Naomi Wolf was cancelled--interview with Tucker

Tucker's interview with Naomi Wolf will knock your socks off. She was one of the most famous liberal intellectuals in America. Then she questioned lockdowns and the covid vax because she'd made a career writing about medical issues and feminism, and knew women were reporting changes in their bodies. Newborns were dying. Facts. She was cancelled big time. Her income, her friends, her "community of liberals," and all her core beliefs. She turned to prayer and the Bible for answers. And she found a new community--and they are looking into Big Pharma's crimes.

A secular Jew and a secular Episcopalian talk about the Bible and what it says about the meaning of tragedy and failure.
 

The Tucker Carlson Podcast: Naomi Wolf on Apple Podcasts

Fourteen Trillion

$14 trillion. That's what Covid + lockdown cost us. "Workplace absences, and sales lost due to the cessation of brick-and-mortar retail shopping, air travel and public gatherings, contributed the most. At the height of the pandemic, in the second quarter of 2020, our survey indicates that international and domestic airline travel fell by nearly 60%, indoor dining by 65% and in-store shopping by 43%. . . . The toll we estimate that it took on the nation’s gross domestic product is twice the size of that of the Great Recession of 2007-2009. It’s 20 times greater than the economic costs of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and 40 times greater than the toll of any other disaster to befall the U.S. in the 21st century to date." 

COVID-19’s Total Cost to the U.S. Economy Will Reach $14 Trillion by End of 2023 – USC Schaeffer 

And how do you put a price tag on stealing our young people's youth and what they might have learned in school?The mental depression. The drug use. They were the least likely to get Covid yet they may have paid the biggest price.

So much of this was unnecessary. Too many ignorant people were given an enormous amount of power. What can we do to prevent it from happening again.

Blindsight is 2020

I'm reading "Blindsight is 2020; Reflections on Covid policies from dissident scientists, philosophers, artists, and more" by Gabrielle Bauer, Brownstone Institute, 2022. It begins with two stories we've lived through the last almost four years. And I'm guessing it's not over.

 
Story one is the one all the media agencies, tech and pharma giants, politicians, local, state, and federal governments insisted we believe. And I did, and maybe you did, for about the first month after which not much made sense if you knew anything about economics or social sciences. It had the momentum of a patriotic war--if you didn't go along or found it fantastical, you were the enemy of the people. You weren't saving lard or scraps of aluminum to help our boys in Europe and the Far East.  And miraculously, it turned out to be just the crisis that the Democrat Party dreams about to turn to their favor. Demonize the incumbent and change the rules for voting,

Story two is the one that moved underground--it is told in this book by 46 epidemiologists, public health experts, doctors, psychologists, cognitive scientists, historians, novelists, mathematicians, lawyers, comedians, and musicians. They all took issue with the way the people in Story one were trying to stamp out a virus using unproven and dangerous methods, including lockdowns, experimental vaccines, masking and destruction of our basic liberties.

A lot of Democrats and liberals have been "red pilled" by this health crisis and trauma, even though they still don't like President Trump (who also got suckered by some of the "believe the science" deep state). I hope there are some answers in this book. I'm still in chapter one.

Blindsight Is 2020: Reflections on Covid Policies from Dissident Scientists, Philosophers, Artists, and More: The Independent Review: The Independent Institute

Blindsight is 2020: Perspectives on COVID Policies from Dissident Scientists, Philosophers, Artists, and More (freethepeople.org)

https://youtu.be/whIn3vCpspI?si=bIQ-pcu_JhMJlmhb

How and why we lost confidence in the public health system

"In the end, it took some grandstanding Republicans in Congress to break the logjam of information. In July 2023, the U.S. House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic released a trove of emails, text messages, and other interactions between Fauci, Collins, other health officials, and leading virus experts. Other messages were leaked to independent reporters, including Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss, and Michael Shellenberger. These communications reveal a stunning contrast between those experts’ confident public statements and the doubts and fears they expressed privately.

In dozens of interviews, dating to the start of the pandemic, Fauci, Collins, and others expressed bland assurances that the new virus must have spilled into the human population from a wild animal. The idea that the Wuhan Institute might have been involved was dismissed as “just a conspiracy theory,” in Fauci’s words. But the recently disclosed communications reveal that behind the scenes, many of the world’s top virologists worried that the SARS-CoV-2 virus had leaked from the Wuhan lab. Worse, some feared that its terrifying transmissibility might be due to genetic manipulation."

The Covid Cover-up | City Journal (city-journal.org)

Predicting the outcomes of the pandemic lockdowns

 This blog by a woman named Pam was published 6 years ago, well before the pandemic lockdown, but it shows what was going to happened multiplied 1000 times over. How Not To Let Yourself Go (Especially If You're Over 40) - Go Retro!

But then I was laid off in August last year and guess what? I did kind of start to let myself go, at least on some days. And let me tell you, it can be a dangerous slippery slope.

Getting up later then usual and lounging in my PJs on my laptop until 10:30 AM on most mornings became the norm.

I went quite a few days without wearing makeup, especially if I wasn't planning on leaving the house that day (who was going to see me? Before you answer "the UPS man" I can assure you we don't order much online and there really have not been many through the years that I would consider attractive.)

I normally wash my hair every other day, but sometimes I let that go an extra day because I was simply too lazy to deal with detangling and drying it. I took to throwing on an old rag of a top and jeans. With no employer to go to and nowhere I needed to be, there seemed no point in making myself look presentable.

Worst of all, I slacked off with my exercising routine...and ended up gaining 12 pounds.

And the saddest part is, I had no real excuse for it. I'm not a mom and I'm not holding down a job outside of the house. I'm also not depressed, so I have no explanation for it other than sheer laziness.

Read more--she comes around and makes suggestions for getting back on track.

Looking back on Covid and all the What-ifs

What if doctors had been allowed to treat the disease that condemned millions to death in 2020-2022 with their own basic knowledge learned through experience and medical school? 

What if they'd started treatment early, instead of waiting to hospitalize until there was no hope? 

What if they hadn't been forced to follow WHO and CDC, which are heavily politicized and Big Pharma which had strong financial interests? 

What if they'd been allowed to follow common sense and years of studies on masking? 

What if the populace had been encouraged to lose weight, exercise, get out in the sun and fresh air, instead of locking them down in despair and harmful environments? 

They wouldn't have paid attention to weak studies about two drugs, very safe but effective, and used them to treat the symptoms. 

They wouldn't have put very sick people on ventilators. 

They would have tapered patients with inflammation off steroids. 

Fewer would have died. 

Our economy wouldn't have tanked. 

Doctors wouldn't have lost their careers and the thousands of years of combined experience which now makes us all weaker.

 It was a coup against medicine, science, common sense, and history.

Please listen to Dark Horse podcast and others in alternative sources (there are many) look back on all the mistakes Big Gov and Big Pharma made (or maybe they weren't mistakes since it put Biden in office). Politicians in all nations, all parties, now know how to completely bring a country to its knees, and that knowledge is the power to do it again. To be used in the U.S. by either party.

Most recent podcast I recommend https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/pharma-not-their-first-rodeo-umberto-meduri-paul-marik/id1471581521?i=1000623539019

Many begin to doubt what we were told about "science"

"Little tears are forming in the fabric of belief. Many who believed that taking their shots was the only right thing to do, are noticing inconsistencies in the official story. The failure to prevent disease. The rashes and the fatigue. The cognitive deficits. The heart damage and the cancers. The sudden deaths among the young and apparently healthy. The adverse events.

These things can nag at one’s consciousness.

Most who were compliant, however, still believe on balance that it was the right choice, even if it came with risks that we were not told about.

“Because I had my shots, when I did get Covid, I was barely sick for a day or two.”

“Because” has no place in that sentence. It assumes a causality for which there is no evidence."

Read more here: https://naturalselections.substack.com/p/its-not-too-late?

Heather Heying is an evolutionary biologist and I listen to her podcast with her husband Bret Weinstein. They are life long Democrats and university faculty, now on the outside for questioning the vaccine, the blatant evil treatment of scientists who disagreed with Fauci and CDC. They are openly opposed to the current transgender hysteria of Democrats.

My heart breaks for my country

 We’ve recently seen but few have read the Durham Report which is 380 pages of crimes at the highest level of government, especially of an agency that will call parents at school board meetings “domestic terrorists” but won’t police its own criminal bureaucracy. No one will be charged for these crimes even though some ineffective, powerless protesters from two years ago are still without trial. The very criminals listed in this report are still seeking more citizens to charge for January 6 for even being near the Capitol. Other rioters and looters from the summer of 2020 have never been charged or have received light sentences.

Also this week we heard testimony of three whistleblowers from the FBI.  The agency which is supposed to protect their rights, and our rights to disagree with the government—the FBI--refuses to recognize they are whistleblowers!  Their damning testimony seriously calls into question the events of January 6, 2021. And therefore, some members of the Congressional committee sneered and ridiculed their stories of abuse, loss of jobs and income.

We are embroiled in a horribly expensive (in both blood and treasure) proxy war in Europe between two Christian nations, while at the same time ignoring the debt ceiling reality. More billions approved today.  No one in our government is even suggesting brokering a peace.  Thousands of people are dying and we stand at the brink of nuclear war—no one in the world will survive that.  Not even the people who are making billions from such a war. Meanwhile, we ignore two other major wars among Christians because they are in Africa.  Black lives do not matter.

We no longer have borders.  And without borders there is no country.  6.5 million people—including Venezuelans, Cubans, Haitians, Africans, Chinese, Afghanis--have entered our country illegally in the last two years under the present administration.  They join all those who came before them and are now protected by a patchwork  of Executive Orders.  These are not legal immigrants, and few are refugees.   The years of promising “The American dream” in story, poetry and song to our own citizens is a joke. Much of the mischief is caused by NGOs, paid for by our donations to our churches and grants from our government with our taxes.

Coming across the border financed by the drug cartels and NGOs is a huge drug enterprise. The sex trafficking of women and children is also very lucrative. This is killing our own children and the children of other nations.

Special interest money is choking off the spirit and promise of the United States.  No one can or even wants to stop George Soros who has put 70 prosecutors in powerful big city offices  which have politicized the criminal justice system.  The criminals they put back on the streets are allowed to terrorize minority communities.  

Our U.S. oligarchs like Bezos, Gates and Zuckerberg are steam rollers at election time allowing our Bill of Rights to be mangled and rendering our own votes useless. Twitter was allowed via the mob violence of its “members” (and bots)  to destroy all manner of civil rights and protections.  No one stops them; they are the worst crony capitalists in our history and make the Ukrainian, Russian and Chinese oligarchs look like beginners.

Children are being maimed by “top and bottom surgery” and made infertile with cross sex hormones and genital surgery in tax supported “gender affirming” medical clinics all over the country—one at Ohio State just a few miles from my home.  Transgenderism has become the new civil rights movement of the current party in power as mentally confused children are told from an early age from their libraries to their school classrooms to the locker rooms of the sports teams that biological sex is not real. We have Supreme Court Justices who cannot define a woman because sex has become a political tool instead of God’s way of procreation.

The pandemic lockdown threat is not over.  All the societal protections bowed to a powerful bureaucracy which gave authority over our lives to local and state public health agencies with unelected, barely educated staffers. That power can be reinstated at any threat because we gave up freedom for safety.  All lessons from the past about health, quarantines, masks, mental and physical health were tossed overboard.  It was lust for power, not concerns for safety or life. Our church boards, pastors, priests, synods and fellowships just closed down and accepted money they didn’t need to use as they wished—but it was all “legal” when I questioned my church.  Legal but not moral. Some churches which did stand up to this injustice are still having battles in court.

Our independent media are a joke. The misinformation and disinformation are coming from the very agencies that warn us about the problem. In foreign countries journalists can be jailed; at home they are fired, cancelled or reassigned.

Churches and pregnancy clinics are terrorized and vandalized and the FBI looks away or arrests people praying at clinics. We are expected to follow some unstated law about pronouns.

Whether you call it gaslighting, dystopian, or just crazy, we Americans are in a very bad, bad place. We are not just denying God, we’re denying biological evolution, all the achievements of Western civilization, the beauty of nature, and ordinary common sense.

Gun deaths among kids rose 50%

Gun deaths among U.S. kids rose 50% from 2019 to 2021 | Pew Research Center

A discussion on gun deaths among children under 18 with friends last night promoted this search, and as I suspected, by far this is a young male problem. The Nashville Christian school case is one of the few I can remember where a female was the shooter, and we still haven't learned if she was on the testosterone treatment because transgenderism has become such a political bombshell. One other I remember from maybe 15 years ago was a young woman killing her dissertation committee.

Quotes from the Pew report:

"Boys, for example, accounted for 83% of all gun deaths among children and teens in 2021. Girls accounted for 17%."

"Those ages 12 to 17 accounted for 86% of all gun deaths among children and teens in 2021, while those 6 to 11 accounted for 7% of the total, as did those 5 and under."

"In 2021, 46% of all gun deaths among children and teens involved Black victims, even though only 14% of the U.S. under-18 population that year was Black. Much smaller shares of gun deaths among children and teens in 2021 involved White (32%), Hispanic (17%) and Asian (1%) victims."

(Note, only statistics for Hispanic children reflect % of population.)

"In 2021, a large majority of gun deaths involving Black children and teens (84%) were homicides, while 9% were suicides. Among White children and teens, by contrast, the majority of gun deaths (66%) were suicides, while a much smaller share (24%) were homicides."

Suicides among white Americans are always at a higher percentage than other groups--I believe the highest rate of suicides is for white males over 85 and the next highest is the 74-85 group. This is a tragedy our media (and society) pay little attention to.

Also, as noted in the URL, the pandemic lockdown contributed to more than just lost years of schooling. For all we hear about school shootings, schools are still the safest place for children to be. For far too many their own homes and neighborhoods are not healthy places. Yet our government's--from federal to local--poorly conceived lust for power to having everyone be vaccinated and isolated instead of just the vulnerable and elderly has led to a 50% rise in childhood gun deaths, many suicides.

In my opinion, and my Christian belief, having mothers demand the right to kill their own children up through the 9th month of pregnancy (and beyond according to a new law proposed in New York) has not set us up with a good foundation for respecting the lives of children.

The statistics I mentioned in our discussion for homicides of children under 5 comes from a government report; but all homicides, even those for children, dropped drastically after the 1994 Omnibus Crime Bill, now much maligned by liberals. Homicide Trends in the United States, 1980-2008 (ojp.gov)

Ben Carson Podcast--Aaron Kheriaty

Dr. Ben Carson has a podcast, and here he interviews Dr. Aaron Kheriaty who has a new book, "The new abnormal; the rise of the biomedical security state." We're now about 1100 days into 2 weeks to flatten the curve. In 2019, none of us would have believed what we've been through since early 2020, the liberties we've lost. (I had a "fact check" splashed across my post about Tucker's showing the security footage about J-6). Although Biden has announced the pandemic was over, none of the emergencies, federal, state or corporate have been sun downed. Our churches can be closed again, and our pastors and boards haven't organized to stop it. They should.

 
https://youtu.be/pnu5o4gOT1o

Home | Aaron Kheriaty, MD He lost his job at University of California for publishing an article in WSJ on the medical ethics of these lockdowns/lockouts. Much more is known now, than 3 months ago when this podcast was recorded. He's been vindicated, but still had to start his career over.

"Lockdowns were never part of conventional public health measures. In 1968, an estimated one to four million people died in the H2N3 influenza pandemic; businesses and schools stayed open and large events were never cancelled. Until 2020 we had not previously locked down entire populations. We did not do this before because it does not work; and it inflicts enormous collateral damage."

"Actual contagion risk depended on the total time spent in a room with an infected person and was mitigated by opening windows and other methods of improved ventilation, not by staying six feet apart. Plastic protective barriers erected everywhere actually increased the risk of viral spread by impeding good ventilation. We had already been psychologically primed for over a decade to accept pseudo-scientific practices of social distancing by using digital devices to limit human interactions."

"Since the 1980s, reported loneliness among adults in the US increased from 20 percent to 40 percent even before the pandemic. Loneliness is associated with increased risk of heart disease, stroke, premature death, and violence. It affects health in ways comparable to smoking or obesity, increasing a whole host of health risks and decreasing life expectancy. . . "
The Quarantine of Healthy Populations ⋆ Brownstone Institute

Covid Student Loan Relief

You know, of course, about Biden's plan to forgive students loans and make people who never went to college or who already paid for their college (like the Bruces) pay for those who did borrow. But did you know how much the "pause" or Covid Emergency Relief and Federal Student Aid is costing us? $255 Billion as of March. The good thing is, it makes the $75 billion given to Ukraine not look so bad, right? President Trump began the pause, to last through December 30, 2020. Biden continued it, even though he says the pandemic is over, and even though employers can't find workers to earn the money to pay their loans. It's all part of the inflation which caused the Fed to raise interest rates to cool the economy, which in turn is helping create the bank crisis (and bad management, but that's another story). Everything is connected to everything else. The lockdown's damages in increased death, debts, and divisions among families and friends will not be known for years.

Trump Suspends Student Loan Payments Through December 31 (forbes.com)

Student Loan Forgiveness Debacle Has Already Cost $255 Billion in Lost Federal Revenue - Minding The Campus

Dr. Robert Califf, FDA and misinformation

"I strongly believe that misinformation is a leading cause of preventable death in America now." Robert Califf, FDA

I believe that too, but I believe it is the result of government misinformation and not the victims' fault.

I strongly believe that misinformation, fear, and confusing messaging begins and ends with the government. Masks don't help; masks do help; masks are mandatory; or maybe not, just kidding. Not enough ventilators; President Trump's fault; ventilators found; ventilators turned out by millions; not enough people need ventilators; President Trump's fault. The virus can live 3 days on surface; wrong, lives 15 days; wrong again, I'll get back to you on that. Pets can't get covid 19; pets can get covid 19. We need temporary hospitals and hospital ships; tent hospitals standing empty; President Trump's fault--he should have known better. Remember Biden and Harris told Americans in 2020 not to trust the vaccine because Trump had advocated for it and it was his "win". 

The lockdown of people who weren't in danger (power hungry bureaucrats at the local level), and totalitarian ideology are the primary reason for the deaths; and the vaccination itself has caused great harm to younger people. Airline pilots have been fired, athletes are refusing it, doctors aren't allowed to prescribe safe and trusted medications, and just about everyone I know who's had Covid has also had the shot and boosters. Remember what we were told in Jan-Feb 2021? Protection and efficacy--off the charts! Then we discovered protection dissipated after a few months, but even that truth was squelched and ridiculed as a conspiracy theory, then later revised to "it will be less severe but can't protect us from infection.

I said in summer 2020 (see links below) there was no peer reviewed literature on masks offering either protection for the user or the exposed, and I kept checking for months. Zip, nada, zero. Yet children have probably lost 2 years of education, especially low income who didn't have parents to fill in the gaps. Churches were closed as being "non-essential." Now Cochrane Reviews has just come out with the same information as a retired medical librarian found 2.5 years ago. No evidence that masks or distancing stopped the spread. Handwashing possibly, but even that's inconclusive.

CDC, FDA and especially Fauci became the new Lysenkoism (caused millions of deaths in the USSR in early 20th century), where only they knew the science and not the many researchers/scientists who disagreed. One had to believe the science of the day, and if not obeyed tenured, published professors were under threat of having their careers destroyed by Big Tech fact-checkers.

By far the majority of deaths from Covid were the elderly, pre-existing conditions and obesity, yet I never saw jazzy ads about weight loss from athletes and movie stars, only the necessity of getting the shot. Instead, sick people (non-covid) couldn't get in to see their doctors. I don't know Califf or his record for research or teaching, but I do know of the work and talent of many of those he's calling snake oil salesmen. Like Bret Weinstein, certainly no Trump supporter and not a Republican or Conservative by any stretch, yet the leftist media refer to him as "right wing." This is government CYA as the non-Covid deaths continue to increase. It makes no difference if one is a tenured faculty in biology, a billionaire who was on board at the beginning, or a researcher who helped develop the mRNA technology, they will be silenced by smears, threats to their income and reputation, or firing.

The strategy that the government is using is to fund their own "misinformation" campaigns with our tax dollars to silence any news agency, blog, website or platform that disagrees with the party line, and that is not only Covid, but the GreenNew Deal, CRT, the border, or billions for Ukraine. If they are successful in silencing all who disagree with them on Covid, they will silence/censor on everything else, too.
1) Hamilton 68 Saga Illustrates Scope Of America’s Institutional Rot (thefederalist.com)

2) State Department Funded Foreign Think Tank Working To Censor Americans | The Daily Caller

3) Disinformation Inc: Meet the groups hauling in cash to secretly blacklist conservative news (washingtonexaminer.com)

4) Matt Taibbi: "Twitter Files" Reveal The Structure Of The Relationship Between Social Media Companies And FBI Requests For Censorship | Video | RealClearPolitics


Collecting My Thoughts: Finding research on medical masks for the public

Collecting My Thoughts: To mask or not to mask

Collecting My Thoughts: The battle of the masks.

Collecting My Thoughts: Evidence for cloth masks? Not much

Collecting My Thoughts: No published trial on the effects of masks in Covid-19 transmission

Cochrane Reviews--still no evidence for masks stopping the spread

In the first year of the pandemic Cochrane Library which identifies, appraises and synthesizes all the empirical evidence that meets pre-specified eligibility criteria, looked at all the then known evidence for stopping the spread of Covid.

"Cochrane has responded to the crisis by gathering its community, working closely with the World Health Organization (WHO) and other stakeholders, in developing and publishing several systematic reviews on the effectiveness of behavioural public health measures for reducing COVID‐19 infection.[1] These measures include masks, handwashing, physical distancing, quarantine, contact tracing, screening, and travel restrictions. Because COVID‐19 is still so new, however, these reviews have largely summarized effects on transmission of other viruses in non‐pandemic conditions. Policy makers must act on incomplete evidence in responding to COVID‐19 | Cochrane Library (November 20, 2020)

The results were inconclusive for masks, handwashing, physical distancing, quarantine, contact tracing, screening, and travel restrictions. That didn't stop policy makers from what they do best--making policy. OK, that's what Cochrane found 2.5 years ago, but the policy makers went right ahead, especially the teachers unions which appeared to be advising the CDC.

Now, Cochrance has again published its results of more current studies (although in my opinion there are too few since some researchers were "cancelled" or were prevented from studying or publishing their results if it went against policies already put in place using no evidence). Do physical measures such as hand-washing or wearing masks stop or slow down the spread of respiratory viruses? | Cochrane (January 30, 2023)

"We are uncertain whether wearing masks or N95/P2 respirators helps to slow the spread of respiratory viruses based on the studies we assessed. Hand hygiene programmes may help to slow the spread of respiratory viruses."

I recall writing about the mask literature in summer of 2020 at my blog and Facebook. I checked every few weeks in the medical databases for evidence that masking could stop the spread of Covid-19. I never found it, and the virus continued to spread despite masks, distancing, isolation, and vaccine/boosters. I got a lot of push back from people who knew nothing except what they'd heard from the media.

I continue to believe that masks and hand washing can reduce the spread of colds and flu by blocking the air borne molecules which transport the virus, but Covid, no. Too small to block.

Returning to The Blessing music of 2020

This morning I was listening again to the various versions of The Blessing, when hundreds of Christian groups came together during the 2020 lockdown ignoring denominational boundaries and squabbles and sang the Blessing from Numbers 6:24-26. Then I came across the one from Uzbekistan sung in Russian and Uzbek--I didn't even know there was a Christian presence in Uzbekistan. It was lovely, as was one of the comments.

https://youtu.be/pvYTUDivB4Q

"I am crying. As a young boy I grew up in Uzbekistan as an MK. [missionary kid] The early 2000's I recall them like if they were yesterday. I remember my Parents friends being afraid, being beaten by the police, I remember the police coming to our house everyday and taking away our car. I remember a car at night in our house, I remember helping carrying bibles translated to Uzbek and hiding them in our basement. I remember the Uzbek underground church and worshiping in silence from our houses. My family and I were kicked out of the country around 2006 and were not allowed re-entry. Many times I wondered what happened with our brothers in Christ in Uzb... until a few days ago I saw a news article about the growing Uzbek church and now I see this video and see how all those tears, all those times we felt impotent,... My parents work did not go in vain. To see the seed they planted and to see the beautiful garden it has become brings tears of joy to my heart. I long to go back to Uzb one day, to kiss the soil, drink choi eat Osh, and Thank God for his many blessings."

Yes, there were good things happening in the church during the lockdown. If you need a few blessings for the New Year, settle in and listen to 10-20 of these from all over the world, and crank up the sound. Thank you, cousin Gayle, for sending the Blessing in your note today.

Why Union Station?

Why did the Biden handlers book him for Union Station? It's filthy, with closed up businesses that failed due to government imposed lockdowns, surrounded by tents of homeless people (who were removed for this event). Surely he's not trying to smear Republicans again with his failures? He tries to kick the faithful in the butt with these stories about how wild eyed MAGA supporters are taking over the nation. Sure. 

In the colleges? Nope. 

In the entertainment industry? Never. 

The legacy news factories like WaPo and NYT? Guess again.

How about Big Tech? They can't even get a janitor's job. 

Maybe the deep swamp, like loyal FBI agents to go after parents or pro-lifers? Hardly. 

Oh, I know--in the public libraries--where only Democrats get hired? 

Did he tell that old story about how his son died in Iraq--or maybe it was the Ukraine?

https://nypost.com/2022/11/02/conservatives-mock-biden-over-speech-at-neglected-unsafe-dc-train-station/?

The pandemic deniers--all Democrats with a few RINOs

 "School administrators often were more concerned with changing the name of a school rather than ensuring that students would receive an excellent education, or really any education at all. We were told to accept this whether we liked it or not. Educrats and teachers unions know best, little children. No wonder there was a massive parent revolt." 

In the long run, the Democrats will try to deny (talk about deniers!) that they had anything to do with this, that they were just following the science, which kept changing. That's just a lie. Even for the Republican governors and pastors who followed their bad lead. We had years of research and experience to show what to do with a massive health threat. 1) Protect the vulnerable, 2) allow the rest to keep life going. No matter how many times I wrote about masks studies (I was a medical librarian), some engineer would pounce and say I couldn't possibly know as much as he did. Some Democrats are now coming around, they see the economy is in shambles with their party being blamed, they've read the data on what has been done to the children. Now they say, "Well, sorry. We didn't know. Science is like that." Well, tough cookies. A lot of people knew you were wrong and instead of a "conversation" you destroyed their careers and reputations.

And since Democrats don't learn, they just lose, this will happen again. They are hoping the lies and clown show of January 6 trial and their October surprise at the "unguarded" Pelosi mansion will be enough to rekindled the hate, fear and angst in their faithful to get them to the polls. ‘Scientific-Technological Elite’ Is Destroying Self-Government in America (dailysignal.com)

"This is the crisis Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis frequently points to, citing Dwight Eisenhower’s presidential farewell address in January 1961. The speech is frequently remembered for Ike’s warnings about the military-industrial complex. Eisenhower also warned about a growing “scientific-technological elite” that would pervert both genuine science and public policy.

A federally funded and tightly interwoven system of science and research—such as what developed in the United States in the 20th century—made the industry susceptible to being captured by an elite clique and molded by powerful insiders rather than open-minded scientists and the ordinary Americans it was meant to serve."

Environmental sustainability at Lakeside

According to one of our speakers this week at Lakeside, "Nearly half of the 300 million tons of plastics produced each year are only used a few short minutes before they are tossed away into our lakes, oceans and landfills to sit for hundreds of years."

Every person can see to it if they use plastic, it doesn't end up in the public spaces or water sources. I'm guessing 30 years of working with people to be aware of pollution was lost in the 2 years of the lockdown and forced masking. I've never seen as much trash in the environment as I've seen since March 2020. The cartons used for carry out must be uncountable. For awhile we couldn't even take reusable shopping bags into the stores. But the bigger problem is that those who are the richest among us, who have 2 or 3 homes, or drive electric cars or install solar panels on their houses--they are urging and voting for policies that really hurt those not so affluent in the name of saving something they don't know what.

 
Pick up after yourself and use less. Just like mom told you. Humans need water to live, but they survived for eons without carrying it in plastic bottles. And don't vote for people or policies that will destroy the pensions of retirees or agriculture in other countries.

Lakeside is open, and we're not there!

From the Lakeside Blog, https://blog.lakesideohio.com/hoover-shows-are-back/

 "Shirley Stary has been instrumental in creating the Lakeside experience we’ve known and loved and led the charge in bringing chart-topping performances to the stage of Hoover Auditorium for the last 17 years. She says, “The time has flown by,” but the last two seasons have been by far the longest in her career.

Due to the pandemic, Hoover has been mostly silent for two years. But this summer, the floor and walls will be vibrating, and seats will be filled for the first time since 2019 as shows return to Lakeside’s social and cultural hub.

“One of the worst things about the pandemic was not being able to use Hoover,” Stary said. “People come here to see each other as much to see the show, and that’s been lacking the past two years.”

While Stary agreed that Hoover should have been closed, it was also a cause for concern for her. Like everybody else, she didn’t have a crystal ball and had no idea what the future looked like.

“At one point during the pandemic, I was afraid I had done my last show at Hoover without knowing it,” Stary said. “I just thought, ‘What happens if we can’t open again?’ If you knew you were leaving, you’d stand on the stage and say, ‘All right, this has been a good run.’ So, I was mourning the fact that I didn’t relish that last show.”

During Hoover’s two-year hiatus, Stary was also concerned for her staff because shows were part of their income.

With much anticipation, the community will gather again in this central community gem as Masters of Soul take the stage on May 28 and Collision of Rhythm performing the following night.

Lakeside President & CEO Kip Greenhill says Hoover is a unique place that brings a sense of community that can’t be found anywhere else.

“Hoover Auditorium is one of several gathering places in Lakeside that brings people together from different backgrounds, varied geographic areas and a range of experiences to help enhance a culture of belonging,” Greenhill said. “The artistic programming done in Hoover, like the arts everywhere, further connects us into a true community feeling. We are so fortunate to have Hoover Auditorium open again and to bring us together.”

Jeannie Fleming-Gifford is entering her first summer as Vice President of Programming but is a Lakesider who knows how important and special Hoover shows are since she has attended several events there.

“The power of live arts experiences in a setting like Hoover Auditorium is nothing short of magical,” Fleming-Gifford said. “We are so excited to immerse Lakesiders of all ages and interests in a variety of quality, live entertainment programs and connect as a community through the power of the arts.”

Stary said this is a “rebuilding year,” but still has a solid lineup of shows, including The Spinners (June 25), Herman’s Hermits staring Peter Noone (July 16), Tony Danza — one of Stary’s “crushes” (July 23), family-friendly comedian Preacher Lawson (Aug. 6), We Are Messengers (Aug. 13) and Mercury: The Music of Queen & Freddie Mercury (Sept. 3). "

We are not there because Bob tested positive on Thursday for Covid, had a monoclonal antibodies infusion yesterday, and is resting comfortably (like a cold but more tired than usual).

It would have been different if Trump were President

 If Trump were still President of the United States

We would not have raging inflation

Putin would not have invaded Ukraine

China would not be threatening Taiwan

The Department of Justice would not be surveilling parents of schoolchildren

The death toll for xxxxx would not be over one million

Therapeutics for xxxxx would have been available to save lives in early 2021

Doctors, nurses, police, military and truckers would still be on the job

Department of Disinformation definitely not needed; we’ve got Twitter and CNN for that

American businesses would not have been locked down

American businesses would be encouraged to restore loss to China industries

American businesses and consumers would have enough products from fossil fuel

Europe would be able to buy fuel without fear of Russia cutting them off

A billionaire from South Africa not needed to restore right to free speech

No leftist mobs would be intimidating Supreme Court Justices against the law

Teachers’ unions would not be corrupting your children and grandchildren

Fewer drugs would be crossing the border to kill Americans

Less sex and child trafficking at the border

Fewer xxxxx infections crossing the border to infect Americans

Honest and safe elections for all states

As we merge lanes from pandemic to endemic

From an investment letter: "It is now clear from the data that Sweden, which never shut down other than for the very old and nursing homes, did not do worse than those that did shut down, and their kids got to go to in person school throughout. Florida never fully shut down for long, and reopened quickly relative to the rest of the country. While the mainstream media and the Biden administration blasted DeSantis, reality is, business here reopened fairly quickly for the most part, and recovered quickly, and the health issues, including hospitalization and death, were no worse per capita than CA which shut down completely, and kept kids out of school. It is my view that Fauci and the teachers’ unions did more damage to the country than the pandemic ever did. Many people died of untreated diseases like cancer and heart conditions as a result of the shutdowns. They never counted that. I have a tennis buddy whose prostate cancer spread because he could not get to see a doctor in time to prevent it. The Fauci ordered lockdowns did grave damage to the economy, and led to the $6 trillion of new debt we now have.

Were things left mostly open after the first wave, with certain restrictions and certain rules, and personal choice as to exposure, once the vaccines were available, it is far from clear there would have been a much worse Covid outcome based on the Swedish and Florida experience, when you take all the collateral damage of closure into account. Meantime the increased government spending is a disaster, and has created what many of us long predicted-inflation running out of control. The topper was the Rescue Plan in March 2021 for which there was no need other than for the money to be used to bail out Dem state and city governments which were in massive debt, and to illegally redirect billions to teach CRT. Meantime hundreds of billions are believed to have been stolen through fraud in the unemployment payments and PPP. If there had been a limited PPP, and money strictly for Covid vaccines, we would have saved trillions, and been far better off today. Had there been minimal lockdowns, there would have been no need for the extra unemployment and food stamp payments, and no non-eviction and no extension or canceling of student loans. We would not be experiencing the labor shortage to the extent we are now doing.

Maybe some more people might have become sick or died, but the trade was destruction of an entire generation of kids who were kept out of class, and real destruction of black kids who did not have good access to wireless service. We would not have the inflation which is hurting the lower and middle class and we would likely have had a moderate stock market instead of the huge runups we had."