An Industry of Untruth
Victor Davis Hanson
The Federalist, July 5, 2020The current revolution is based on a series of lies, misrepresentations, and distortions, whose weight will soon sink it.Viral confusion
Unfortunately, few in authority have been more wrong, and yet more self-righteously wrong, than the esteemed Dr. Anthony Fauci. Given his long service as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and his stature during the AIDS crisis, he has rightly been held up by the media as the gold standard of coronavirus information. The media has constructed Fauci as a constant corrective of Trump’s supposed “lies” about the utility of travel bans, analogies with a bad flu year, and logical endorsement of hydroxychloroquine as a “what do you have to lose” possible therapy.
But the omnipresent Fauci himself unfortunately has now lost credibility. The reason is that he has offered authoritative advice about facts, which either were not known or could not have been known at the time of his declarations.
Since January, Fauci has variously advised the nation both that the coronavirus probably was unlikely to cause a major health crisis in the United States and later that it might yet kill 240,000 Americans. In January, he praised China for its transparent handling of the coronavirus epidemic, not much later he conceded that perhaps they’d done a poor job of that. He has cautioned that the virus both poses low risks and, later, high risks, for Americans. Wearing masks, Fauci warned, was both of little utility and yet, later, essential.
Hydroxychloroquine, he huffed, had little utility; when studies showed that it did, he still has kept mostly silent.
At various times, he emphasized that social distancing and avoiding optional activities were mandatory, but earlier that blind dating and going on cruise ships were permissible. Fauci weighed in on the inadvisability of restarting businesses prematurely, but he has displayed less certainty about the millions of demonstrators and rioters in the streets for a month violating quarantines. The point is not that he is human like all of us, but that in each of these cases he asserted such contradictions with near-divine certainty—and further confused the public in extremis.
In terms of how the United States “fared,” it is simply untrue that Europe embraced superior social policies in containing the virus. The only somewhat reliable assessments of viral lethality are population numbers and deaths by COVID-19, although the latter is often in dispute. … [To read the full article, click the following LINK – Ed.]
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New Report on Hydroxychloroquine Adds to List of Media Malpractice Regarding Covid-19
Brad Slager
Townhall, July 6, 2020
Notice how we have heard very little in recent weeks regarding the possible remedy for some patients who contract the coronavirus? The press had completely walked away from that subject, after successfully dismissing the possible benefits that had been touted by President Trump. A new report has come out in the past week that shows there is now a possible life-saving aspect to administering the drug in the early stages of contracting the virus, and it becomes just another item on the ledger of media malpractice.
One of the consistently infuriating results of this nation being cast under the pall of a pandemic — and that is a lengthy collection of grievances — has been the media and its approach to the crisis. Not only has there been conflicting reports, but the press itself has been remarkably inept in its ability to remain consistent, all while showing it has been very desirous to politicize the outbreak. The assessment of President Trump’s reaction and performance has been a constant source of negativity, but much of it is either rooted in contradictions, or even mitigated by the press itself.
Has Trump done plenty worthy of criticism? Obviously, yes. Adding to that are the many quotes and malaprops he has delivered to only fuel the press disdain, but who is looking at the press itself in the same fashion? The media has been steeped in contradiction these viral months with the only constant being the scorn they heap on Trump.
The press scorched Trump over allegedly not taking action for over 70 days. Yet while the administration began taking steps in January the press was still denying the seriousness of coronavirus well into February. In January there was criticism over Trump not closing down travel and then when he did ban flights from China that month he was called a racist xenophobe. Journalists complained they were not briefed enough on the administration’s response, then when the White House began holding daily briefings journalists called for their networks to stop carrying them.
This has been the practice of the press all the while, and their responsibilities are exposed in a variety of subjects concerning the coronavirus
Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ)
It has been clear the media was on a mission to discredit the recommendation of this drug, all based on their desire to deliver a political hit as opposed to delivering public safety information. They claimed the drug was unproven, while it has been on the market since the 1950s. Trump was irresponsible recommending the drug designed to fight malaria, ignorant (or likely, ignoring) that HCQ serves over a dozen other off-label treatments. … [To read the full article, click the following LINK – Ed.]
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Hearing What Black Voices Really Say About Police
Michael Javen Fortner
City Journal, July 5, 2020
Philonise Floyd testified recently to the House Judiciary Committee about the death of his brother George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police. “People of all backgrounds, genders and race have come together to demand change,” Floyd said. Pleading for comprehensive policing reform, Floyd asked Congress to “teach them what it means to treat people with empathy and respect. Teach them what necessary force is. Teach them that deadly force should be used rarely and only when life is at risk.” Unfortunately, Philonise Floyd’s earnest call for reform has been drowned out by an elite-driven narrative about race relations that is empirically weak, counterproductive, and not reflective of most black Americans’ attitudes and wishes.
According to a popular theory of institutionalized white supremacy, history functions not simply as context but as cause. White Americans, on this view, are born in sin—because of the nation’s original sin, slavery—and, for the most part, irredeemable. At birth, all African-Americans are caught in a historical vise that crushes freedom, joy, and (all too often) life itself. Progress is only a prelude to punishment. African-Americans exist without agency or effectiveness—except when achieving objectives or employing means endorsed by adherents of this view. The Black Panthers represented true emancipatory politics, the theory holds, while black anti-crime activism is either a fiction invented by reactionary social scientists or an indication of the reproductive force of white supremacy.
This theory cannot be falsified or verified; as with any dogmatic belief system, to challenge it is to affirm it. Simply to object to the premises of contemporary antiracism becomes a threat tantamount to violence, born of ignorance or ill will. Heterogeneity within and across nonwhite communities is immaterial, a diversion raised by defenders of the status quo. Capitalism, patriarchy, and homophobia are significant in as much as they constitute distinct levers of racialized social control. Analysis of racism has been transformed from a set of observations and falsifiable propositions into its own epistemology: a way of knowing that bends reality to its will and distorts everything it encounters.
Opinion and analysis over the last month have been suffused with these reductionist sensibilities. Sean Collins at Vox writes: “At the core of this rage is a legitimate fear for black Americans: the sense that they can be killed anywhere at any time by anyone, but especially by law enforcement. It is a feeling black Americans have carried for all of America’s history.” He provides examples of racial disparities in policing and punishment, but without context. For example, Collins cites a study that labels police-involved shootings a leading cause of death for African-American males. While it is true that black men between the ages of 25 and 29 are killed by police at a rate between 2.8 and 4.1 per 100,000, that’s well below the rate of their death in accidents (76.6 deaths per 100,000), by suicide (26.7 deaths per 100,000), from other homicides (22 per 100,000), from heart disease (seven per 100,000), and from cancer (a little over six per 100,000). … [To read the full article, click the following LINK – Ed.]
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‘The Los Angeles Political Elite Basically Threw Law Enforcement Under the Bus’
Manfred Gerstenfeld
Arutz Sheva, July 8, 2020
Manfred Gerstenfeld interviews Rabbi Abraham Cooper
Most of the violence and looting accompanying the antiracism demonstrations in Los Angeles in late May and early June 2020 took place on the second day of Shavuot, May 31, which was also Shabbat. There was a mostly peaceful protest in the Pan Pacific Park in the Fairfax area, sparked by the murder of George Floyd. This is near a heavily Jewish area.
“After the protest some left the park and attacked businesses and buildings on Melrose Avenue, Beverly Boulevard and on La Brea Avenue. Some rioters reached sites on La Cienega Boulevard attacking mostly strip malls.”
Rabbi Abraham Cooper, born in New York 1950, is the Associate Dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. For about forty years he has overseen the SWC’s international social action agenda, which ranges from worldwide antisemitism, Nazi war crimes and restitution, to extremist groups and tolerance education.
“The next day there was a rampage in Santa Monica, which is adjacent to Los Angeles proper. Hundreds of businesses were looted and torched in the area. The police were concentrated a few blocks away, monitoring a mostly peaceful protest. There were scenes caught on camera of instances in which police did not intervene. Eventually, during the week that followed, curfews were imposed and hundreds were arrested. Yet most looters have not been caught. The impact of an apparently helpless police force standing down in Los Angeles and elsewhere in the US will be felt for a long time.
“The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) was overwhelmed and ineffective for days. This was primarily because the mayor refused to concentrate on the violence. He instead chose to exclusively focus on peaceful protesters and the themes of social justice and equity while embracing Black Lives Matter.
Despite the riots and continuing protests, the mayor quickly endorsed and pushed through a $150 million decrease in the Police’s budget. A similar amount was taken from the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department.
The Los Angeles political elite basically threw law enforcement under the bus. Only one City Councilman, Paul Koretz, who is Jewish, made mention of concern over the hate graffiti tagged on a synagogue.
“Many of the businesses looted and destroyed were minority-owned. Nearly 200 pharmacies were targeted, probably by organized gangs looking for narcotics. In the La Brea/Hancock area, a large number of the impacted businesses were Jewish-owned. This included a kosher bakery and a pharmacy that prominently displayed its sale of kosher items. Several Jewish residents in the area said that some obviously Jewish establishments were attacked while other businesses in the area went unscathed. … [To read the full article, click the following LINK – Ed.]
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FOR FURTHER REFERENCE:
Violence Surges in New York City and Chicago: David Isaac, World Israel News, July 7, 2020 — The number of shootings has spiked in major U.S. cities in June, particularly in New York City and Chicago.
The Press on Mount Rushmore: Holman Jenkins Jr., WSJ, July 7, 2020 — Every American, regardless of how he or she feels about Donald Trump, should read his July 3 speech at Mount Rushmore and then the Washington Post account of the speech by Robert Costa and Philip Rucker.
I Cited Their Study, So They Disavowed It: Heather Mac Donald, WSJ, July 8, 2020 — The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences is a peer-reviewed journal that claims to publish “only the highest quality scientific research.” Now, the authors of a 2019 PNAS article are disowning their research simply because I cited it.
Washington vs. Violent Crime: Andrew C. McCarthy, National Review, July 7, 2020 –– In New York City, 49 people were shot over the holiday weekend. The death count, so far, is eight. With 101 shooting victims in the last week, shootings are up 300 percent over the same period last year; for the full month of June, they reached a level not seen since 1996. Even before this latest bloodbath, murder was already up by 79 percent over last year; violent and property crime rates are likewise spiking.
Tucker Carlson Tonight 7/6/20 | Fox NewsToday, YouTube, July 6, 2020
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This week’s French-language briefing is titled : Communique: Coup dur pour le programme nucléaire iranien
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