COLOR ME SKEPTICAL: Antibiotics can be taken for shorter periods, doctors’ group says. “In general, the ACP says, they can be managed with five to seven days of antibiotics, or even three days in certain cases, instead of the traditional 10 days or more.”
Archive for 2021
April 7, 2021
END PUBLIC SCHOOLS, FUND STUDENTS DIRECTLY: Teachers’ Union Head Rips Jews in Interview on School Reopening.
YES, WE’RE LIVING IN THE CRAZY YEARS: Libertarian sci-fi author predicted current progressive-induced cultural failures over 60 years ago.
YIKES: Emails show DeSantis team asked CBS, 60 Minutes to interview Moskowitz — and were told “the deadline has passed.” “Did 60 Minutes go out of its way to concoct the hit piece on Ron DeSantis? New e-mails published by Fox News this morning show that the Florida governor’s team tried to arrange an interview between Sharyn Alfonsi and the Democrat in charge of the state’s emergency response agency, along with the Democratic mayor of Palm Beach County, to explain the Publix partnership. They even offered to make Jared Moskowitz available by Skype or in person.”
ONLY ONE? Top Biden officials busted telling an enormous lie about ‘infrastructure’ plan:
Wow! A whopping 19 million jobs created! Who could oppose that!?
There’s just one problem: This 19 million figure is based on a gross distortion of an economic report. The claim that Biden’s spending bonanza would create 19 million jobs has no basis in reality. The figure comes from Moody’s Analytics, a respected economic analysis firm, albeit one often very generous and favorable to big government spending plans. However, what the Moody’s report does is map out projections for several different scenarios.
In the scenario where Biden’s infrastructure proposal is passed, Moody’s projects that the economy will create 18.96 million jobs over a decade. Yet as Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler aptly explained, that’s compared to a baseline projection of 16.3 million jobs being created without the infrastructure proposal. (But with the already-passed stimulus legislation). So the real number of jobs Biden’s plan would create, according to this Moody’s report, is 2.7 million. That’s a far cry from the “19 million jobs created” in Biden’s initial telling. Indeed, the White House and Buttigieg have had to retract their objectively false claim publicly.
Oops.
It’s par for the course — Biden’s previous government experience was as part of the administration that invented the imaginary “jobs saved or created” metric in 2009.
But who can argue with anything that’s Samantha Bee approved? Liberal comedian Samantha Bee admits she pulls punches when it comes to Biden: ‘I can’t deny that.’
“I can’t deny that that has happened, I think that’s probably true across the board,” Bee said. “You’re like, ‘OK, well, we could be making jokes about the infrastructure plan,’ but in general, I’m like, ‘Wow, this is great.’ Why would I purposefully undermine something that seems to be a great idea, pretty much across the board?”
A Democrat in the White House means the palace guard “comedians” are back.
Related: Biden’s Infrastructure Plan Isn’t About Infrastructure. It’s About Paying Off Political Allies. When everything’s infrastructure, nothing is.
ANSWERING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: How Did Frasier Afford His Apartment?
HMM: COVID-19 Vaccine ‘Possibly’ Linked to Rare Blood Clots: EU Agency. I’ve been somewhat skeptical of these reports, but we’ll see.
CREEPING? MORE LIKE GALLOPING: ‘Enough!’– Republicans Warn of ‘Creeping Fascism’ If We Don’t ‘Resist’ the Vaccine Passport.
CAITLYN JENNER, THE NEXT GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA? Are You Ready for a Trans Republican Governor of California?
VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR DAILY INSANITY WRAP: The Number of Children Biden Has Detained Will Shock You.
Insanity Wrap needs to know: What do you call 18,000 minors detained at our southern border?
Answer: Seven times more than were ever detained at once under Donald Trump.
Before we get to the sordid details, a quick preview of today’s Wrap.
- Another blue checkmark, another embarrassing self-own
- How can public schools re-educate kids they never educated in the first place?
- American Journal of Psychiatry quietly issued a total retraction of study on trans surgery benefit
Bonus Sanity: Americans are so over the COVID panicmongering.
And so much more at the link, you’d have to be crazy to miss it.
PANDEMIC OVERREACTION FALLOUT: Military Deaths by Suicide Jumped 25% at End of 2020. “Some top military leaders have spoken in recent months about the strain their troops have suffered during the pandemic.”
IT’S PROBABLY TIME TO STOP USING GOOGLE CHROME: EFF reports that a new kind of ad targeting is being released to random users, and the only solution to opt out is a bad one. (If you want to opt in, you conveniently need do nothing.) Probably the most mainstream drop-in replacement is Brave, which is what I use, and which works perfectly with most Chrome extensions, but there are other options as well. Note: you may want to avoid using Firefox after its maker, Mozilla, came out in favor of even “more than deplatforming” on the Internet earlier this year.
BEATINGS WILL CONTINUE UNTIL MORALE IMPROVES: California Governor Gavin Newsom Announces That Someday His State Will Re-Open. Maybe. Until Then, the Catastrophe Continues.
SOME EXPRESSIONS OF RACISM ARE ANATHEMA, OTHER EXPRESSIONS OF RACISM ARE PRIVILEGED: VIDEO: ‘I hate white people,’ black law student leader says. The most interesting part of this story is the extensive list of officials who refused to comment, and the contrast with how the University of Miami Law School handled other statements.
TIME TO DEFUND HIGHER EDUCATION? A Medical Student Questioned Microaggressions. UVA Branded Him a Threat and Banished Him from Campus.
Kieran Bhattacharya is a student at the University of Virginia (UVA) School of Medicine. On October 25, 2018, he attended a panel discussion on the subject of microaggressions. Dissatisfied with the definition of a microaggression offered by the presenter—Beverly Cowell Adams, an assistant dean—Bhattacharya raised his hand.
Within a few weeks, as a result of the fallout from Bhattacharya’s question about microagressions, the administration had branded him a threat to the university and banned him from campus. He is now suing UVA for violating his First Amendment rights, and a judge recently ruled that his suit should proceed.
Here was what the student said.
“Thank you for your presentation,” said Bhattacharya, according to an audio recording of the event. “I had a few questions, just to clarify your definition of microaggressions. Is it a requirement, to be a victim of microaggression, that you are a member of a marginalized group?”
Adams replied that it wasn’t a requirement.
Meanwhile, I wonder if Sara Rasmussen’s “professionalism concern card” might have been motivated by racism. Such a disproportionate response to a man named Bhattacharya raises questions, no?
Plus:
UVA’s administration engaged in behavior that can be described as “gaslighting.” Administrators asserted that Bhattacharya had behaved aggressively when he hadn’t, and then cited his increasing confusion, frustration, and hostility toward the disciplinary process as evidence that he was aggressive. And all of this because Bhattacharya asked an entirely fair question about microaggressions, a fraught subject.
His lawsuit contends that UVA violated his First Amendment rights by retaliating against him for speaking his mind. UVA filed a motion to dismiss the case, but a district court judge ruled that the suit could proceed.
“Bhattacharya sufficiently alleges that Defendants retaliated against him,” wrote the court. “Indeed, they issued a Professionalism Concern Card against him, suspended him from UVA Medical School, required him to undergo counseling and obtain ‘medical clearance’ as a prerequisite for remaining enrolled, and prevented him from appealing his suspension or applying for readmission.”
It is vital that UVA lose this case, and lose badly. Students must have the right to question administrators about poorly formed concepts from social psychology without fearing that they will be branded as threats to public order. That’s the difference between a public university and an asylum.
The difference is harder and harder to discern.
ROGER SIMON: Wokeness: “It’s About The Money.”
The CRT-Woke crowd have created racism while pretending to be against it.
I think for many this creation of racism where it didn’t exist was only barely unconscious, if not deliberate. They wanted the money (or the power to obtain it) that would flow from the putative need to stamp out this racism they instigated.
The question arises then whether the CRT people are actually serving the minorities they claim to be helping—that is getting them more money? Possibly. But only in the short run.
In the real (non-theoretical) world, blacks and Hispanics got more financial reward under Trump (with everyone treated equally) than ever before with wages up and unemployment for their sectors at record lows. And those gains were more likely to be sustainable because they came through genuine jobs, not government handouts or charity.
For the woke, needless to say, it wasn’t enough. And the source was tainted.
But what of sources in general? Is it better to have money handed to you or to have earned it yourself, from your labor and contribution to society, whatever that may be. Which is better for your welfare and ultimately your happiness?
We could call that the Hunter Biden Perplex, but it is clearly of greater significance than just the president’s constantly prevaricating pathetic son who was given everything.
Almost everyone knows the money you earn yourself counts for far more in the deepest sense than any kind of dole from the government or an inheritance.
Further, most of us realize (even those who won’t admit it) that LBJ’s Great Society, that massive initial injection of social welfare money into the black community that diminished the incentive to work, led, in serious measure, to the break up of the black family, no fathers in the home, and endless pain, deprivation, and physical danger in those communities for fifty years.
Yet, the same methods have come back in a new set of clothes from the woke and their most visible leaders—the “Justice Democrats.”
The latest example of these “Justice Democrats” is coming to (where else these days?) my adopted home city of Nashville and is already getting the predictable enthusiastic welcome from our MSM friends in the national press. Via New York Magazine:
“The first major left-wing primary challenge to House Democrat in the 2022 cycle is here, driven by the same group that helped propel progressives Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush to Congress last year. Odessa Kelly on Monday announced she’s challenging longtime Representative Jim Cooper in Tennessee, one of the more conservative Democrats in Congress and a key member of the Blue Dog Coalition. ‘People are tired of being told what they can’t do or what is not possible. People want to be inspired,’” she says.”
Well, sure. But inspired to do what is the question?
According to her own Facebook writings, Ms. Kelly is an admirer of Louis Farrakhan and wanted Nancy Pelosi to hire a pimp to beat up Ted Cruz. She also advised the newly elected Biden to “Day 9—Blow Up Maralago [sic].”*
If that’s not clear enough, about eleven months ago she posted “Gonna keep this short and simple… If you vote for Trump, YOU ARE A RACIST! Period”. She added that little 100% sign emoji at the end.
I guess she assumes blacks Ben Carson, Herschel Walker, Vernon Jordan, Mike Tyson, Dennis Rodman, Latrell Sprewell, Jim Brown, Larry Elder, Pastor Darrell Scott, Diamond & Silk, Stacey Dash, BET’s Robert Johnson, Kanye (sometimes), Lil Wayne… and… and… oh, forget it.
Maybe she’ll be a gift to Tennessee Republicans, as some have told me. Maybe she won’t. I guess we’re going to find out.
Yet another reason why: Facebook removes account of Capitol attack suspect and ‘Follower of Farrakhan.’
* I’m so old, I can remember when mere target-shaped clip art was enough to destroy a politician for kicks and grins.
FIRST, STOP DISCRIMINATING AGAINST THEM IN ADMISSIONS: Staff, students at Cornell demand ‘institutional change’ to combat anti-Asian racism.
RACIST PROPAGANDA PAYS WELL: College shells out $25,000 to host 1619 Project author for speaking engagement.
Higher education “speaking fees” for lefty authors and activists are just part of the left’s money laundry.
RED-LINING THE GODWIN METER: Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Captain America comic suggests Jordan Peterson is worse than Hitler.
There are hundreds more responses like these. Of course the problem is that these aren’t Peterson’s ideas. He doesn’t tell men they are “secretly great” he tells them almost the opposite. He openly tells them to take responsibility for their lives (starting with cleaning their rooms) and try to accomplish something positive for those around them. What Coates has done here is take that view and pretend it’s indistinguishable from the message coming from a character who, in the comics, is a genuine Nazi and mass murderer.
If you’ve seen the first Captain America movie, which features Red Skull as the villain, you know his goal was to take over the world and supplant Hitler as leader. He would do this by bombing major cities and killing millions of people. That’s what Ta-Nehisi Coates thinks Jordan Peterson is about? Really?
Exit quote: “The fact that Ta-Nehisi Coates was trying to come up with the most evil supervillain he could and the best he could do is a Canadian psychologist who writes about Jungian analysis and encourages young men to make their beds is pretty telling.“
HE JUST ISN’T VERY GOOD AT HIS JOB: Dr. Fauci Dumbfounded as Texas COVID Cases Drop Despite His Own Dire Prediction.
AIN’T THAT AMERICA: Mark Judge: Everybody Here Hates the Media, and Everybody Owns a Gun. “In a lot of movies there’s a scene where the protagonist is almost out of options. He goes to an old friend and says to them, ‘I can’t really get you involved in this. I just need you to trust me. I need a car and a place to stay for a few days.’ The friend replies, ‘You need a few bucks with that?’ That’s the kind of guy Rick is. The kind of guy our media hate and fear.”