Obama Officials Fear a Strong, Post-Coronavirus Economic Recovery

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Democrats are bracing for the political impact of lifted lockdown restrictions across the country and other measures that could lead to a boom in the economy following the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new report.

Jason Furman, one of former President Barack Obama’s top economic advisers, gave a presentation to top Democratic strategists and donors last month. . .

“We are about to see the best economic data we’ve seen in the history of this country,” he said, according to Politico. “Everyone looked puzzled and thought I had misspoken.”

Trusted advisers to presumptive Democratic nominee for president Joe Biden and former Obama officials are concerned that a bounce back in the U.S. economy could take away a weapon they planned to use against President Trump.

“This is my big worry,” one former adviser to Obama told the outlet. (Read more from “Obama Officials Fear a Strong, Post-Coronavirus Economic Recovery” HERE)

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Soldier Saves ‘Countless’ Lives by Ramming His Vehicle Into Active Shooter

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A Fort Leavenworth soldier was seriously injured Wednesday afternoon in a shooting on Centennial Bridge in Leavenworth, and a suspect was taken into custody after another soldier intervened, according to the police chief. . .

Leavenworth police were called to investigate a report of a person firing shots on the bridge.

It’s unclear what led up to the suspect seemingly firing shots at random on the bridge, Leavenworth Police Chief Pat Kitchens told reporters, but one person was struck— an active duty soldier who appeared to be an unintended target.

Kitchens said another soldier from Fort Leavenworth was waiting in traffic when he witnessed the shooting. The soldier intervened, he said, “by striking the shooter with his vehicle.”

Kitchens said the soldier’s actions brought an end to the shooting, “likely saving countless lives.” (Read more from “Soldier Saves ‘Countless’ Lives by Ramming His Vehicle Into Active Shooter” HERE)

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‘Conservative’ Supreme Court Sides With Liberal Courts on Transgender Prison Surgery, Religious Liberty, Criminal Release

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Illegitimate: Establishment-Controlled John Roberts Decides that Constitutional Protections for Religious Liberties No Longer Apply

By Mark Sherman. Over the dissent of the four more conservative justices, Chief Justice John Roberts joined the court’s four liberals in turning away a request from the South Bay United Pentecostal Church in Chula Vista, California, in the San Diego area.

The church argued that limits on how many people can attend its services violate constitutional guarantees of religious freedom and had been seeking an order in time for services on Sunday. The church said it has crowds of 200 to 300 people for its services.

Roberts wrote in a brief opinion that the restrictions allowing churches to reopen at 25 percent of their capacity, with no more than 100 worshipers at a time, “appear consistent” with the First Amendment. Roberts said similar or more severe limits apply to concerts, movies, and sporting events “where large groups of people gather in close proximity for extended periods of time.” (Read more from this story HERE)

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U.S. Supreme Court Forces Idaho to Pay for Tranny Surgery for Inmate, Requires 837 Criminals to be Released in Idaho

By Daniel Horowitz. In a matter of a week, the much-vaunted “conservative” Supreme Court sided with two lower court decisions in separate cases to force the state of Idaho to offer a castration “operation” to a male inmate who thinks he’s a female and to release 837 criminals in Ohio. Meanwhile, the court refuse to intervene on behalf of our inalienable rights being trampled every day by state governments. If this is what a conservative Supreme Court is all about, I’d hate to see what a liberal court looks like.

It’s truly hard to conjure up a more extreme ruling from a court than one suggesting that it’s cruel and unusual punishment NOT to offer a castration to a male inmate in prison requesting one. Yet that is exactly what the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals did when three judges issued an order in August requiring Idaho’s Department of Corrections to fund “gender confirmation surgery” for Adree Edmo.

Unfortunately, none of us are shocked by the depravity from the Ninth Circuit any more. What is shocking, however, is the fact that the Supreme Court refused to stay the ruling last Thursday. One would have expected the high court that is supposedly conservative to easily overturn this decision at the first opportunity. In Estelle v. Gamble (1976), the Supreme Court already set the standard of an Eighth Amendment violation for denying medical care to prisoners as “only medical care so unconscionable as to fall below society’s minimum standards of decency.” Moreover, a First Circuit ruling in 2014 and a Fifth Circuit ruling in March 2019 stated the exact opposite of the Ninth Circuit.

Yet on May 21, the Supreme Court denied the motion from Idaho to stay the Ninth Circuit’s order. According to the court’s order, only Justices Thomas and Alito would have granted the application for stay from the state. How the other three GOP appointees, especially Roberts and Kavanaugh who seem to worship precedent, could allow a ruling like this to stand is stupefying.

This is the second time in recent months that the “conservative” Supreme Court has denied a stay to Idaho in the face of an unprecedented Ninth Circuit ruling creating radical phantom rights centered on twisting the Eighth Amendment. In September, the high court denied a stay of a Ninth Circuit ruling creating an Eighth Amendment right to camp out on Boise’s city streets. The city issued a public health and safety ordinance to clear out these encampments, but the Ninth Circuit ruled that it would be tantamount to cruel and unusual punishment to do so – just like denying the “right” to a castration procedure.

Now let’s move on to the Ohio prison case, because it appears that criminals are the only ones with rights these days. On April 22, a federal judge in Ohio ordered the Bureau of Prisons to release 837 federal inmates in one Ohio facility into home confinement for fear of the coronavirus. Courts all over the country have already mandated the release of state prisoners. In total, 67,000 have been released from state prisons and jails at a very painful cost to public safety. This is the first fight over the federal prison system. Yesterday, the court voted 6-3 to deny a request for a stay, at least for now. Justices Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch would have granted the stay.

It’s truly shocking to watch how the virus can be used as a pretext to eliminate the entire Bill of Rights for peaceful Americans without due process. However, these same courts have no problem using the virus to override the very generous due process that resulted in incarceration of dangerous criminals. The Ohio judge said that anyone deemed at risk from the virus must be released, regardless of his threat level or how much time he has served.

As I’ve observed before, the virus has already spread far and wide in prisons, and there is no point in mass releases now. The death rate in prisons is remarkably low, most cases are asymptomatic, and there is therefore no reason why prisoners should have a greater right to avoid the virus than the general population. In fact, by releasing these criminals, not only would the federal government endanger public safety, but it would be releasing younger people into the general population, where they would be more likely to spread the virus. The BOP has already taken more precautions to quarantine in the facilities than the prisoners would abide by were they released.

Isn’t it interesting how some of these same allegedly conservative justices refuse to side with individual rights when it comes to states shutting down businesses, infringing upon individual movements, and mandatory mask requirements, yet they suddenly discover individual liberty for criminals, including the “right” to a taxpayer-funded castration, the right to criminal release, and the right to homeless encampments on city streets?

Hey, phony conservative justices: If you are so into transmogrifying the Cruel and Unusual Punishment clause of the Bill of Rights – even against public safety goals of a state – shouldn’t that apply to the lockdowns and unprecedented assaults against our rights? Or is the Bill of Rights only for criminals?

If the “my body, my choice” mantra applies to murdering the unborn and requesting us to pay for castration, then it should apply to our own bodily integrity not to wear masks and not to be spied on by the corona fascists. (For more from the author of “‘Conservative’ Supreme Court Sides With Liberal Courts on Transgender Prison Surgery, Criminal Release” please click HERE)

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Attorney General Barr Has Become Trump’s Religious Liberty Enforcer

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When President Trump announced Friday that he would “override” governors who did not adopt his new guidelines for the reopening of churches, critics were quick to question if he had that authority.

Reporters in the White House pressroom hammered press secretary Kayleigh McEnany about whether or not Trump could legally act upon his threats. McEnany appeared to walk back the president’s words, suggesting that Trump would only “strongly encourage” governors to comply. It seemed to work: Over Memorial Day weekend, California, Minnesota, and Vermont, three of the five states still upholding complete bans on church services, relaxed their restrictions.

These results were a needed win for Trump, whose approval rating with many faith groups has slipped in the past month, partly because of his inconsistent attitude on churches remaining open during the coronavirus pandemic. And it’s a win Trump wouldn’t have scored without his dedicated enforcer on religious liberty issues: Attorney General William Barr.

Even before churches began suing states for alleged First Amendment violations, Barr was already sensing the coming fight over church closures. While Trump urged people to stay home for Easter, Barr said he was “very concerned” that churches were being given the short shrift in the rush to lock down the country. (Read more from “Attorney General Barr Has Become Trump’s Religious Liberty Enforcer” HERE)

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It’s Not the Trump Administration Politicizing Flynn’s Case, It’s Judge Sullivan

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Not quite two weeks ago, Judge Emmet Sullivan threw open the doors of his federal courtroom to the swamp when he invited third parties to pontificate on the propriety of the Department of Justice’s motion to dismiss the criminal charges against Michael Flynn. The next day Sullivan went further: He appointed a former federal judge, John Gleeson, as an amicus curiae, or friend of the court, to argue that the government’s motion to dismiss should be denied.

Judge Sullivan’s selection of Gleeson as amicus curiae gave away the game. The same day Sullivan named Gleeson as amicus curiae, an op-ed by Gleeson and two cohorts ran in the Washington Post declaring the government’s decision to dismiss the charge against Flynn “reeks of improper political influence.”

The Washington Post cloaked Gleeson and his co-authors, David O’Neil and Marshall Miller, with an aura of impartiality and authority by highlighting their past service in the Department of Justice: “John Gleeson served as a U.S. district judge for the Eastern District of New York and chief of the Criminal Division in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in that district. David O’Neil served as the acting assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York. Marshall Miller served as the highest-ranking career official in the Criminal Division and as chief of the Criminal Division for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District.” . . .

Already the anti-Trump Protect Democracy Project has submitted an amicus curiae brief to Judge Sullivan. That brief rehashes many of the political talking points left-leaning pundits and politicians have been peddling since Trump took office, then argues that in seeking to dismiss the criminal charge against Flynn, Trump and Barr have “flouted” the principle that the DOJ’s investigatory and prosecutorial powers should “be exercised free from partisan consideration.”

The irony couldn’t be richer. The Obama administration targeted Flynn because the glow of Orange Man Bad reached the retired general’s orbit. But, according to Protect Democracy, it is the Trump administration’s DOJ that is playing politics with prosecutions! (Read more from “It’s Not the Trump Administration Politicizing Flynn’s Case, It’s Judge Sullivan” HERE)

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Ric Grenell Hits Senator Mark Warner With Sunlight Hammer as He Exits Role as DNI

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Oh my, acting DNI Ric Grenell was/is buckets of brutally honest awesome.

In a departing letter to SSCI Vice-Chair Mark Warner, Grenell responds to a Warner inquiry demanding justification for his blitz of sunlight and naming of unmaskers.

Specifically pointing to the release of names that unmasked Trump administration officials Grenell notes “the decision to declassify the names of individuals who sough to unmask the identity of General Flynn poses absolutely no risk of compromise of either sources or methods.” Grenell also tells Warner, “cherry picking certain documents for release while attacking the release of others that don’t fit your political narrative is part of the problem the American people have with Washington DC politicians.”

The Daily Caller has compiled a partial list of Grenell’s accomplishments to include:

— Directed the IC to change the way they protect the identities of U.S. citizens contained within intelligence reporting

— Completed the IC review of 53 transcripts from the House Intelligence Committee’s investigation into alleged Russian collusion in the 2016 election and made the transcripts publicly available

— Declassified previously redacted footnotes from the Justice Department Inspector General’s report into the origins of the Russian collusion investigation

— Declassified a list of government officials who requested the unmasking of National Security Advisor Michael Flynn

— Replaced FBI with ODNI as the primary group responsible for briefing presidential campaigns on information derived from national intelligence

— Declassified former national security adviser Susan Rice’s email to herself regarding a January 2016 Oval Office where progress on the Russia investigation was discussed

— Declassified additional transcripts in ODNI’s possession for potential public release by incoming DNI John Ratcliffe

(READ MORE)

And even that list doesn’t include the declassification of the Rosenstein/Mueller scope memos and several more important contributions during his tenure.

Grenell’s greatest contribution as DNI was personifying a belief that government, including the intelligence apparatus, works for the people; and as a direct result the intelligence apparatus has a responsibility to provide sunlight upon all aspects of their function that does not impede national security.

The way to keep politics out of intelligence matters is to keep as much of their activity as public as possible. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.

I hope we see more of Ric Grenell in another capacity soon. (For more from the author of “Ric Grenell Hits Senator Mark Warner With Sunlight Hammer as He Exits Role as DNI” please click HERE)

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Shocking New Study: Lockdowns Destroy NEARLY TWICE as Many Years of Life as the Coronavirus

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Will the New York Times begin publishing the names of those who died from the man-made lockdowns alongside those who died from the God-made plague of coronavirus? Will it publish a state-by-state and country-by-country dashboard and demographic breakdown of those who lose their lives thanks to these unprecedented political decisions?

Four professors with backgrounds ranging from medicine to economics attempted to quantify the number of lives lost from the devastation of the lockdown itself – something our government failed to simulate when it embarked on this novel policy. Using health and labor data as well as various actuarial tables, they projected 65,000 lives lost per month of lockdown in the U.S. – greater than the loss from the virus. That number was calculated by dividing the estimated $1.1 trillion lost from economic productivity per month of lockdown by $17 million because the best estimates predict one life lost from suicide, alcohol or drug abuse, or stress-induced illnesses per $17 million lost.

“These financial losses have been falsely portrayed as purely economic,” wrote the four professors in The Hill on Monday. “To the contrary … we calculate that these policies will cause devastating non-economic consequences that will total millions of accumulated years of life lost in the United States, far beyond what the virus itself has caused.”

The four authors were Scott Atlas of Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, John Birge of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, Ralph Keeney of Duke University, and Alexander Lipton of the Jerusalem Business School of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

The point the authors make, that lockdowns are destroying so many more cumulative years of life, is very poignant to the situation we find ourselves in. For every 1,000 lives lost to the virus, the corresponding 1,000 lives lost to the lockdown will destroy exponentially more “life years,” because the median age of those who die from the virus is 80, while the median age for deaths caused by the lockdown – those who die due to suicide, substance abuse, despair, and poverty – is much lower.

This point was accentuated by one commentator who compared the cumulative years of life lost to the virus from February 1 through May 13 to the years of life lost to fatalities from the flu and pneumonia over the same time.

As you can see, there were actually more life years lost due to flu and pneumonia, even though this was a mild flu season in most places and the time frame of reference here doesn’t include December and January, which include a large share of the annual flu deaths.

We have already seen that doctors in Northern California are reporting more than a year’s worth of suicides in just four weeks. Knox County, Tennessee, experienced nine suicides in just one 48-hour period in March. On the other hand, there have only been five COVID-19 deaths in Knox County over nine weeks! One can only imagine the number of suicides that will pile up if these draconian measures are continued indefinitely until there is a vaccine, as so many liberal politicians are advocating.

Also, the death toll of the economic consequences of the shutdown is just one piece of the pie. As the authors note, stroke patient evaluations are down 40 percent, nearly half of cancer patients have missed treatments, two-thirds to three-fourths of routine cancer screenings have been delayed, nearly 85 percent fewer living-donor transplants have occurred, and more than half of childhood vaccinations are not being performed. They estimate that the total years of lost life per month of shutdown from these missed treatments and diagnosis are 500,000! In total, they estimate that the lockdown, over its entire duration, has caused the loss of 1.5 million life years, as compared to 800,000 life years from the virus itself.

It is truly shocking that nobody in our government has even attempted to model the number of lives lost due to lockdown. The falsity behind the original virus models became apparent a few days into the lockdown. Any sane government would have weighed the collateral damage at that point and repudiated any severe lockdown absent clear evidence that it was necessary. European countries and the Israelis have realized this was a big mistake, but our politicians continue to double down on it.

Yoram Lass, former director-general of Israel’s Ministry of Health, said in an interview with online media outlet Spiked that nothing about this virus can “justify this destruction of people’s lives.”

“It is the first epidemic in history which is accompanied by another epidemic – the virus of the social networks,” said the Israeli scientist. “These new media have brainwashed entire populations. What you get is fear and anxiety, and an inability to look at real data. And therefore you have all the ingredients for monstrous hysteria.”

One would think that, with Israel’s low death rates, Israeli scientists would want to play up the success of the lockdown. But they realize what so many of us do, which is that the lockdowns were completely unnecessary and caused much more collateral damage. A prominent epidemiologist at Hebrew University concluded that once it was clear Israel’s health care system was not going to be overrun, there was no justification for the lockdown and that the damage it did to the country, which now faces 25 percent unemployment, outweighed any other consideration.

“We are not trying to minimize the number of people infected – the price of the lockdown is too catastrophic,” said Professor David Gershon, one of the Hebrew University researchers involved in their study. “The price of more than one million people unemployed is so crazy that to say we want to minimize the number of infected people is ridiculous.”

The sooner our government realizes that, the fewer lives we will continue to bleed. (For more from the author of “New Study: Lockdowns Destroy Nearly Twice as Many Years of Life as the Coronavirus” please click HERE)

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Wikipedia Neutral? Not Hardly, Says Co-Founder; Leftist Bias Dominates

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Larry Sanger, the co-founder of Wikipedia, published a blog post this month declaring that the online encyclopedia’s “neutral point of view” policy is “dead” due to the rampant left-wing bias of the site. Noting the article on President Donald Trump, Sanger contrasted its extensive coverage of presidential scandals with the largely scandal-free article on former President Barack Obama.

Sanger also criticized Wikipedia’s coverage of religion and other controversial topics. After Fox News reported on his blog post, many Wikipedians ignored the bias Sanger identified and instead responded by attacking the conservative outlet as well as Sanger.

On May 14, Sanger published a blog piece titled “Wikipedia Is Badly Biased” and started by declaring Wikipedia’s “Neutral Point of View” policy dead. Having founded the online encyclopedia with Jimmy Wales and having been involved in the original drafting of the policy, Sanger offered particular insight into its development and its practice in recent years. On the current policy’s rejection of providing “equal validity” to different views, Sanger stated this went directly against the original policy’s intent and that “as journalists turn to opinion and activism, Wikipedia now touts controversial points of view on politics, religion, and science.”

Providing examples, Sanger noted former President Obama’s article excludes most notable scandals during his Administration, such as the bungled ATF Fast and Furious operation that armed Mexican cartels who killed a U.S. border agent or the targeting of Tea Party groups by the IRS. By contrast, Sanger pointed to Trump’s article containing overwhelmingly negative sections on the President regarding his “public profile” as well as investigations and impeachment. The sections critical of Trump and his presidency are nearly as long as those dealing with his presidency overall. He further criticized Wikipedia repeatedly saying Trump makes false statements rather than attributing such characterizations to sources.

Wikipedia’s coverage of other contentious political topics such as abortion were also criticized with Sanger singling out Wikipedia claiming abortion is “one of the safest procedures in medicine.” He pointed out how articles on legalization of drugs and gay adoption were focused on positives with little to no mention of criticisms. In the latter case, Sanger noted the section on “debate” about gay adoption only included arguments in favor rather than any against it. Sanger also criticized Wikipedia’s coverage of religion describing the article on Jesus as “a ‘liberal’ academic discussion” focused “on assorted difficulties and controversies” without explaining “traditional or orthodox views of those issues.” (Read more from “Wikipedia Neutral?” HERE)

Small Towns are Being Destroyed by the Unnecessary Lockdowns

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The United States Conference of Mayors has a growing database of fiscal impacts in 170 cities. Santa Monica, California, for example, is eliminating 337 staff positions, and Oakland Park, Florida, has announced that all city employees, including first responders, must take one day off every two weeks without pay.

That list is far from complete. It doesn’t include Midland, Michigan, where 28% of city workers were furloughed or faced reduced work hours last month. Midland is now the epicenter of a massive flood that forced 10,000 people to evacuate after heavy rainfall and two collapsed dams sent the Tittabawassee River to record levels.

Noah Ponte, an out-of-work hotel manager in Detroit who grew up in Midland, drove into town last Tuesday night to help with volunteer efforts. He and other volunteers created Google forms to match people offering housing, food and clothing assistance with evacuees who need it. “We really can’t catch a break right now,” Ponte said.

The storm is consistent with climate models that predict increasing rainfall for the Midwest. It’s an example of the cascading catastrophes experts have warned about, as weather and climate-related disasters pile on top of the coronavirus.

Communities face a “three-front war: it’s the pandemic, other natural disasters, and the revenue,” said Colin Wellenkamp, executive director of the Mississippi River Cities and Towns Initiative, which represents 96 communities along the river. (Read more from “Unnecessary Lockdowns” HERE)

Obama, Clinton 9th Circuit Judges Suspend Bill of Rights: California Ban on Church Services Can Stand

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They said it. I didn’t.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday ruled that Democratic California Gavin Newsom’s ban on in-person church services during the coronavirus pandemic can stand.

The lawsuit, filed by South Bay United Pentecostal Church in San Diego, prevents that church from reopening, according to the Los Angeles Times

The ruling came from Judges Jacqueline Nguyen and Barry Silverman, Nguyen is an Obama appointee and Silverman, a Clinton appointee. The 9th Circuit has a longstanding terrible reputation, but this is a new low. . .

Perhaps these two lefty scholars can point us to where the First Amendment states, “except in an emergency”. (Read more from “Obama, Clinton 9th Circuit Judges Suspend Bill of Rights” HERE)

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