What “Counts” as a Hate Crime? (RPT FLASHBACK)

Published January 8, 2023January 8, 2023 by Papa Giorgio

(Reason for the FLASHBACK) I was invited to a Facebook group regarding recalling George Gascon (Facebook Group). While I support that, enthusiastically, I have seen a passion for hate-crimes… which I do not support enthusiastically. And it was then that I realized I had no real discussion or presentation of hate-crime legislation that was pushed through by Harry Reid back in the day. So this post is a combination of stuff from my BLOGSPOT days.
JUMP to newest UPDATE (01/2023)

I want to lead with some articles and excerpts, interrupted by some media. I realized I hadn’t done much on “hate-crime” legislation on this .com — but I was posting on the issue on my old BLOGSPOT (hate-crimes posts) site because that is the time it was being put into law. This post is a FLASHBACK of sorts, and has to do with how hate-crimes are “interpreted,” which makes them a weapon for the social-justice warriors whims. For some background, I was writing on this more in 2009 because this legislation was passed then. Here is Star Parker noting the change in law:

President Barack Obama has signed into law the Hate Crimes Prevention Act. Actually, he signed into law the 2010 National Defense Authorization Act tacked onto which was the hate crimes legislation.

Sen. Harry Reid, our brave Democratic majority leader, slipped the hate crimes bill into the defense authorization bill to avoid having to have our senators consider the controversial hate crimes bill on its own.

It’s for good reason that our Democratic legislators wanted to hide under a rock while passing this terrible piece of legislation. It may help them with the far left wing of their party. But weakening and damaging our country is not something to be proud of. And that is exactly what this new hate crime law does.

(STAR PARKER & my old Blogspot)

Here JOHN MCCAIN opines on the issue of Harry Reid shoving that bill into a defense act (VIDEO). You will in the words and media below see how this PC take on what is “equal” actually destroys the premise of “equal under the law.” A good start is this short noting of “hyphenated justice” by Dennis Prager:

So… where do we start. Let us begin with a series of letters I made and put in the break-room at Whole Foods during a “summer session.” It was a newsletter of sorts of ideas I knew my co-workers had never heard of. Here is an excerpt from July of 2003:

MATTHEW SHEPARD

Murder – Homosexual vs. Heterosexual^[1]

…Witness the wall-to-wall coverage generated by the murder of Matthew Shepard, the young Wyoming man who was lured from a Laramie bar by two thugs in the fall of 1998, beaten unconscious and left to die, tied to a fence post in sub-freezing temperatures. The implicit assumption of the coverage was that Shepard had fallen victim to the often invisible but always sinister homophobia embedded deeply in American society, a pathology that could be cured only by hate-crimes legislation. On the eve of the killers’ trial, Frank Rich wrote in the New York Times: “What remains as certain now as on October 22, the day Matthew Shepard died, is that this murder happened against the backdrop of a campaign in which the far right^[2], abetted by political leaders like Trent Lott, was demonizing gay people as sick and sinful.”

Given the avalanche of press it received, there are probably grounds to wonder whether the Shepard case might have been over-covered, although the gruesomeness of the murder and the hate that drove it certainly raised it to the level of an important national story. But when homosexuals are the perpetrators of violence instead of the victims, the sense of moral urgency seems to vanish. This is particularly true when the violence touches on the explosive issue of gay pedophilia.^[3] A case in point is the 1999 murder of a thirteen-year-old Arkansas boy named Jesse Dirkhising and the 2001 trial of the two gay neighbors who killed him.

According to prosecutors at the trial, the two men had become friendly with the boy and his mother, their next-door neighbors, and one day invited Jesse over to their house. During the afternoon, they drugged Jesse, tied him to a bed, shoved his underwear into his mouth to gag him, and added duct tape to ensure his silence. As one man stood watching in a doorway and masturbated, the other raped the boy for hours using a variety of foreign objects, including food. The two men then left the boy in such a position on the bed that he slowly suffocated to death.

A Nexis search revealed that in the first month after the Shepard murder, the media did 3007 stories about the killing. And when the case finally went to trial in the fall of 1999, it was all over the broadcast news, received front-page coverage in all major newspapers, and was featured on the cover of Time magazine. (In all, the New York Times ran 195 stories about the case.)

In the month after the Dirkhising murder, however, Nexis recorded only 46 stories. The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, CNN, ABC, CBS, and NBC ignored the story altogether and continued to do so through the March 2001 trial of one of the murderers, which resulted in a conviction. (The other assailant later pled guilty.) The Washington Post ran but one tiny AP [Associated Press] item about the case, along with an unusual ombudsman’s^[4] defensive explanation of the paper’s decision not to cover the case.

… Writing for the New Republic, gay journalist Andrew Sullivan had some insight into why there was such disparity between the Shepard case and that of Jesse Dirkhising, and why the press found the latter so difficult to handle. The answer was politics, Sullivan wrote:

“The Shepard case was hyped for political reasons: to build support for inclusion of homosexuals in a federal hate-crimes law. The Dirkhising case was ignored for political reasons: squeamishness about reporting a story that could feed anti-gay prejudice, and the lack of any pending interest-group legislation to hang a story on…. Some deaths – if they affect a politically protected class – are worth more than others. Other deaths, those that do not fit a politically correct profile, are left to oblivion.”

Can Minorities Commit “Hate-Crimes?”^[5]

Refusal to acknowledge the reality of anti-white racism is particularly evident in coverage of black-on-white crime. According to some survey’s, in the 1990s blacks were at least three times more likely to commit hate crimes against whites than the other way around. Yet in case after case, media coverage either refuses to acknowledge the racial subtext of such crimes, or fails to subject them to the same scrutiny used when the racial roles are reversed. This is so even in cases where the racial motivation is clear-cut, as in the 1994 case when a gang of black teenage muggers confessed to police that it had intentionally limited its violent attacks in a Brooklyn housing project to elderly whites. Police reports had one culprit admitting, “We made an agreement not to rob black woman. We would only take white woman. It was a pact we all made. Only white people.” Yet such details did not find their way into the stories run by the New York Times. The same omission occurred in coverage of other black-on-white attacks, even when the assailants were heard calling their victims “white bitch,” “white ho” (whore) and “white KKK bitch,” as they were in an April 1997 attack on a white matron by a gang of New York City high school girls on a bus.

[….]

Another recent illustration of the media’s tendency to sidestep uncomfortable realities of black racism involved the case of Ronald Taylor, a thirty-nine-year-old black Pennsylvania man who killed three people and wounded tow others, all white, in March of 2000. According to authorities, Taylor had grown enraged when managers at his Wilksburg, Pennsylvania, housing project sent white maintenance workers to fix something in his apartment. He shot the two maintenance workers, killing one. Then he set his apartment on fire and walked to a Burger King a mile away, where he shot another white person before going across the street and shooting three others at a McDonalds. After that, Taylor stormed a building used as a senior citizen and children’s day care center, taking hostages before finally surrendering.

It would not take much digging to find a racist antipathy to whites in the background of Taylor’s rampage. According to the Associated Press, which quoted the surviving maintenance worker, Taylor shouted, “You’re all white trash racist pigs. You’re dead.” Other published reports the day after the shootings had him barging into the home of a friend, saying, “I’m not gonna kill any black people. I’m gonna kill white people.”

[….]

After finding racist and anti-Semitic literature in his home, the FBI finally labeled Taylor’s actions a hate crime, which forced the media to report it as such. To some, the lag was odd. As a writer for the webzine salon.com put it: “What took so long? Why did the media, which normally promote not only the of hate crimes but of hate crime legislation, have to wait for the FBI to make this designation?”

To “Digress”^[6]

The double standard slaps you in the face.

Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania. Ronald Taylor, a black man, allegedly guns down five whites, killing three. What followed became a textbook case on how contemporary American journalism deals with race. The suspect’s motive could not have been more clear. A black neighbor quoted Taylor as saying, “I’m gonna kill all white people.”

A white maintenance man described Taylor as disruptive ever since moving into the apartment building, “Whenever he saw me, he’d call me a racist pig, or white trash, or he’d make a point of walking past me and brushing up against me. He just didn’t like me.” Yet the media leaned over backwards to avoid any appearance of racism. News anchors cautioned that we don’t know whether Taylor’s alleged hatred against whites was the “primary” or “sole” reason for the shootings. Pardon me. When did they add that requirement?

The Hate Crimes Sentencing Enhancement Act defines hate crime as: “crime in which the defendant intentionally selects a victim, or in the case of a property crime, the property that is the object of the crime, because of the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, gender, disability, or sexual orientation of any person.” No mention of hatred as a “sole” or “primary” motive. Even the police issued mild, tentative statements about whether they considered Taylor’s actions a hate crime. “There’s a lot of hostility in this individual,” said Wilkinsburg Police Chief Gerald Brewer, “so I think it’s a little premature to simply define this as a racist event.” A little premature?

In August, 1999, white supremacist Buford Furrow gunned down several people at a Jewish Community Center in Los Angeles, and shot and killed a Filipino letter carrier. In the three days following the shooting, over 150 newspapers wrote nearly 200 articles about the slaughter.

On November 11, 1999, in Kansas City, an Ethiopian man shot and killed two co-workers and wounded a third person. All the victims were white. The Ethiopian shooter, who also shot and killed himself, left a letter referring to “blood sucker” whites. To date, how many newspapers carried a story about this apparent race-based shooting? Eleven.

The killing of Wyoming gay student Matthew Shepherd brought screaming headlines and around-the-clock coverage. So did the dragging and killing of black Texan James Byrd.

Jesse Jackson parachutes into Decatur, Illinois, turning the expulsion of seven high school kids into a referendum on race. Meanwhile, in Missouri, a carjacker steals a car. He tries to push out a seat belt-strapped child, and drives at high speeds, with the boy bouncing to his death along the highway. In Michigan, a six-year-old girl is shot and killed by a six-year-old boy. In these cases, the media informs us much, much later that the bad guys are black. Were it the other way around, how long before Al Sharpton holds a press conference, a somber Kweisi Mfume of the NAACP by his side?

Atlanta Braves relief pitcher John Rocker shoots his mouth off to Sports Illustrated, and everyone from Jesse Jackson to Jesse James piles on. But the same gang seemed strangely AWOL in the case of Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania. Where’s the somber gathering of the “black leadership” demanding that Congress pass enhanced hate crime legislation? Where’s the speech by President Clinton asking some blacks to cope with their pronounced and mostly unwarranted anti-white bias?

The double standard simply astonishes. George W. Bush must apologize for speaking at Bob Jones University, given the institution’s anti-Catholic statements and policy against inter-racial dating. And on the question of the Confederate flag, the media filed story after story on the Republicans’ response.

Yet the media allows Al Gore’s black female campaign manager, Donna Brazile, to derisively refer to the Republicans as the “party of the white boys,” while suggesting black Republicans J.C. Watts and Colin Powell are Uncle Toms.

The media sits as both Al Gore and Hillary Rodham-Clinton trek to Harlem and kiss the ring of Reverend Al Sharpton, a David Duke in blackface. Nevermind that Sharpton falsely accused a prosecutor of rape. Nevermind that Sharpton turned a dispute between a black tenant and a Jewish landlord into a racial riff. Stirred up by Sharpton’s rantings, a black man set fire to the building in dispute, and then shot and killed several minorities before turning the gun on himself. Nice work, Reverend.

Sooner or later, the mainstream media and the white-man-done-me-wrong black leadership must face the facts. Black/white interracial crime is almost entirely committed by blacks against whites. By ignoring this, and holding black criminals to a different standard, the media heightens tension and divisiveness.

[1] Coloring the News: How Crusading for Diversity Has Corrupted American Journalism, William McGowan. Encounter Books; San Francisco: CA (2001), pp. 99-100

[2] Side-note: You rarely hear – if at all –the phrase “far-left,” but you do hear “far-right;” or, you never hear “religious-left,” but always “religious-right;” we hear “hard-line-conservative,” but never “hard-line-liberal.” For instance, over a period of ten years, the Los Angeles Times used the term “hard-line-conservative” 71 times. What about “hard-line-liberal?” Surely such a person exists (Jane Fonda, Ted Kennedy, Barney Frank, Maxine Waters, etc.). Over the same period of time the Los Angeles Times used the phrase “hard-line-liberal” twice. A Lexis Nexis search of the New York Times archives shows there are 109 items using the phrase “far right wing,” but only 18 items using “far left wing.”

[3] Side-note: Pedophiles seek out positions of authority and seclusion over their victims. The relaxation of tough moral consensus on these issues (mainly due to the sexual-liberation movement of the 60’s and 70’s), have made institutions impotent (for lack of a better word) in forcefully dealing with this issue. This is why the Catholic Church and Hare Krishna’s, as well as other institutions, are having trouble currently for crimes committed during the 60’s and 70’s. The boy-scouts for example have an unofficial saying, “sodomy will not happen if you refuse to allow sodomites in.” In our politically correct (“diverse”) culture though, this has been a tough road to travel for the Boy-Scouts. And the “diverse” journalism merely fuels the fire.

[4] A person who investigates and attempts to resolve complaints and problems, as between employees and an employer or between students and a university, or in this case, between readers and the paper.

[5] Coloring the News: How Crusading for Diversity Has Corrupted American Journalism, William McGowan. Encounter Books; San Francisco: CA (2001), pp. 59-60, 67-68

[6] By this I mean I am including an outside article with this Summer Reading Session. “When the Bad Guy is Black” – by Larry Elder (black writer and radio commentator), found at FREE REPUBLIC: and JEWISH WORLD REVIEW: “When the Bad Guy is Black”

MATTHEW SHEPARD UPDATE

(This video is almost 16-minutes long.) When I get some time, I have been going through old posts and trying to save them or nixing them. As I was rooting around for some video to use for one of these “saves” –(“Some ‘Ghey Talk’ Regarding Same-Sex Marriage” | June 8, 2010), I came across an unrelated video that I decided to update an old post with this excerpt. This old post is a 2010 update of an older post (October 27, 2009). I used the video found researching the above to update the following post:

“What ‘Counts’ as a Hate Crime? (RPT FLASHBACK)“

The above updated version includes some extended input from the author of the book, “The Book of Matt: The Real Story of the Murder of Matthew Shepard (Truth to Power),” Stephen Jimenez. Here are the original video sources used, in order:

(11/2009) Paul Nathanson Deposition in Perry v. Schwarzenegger (Excerpt)
(5/2014) Bay Sunday: Stephen Jimenez, author: “The Book of Matt” (KPIX CBS CHANNEL 5, SF Bay Area)
(10/2013) Book TV: Stephen Jimenez, “The Book of Matt” (C-SPAN2 BOOK TV)

A decent article from the NEW YORK POST is here: “‘Uncomfortable Truth’ in Matthew Shepard’s Death” (11/2013). As well as this excellent interview article of Stephen Jimenez by Mark Adnum: “Matthew Shepard: Some Facts” (04/2020)

ALSO THIS EXCELLENT VIDEO:

Stephen Jimenez: How My Research Into Matthew Shepard’s Murder Began from The Dish on Vimeo.

END OF UPDATE

Jesse Dirkhising

Many people have not heard of Jesse Dirkhising. The media was oddly silent at the death of this little boy. Before going further… it was thought that Sheparhd was killed due to an anti-gaye hatred by his killers… a narrative pushed by the media. However, through real journalism, Stephen Jimenez (a gay man himself) wrote an excellent book entitled: “The Book of Matt: The Real Story of the Murder of Matthew Shepard (Documentary Narratives)“ So as you read some of the below, the assumption was that this was a hate crime.

The Dirkhising story never caught on with the major media, which claimed it was not news because it was not a “hate crime.” As Jonathan Gregg wrote then for Time.com:

“The most salient difference between the Shepard case and this one, however, is that while Shepard’s murderers were driven to kill by hate, the boy’s rape and death was a sex crime. ” He continued: “It was the kind of depraved act that happens with even more regularity against young females, and, indeed, if the victim had been a 13-year-old girl, the story would probably never have gotten beyond Benton County, much less Arkansas.

(NEWSBUSTERS: “On ‘Hate Crimes Day,’ Remembering Media Blackout of Jesse Dirkhising’s Death)

In the month after Shepard’s murder, LexisNexis Recorded 3,007 stories about his death. In the month after Dirkhising’s murder, Nexis recorded 46 stories about his. … A LexisNexis search revealed only a few dozen articles that appeared only after The Washington Times story on the lack of coverage on October 22, 1999, a month after Dirkhising’s death.(WIKI)

Other articles wroth your while:

The Tragic Story Of Jesse Dirkhising (WND)
Not a Hate Crime (WND)

Here is some media to show where we are headed, and why we have not zoomed towards it is only because of the First Amendment.

Where Does Freedom of Speech End, and a Hate-Crime Begin?

A Norwich grandmother has had a visit from police after firing off a letter complaining about a gay pride march, broadcast on 26 October 2009

A Christian pensioner was verbally abused at a gay pride parade but, when she complained to her local council, the police investigated her for homophobic hatred.

Placing a Qur’an in a toilet or burning it is not a hate crime, even though it is treated as such.

And crimes like the following… are not treated as hate-crimes when they should be: “Vent with Michelle Malkin covers the Christian-Newsom Murders. The mainstream media finds some crimes more useful than others. Michelle explains.”

On Saturday January 6, 2007 Hugh Christopher Newsom, age 23 and Channon Gail Christian, age 21, both students at the University of Tennessee went out on a date.

They were driving in Channon’s Toyota 4-Runner when they were carjacked at gunpoint. Suddenly the crime turned far more savage than an armed car theft. Chris and Channon were kidnapped and driven to 2316 Chipman Street where they were forced into the home at gunpoint.

While Channon was forced to watch, her boyfriend was raped prison style and then his penis was cut off. He was later driven to nearby railroad tracks where he was shot and set afire. But Channon’s hell was just beginning. She was beaten; gang raped repeatedly in many ways, had one of her breasts cut off and bleach poured down her throat to destroy DNA evidence—all while she was still alive. To add to Channon’s degradation the suspects took turns urinating on her. They too set her body afire, apparently inside the residence, but for some reason left her body there—in five separate trash bags.

(FLOPPING ACES & LA SHAWN BARBER via SERAPHIC SECRETS and NEWSBUSTERS)

The entire “hate-crime” obfuscates justice rather than achieves it. There are reasons for this, and I will let ROMAN CATHOLIC BLOG from over a decade ago share their reasons why they think it is [or was] all the rage:

….It seems to me that “hate” crime legislation is an attempt to make sure that criminals should always be indifferent about their victims, taking an, “It’s nothing personal, it’s just business,” approach. I think the nature of a crime speaks for itself and its own nature should determine the merited consequence in the justice system. Criminal acts can carry serious penalties for the nature of the acts committed for without worrying about whether the criminal actively “hated” their victim during the commission of the crime.

Here are other reasons not to support “hate crime” legislation:

It is costly and difficult to prove hatred as a motivation.

Hate crime legislation sacrifices equality before the law by treating perpetrators of the same crime differently because they hold different beliefs.

Over time, hate crime laws and associated case law could evolve to the point that speaking out strongly against a particular group or its actions could be construed as a libelous hate crime, violating rights to freedom of expression, thought, religion (among others).

The danger of “hate” crime laws and “hate” speech laws is that they are being used to unfairly suppress religious objections to homosexuality (among other things) in this country and in other countries.

I believe “hate” crime legislation is essentially indoctrination that has been elevated to the status of law, and I do not want to live in a society where the government prosecutes thought crime.

Pardon Me? | Trump VS….

Published December 15, 2022July 11, 2023 by Papa Giorgio

Trump didn’t even make the top ten in the oldest newspaper in America’s history list of controversial pardons.

HEAVY has a state-by-state list of Obama’s pardons and commutations/clemencies.
And of course Slick Willy’s list via SOAPBOXIE and the SPECTATOR.

PEW RESEARCH has some numbers:

Despite a burst of pardons and commutations in his last hours in office, Donald Trump used his executive clemency power less frequently than nearly every other president since the turn of the 20th century, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Justice Department data.

Trump granted 237 acts of clemency during his four years in the White House, including 143 pardons and 94 commutations. Only two other presidents since 1900 – George W. and George H.W. Bush – granted fewer acts of clemency than Trump.

His predecessor, Barack Obama, granted clemency 1,927 times over the course of eight years in office, the highest total of any president going back to Harry Truman. Obama’s total was skewed heavily toward commutations (1,715) instead of pardons (212).

Yeah. Trump stands head n shoulders above almost all the rest.

Not Black Enough | Scales of Soul

Published December 1, 2022July 3, 2024 by Papa Giorgio

(Updated Media Sources)

The Colbert Report:

Here is an interesting article via TOWNHALL and Larry Elder:

…..This brings us to the Cornell University’s Black Students United and whether the organization is engaging in racism — against blacks. The BSU complains that the prestigious Ivy League school admits too many blacks — from Africa and the Caribbean. “We demand that Cornell Admissions to come up with a plan to actively increase the presence of underrepresented Black students on this campus,” the BSU student group said in its demands. “We define underrepresented Black students as Black Americans who have several generations (more than two) in this country.”

Hold the phone. Isn’t the mantra of modern higher education “diversity,” “inclusion” and “overcoming disadvantage”? If so, the black African and Caribbean students would seem to nail all three.

Maybe the problem is that it is tough to explain why so many black foreign applicants outperform America-born blacks on what some call “culturally biased” standardized tests. A 2007 study by Princeton and University of Pennsylvania sociologists examined the standardized test scores of black students enrolled at 28 selective universities. As to the SAT, the test most colleges use as an important factor in offering admission, the study found that foreign-born black college-bound students earned a statistically significant advantage on SAT scores, averaging a score of 1250 (out of 1600) compared to 1193 average points for their American black counterparts. This explains, in large part, why first- or second-generation black immigrants made up 27 percent of the black student bodies at colleges nationwide. In the Ivy League, black immigrants comprised 41 percent of black students.

What is the basis for the black students’ protest? Don’t black foreigners face even more obstacles? After all, America spends more on education, K through 12, than the top 34 industrialized countries save Switzerland, Austria, Norway and Luxembourg. New York City and Washington, D.C., annually spend approximately $21,000 and $15,000 per student, respectively.

BSU might want to consider the letter to the editor of The Wall Street Journal written by a man from Congo:

“I grew up in the Congo and have numerous friends in the U.S. from the Congo and other African countries who are here for an education or a better life. Every one of them is grateful for the opportunity to secure an excellent education. … Most come here from different cultures with minimal money and limited English language skills. Interestingly, I’ve never heard one complain about discrimination, obstacles or being a victim. Rather, they are grateful. Juxtapose this with Cornell’s Black Students United (BSU) whose members feel they should be treated better than every other color or race if they have ancestors who’ve been here for more than two generations.

“The counterintuitive posturing of American blacks denying other blacks from Africa or the Caribbean is appalling. First-generation African or Caribbean students have more obstacles to overcome to get into any university, much less a prestigious one like Cornell. Furthermore, the liberal American blacks who worship at the altar of ‘diversity’ and ‘victimhood’ should welcome real Africans or Caribbeans versus seeking preferences for those American blacks who truly have the superior advantage of having grown up in the U.S.

“If my Congolese friends are grateful for their opportunities here and have more challenges to overcome, why should American blacks get special treatment? Call this action what it is: racism. And it’s being pushed and protected under the guise of alleged victimization and preferential treatment at the expense of others of all colors and walks of life. So I challenge the BSU folks to start focusing on the concept of succeeding in life instead of always dwelling on the idea that the system is rigged against them.”…

(READ IT ALL)

One commentator on my LiveLeak channel notes this:

There is no way they could do this skit today…PC is now out of control..So Myers actually had a funny show at one point

An SNL Skit on Obama:

A Scene from the Movie, Domino:

The Racial Draft

Transferring Sainthood [Moral Authority] of the Victim

Published November 13, 2022November 13, 2022 by Papa Giorgio

Transferring moral authority for power…. or as playwright David Mamet noted years ago, “by endorsing the victim [historical or contemporary perceptions of a victim], the endorser or those who trumpet the newly found victim perhaps — gain — by magic, part of his incontrovertible status [moral authority or power]” — adapted from below:

One might say that the politician, the doctor, and the dramatist make their living from human misery; the doctor in attempting to alleviate it, the politician to capitalize on it, and the dramatist, to describe it.

But perhaps that is too epigrammatic.

When I was young, there was a period in American drama in which the writers strove to free themselves of the question of character.

Protagonists of their worthy plays had made no choices, but were afflicted by a condition not of their making; and this condition, homosexuality, illness, being a woman, etc., was the center of the play. As these protagonists had made no choices, they were in a state of innocence. They had not acted, so they could not have sinned.

A play is basically an exercise in the raising, lowering, and altering of expectations (such known, collectively, as the Plot); but these plays dealt not with expectations (how could they, for the state of the protagonist was not going to change?) but with sympathy.

What these audiences were witnessing was not a drama, but a troublesome human condition displayed as an attraction. This was, formerly, known as a freak show.

The subjects of these dramas were bearing burdens not of their choosing, as do we all. But misfortune, in life, we know, deserves forbearance on the part of the unafflicted. For though the display of courage in the face of adversity is worthy of all respect, the display of that respect by the unaffected is presumptuous and patronizing.

One does not gain merit from congratulating an afflicted person for his courage. One only gains entertainment.

Further, endorsement of the courage of the affliction play’s hero was not merely impertinent, but, more basically, spurious, as applause was vouchsafed not to a worthy stoic, but to an actor portraying him.

These plays were an (unfortunate) by-product of the contemporary love-of-the-victim. For a victim, as above, is pure, and cannot have sinned; and one, by endorsing him, may perhaps gain, by magic, part of his incontrovertible status.

David Mamet, The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture (New York, NY: Sentinel Publishing, 2011), 134-135.

SEE MORE AT: Deadly Altruism Marks the Left ~ Illiberal Egalitarianism and the NYFD

Quantitative Easing

Published October 25, 2022October 25, 2022 by Papa Giorgio

(Originally posted July 2017 – updated with the below video) On this episode of Common Sense Soapbox, Florida Man leads the crew via gator to a Federal Reserve branch in Miami. Upon the marble steps, Seamus engages the crew in a brief lecture about the function — and dysfunction — of The Fed.

Question, or Statement Often Made by Democrats

“The stock market relies on confidence, and the stock market has done incredibly well since Obama took over. How do you explain that?”

Click to Enlarge

(This is with thanks to GAY PATRIOT and the graph from ZERO HEDGE) Here is GAY PATRIOT’S summary: Fed pumping gobs of money into Wall Street? Market drifts upward. Fed stops pumping? Market doesn’t. The so-called “confidence” is drug-induced.

Credit Writedowns touches on this a bit:

…As for Bill Gross, he also said that the Federal Reserve knows that its easy money policies have a negative impact: “There are ultimately and presently negatives to these policies. The chairman recognizes that.”

[….]

On how to get out of the quantitative easing scenario that we’ve been in for so long:

“That’s very difficult, not just for the Fed, but other for other central banks. at the moment, the bank of japan is about to enter the pool, so to speak, the deep end. The Bank of England as well, perhaps, with carney indicating as much. Is it easy to get out of the deep end once you get into it? It gets difficult, because the market begins expects a constant infusion of liquidity–$85 billion a month into the bond market, which extends out into high-yield and equity credit as we move forward. Once you cut off the check writing and the purse strings, it becomes a problematic question in terms of valuation and the ability of markets, stocks, and bonds to continue on.”

On his tweet on 2/20 saying that bond vigilantes are no more and central bankers are the masters of the universe:

“They are trying to let us know that they are vigilant. We saw the minutes yesterday and they were extensive and they meet every other month or more frequently. Are they vigilant? They are in terms of their objectives. what the fed is trying to do is reflate the economy, that means not only produce 2 to 3 to 4% real growth, but a modicum of inflation in combination such so we have a nominal 5% of GDP environment. Are they vigilant in terms of moving towards that goal? Yes. Will they be vigilant in terms of having reached it then pulling back and not disrupting markets? Perhaps not. We’ll have to see going forward.”

Above video description:

When Ben Bernanke announced that the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee was going to continue its monetary expansion program it calls Quantitative Easing, almost everyone in the financial media was taken by complete surprise. According to the mainstream media, the non-taper “surprised almost everyone out there.” Well it did not surprise me, nor anyone who had been paying attention to what I had been saying. As I said repeatedly over the past several months, the Fed knows that the appearance of economic health would evaporate if its stimulus were withdrawn, or even diminished. The Fed understands, as the market seems not to, that the current “recovery” could not survive without the continuation of massive monetary stimulus. In fact, the Fed’s next big move will likely be to increase, rather than taper, its monthly QE dosage! One reporter on this video said that its time for the Fed to take the training wheels off the economy. As I have been saying for years, QE is not the training wheels, its the only wheels the economy has. Take it away and the economy stalls. However, as the economy is now headed toward a cliff, taking the wheels off is much better than leaving them on and going over that cliff.

For more on how I knew the Fed wouldn’t taper, here’s an op-ed I released after the decision was announced.

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HOTAIR:

….Until recently, the US had a coalition of allies at the G-20 to stand firm against the manipulation of the yuan. However, much to Barack Obama’s shock, they’re not as interested in scolding China for manipulating its currency while the Obama administration has done the same with its second round of “quantitative easing”….

THE BLAZE:

WASHINGTON TIMES:

[….]

Many currency analysts agree with Mr. Obama that the U.S. dollar stands to gain in coming months against the euro and Japanese yen, in particular, if the Fed is successful and the U.S. recovery picks up speed.

Nick Bennenbroek, analyst with Wells Fargo Securities, said the dollar actually has strengthened since the Fed’s announcement last week because, in an “ironic twist,” the economy has been showing unexpected strength. A report on Friday showed the best private job growth since April.

“Moreover, with the initial Fed announcement now out of the way, markets have refocused their attention on the ongoing European debt-market difficulties and, in particular, concerns over the state of the Irish government’s finances,” Mr. Bennenbroek said. The result is the euro may be due for a decline against the dollar.

But the Fed’s move only seemed to provide an excuse to many nations to dig in and further resist Mr. Obama’s call to curb global trade imbalances, starting with the massive Chinese trade deficit with the United States.

A Commerce Department report on Wednesday showed that the U.S. deficit with China fell $2.2 billion to $27.8 billion in September but remained near record highs. The U.S. blames the deficit in part on China’s currency policy, which makes Chinese imports cheaper in the United States.

But Chinese President Hu Jintao, ahead of a scheduled meeting with Mr. Obama on Thursday, called on other countries to “face their own problems” rather than cast blame for their giant trade imbalances on China. Mr. Hu also defended China’s currency controls as a boon to the world economy.

…(read more)…

The Left Love-Love-Loves Using The Race Card

Published April 2, 2022April 2, 2022 by Papa Giorgio

(Originally posted May 7, 2010 – I am going through some old posts to see what is salvageable and which I can delete. I do not redate them typically…. but this post was one month after starting my .com — enjoy)

Yesterday, the Washington Post reported that the Tea Party movement is “struggling to overcome accusations of racism,” some of which has been perpetuated in its editorial pages. Yesterday’s New York Times, home to the most obsessively anti-Tea Party editorial page in America, was stunned to discover that “at least 32 African-Americans are running for Congress this year as Republicans, the biggest surge since Reconstruction, according to party officials.”…. (more at REASON’S YouTube)

I hate to point out the obvious, but if you want to see racism, go to Obama’s old church where Hitler’esque type books are sold in their book store, here is just a couple comparisons from some books sold in Obama’s church’s book store for twenty the twenty years he attended:

The personification of the devil as the symbol of all evil assumes the living shape of the Jew. — Adolf Hitler – Mein Kampf

Compare this to:

The goal of black theology is the destruction of everything white, so that blacks can be liberated from alien gods. — A Black Theology of Liberation, James Cone, p.62
White religionists are not capable of perceiving the blackness of God, because their satanic whiteness is a denial of the very essence of divinity. That is why whites are finding and will continue to find the black experience a disturbing reality. — A Black Theology of Liberation, James Cone, p.64

Again:

I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord. — Adolf Hitler – Mein Kampf

Compared to:

There is no place in black theology for a colorless God in a society where human beings suffer precisely because of their color. The black theologian must reject any conception of God which stifles black self-determination by picturing God as a God of all peoples. — A Black Theology of Liberation, James Cone, p.63
Christianity is not alien to Black Power, Christianity is Black Power. — Black Theology & Black Power, James Cone, p.38
In contrast to this racist view of God, black theology proclaims God’s blackness. Those who want to know who God is and what God is doing must know who black persons are and what they are doing. — A Black Theology of Liberation, James Cone, p.65

Lastly:

The [Nazi party] should not become a constable of public opinion, but must dominate it. It must not become a servant of the masses, but their master! — Adolf Hitler – Mein Kampf

Compared to:

These new theologians of the “Third World” argue that Christians [liberation theology accepting Christians] should not shun violence but should initiate it… — Black Theology & Black Power, James Cone, p.32
It is important to make a further distinction here among black hatred, black racism, and Black Power. Black hatred is the black man’s strong aversion to white society. No black man living in white America can escape it. — Black Theology & Black Power, James Cone, p.14
It is this fact that makes all white churches anti-Christian in their essence. To be Christian is to be one of those whom God has chosen. God has chosen black people! — Black Theology & Black Power, James Cone, p.151
It [black liberation theology] is dangerous because the true prophet of the gospel of God must become both “anti-Christian” and “unpatriotic.”…. Because whiteness by its very nature is against blackness, the black prophet is a prophet of national doom. He proclaims the end of the “American Way,”… — A Black Theology of Liberation, James Cone, p.55-56

Some SOFA/Iraq History (RPT FLASHBACK)

Published August 17, 2021August 17, 2021 by Papa Giorgio

What if people have the war in Iraq backwards? What if George W. Bush and the U.S. military won it, and Barack Obama and the Democrats gave it away? Well, we don’t have to wonder what if, because Pete Hegseth, who served in Iraq, explains what happened.

Iraq and the failed Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), FLASHBACK (August 2016)

Smack Down Galore!

(Above Video) The caller notes that the narrative is that the Islamic State would have still come to power even if we kept troops in Iraq. Which is true, they would have still come to existence, in Syria. But Iraq would not have lost any cities or territories if we still had a presence in Iraq. The caller mentioned a force of 10,000 troops, it would have been closer to 30,000 troops. And having a base of operations in country would have allowed the administration to deal more effectively with the Islamic State in Syria (flying sorties, and supporting quick reaction [spec-ops] units activity), and the like.

(Above Video) Megyn Kelly Destroys Jen Psaki who can’t get off talking points.

(Above Video) Larry Elder (and Paul Bremer) dismantle older as well as new mantras flying around via our friends on the left. In the interview that is the centerpiece of the segment[s] here via Larry Elder, Erin “Monkey” Burnett gets all of her talking points smacked down. The only thing Miss Burnett accomplished was showing her bias/sarcasm well.

Here Bremer educates Erin with facts she knew, but refuses to deploy in her logic because it would ruin her defense of her Master Obama, “The planning in 2011, leaked very heavily from the Pentagon and the White House was to keep 20 to 30 thousand troops after 2011, the White House leaked that it wanted to only keep 3,000 troops, then they said to al-Maliki not only do we want a Status of Forces Agreement but you have to get it through your Parliament. So for the first time, to my knowledge, since 1945, we have 84 SOFA agreements around the world, we were telling the host government how to they proceed in approving that Status of Forces Agreement. That put al-Maliki in an impossible situation.”

(Read more)

Bombs Over Erbil

Obama is SUCH a joke! HotAir has this:

….A dandy little edit here by the Free Beacon, via Ace. I know I’ve linked it before but the piece you want to read as accompaniment is Iraq hawk turned dove Peter Beinart lamenting all the ways Obama screwed up post-Bush American policy in the country. O wants you to believe at the end of the video here that he pushed hard to keep a residual American force inside Iraq for counterterrorism (i.e. counter-ISIS) operations but it’s simply not true. He didn’t push hard for it; when Maliki initially resisted his demand that U.S. troops be granted immunity from prosecution in Iraqi courts, O took that as his cue to pull everyone out. And that wasn’t the only time he indulged Maliki’s dumbest impulses. The story of the U.S. vis-a-vis Iraq after 2009, writes Beinart, is a story of disinterest and disengagement:

The decline of U.S. leverage in Iraq simply reinforced the attitude Obama had held since 2009: Let Maliki do whatever he wants so long as he keeps Iraq off the front page.

On December 12, 2011, just days before the final U.S. troops departed Iraq, Maliki visited the White House. According to Nasr, he told Obama that Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, an Iraqiya leader and the highest-ranking Sunni in his government, supported terrorism. Maliki, argues Nasr, was testing Obama, probing to see how the U.S. would react if he began cleansing his government of Sunnis. Obama replied that it was a domestic Iraqi affair. After the meeting, Nasr claims, Maliki told aides, “See! The Americans don’t care.”

In public remarks after the meeting, Obama praised Maliki for leading “Iraq’s most inclusive government yet.” Iraq’s Deputy Prime Minister, Saleh al-Mutlaq, another Sunni, told CNN he was “shocked” by the president’s comments. “There will be a day,” he predicted, “whereby the Americans will realize that they were deceived by al-Maliki … and they will regret that.”

And now the day has come. Remember that the next time O walks out to the podium and acts indignant about Maliki clinging to power.

One more bit, this from Dexter Filkins, on just how much of a fight O put up in demanding a residual troop presence:

President Obama, too, was ambivalent about retaining even a small force in Iraq. For several months, American officials told me, they were unable to answer basic questions in meetings with Iraqis—like how many troops they wanted to leave behind—because the Administration had not decided. “We got no guidance from the White House,” Jeffrey told me. “We didn’t know where the President was. Maliki kept saying, ‘I don’t know what I have to sell.’ ” At one meeting, Maliki said that he was willing to sign an executive agreement granting the soldiers permission to stay, if he didn’t have to persuade the parliament to accept immunity. The Obama Administration quickly rejected the idea. “The American attitude was: Let’s get out of here as quickly as possible,” Sami al-Askari, the Iraqi member of parliament, said…

(read more)

(Still the Lynn University campus debate via WaPo)

Romney: “With regards to Iraq, you and I agreed, I believe, that there should be a status of forces agreement,”
Obama: “That’s not true,”
Romney: “Oh, you didn’t want a status of forces agreement?”
Obama: “No,” … “What I would not have done is left 10,000 troops in Iraq that would tie us down. That certainly would not help us in the Middle East.”

Some other things Mitt got right and “O” didn’t:

Afghanistan Manner Of Withdrawal ALL BIDEN (Video)

Published August 16, 2021August 16, 2021 by Papa Giorgio

100% FED-UP notes the following: “VIDEO Emerges of Biden Saying Timeline And Manner Of Afghanistan Withdrawal Was His Decision“

….Social media and leftist mainstream media are frantically trying to spin the military failure in Afghanistan on anyone but Biden, but he said it was “his decision.” Biden ignored Trump’s phased plan to leave just as he ignored President Trump’s border policy. Both are now epic failures……

JUST THE NEWS had a decent little blurb worth sharing — because I care:

Trump bombed Taliban to negotiating table; some fear Biden let them waltz to Kandahar

…..“We’re going to come back and hit you harder than any country has ever been hit,” Trump said he told Akhundzada, recounting the threatened consequences if the Taliban failed to make peace. “And your village, where I know you are and where you have everybody, that’s going to be the point at which the first bomb is dropped.”

A few hours after that March 2020 call, Trump put an insurance payment down on the threat. When the Taliban attacked an Afghan checkpoint shortly after Trump hung up, U.S. fighter jets rained down fury on the attackers. A stung Taliban immediately called for de-escalation, saying it was committed to the “plans to implement all parts of the agreement one after another to prevent conflict escalation.”

[….]

Trump and his advisers relentlessly used air power to keep the Taliban in check, making the appearance of a deadly Predator drone or warplane a constant threat. In 2019, the year before the Taliban agreed to peace talks, U.S. aircraft flew 2,434 strike sorties, releasing 7,423 weapons, the highest total ever recorded by the Air Force’s Central Command.

But since the Biden transition, the Taliban have refused the negotiation table and instead marched with surprising speed, capturing control of two-third of Afghanistan after the fall of its second biggest city Kandahar on Thursday.

The U.S. Air Force recently acknowledged a steep decline in air sorties on Biden’s watch…..

The Trafalgar Group surveyed over 1,000 potential 2022 American voters and found that 69.3% of the overall participants disapproved of Biden’s handling in Afghanistan, according to the Convention of States Action’s Monday press release. The majority in the bracket, 59.5%, said they “strongly disapprove” of the president’s performance, while the other 10% said they “disapprove.” (DAILY CALLER)

FLASHBACK:

In March 2009 Barack Obama reached out to the Taliban terrorist organization for peace talks.
Joe Biden at the time told reporters “only 5% of the Taliban is incorrigible.”
In August 2010 Barack Obama removed the Taliban from the national terror list.
In May 2012 Barack Obama rewarded the Taliban terrorists with their own office in Qatar for peace talks.
Also in May 2012 the Taliban bombed Kabul two hours after Obama announced peace talks with the terrorist group.
In 2012 the Obama administration even paid for the Taliban peace office in Qatar.
In 2013 Barack Obama secretly released five deadly Taliban prisoners from Gitmo in exchange for peace talks.
In 2014 the Taliban officially released a statement on victory in Afghanistan 6 years into the Obama presidency.

(GATEWAY PUNDIT)

Covid and Vaccine Updates and News Stories

Published August 10, 2021December 4, 2021 by Papa Giorgio

This is Dr. Dan Stock addressing the Mt. Vernon School Board in Indiana over the futility of mask mandates and Covid-19 protocols in most schools. (Hat-tip to HANCOCK COUNTY PATRIOTS)

so conversation on my Facebook and some early early morning reading is what follows. The first portion is via my RPT FACEBOOK and some honest dialogue follows my descriptor to the above video:

Facebook Convo

(OP – Original Post) Good presentation. This rant is not related to the video, but I was thinking about this today. Whenever there is a bad flu year, we always deal with the variants in years to come, and, typically they aren’t as deadly. Like Delta. So deaths, and hospitalization are typically lower than the Alpha strain. So tent triages and the like were set up for the 2017-2018 flu season — (the CDC estimates that between 46,000 and 95,000 Americans died due to influenza during the 2017-18 flu season. This resulted in an estimated 959,000 hospitalizations and a middle-ground of 61,099 deaths) and the subsequent variants were less deadly, but they are still floating around. But this seasons Delta Variant is less of a bugger than 2017-18, maybe even the 2012-2013 flu season — (56,000 deaths is the CDC estimate. 571,000 influenza-related hospitalizations). But people still want to live in fear, rather than live. Its sad.

(KRIS W. — a thoughtfully minded conservative) This doctor was great! I hope you are right about the numbers. I refuse to live in fear.

(ME) Kris W., So, the Alpha Covid strain was here in September of 2019. So the Covid season “A” was 2019-2020. We are now in a 2020-2021 season. The numbers from this season need to be separated from the previous. I bet we are closer to bad seasons from previous years. And next year will be better. But like other flu strains, we will have Covid with us forever. (Flu shots are a hodgepodge mixture of various strains, and people who get it hope one of the many strains in the shot get close to the actual, and so lessons the symptoms if they get the flu. Same here. These Covid strains may be in a cocktail mix in the future.)

What follows is the same OP but on my personal FB:

(SAME OP)

(MIKE B. – a very ~~liberal~~ leftist dude) it’s a choice – this guy would have made a different choice if given the chance – WASHINTON POST

(RPT’S NOTE: I have heard audio and been given various links to this same story – ad infinitum. I heard it covered on talk radio before any of these libs were passing it around.)

(JOSHUA P. – A much smarter version of myself) I’ve known people who have died in car accidents. If they hadn’t been driving, they would have lived. Guess we should stop driving.

You might respond that this is different because the vaccine is safe, except I also know people who have gone to the hospital for complications after getting it, and we have people who have died locally after taking it, within days, from sudden unprecedented heart problems.

Everyone on earth is going to die. If you want to worship the precautionary principle as your god, you will still die. You’ll just live a miserable life before you do.
Nothing lowers reasoning capabilities like fear.

(ME) Mike B., Yep, it’s a choice, and the possibility of death by choice goes both ways. For instance, I referenced in one of my posts a young 28-year-old Staff Sergeant Deven Futch who had a massive heart attack at family day at Camp Pendleton. If he had not been so fit, and in a crowd that knew what to do and a federal fire department that rocks, he would have been dead. Now he is at the center of a very large study about the side-effects of the mRNA issues. But hey, force the military (my sons) to get it.

Also, while I know part of the reason for these numbers, here is a snag in the reasoning to get them:

“95% of the severe patients are vaccinated”.
“85-90% of the hospitalizations are in Fully vaccinated people.”
“We are opening more and more COVID wards.”
“The effectiveness of the vaccine is waning/fading out”

(Dr. Kobi Haviv, earlier today on Chanel 13 @newsisrael13 ) pic.twitter.com/SpLZewiRpQ

— Ran Israeli (@RanIsraeli) August 5, 2021

The above was fact checked at BOOMLIVE. But the fact check didn’t necessarily disprove the Tweet (now gone but still represented above).Here is the fact check…. and they note that boosters are needed — I think Israel is on their 4th or 5th booster. Here is part of the fact-check that effectively says the same thing:

Misleading Captions

The posts claim that Haviv says, “95% of the severe patients are vaccinated.” However, he does not utter these words in either the full or edited video.

He actually said, “Most of the elderly are vaccinated, most of the population is vaccinated, and that’s why around 90 percent, 85-90 percent of the patients hospitalised here are patients that were fully vaccinated.”

Health experts have pointed out that in places with high vaccination rates, it is expected that a high proportion of people admitted to hospital with Covid-19 have received the jab, as there is still a risk of breakthrough infections.

Furthermore, the posts make it appear Haviv is describing the COVID-19 vaccine situation generally, when in fact he is referring to his own hospital.

The posts claim he said that “85-90% of the hospitalisations are in fully vaccinated people” but omit the Hebrew word “etslenu”, which translates “at our place”.

In a similar way, the posts misquote Haviv as saying, “We are opening more and more COVID wards,” although he does not utter these words.

In the full version of the video, Haviv explains that a second unit opened for COVID-19 patients at his hospital was already full. He does not say that “more and more” Covid wards are opening, either at his hospital or elsewhere.

The final quote attributed to Haviv about the efficacy of Covid-19 vaccines “fading” is missing context.

The posts claim he said, “The effectiveness of the vaccine is waning/fading out”.

In the full interview, he said in Hebrew, “Unfortunately, as we hear, the efficiency of the vaccines fades. That’s why I hope people will hear the call for the third vaccine and that the third vaccine will help.”

S-o-o-o Ditto

(MIKE B.) Sean G. [ME] those stats are crazy. Who is checking their accuracy. They say if you are vaccinated you are more likely to have a severe case. That just isn’t in the same zip code as truth

(ME) Those stats are out of Israel… who have the highest vaccinations out of almost all countries. And are on their third booster shots. Again:

“95% of the severe patients are vaccinated”.

“85-90% of the hospitalizations are in Fully vaccinated people.”

(MIKE B.) Sean G. I can say locally Florida is on fire. And it is the anti-Vaxxers that are hospitalized. And I agree it is a choice

(ME) Mike Baxter the response to this is similar to Israel… many are the elderly, and many of them have been vaccinated. So whether vaccinated or not, this virus is bad for older people.

Israel’s third booster is failing….

⁠Same in Florida… HOWEVER, since the normal seasons start in the 9th month (we are in the 2020-2021 season^*), the pic of Covid deaths of Florida is probably way less than the flu seasons I speak of (the OP) in Florida, or similar.

(From Florida’s Health Dept)

* (This was a response on my RPT page to an ally who had a question on the same OP):

So, the Alpha Covid strain was here in September of 2019. So the Covid season “A” was 2019-2020. We are now in a 2020-2021 season. The numbers from this season need to be separated from the previous. I bet we are closer to bad seasons from previous years. And next year will be better. But like other flu strains, we will have Covid with us forever. (Flu shots are a hodgepodge mixture of various strains, and people who get it hope one of the many strains in the shot get close to the actual, and so lessons the symptoms if they get the flu. Same here. These Covid strains may be in a cocktail mix in the future.)

[/stextbox]

Articles & More

(Click to Enlarge)

COVID-19 NATURAL IMMUNITY COMPARED TO VACCINE-INDUCED IMMUNITY: THE DEFINITIVE SUMMARY, By Sharyl Attkisson

Updated Aug. 6 with CDC analysis of Kentucky (unvaccinated Kentuckians had “2.34 times the odds of reinfection“ compared with fully vaccinated) and national analysis in Israel (vaccinated Israelis were 6.72 times more likely to get infected after the shot than after natural infection). More below.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) became one of the latest high-profile figures to get sick with Covid-19, even though he’s fully vaccinated. In a statement Monday, Graham said it feels like he has “the flu,” but is “certain” he would be worse if he hadn’t been vaccinated.

While it’s impossible to know whether that’s the case, public health officials are grappling with the reality of an increasing number of fully-vaccinated Americans coming down with Covid-19 infections, getting hospitalized, and even dying of Covid. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) insists vaccination is still the best course for every eligible American. But many are asking if they have better immunity after they’re infected with the virus and recover, than if they’re vaccinated.

Increasingly, the answer within the data appears to be ”yes.”….

(LOTS OF LINKS)

THE BEAUTY OF VACCINES AND NATURAL IMMUNITY, By Jay Bhattacharya, Sunetra Gupta, and Martin Kulldorff

As scientists, we have been stunned and disheartened to witness many strange scientific claims made during this pandemic, often by scientists. None is more surprising than the false assertion made in the John Snow Memorandum – and signed by current CDC Director, Rochelle Wolensky – that “there is no evidence for lasting protective immunity to SARS-CoV-2 following natural infection.”

It is now well-established that natural immunity develops upon infection with SARS-CoV-2 in a manner analogous to other coronaviruses. While natural infection may not provide permanent infection-blocking immunity, it offers anti–disease immunity against severe disease and death that is likely permanent. Among the millions that have recovered from COVID19, exceedingly few have become sick again.

Propagated by the media, the idea that infection does not confer effective immunity has made its way into decisions by governments, public health agencies, and private institutions, harming pandemic health policy. The central premise underlying these regulations is that only vaccines make a person clean. For instance:
The state of Oregon has instituted a discriminatory vaccine passport system that provides privileges to the vaccinated but treats recovered COVID patients like second-class citizens even though natural infection confers disease protection.
The European Union will be open to vaccinated tourists this June, but not to recovered COVID patients.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recently amended their mask guidelines, no longer recommending masks outdoor for those vaccinated. However, those who are immune by natural infection are out of luck and must continue to wear masks.
Universities like Cornell and Stanford, which are supposed to be bastions of scientific knowledge, have mandated vaccines for students and faculty. Neither exempt people who are immune by dint of natural infection.
Even the World Health Organization (WHO) has stumbled. In the fall, they changed their definition of herd immunity to something achieved through vaccination rather than a combination of natural immunity and vaccines. Only after a public backlash did they change it back in January to reflect reality.

(GREAT READ)

BOOST THE INSANITY: Before you even CONSIDER a third shot, please read this, by Alex Berenson

….The real-world data – from Israel, the United States, and everywhere else – are clear. Protection from infection fades within months even against the original coronavirus. It shrinks essentially to zero against the Delta variant (we can argue about time vs. variant effects, but the answer doesn’t matter in this context, either way the vaccines have stopped working).

For now, vaccine advocates are clinging to the hope that even if the vaccines do not protect against infection, they still provide some protection against more serious illness and death. I think the jury is still out on that question, but again it is largely irrelevant for this conversation – the Covid wards are filling in Israel, and most people in them are older and vaccinated. If the vaccines do offer any help after a few months against serious illness, it is far less than the 95-99 percent protection that advocates have claimed.

Thus the move for a third shot. And possibly more shots to come.

But please – please! – understand how radical a move this is…..

SOME ACTUAL NEWS: About Moderna adverse event reports, by Alex Berenson

Covid vaccine maker Moderna received 300,000 reports of side effects after vaccinations over a three-month period following the launch of its shot, according to an internal report from a company that helps Moderna manage the reports.

That figure is far higher than the number of side effect reports about Moderna’s vaccine publicly available in the federal system that tracks such adverse events.

Vaccine manufacturers like Moderna are legally required to forward all side effect reports they receive to the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System, where they are made public each week.

Run by the Centers for Disease Control and Food & Drug Administration, the VAERS system is crucial to tracking potential problems with vaccines. It helped scientists determine the Covid vaccines may cause heart problems in young adults.

The reason for the gap is not clear. Moderna may simply still be processing the reports, though the number of reports about Moderna’s vaccine in VAERS from the first half of 2021 remained almost flat this week.

Moderna and IQVIA, the company that works with Moderna to handle the reports, did not return emails for comment.

[….]

The 300,000 figure comes from an internal update provided to employees by IQVIA, a little-known but enormous company that helps drugmakers manage clinical trials. Headquartered in North Carolina, IQVIA has 74,000 employees worldwide and had $11 billion in sales last year.

Earlier this week, Richard Staub, the president of IQVIA’s Research & Development Solutions division, sent a “Q2 2021 update” which was labeled “Confidential – For internal distribution only.”…..

(Click to Enlarge)

BIRTHDAY VS. BIKERS: Elites display double standard over Obama bash, motorcycle event, JUST THE NEWS

While Dr. Anthony Fauci expressed fears Sturgis Motorcycle Rally would be Delta variant “superspreader event,” N.Y. Times reporter soft-pedaled risk of viral spread by “sophisticated, vaccinated crowd” celebrating liberal icon on Martha’s Vineyard.

[….]

While Stephen Colbert of CBS’ “The Late Show” is advocating that Americans be excluded from participating in society without a vaccination card, he has also remained silent about Obama’s apparently maskless party.

Colbert “is a total hypocrite,” tweeted former acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell. “And Democrat Party apologist. Did Obama’s party have vaccination card requirements for guests, Stephen?”

While some have argued that those in attendance had to confirm they received the COVID-19 shots, political commentator Candice Owens claimed she can confirm at least two attendees who were there who have not received them and that attendees were not required to be vaccinated to attend. Obama’s office has not released a statement on the vaccination status of the attendees.

Meanwhile, Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Biden’s chief medical adviser, targeted motorcyclists convening in Sturgis, S.D., without saying a word about Obama’s party.

Fauci said he was concerned about the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally becoming a “superspreader event” of the so-called Delta variant.

“Well I’m very concerned that we’re going to see another surge related to that rally,” said Fauci. “I mean, to me it’s understandable that people want to do the kinds of things they want to do. They want their freedom to do that, but there comes a time when you’re dealing with a public health crisis that could involve you, your family and everyone else, that something supersedes that need to do exactly what you want to do.”

The CDC, meanwhile, has not explained its testing methodology, even as critics have pointed out that tests to determine variants are not available on a national scale, making it difficult to determine if someone who tests positive for the coronavirus has a variant or not.

New York Times White House correspondent Annie Karni defended Obama’s party. She told CNN the reaction to the party “has really been overblown, they’re following all the safety precautions, people are going to sporting events that are bigger than this, this is going to be safe, this is a sophisticated, vaccinated crowd and this is just about optics it’s not about safety.”

California attorney Harmeet K. Dhillon mocked Karni’s remarks, saying, “Of course viruses don’t attack sophisticated people.”….

(Also: Den Rep. Rashida Tlaib Blasts Rand Paul For Resisting Mask Mandate…. Promptly Seen Dancing Maskless At Indoor Wedding…)

Pediatrician: Don’t ‘Facemask’ Your Child: Medical science proves a face mask can be harmful for children, AMERICAN SPECTATOR

….Good doctors do not base medical decisions on passionate rhetoric or flawed logic, and especially not on political ideology. They make recommendations based on medical information confirmed by rigorous, statistically robust, apolitical scientific study. There is an abundance of evidence regarding children and COVID, confirming that masks are not helpful and can in fact be harmful.

A randomized controlled study of mask protection was performed in Denmark during April-May 2020 and published after critical peer-review in the Annals of Internal Medicine. Researchers concluded that mask wearing “did not reduce the SARS-CoV-2 infection rate.” No similarly rigorous study has been reported showing that masks do protect. Nonetheless, the U.S. government has repeatedly mandated mask wearing, including for children.

There is abundant evidence that masks do not prevent COVID infection in children. “Reported face mask use . . . [in child athletes] . . . did not have a significant relationship with COVID-19 incidence,” one study of Wisconsin high school athletes found. A July 2020 review by the Oxford Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine similarly found no evidence for the effectiveness of face masks against virus infection or transmission. Studies in Florida, Massachusetts and New York schools as well as schools in Sweden, “do not find any correlations with mask mandates.”

The medical risk of COVID infection in children has been greatly exaggerated. Without a serious pre-existing condition such as leukemia or kidney failure, the mortality rate among children with COVID is zero. A very large study from Germany concluded that children “act as a brake” on COVID spread. Other studies show that children have strong natural immunity to COVID, have better outcomes than adults when hospitalized, and spread the virus less than adults.

Researchers recently reported in Cell Reports-Medicine, Vol. 2, Is. 7, July 20, 2021, that, “Most recovered COVID-19 patients mount broad, durable immunity after infection,” including both persisting antibodies as well as memory B and T cells. Simply put, after being infected, most people have strong naturally acquired protection against COVID for all variants.

Masking children is worse than non-protective: it is harmful, both medically and socially. In a small, uncontrolled study in Gainesville, Florida, of masks worn by children, 11 dangerous (non-COVID) pathogens were found, including Mycobacterium tuberculosis (causes tuberculosis), Neisseria meningitidis (meningitis), Borrelia burgdorferi (Lyme disease), and Escherichia coli (severe diarrhea), amongst others. It is shocking that a study of potential medical danger from face masks was not done by the CDC, NIH, or any government agency. This study was performed and paid for by the parents of the children in the study.

In addition to the lack of protection and the medical harm of masking children, there are other adverse effects such as impaired learning. Social psychologists tell us that body language, especially the face, is more communicative than verbal.

“Suck my wheel?!” is an oft-used expression in bicycle racing. When said with a smile, it is an offer of assistance allowing the person behind to draft the one in front. When said with an angry, threatening face, it dares the person behind to try to draft. Same words but totally different meanings depending on facial expression.

When we cover the faces of our children and their teachers, we impede communication and kids’ ability to learn. Mental health has clearly deteriorated from mandatory social isolation. Illicit drug usage is up. Suicides have increased, especially in teenagers.

Despite all the evidence above, and citing no evidence of its own, the CDC urged parents, “Children 2 years or older should wear masks in public indoor settings, including schools.” This official medical advisory was released in peer-reviewed, medically authoritative, nonpartisan news outlet, Twitter.

Medical science proves that a face mask on a child is not protective, and worse, a face mask is harmful.

No parent would intentionally “facemask” a child. However, a parent who blindly follows federal, state, or local anti-scientific mandates to mask up our children is doing just that!….

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