De-funding

A spittle-flecked Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post, because President Trump was discharged after only four days, wants to de-fund the Walter Reed Medical Center ... see: FoxNews story.

I have a much better idea ... let’s de-fund Jennifer Rubin!


STAND UP FOR AMERICA!

Huh?!?

In today’s Washington Post synopsis of daily coronavirus deaths, New York State is listed as having 2,732 deaths which were high because  “criteria for counting and reporting deaths continues to change” ... see: Washington Post Numbers. 

However, World Meters, a more thorough reporting agency, has today’s New York State total coronavirus deaths tallied at 9 ... see: World Meters Numbers.

Quite a difference! Could politics be involved?


STAND UP FOR AMERICA!

Correction

A while back I made a foray into the COVID-19 death statistics in the United States and suggested that they were being fudged to imply a surge in our deaths to match our surge in new cases ... see: Fake Stats.

Well, if you return to that Washington Post “Covid Deaths” graph of deaths in that link, you will now see why this “spike” in these numbers occurred. It seems that, in a footnote, WaPo now indicates that on June 25th over 1,800 deaths were added to this daily total by New Jersey ... and it looks like Delaware also slipped some extras in too. Anyway, this spike was obviously an outlier and only briefly interrupted the visible downward path of US COvID deaths.

However, we are not out of the woods yet as new virus deaths are supposed to lag new cases by two or three weeks ... so we still have a little time to wait to see if the opening of our economy might need to be slowed or reversed. I say this because a new case surge without a new death surge is not a huge problem ... something like the common cold ... not worthy of a new shutdown.

Sometime next week we should know for sure.

Fake Stats

Many observers, including your humble poster, have felt that the most revealing statistic to use for tracking the coronavirus specter is COVID deaths. After all, that is the ultimate impact. And one key source for this data has been The Washington Post ... see: COVID deaths and click on “Deaths.”

Looking at this WaPo graph, one sees a very dramatic increase in deaths ... basically a 4x jump in one day. Wow! Is this real? Or is this more fake news ... or rather fake stats? This site offers no specific reason for this spike ... might this be another attempt by the media swamp to undermine Trump’s reopening of the U.S. economy ... in order to hamper his re-election chances?

Fortunately, we can check WaPo’s data against other sources. Please go to: World Meters and scroll down to Daily New Deaths graph. See the difference? Yes, no spike in these numbers! Can we then conclude that the numbers person(s) at WaPo has been corrupted by politics?

I conclude so.i

Afterward: See also: Powerline Entry

Liar?

Trump haters have one consistent mantra, “He lies, then lies about his lies.” They even document and count up these falsehoods into the tens of thousands. Pathological maybe?

How come, given this tidal wave of mendacity, I can’t recall a single “you can keep your doctor” moment? In a recent presser, Trump claimed that the mortality rate of the seasonal flu was “point zero one percent” (0.01%). Actually, the number is 0.1%. Was that a lie? Obviously not even though I strongly suspect it is number 16,743 on the Washington Post tally, I’m also reasonably sure that Trump knows the real facts about seasonal flu mortality. He just misstated things.

When Trump addresses the American people, he elides the facts, he blusters, he quotes disputed data, he makes mistakes, he even zings his enemies  ... but I have yet to detect downright malicious lies by the Orangeman.

If you have, dear reader, please cull through Washington Post’s compendium of Trump falsehoods and relate back to us one of his super duper whoppers.

Headlines

James Comey says he’s backing Biden for president

10-year treasury falls below 1%  for the first time after Fed slashes rates due tc virus

Fauci pandemic warning ...

Hillary: Bernie’s campaign is baloney

Donna Brazile to Ronna McDaniel: ‘Go to hell!’

Coronavirus live update: US cases rise to 108, Fed cuts rates on outbreak risk

Tensions rise as U.S. death toll from coronavirus reaches 7 ...

AOC: Only a ‘progressive mass-movement’ can defeat Trump

Deadly overnight tornadoes disrupt voting in Tennessee

Trump campaign sues Washington Post for defamation

Fed cuts rate half point ...

Beto O’Rourke: ‘Only Joe Biden can beat Donald Trump’

Hill of Beans

Dr. Fiona  Hill, the former Brit who now loves America and hates Trump ... and who condemned Trump for his Ukrainian “quid pro quo” in the Schiff impeachment hearings ... and claimed the delaying military aid there was costing American security and Ukrainian lives. She was a media hero of these hearings for her courageous pro-aid stance and professorial deriding of Trump. Watch the above video of her obsequious opening statement.

Well, dear reader, when this pedantic heroine worked at the Brookings Institute, she took exactly the opposite stance: We should NOT provide military aid to the Ukraine! In fact in 2015 she wrote an impassioned Op-Ed in the Washington Post espousing this very position ... see: Breitbart Story. (Sorry this link doesn’t go directly to the Washington Post ... because it’s behind a paywall.) And, maybe due to her influence, the Obama administration withheld ANY AND ALL military aid to the Ukraine ... throwing this country to the Russian wolves (Obama's then-pals.)

Dr. Hill is full of beans. Her overweening bias and hypocrisy is so thick you can cut it with a jihadi’s machete. This woman is duplicitous, dangerous and detestable.

Tax Returns

I am a little baffled about the kerfuffle over Trump’s tax returns ... both federal and New York state. It would seem to me that both the state and federal tax authorities have total access to these returns and, if there are any issues of fraud or concealment, that these issues are to be adjudicated between the experts in the relevant tax authorities and Trump’s tax experts. Since New York is clearly not friendly to Trump and the IRS under Obama displayed overt hostility toward Republicans, one would think that any possible malfeasance in these returns has been well inspected.

And, since any tax issues have been well scrutinized by the experts on both sides, what makes the spittle-flecked Democrats believe that non-tax experts in the general public will any be better equipped to deal with the nuances of such tax disputes. The only rationale for airing these very complex tax returns in public would seem to be to try to find some extra-legal info that can be used to embarrass Trump politically. And this seems to be exactly the reason why tax returns have been decreed to be kept private.

Tax law issues in Trump’s returns are best resolved between the attorneys on both sides ... or in the relevant tax courts ... not on the hostile editorial pages of the Washington Post.

Loopy Loop

“Things fall apart, the center cannot hold.” — Yeats

Aberrant actions seem to be instigating aberrant actions. It’s a feedback loop that turns on itself. The Squad says something loopy about the Mexican border and then some nut job attacks a migrant processing center ... ending up in the morgue. Which, of course, creates a traffic jam of C-list celebs trying to be first on Twitter to condemn, in flowery language, this attack ... somehow blaming it all on Trump ... or climate change. This in turn causes a bunch of activists to replace the American flag at an ICE center with a Mexican flag ... spawning more rah-rah support from The Squad. Trump then suggests that these radicals might fix the problems in their hellhole homelands before trying to fix America. Then things really heat up as de Blasio suggests that Nazi Germany is upon us. And all hell really breaks loose when the Washington Post next claims that Jeffery Epstein was sleeping with Chelsea Clinton and probably fathered her children! Oh, maybe not ... but don’t be surprised. Anything and everything is now game in this loopy loop of our social media mania.

Living Life

The New York Times and/or the Washington Post would publish America’s top secret plans on how to thwart Chinese ICBMs ... if it meant that they could avoid bankruptcy for a few more years. — Anon.

Liar, Liar

It has an extremely complicated plot so I won’t rehash it here, but the movie “Liar, Liar” is a story about a lawyer (ironically, played by Jim Carey) who can’t tell any lies for a day ... and his constant blurting out of the truth causes all sorts of problems. This affliction reminds me a lot of President Trump in that he is constantly turning victory into confusion by compulsively expressing his thoughts about a person or event ... thoughts that might be better left unsaid.

I know, I know the popular meme is that Trump is a serial liar. I think that the Washington Post has its mendacity count above 10,000. But these are mostly harmless exaggerations, not real whoppers like other politicians. When he really could defer and hide his true feelings about a domestic adversary (different story on many foreign ones ... I doubt that he really “loves” l’il Kim, Putin or Xi), he can’t seem to hold back. And so he has created many enemies ... enemies who , if they could, would like to see him disappear. We, who have not been so insulted, don’t have this same spittle-flecked emotion.

In fact much of America relishes Trump’s puncturing of so many egomaniacal balloons.

Headlines

Trump defiant as China escalates trade war

There's something Orwellian about Sen. Durbin demanding Sinclair explain its editorial decisions

Austria plans headscarf ban for students ...

Report: Trump could build wall despite Congress

Trump is right. It's the Amazon Washington Post

YouTube shooting falling out of the news because it doesn't conform the gun control narratives

Migrant caravan abandons plans to travel to USA border ...

Bangladesh nationals continue to flood TX border

Foreign visas plunge under Trump

Great: 'Rip-roaring' job market adds 241K in March

Trump states [US] would be hit hard by new China tariffs

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: 'Roseanne' is most anti-Trump show on TV

Headlines

Trump administration freezes $200 million in funds for Syrian reconstruction

Visa seekers will have o disclose social media ...

Trump says Washington Post should register as Amazon 'lobbyist'

Ingraham to take 'Easter break' from show amid advertiser boycotts

Tesla Autopilot activated before fatal accident ...

Massive loans. Damaged credit. Nothing to save. How student loans make home ownership a pipe dream

Jimmy Carter rips Trump: America 'apparently wants a jerk' for president

Elizabeth Warren attacks Trump's Asia 'chaos' and ridicules his 'happy-faced' views toward China

Google staff organized to fight cyber bullying -- at Google ...

MIT researchers are tackling a major challenge for self-driving cars -- fog

Media apparently using Hamas-supplied casualty figures for Gaza rioting

Big Pharma's billion dollar scramble to invest in start-ups to fuel innovation

Folk Logic

"Too big for one's britches" -- I love this bit of folk logic ... describing someone whose ego is so large that it is making the decisions. This Roy Moore imbroglio has exposed hundreds with this puffed-up malady... John McCain, Mitch McConnell, the Washington Post, the RNC, Mitt Romney and most of the stage prancers in Washington. The only rational voice in all this cacophony of phonies is Pat Buchanan who says, "Let the people of Alabama decide."

This is a sensible solution to a nonsensical situation. When there is a he-said, she-said stand-off, I don't believe that it should be resolved by the hysterical national media ... particularly a media so obviously biased. The people of Alabama know Judge Roy Moore and, if they want him as their senator, then the rest of the swamp should shut up and say, "So be it."

The Harvey Weinstein revelations have unleashed a firestorm of copycat accusations ... most, likely true, but some opportunistic. Human nature being what it is, sex is always the imp hiding in many garden parties. This imp can be malignant as in the Harvey Weinstein case ... or just coquettish ... which is to suggest that this imp is not always male.

I have no idea where on the spectrum of sexual by-play Roy Moore's actions fell all those many decades ago ... nor, truthfully, does the Washington Post nor Mitch McConnell ... nor certainly  Sean Hannity's advertisers. So why not let the people of Alabama ... the ones who know him best ... decide if Judge Moore is too big for his britches?

Moore or Less

I smell a rat. The Washington Post has published a story, probably with the winking assent of Mitch McConnell, John McCain, Mitt Romney  and a phalanx of other establishment Republicans, designed to take down Judge Roy Moore, Republican candidate for the Senate to replace Jeff Sessions in an Alabama special election ... read it here: WaPo Expose. And, in the process, Steve Bannon would also be neutered ... not something that would bring tears to many in the swamp. This late-hour expose of alleged "inappropriate sexual touching" is clearly of malicious intent ... as such ephemeral attacks are favorites of the liberal media in the last days of a campaign ... so that there is no time to counteract the damage done.

Now, malicious intent is but one part of building a libel case against a public official, the other being veracity. And it is very difficult to determine veracity with such a short time left until the election ... more evidence of the insidious nature of this expose. Are these charges true, that Roy Moore touched a 14-year old girl on top of her bra and had her touch him on top of his underpants 39 years ago? John McCain thinks that the seriousness of this charge should disqualify Judge Moore outright. (Ironic since McCain was subject to this same kind of smear by the New York Times in the last minutes of his presidential campaign against Barack Obama.)

Nowhere in its expose does the WaPo equivocate or use the term "alleged" in its accusations. No, it implies, "It is indeed a fact because we say so ... even though these things occurred so very long ago." Could this woman and the other three minor minor accusers be lying?  Might their memories be colored by politics or thoughts of notoriety? You bet your grits.

So, if I were an Alabama voter, what would I do? I think that I, also being a past modest sinner, would ignore the Washington Post likely libelous story. In fact, I might even cast my vote for Judge Moore as a protest against this type of last-minute smear. If a rapist can stay on as president, maybe it's time an almost pederast can be a senator.

And I honestly believe that if our libel laws were stricter, say like they are in England, such political late-game gambits by the media might be somewhat rarer.

Afterward: The Massachusetts state legislature is considering reducing the age of consent here to 14. I suspect this political scandal might delay this piece of insanity.

Cabal?

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Thought for the Day

Life was so much simpler when the New York Times and the Washington Post told us what to think. Today, with the Internet (and the discrediting of these newspapers), we are deluged with so many opinion cross currents, new data points and misinformation that we are being forced to think for ourselves. This is something that too few people are comfortable doing.

Predatory Pricing

Jeff Bezos' Amazon is beginning to look a lot like the evil trusts of over a hundred years ago. This company has only been around for 23 years ... yet during this period it has earned virtually no profits from its Internet merchandising business, but it sales growth there has been phenomenal. In fact, if one subtracts out its Prime subscription payments, it actually has been selling on average goods below its cost (one definition of predatory pricing, a key element of a monopoly.)  Instead, it has been on a manic march toward capturing market share ... first in books and then spreading out into most every facet of goods that can be shipped.

Amazon's prices have been brutally competitive which, when combined with very efficient and well-managed logistics has created a very favorable customer experience ... and thus very impressive revenue growth, funded by a very liquid stock market ... which has been enamored by the revenue growth ... and unconcerned by lack of profits. (Actually, Amazon has generated some modest profits from its separate computer cloud business.)

The result? Devastation in the retail book selling business ... and now metastasis of this cancer into almost the entire bricks and mortar retail world. If Amazon keeps on its present path, more and more retail sectors will succumb to this predatory business model. The question, at least to me, is, has Amazon stepped over the line into illegal monopolistic practises?

This is a difficult question ... particularly since Amazon has a very loyal customer base ... people who might vote against any politician who tried to take corrective legal actions n against them. So what to do? Can we, as a country wait until some other more superior business model is invented to take down Amazon ... like Amazon's model is undercutting our previous retail near monopoly, Walmart? Unfortunately, a superior business model is not at all obvious.

However, if my careful-shopper wife is correct and Amazon has been quietly raising prices on most of its offerings, then it might be setting things up for some customer unrest ... since convenience can be achieved with other Internet shopping venues, say Ali Baba? And, if Amazon is planning to turn its Internet retail operation into a cash cow, I am certain that Bezos has his eye on another market he would like to monopolize with these expanding retail margins ... see: Bloomberg Chart/Article

My guess -- ground and air shipping (UPS, FedEx)? That is, unless President Trump, like Teddy Roosevelt once did with the trusts, decides to step on Bezos' expansionist empire. And it doesn't help Bezos' cause to keep attacking Trump with his personal megaphone, the Washington Post.

Kick that Ball

The New York Times, the Washington Post, the lovers on MSNBC's Morning Joe, CNN, the list goes on and on and on ... the newsmakers and the fake newsmakers (mostly late-nite TV) ... almost to a person are calling our current president unbalanced (aka, crazy). These accusations arise lately out of Trump's tweeting that our former president, Obama, had his phones tapped at Trump Tower right before the election.

Until we know the source and veracity of Trump's accusations against our former president, there really is no basis for calling Trump crazy ... other than loyalty to Obama, a known craven corrupter and Deep State conniver. In the meantime, I believe that much of the media's calling Trump nutso is, in and of itself, unbalanced.

Like Charlie Brown continuing to believe that Lucy won't snatch away the football at the last moment before he kicks it, the lefty media does acknowledge that they continually underestimate Trump. Yet, in this instance, they are certain that he is lying and has finally lost his marbles. So they are confidently taking their next shot at the football.

A Dark Cloud

Billionaire liberal Jeff Bezos not only runs Amazon, personally owns the Washington Post, but, since 2013, also has had a $600 million contract with the CIA to run a huge server farm (also known as the "cloud") for it ... see: The Nation Article. Can we call this a "dark cloud"?

Bezos has an instinct for the levers of power ... the dominant Internet retailer threatening the entire brick-and-mortar retail world, running the major inside-the-beltway media outlet, and a cyber connection to our intelligence community. President Trump also has an instinctual understanding of this potential threat not just to him ... but to our country. Basically, Bezos is as great a tyrannical threat from the left as the left imagines that Trump is from the right.

There is another epic battle of the ideological Titans brewing here which, I predict, will break out before Trump leaves office.