers to steal Trump's thunder with economic nationalism plan (NPR)

Congress wants to narrow future aid after big businesses raked in millions in the first round (Washington Examiner)

It may take weeks to know the presidential election winner (Washington Examiner)

MSNBC appoints radical leftist Joy Reid as Chris Matthews's replacement (Time)

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCHPOLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), A Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

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