More on liberty
This ties into an earlier post of mine today on liberty.
Funny stuff, but grim:
While we’re at it, I’ll add this interview with Sidney Powell. Not funny, but insightful:
The New Neo
A blog about political change, among other things
This ties into an earlier post of mine today on liberty.
Funny stuff, but grim:
While we’re at it, I’ll add this interview with Sidney Powell. Not funny, but insightful:
In other news, The Daily Wire and Red State are both reporting China has indicated they will try to affect the elections of Republicans this fall.
I’m sure the NY Times, WAPO, news networks, Nancy and Chuck will be right on this foreign interference with US elections.
ICYMI
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/05/more_stories_of_government_power_grabs__and_a_new_loud_voice_in_the_wilderness.html
Video embedded.
This Kevin James short film is NOT funny because it is coming too close to the truth of what is going down.
The Flynn story is amazing.The LA Times had a totally fake story today about the Flynn case.
Flynn’s allies hoped Sullivan would take the same skeptical approach to the prosecution of the retired three-star Army general who briefly served as President Trump’s first national security advisor, only to be fired after three weeks and later plead guilty to lying to federal agents.
But Sullivan has been hard on Flynn every step of the way, and now he’s pushing back on Atty. Gen. William Barr’s extraordinary attempt to dismiss the case. The result is an unusual, perhaps unprecedented, legal tug-of-war involving one of the most high-profile prosecutions from the Russia investigation.
“We are in completely uncharted waters,” said Paul Rosenzweig, a former federal prosecutor.
I’ll say. I have seen nothing like this since the Dreyfuss case.
The LA Times has a new owner, a tech billionaire who is Asian. I guess I thought I would see a new, more neutral, editorial policy. Nope.
Mike K – is the new LAT owner by any chance a stealth member of the CCP?
Totally Off Topic:
We went grocery shopping yesterday at a chain store in Northeastern Illinois. Meat items were in good supply. And every thing else, including bakers yeast ( SWMBO doesn’t do breads but does use flour for cakes & cookies ) was available.
That, and paper goods, and cleaning supplies were all limited 1 to 2 items per shopper.
Everyone had masks, even though maybe a quarter of the shoppers had theIr masks under their noses.
Sorry to interrupt … back to the thread.
The hypocrisy of liberal progressives is mind boggling.
They purport to believe in individual rights, etc., but have no qualms about genuflecting to the tyrannical demands of ANY government as long as that govt. is considered, by them, to be within liberal progressive sleeve.
And as long as the govt in power is liberal progressive, they believe that the intelligence agencies, the “justice” dept. and Federal law enforcement agencies should to do literally anything they must to indict and jail the “enemies of the state.”
But if the govt. in power is not within the “approved” liberal progressive mindset, well then, the govt. and it’s agencies had better bend over backwards and be super mindful of the Bill of Rights plus every other right – enumerated within the Constitution or not – that they, the liberal progressives – DEMAND be observed.
Neo:
You mentioned recently that you were considering broaching the subject of Flynn, etc. to your, undoubtedly well heeled liberal friends to observe their reaction to the latest developments of the Flynn case. (Personally, I think you are nuts even thinking about this, but hey, you never know !!)
Ask them this: if Judge Kavanaugh had been nominated by Obama, and that lying, POS, b***h Christine Ford had come forward to accuse him of rape, would they – your liberal pals – find her credible?
Can’t wait to hear the results of your research.
P.S.
Maybe you should consider wearing a bike helmet and other assorted injury prevention devices before you embark on your mission.
Off topic, but the relevant post is back a ways:
WA Gov. Inslee walks back the mandatory collection of contact data for restaurant patrons.
Apparently lots of restaurant owners complained, and even the ACLU added to the pushback.
(The fact that I have to write “even” the ACLU is depressing.)
Bryan Lovely,
That Seattle Times article had some amazing tidbits like that virtually every bartender in the state of WA has filed for unemployment and that the restaurant business provides $6.3 billion in taxable revenue to King County every year.
Neither fact is surprising but they should both be very alarming to the government officials.
Griffin–
I know several bartenders and chefs and waiters. They’re all saying “don’t go back to restaurants”. I suppose they think that Uncle Sugar will be able to take care of them forever and making a living is for grandma killers.
The rat fink “Karen” folk would be very comfy under the commies, reporting kulaks or other “enemies of the people”. Like the E. German Stasi secret police.
Also under the Nazis, reporting Jews.
There are a large number of people who want to claim “moral superiority” over others for professing some belief or another, and are very willing to report on others who can be called “violators” of some kind or another.
Almost all have that angry feeling when you’re going 10 mph over the speed limit, and somebody else goes zipping by even faster. I want THAT guy to get a ticket! Not me…
It also depends on which rules. Ask a Dem 2 questions:
Is it OK for a barber to cut hair and violate the law with civil disobedience?
Was it OK for ML King to violate the law with civil disobedience?
The answers might depend on which question is asked first. But then again, it’s easy to say, as Pelosi did in excluding Biden-Kavanaugh comparisons, that it’s totally different.
Those who say it’s totally different are those without principles.
I do support laws against drunk driving – it’s pretty clear that drunk drivers do kill.
Probabilistically more often. (Anybody know the numbers? 1 in 100,000 or 1 mil or 10 mil, as compared to …)
It’s not at all clear that there will be more total deaths with or without a lockdown, or masks, or social distancing between non-obese, healthy, younger people under 60.
It’s pretty clear NOT shutting down the NYC subways cost a LOT of lives.
Bryan Lovely,
Yep, it’s that extra $600 kicker on top of regular unemployment that is making it damn easy for a lot of people to not work. That is scheduled to end July 31 and the Democrats want to extend it until January but the Republicans need say no to that. Maybe adjust the formula somehow but a person should not make more for not working than working and if it’s extended until January it may never go away because the most likely scenario is Democrats will have both houses of Congress and quite possibly the presidency.
People who are living fat on unemployment plus $600 might feel good now. But when the windfall falls, there will be others already in the jobs they may have reluctantly to take until the next giveaway.
Slightly off topic but it’s also interesting to see the Imperial College model being totally ripped to shreds for all kinds of errors by numerous people. Fauci and Birx brought this to Trump as evidence of the pandemic. These two clowns may go down as the most destructive non military presidential advisors in US history.
Bryan Lovely and Griffin,
My place of employment is starting to call some staff back and most are not happy. It they are offered their former jobs and refuse they lose their unemployment but some are making as much as twice as much on unemployment.
We’re bringing folks back in phases but those being asked first feel like they are getting gypped. It could be as much as a $5k swing between those coming back now and those who may get to extend through the end of July, and the latter group not only earn $5k more, they are effectively on a paid vacation. Even though I think most of our furloughed folks like their jobs, they are hoping that phone does not ring until July 31.
Griffin,
I’m agnostic on Fauci and Birx. I like some of what they did and said, dislike some. However, I don’t think you can fault them for following the Imperial College model. That was the gold standard and nobody knew how absurd the code was. If they are to be blamed for that, so is every other epidemiologist. Hell, the first three weeks or so everyone of us here on this blog used that model as the measuring stick. We were noting flaws with its predictions, but it was still the stick.
You can probably make a case that Fauci should have looked into how Imperial College did their modeling prior, since he bought into their models in previous pandemics and witnessed major flaws, but based on where we were in January, February and March of this year their reference to it was understandable.
Dr. Fauci has been wrong about a fair amount, and he does seem to like the sound of his voice and may be overly comfortable answering questions on topics he is not expert in, but if you ask an epidemiologist how to keep people from catching a virus one should not be surprised when the reply is; don’t interact with others, wash your hands a lot and don’t touch your face, mouth, nose or eyes. Epidemiologists don’t typically make decisions on acceptable number of cases or deaths.
What is regrettable is that there was not an early push to make the Imperial model open source. I can think of no reason why the model and its assumptions needed to be concealed. I’m having trouble finding an exact date on when he published his first projections on COVID-19, but it was either in February or by mid-March. Let’s go with the latter date. If the code and inputs for the variables had been shared in mid-March the errors in the code would have certainly been discovered within a week. That’s the type of stuff the Web is brilliant at. And, serious debate would have begun at that time on the assumptions. Were some too cautious? Some too cavalier?
I don’t know much about Ferguson or the father of the Global Warming Hockey Stick, Dr. Michael Mann, but anytime a researcher does not want to share his datasets I become very skeptical. Someone who is truly searching for the truth wants the truth to be discovered and would embrace the scrutiny. These gentlemen do not want their work scrutinized.
“Someone who is truly searching for the truth wants the truth to be discovered and would embrace the scrutiny. These gentlemen do not want their work scrutinized.” – Rufus
Kind of applies to the Obama administration’s spying on Trump.
https://www.redstate.com/elizabeth-vaughn/2020/05/16/undercover-huber-explains/
AesopFan,
AMEN! The same thing infuriates me about Hillary’s emails. These people are “public servants.” They work for us. These papers, emails, documents… belong to we the people. No matter what narrative he or she is peddling, obfuscation should infuriate journalists and they should push very hard on any public servant doing it. It should be one thing they are truly unbiased and agnostic about.
Rufus,
My main beef with Fauci and Birx was/is how they talk out of both sides of their mouths from day to day. How did they present the Imperial model or the IHM model to Trump? Did they sell it as being the best cutting edge modeling? Did they tell him these things have not been peer reviewed? Did they warn him that these things may be very inaccurate? I don’t know but the fact that Fauci is still out there talking about ‘severe suffering’ or whatever he said the other day would lead me to believe he sold the death and sickness hard to Trump which is why he needed some balance in the advice he was getting.
I imagine Dr. Fauci did sell death and sickness hard to Trump. That’s what a physician, especially one trained in epidemiology would be expected to do. There are a lot of scary bugs out there and people shaking hands, coughing in public, touching their noses and mouths, then surfaces that others touch, eventually bringing their hands to their noses, mouths and eyes… It’s a scary world out there.
Ask a security expert what to do about Islamic terror. Malls, schools, concerts; all major targets. If the goal is to minimize targets, injury and death; shut ’em down. I’m sure Trump, Obama and Bush all heard advice like that from qualified experts.
Like I wrote, Dr. Fauci probably likes the sound of his voice a bit too much, and is too willing to speak about any topic to any outlet who asks, but as far as his advice to Trump, especially in March and April… That was all pretty mainstream stuff.
Griffin,
And I agree with your assessment that an over reliance on Drs. Fauci and Birx has the potential to damage President Trump’s reputation. However, we have no shortage of absurd, outspoken Governors and Mayors drawing attention to themselves that I think much of Trump’s lockdown fervor will be forgotten. Once again the Left, in its knee jerk reaction to simply do the opposite of whatever Trump states, are stepping on yet another rake.
I am as mad as you about the violation of civil liberties. I just don’t think Dr. Fauci can be blamed for thinking what 95%+ of educated experts believed in March. As things played out, Trump appeared to listen to others and adapt his attitude and approach.
Rufus,
But apparently this Ferguson guy has had a very poor track record with other models and someone pushing them to the president should know that and the IHME model could barely get the next day correct yet they still kept on pushing it.
As for the governors yes that may be partly true that they will be blamed but not all of them will be up for election this year and if UE is running 10-15% in November someone is going to get blamed.
Griffin. Governors , grads of HOA schools, may not be up for re-election and may consider that a kind of protection.
But their political party’s affiliation does not disappear. There is the down ballot, and the national races.
I kind of doubt that any practicing dem voter in MI will change his mind about various things because Whitmer’s inner fascist got loose.
But undecideds and those who vote only occasionally may be strongly motivated to think about such things. That includes those in red states which will likely be doing well looking at blue states which likely won’t be. And blue state voters looking a a neighboring state prospering under a republican governor and legislature will be able to draw conclusions despite Orangemanbad from the MSM.
States; the little laboratories.
Griffin,
I agree that Doc Fauci should have realized Ferguson’s prior models were not good predictors and worked to try to understand why prior to the onset of COVID-19 on the world stage.
About those models….
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/05/never-trust-the-experts.php
Any actual computer programmer recognizes this as the academic standard operating procedure.
Nothing is ever updated or redone since the first grad student wrote the first program back in the seventies, because nobody’s job is on the line if the program is junk.
Full disclosure: I was a FORTRAN jock in school and professionally, including being lab tech for a nuclear accelerator sort-of-thing in our college lab one summer, which was run with FORTRAN programming, before actually Learning To Code properly.
Coding ain’t that easy, despite the claims that any unemployed coal miner can do it.
FORTRAN was what we had at the time, but it really is as bad as the excerpt makes it look.