OUT ON A LIMB: Study: Lockdowns Produced No Reduction in COVID Deaths.
Related:
Just amazing. The establishment groupthink bypassed the scientific method of using data and instead arrogantly used political absolutism as they decreed medical dogma and censored respected physicians with different opinions (who ended up being correct). The science is now clear. https://t.co/BZsqlpgjCI
— Marty Makary MD, MPH (@MartyMakary) May 25, 2023
ROGER KIMBALL: A disastrous DeSantis 2024 ‘launch’ on Twitter Spaces.
Free tickets to Disney World: maybe that’s what Ron the aspiring Don should give to the clever staffer who thought of having him announce his candidacy for POTUS on Twitter Spaces.
It was only the official announcement, of course. But having him unfold the bulletin on Twitter Spaces, in an unscripted chat with Elon Musk, was supposed to transform a rote, ho-hum, so-what-I-already-knew-that non-event into a media happening. When I last checked, Tucker Carlson’s “We’re Back” Twitter clip had garnered more than 132 million views (take that, Fox). How did Ron do?
From where I and some friends sat, it was more or less like the Thresher’s final voyage. Or maybe like one of SpaceX’s rapid unscheduled disassemblies. Some words from Elon and co-host David Sacks. Elsewhere on Spaces someone opined that this was the funeral for the “corporate press.” Then came the deep dive. Garbled sounds. Elon said that so many people were on that the servers were melting. Bang. Static. Nothing.
It couldn’t have been too disastrous: Desantis Campaign Says It Raised $8.2 Million in First 24 Hours: “The $8.2 million brought in by Mr. DeSantis far outpaces how Mr. Trump began his 2024 fund-raising in late 2022. Mr. Trump had raised about $9.5 million in the six weeks after he announced his campaign in mid-November.”
Oh, and by the way: If you say “other politicians betrayed us.” No, wrong. Not like this. Other politicians offered you lip service with no action backing it up, mere words, mere promises that were immediately detectable as insincere when uttered.
Rudy Giuliani, for example, almost immediately revealed himself as a pawn of the open borders corporate conspiracy when he said he would not build a wall, but instead would create a “virtual wall” of drones and electronic monitoring.
Even the lip service offered by the open borders corporate conspirators has to be extracted from them under duress, because they so hated to even have to offer the Racist Promise of cracking down on illegal immigration.
Name one politician who offered this much actual legislative and executive power action — acts, not words — and then “betrayed” people by then suddenly reversing himself and doing the exact opposite when elevated to a new office.
You can’t. No such examples exist. In all of human history, there are zero examples of this crazy scenario unfolding.
And for good reason — because this is literally an insane thing to do, and people who keep insisting that this is a likely outcome are talking up insane nonsense as a cope.
Screwing over your voting base only makes any sense if there is some larger base with which you can replace the one you’re abandoning. Given all of what DeSantis has done on pronouns, on banning CRT and gender theory in public schools, on ending DEI majors at Florida universities, at busing illegals to blue cities, on cancelling illegal’s drivers licenses — what liberal/moderate base could DeSantis possibly appeal to after he executes his Long Con and “betrays” the right?
What does “betraying” conservatives actually get DeSantis?
DeSantis has burned every bridge with the media and the NeverTrump/neocon contingent. They’re now praising Trump in order to attack DeSantis.
Even Bill Kristol has gotten amnesia about 2016-2020:
Shot:
Chaser:
THE LID: Make Memorial Day Special Again.
21ST CENTURY HEADLINES I WASN’T EXPECTING: Watch a Fugitive Cow Get Lassoed by a Cowboy on an Active Freeway.
YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR: IRS officials handed a lefty non-profit $15 million to conduct an “independent review” and tell federal agency it should be the nation’s tax preparer, auditor and collector.
MELANIE PHILLIPS: Jew-hatred struts the stage in Berlin.
The unspeakable performance by Roger Waters in Berlin last week crossed a number of new red lines, even for him.
The former Pink Floyd guitarist has long been infamous for his venomous attacks on Israel and antisemitic remarks. Few, though, could ever have imagined that he would be allowed to stage the obscene performance he put on at Berlin’s Mercedes-Benz arena.
As described on the German website Bell Tower, Waters displayed the names of people supposedly killed because of their identity. In an odious comparison, Anne Frank, who was indeed murdered because she was a Jew, was displayed as equivalent to Shireen Abu Akleh, the Al Jazeera journalist who was shot dead while covering clashes between Israeli troops and Palestinian gunmen in Jenin.
Dressed in a Waffen SS uniform under fascist-style banners hanging from the roof, Waters pretended to fire on the audience with a dummy rifle. When he exchanged this for a keffiyeh in an unsubtle reference to Israel and the Palestinian Arabs, the giant LED screen flashed up: “F*** bombing people in their homes. F*** the occupation. You can’t have occupation and human rights.”
In a speech bubble displayed on that screen, a fragment of dialogue channeled Jewish conspiracy theory by suggesting that the world was controlled by a cabal of wealthy individuals who were secretly pulling all the strings.
This diabolical spectacle of Jew-hatred received a standing ovation from the audience. And this happened in Berlin, the very epicenter of the Shoah.
Read the whole thing.
GREAT MOMENTS IN GASLIGHTING:
Flashback: Brian Kemp, Georgia’s Affable Culture Warrior.
In April 2020, businesses in Georgia were shuttered by government decree as in most of the rest of the country. Mr. Kemp was hearing from desperate entrepreneurs: “ ‘Look man, we’re losing everything we’ve got. We can’t keep doing this.’ And I really felt like there was a lot of people fixin’ to revolt against the government.”
The Trump administration “had that damn graph or matrix or whatever that you had to fit into to be able to do certain things,” Mr. Kemp recalls. “Your cases had to be going down and whatever. Well, we felt like we met the matrix, and so I decided to move forward and open up.” He alerted Vice President Mike Pence, who headed the White House’s coronavirus task force, before publicly announcing his intentions on April 20.
That afternoon Mr. Trump called Mr. Kemp, “and he was furious.” Mr. Kemp recounts the conversation as follows:
“Look, the national media’s all over me about letting you do this,” Mr. Trump said. “And they’re saying you don’t meet whatever.”
Mr. Kemp replied: “Well, Mr. President, we sent your team everything, and they knew what we were doing. You’ve been saying the whole pandemic you trust the governors because we’re closest to the people. Just tell them you may not like what I’m doing, but you’re trusting me because I’m the governor of Georgia and leave it at that. I’ll take the heat.”
“Well, see what you can do,” the president said. “Hair salons aren’t essential and bowling alleys, tattoo parlors aren’t essential.”
“With all due respect, those are our people,” Mr. Kemp said. “They’re the people that elected us. They’re the people that are wondering who’s fighting for them. We’re fixin’ to lose them over this, because they’re about to lose everything. They are not going to sit in their basement and lose everything they got over a virus.”
Mr. Trump publicly attacked Mr. Kemp: “He went on the news at 5 o’clock and just absolutely trashed me. . . . Then the local media’s all over me—it was brutal.” The president was still holding daily press briefings on Covid. “After running over me with the bus on Monday, he backed over me on Tuesday,” Mr. Kemp says. “I could either back down and look weak and lose all respect with the legislators and get hammered in the media, or I could just say, ‘You know what? Screw it, we’re holding the line. We’re going to do what’s right.’ ” He chose the latter course. “Then on Wednesday, him and [Anthony] Fauci did it again, but at that point it didn’t really matter. The damage had already been done there, for me anyway.”
The damage healed quickly once businesses began reopening on Friday, April 24. Mr. Kemp quotes a state lawmaker who said in a phone call: “I went and got my hair cut, and the lady that cuts my hair wanted me to tell you—and she started crying when she told me this story—she said, ‘You tell the governor I appreciate him reopening, to allow me to make a choice, because . . . if I’d have stayed closed, I had a 95% chance of losing everything I’ve ever worked for. But if I open, I only had a 5% chance of getting Covid. And so I decided to open, and the governor gave me that choice.’”
At that point, Florida was still shut down. Mr. DeSantis issued his first reopening order on April 29, nine days after Mr. Kemp’s. On April 28, the Florida governor had visited the White House, where, as CNN reported, “he made sure to compliment the President and his handling of the crisis, praise Trump returned in spades.”
Three years later, here’s the thanks Mr. DeSantis gets: This Wednesday Mr. Trump issued a statement excoriating “Ron DeSanctimonious” as “a big Lockdown Governor on the China Virus.” As Mr. Trump now tells the tale, “other Republican Governors did MUCH BETTER than Ron and, because I allowed them this ‘freedom,’ never closed their States. Remember, I left that decision up to the Governors!”
Of course, Trump is far from the only former official distancing himself from the debacle of 2020: Anthony Fauci Says Don’t Blame Him for COVID Lockdowns and School Closures.
DON’T GET COCKY: Yikes! Biden Is at 60 Percent Against Kennedy and Williamson in the New CNN Poll. “Kennedy was at 21 percent in the Emerson poll in late April, but that poll had Biden at 70 percent. That’s in the neighborhood of Pat Buchanan’s finish against George H.W. Bush in 1992.”
NONSENSE GOVERNMENT RACIAL CLASSIFICATIONS PERPETUATE AND ENCOURAGE RACISM, BOTH LEFT AND RIGHT: Justin Gest: The Problem With How the Census Classifies White People. “White” Americans, like “Asians,” “Hispanics,” and so forth, are a mix of different ethnicities, ancestries, national origins, and cultures. And to paraphrase Justice Scalia, the Constitution recognizes only one race: American.
RELATED: The Arbitrariness of Racial Classifications Gets Attention as SCOTUS Considers Affirmative Action.
MY DOC HAS HAD ONE FOR A DECADE; IT’S ONLY JUST STARTED TO ACTUALLY WORK: More older Americans use patient portals to access health information.
PRIORITIES: Democrats to Biden: Get ‘off the bench’ in the debt limit fight.
“They need to use the power of the presidency. I don’t buy this argument that [public silence] helps the negotiation,” said Congressional Black Caucus Chair Steven Horsford (D-Nev.). “I need the American people to know that Democrats are here fighting, working, prepared to reach an agreement to avoid a default and only the White House, the president, can explain that in this moment.”
Biden is set to be even further out of sight this weekend when he leaves Friday for Camp David, and then travels to Delaware. Told Biden was planning to leave Washington for the weekend, one House Democrat expressed disbelief.
“Please tell me that’s not true,” said the lawmaker, who was granted anonymity for fear of angering the White House. “You’re going to see a caucus that’s so pissed if he’s stupid enough to do that.”
The GOP has already passed a debt limit increase. Biden has another weekend off.
IF THEY DON’T SWING HARD-REPUBLICAN IN 2024, THEY’LL KINDA DESERVE WHAT HAPPENS TO THEM: Virginia High School Admissions Changes That Severely Reduced Asian Student Enrollment Upheld By Appeals Court. “The hopes and dreams of Asian students, often from poor immigrant families, are dashed on the rocks of ‘equity’ and racial balancing.”
THE NEW SPACE RACE: At long last, the glorious future we were promised in space is on the way.
After losing the initial lander contract to SpaceX two years ago, Blue Origin did not just bid a lower price this time around. Instead, it radically transformed the means by which it would put humans on the Moon. The Blue Moon lander is now completely reusable; it will remain in lunar orbit, going up and down to the surface. It will be serviced by a transport vehicle that will be fueled in low-Earth orbit and then deliver propellant to the Moon. This transporter, in turn, will be refilled by multiple launches of the reusable New Glenn rocket.
To be sure, that is a lot of hardware that has yet to be built and tested. But when we step back, there is one inescapable fact. With SpaceX’s fully reusable Starship, and now Blue Moon, NASA has selected two vehicles based around the concept of many launches and the capability to store and transfer propellant in space.
This is a remarkable transformation in the way humans will explore outer space—potentially the biggest change in spaceflight since the Soviet Union launched the Sputnik satellite in 1957. It has been a long time coming.
“We knew these were the right ideas decades ago,” said George Sowers, a professor of mechanical engineering at the Colorado School of Mines. “It is gratifying to see folks coming around.”
Indeed.
READER FAVORITE: JAY-PARK Flashlights High Lumens Rechargeable. #CommissionEarned
RUN ALL THE CANDIDATES! CNN Sets Mike Pence for Third Republican Primary Town Hall, With Dana Bash as Moderator.
HMM: Research shows that the bottom has been reached in restrictive blood transfusion policy. “The trend in hospitals and guidelines is to be increasingly cautious with blood transfusions. Due to side effects associated with blood transfusion and the increasing scarcity and costs of blood products. For example, in recent years the number of patients receiving a transfusion during their ICU admission has halved.”
MICROBIOME NEWS: Identifying the gut bacteria that threaten neonatal babies.
InstaPundit is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.