The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Late Night With In The Mailbox: 04.17.20

Posted on | April 18, 2020 | 3 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

First, a little administrivia. This was the last day of the tax season for me, and unfortunately it may also be the last linkagery post until May 1 or whenever Gauleiter Sisolak condescends to reopen the casinos, libraries, and other such places where I can plug in my laptop and crank out the blog posts. Financially, I should be okay for a few months, what with unemployment having been bumped up by an extra $600/week, and who knows, Social Security may finally get off their dead butts and finish the “expedited claim review” they started in December 2018. I’ll try to find someplace to get Rule 5 Sunday done, at least, but no guarantees.

OVER THE TRANSOM
Red Pilled Jew: Thought Trails & Shudders From “Essential Workers”
357 Magnum: Why People Don’t Run When There’s A Fire
EBL: Brian Dennehy, RIP, also, Are You Sheeple Or A Free People?
Twitchy: Brit Hume Shares Fact-Filled Thread On Study Showing COVID Fatality Rate Just Bottomed Out To Flu-Like Levels
Louder With Crowder: Washington Post Gets BTFO’d By Dan Crenshaw Over Coronavirus Coverage
According To Hoyt: On Losing Respectibility
Vox Popoli: Shutting Down Congress, also, Jury Fraud & Fake Justice

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Friday Hawt Chicks & Links – The Racist Olympics Edition
American Conservative: Why We Should Love The Post Office
American Greatness: Facebook Coronavirus “Fact Checker” Worked With Wuhan Virus Lab, also, Political Elite Plays Its Last Card
American Thinker: This Isn’t The Pandemic You’re Looking For
Animal Magnetism: Rule Five Fiscal Disaster Friday
Babalu Blog: An Anniversary Of Heroism & Shame
BattleSwarm: LinkSwarm For April 17
Cafe Hayek: You Don’t Gotta Have Faith
CDR Salamander: Something’s Funky In Big China
Don Surber: Hollywood Plans Big 150th Birthday For Lenin
First Street Journal: “Essential” Products
The Geller Report: Pelosi Quietly Deletes Video Encouraging People To Visit Chinatown; Trump Reuploads It, also, Beaches In Florida Start To Reopen Tonight
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post Of The Day, also, Compared To What?
Hollywood In Toto: Why The Quarry Just Misses The Mark, also, Dismiss Exorcist III At Your Own Peril
Legal Insurrection: Paycheck Protection Program Out Of Money As Pelosi Plumps For Additional Pork, also, Fauxcahontas Open To Being Biden’s VP
Michelle Malkin: CNN/SPLC’s New Public Enemy – “Social Distancing Deniers”
The PanAm Post: Spain’s Socialist Government Makes Economic & Health Crises Worse
Power Line: An Open Letter To Governor Walz, also, Freedom Is Starting To Break Out
Shark Tank: Figlesthaler & Eagle Lead GOP Candidates In FL-19
Shot In The Dark: Moot Points
The Political Hat: Obey – Use The Pronouns, Transgender Lesbians, & Mandatory Homosexuality, also, Firing Line Friday
This Ain’t Hell: Two Charged In Death of Former Marine, also, Valor Friday
Victory Girls: Media Claims “Opening Up America” Guidelines Won’t Work
Volokh Conspiracy: Short Circuit – A Roundup Of Recent Federal Court Decisions
Weasel Zippers: Pelosi Asked To Explain To Small Business Owners Why Dems Are Blocking Emergency Funding, also, Joe Biden Forgets What Year 9/11 Happened
Megan McArdle: Rural Areas Think They’re The Coronavirus Exception. They’re Not.
Mark Steyn: The Sages & The Non-Essentials

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Category: Linkagery

Good News: More Evidence COVID-19 Is Less Lethal Than Most People Believe

Posted on | April 17, 2020 | 1 Comment

For some time now, it has been apparent that a large percentage of people infected with COVID-19 are either asymptomatic or have such mild symptoms that they have never been tested for the virus. From an epidemiological perspective, this is a double-edged sword. If you’re infected but asymptomatic, you can spread the disease without knowing it. This probably explains, for example, why New York City went from having just one known case in early March to having hundreds of cases within a couple of weeks. It’s possible that many who spread the virus never knew they were infected because they never had symptoms.

However, there is a bright side to this double-edged sword: If a substantial percentage of Americans have already been infected by COVID-19 without becoming sick (and never getting tested) then the fatality rate would be much lower than is suggested by the simple arithmetic based on reported cases and reported deaths from the disease. Nationally, the U.S. has 683,786 reported cases, and 34,575 reported deaths, which would mean 5% death rate. The rate is much lower in some states; Florida reports 24,119 cases and 686 deaths, which is a 2.8% death rate. If there are many asymptomatic people who have never been tested, however, the death rate is actually much lower. And . . .

EXAMPLE #1:

Sweeping testing of the entire crew of the coronavirus-stricken U.S. aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt may have revealed a clue about the pandemic: The majority of the positive cases so far are among sailors who are asymptomatic, officials say.
Roughly 60 percent of the over 600 sailors who tested positive so far have not shown symptoms of COVID-19, the potentially lethal respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus, the Navy says. The service did not speculate about how many might later develop symptoms or remain asymptomatic.
“With regard to COVID-19, we’re learning that stealth in the form of asymptomatic transmission is this adversary’s secret power,” said Rear Admiral Bruce Gillingham, surgeon general of the Navy.
The figure is higher than the 25% to 50% range offered on April 5 by Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a member of President Donald Trump’s coronavirus task force.

EXAMPLE #2:

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is now “actively looking into” results from universal COVID-19 testing at Pine Street Inn homeless shelter.
The broad-scale testing took place at the shelter in Boston’s South End a week and a half ago because of a small cluster of cases there.
Of the 397 people tested, 146 people tested positive. Not a single one had any symptoms.
“It was like a double knockout punch. The number of positives was shocking, but the fact that 100 percent of the positives had no symptoms was equally shocking,” said Dr. Jim O’Connell, president of Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program, which provides medical care at the city’s shelters.
O’Connell said that the findings have changed the future of COVID-19 screenings at Boston’s homeless shelters.
“All the screening we were doing before this was based on whether you had a fever above 100.4 and whether you had symptoms,” said O’Connell. “How much of the COVID virus is being passed by people who don’t even know they have it?”

EXAMPLE #3:

The first large-scale community test of 3,300 people in Santa Clara County found that 2.5 to 4.2% of those tested were positive for antibodies — a number suggesting a far higher past infection rate than the official count.
Based on the initial data, researchers estimate that the range of people who may have had the virus to be between 48,000 and 81,000 in the county of 2 million — as opposed to the approximately 1,000 in the county’s official tally at the time the samples were taken.
“Our findings suggest that there is somewhere between 50- and 80-fold more infections in our county than what’s known by the number of cases than are reported by our department of public health,” Dr. Eran Bendavid, the associate professor of medicine at Stanford University who led the study, said in an interview with ABC News’ Diane Sawyer.

You see that the emphasis in media reporting on these results is on the negative aspect — a large number of asymptomatic cases means that spread of the infection is wider than we knew, and more difficult to detect — so that they completely ignore the upside. In the Boston homeless shelter story, for example, this is a population that, to say the least, has less-than-optimal access to health care, and yet you have 146 case in which none of the infected people even had symptoms? Similarly, in Santa Clara County, the random testing suggests there have already been tens of thousands of asymptomatic coronavirus cases in the community — people who were infected, but never got sick. And the Navy’s testing on the aircraft carrier, where most of the sailors are young people in prime physical condition, the large number of asymptomatic cases indicates that very few such people will experience anything more than mild symptoms from this coronavirus. This is good news.

We should be encouraged, and ignore the media’s negative spin.




 

Category: Health Care

Just a Quick Note

Posted on | April 17, 2020 | 1 Comment

My Wednesday post about the death of Mackenzie Lueck has been deleted, because two of my kids objected to the tone of my commentary. This bothers me, as the entire point I wished to make is that what led to Mackenzie’s death was the kind of “non-judgmental” attitude that prohibits us from describing prostitution in plain English, resorting to euphemisms like “sugar baby” that make this evil seem harmless.

Prostitution is always wrong, and anyone who wishes to argue otherwise ought to expect strong opposition and criticism. In the article I linked Wednesday, one of the dead girl’s university “friends” said she believes that 60 percent of girls in her circle of sorority sisters have engaged in some kind of “sugar baby” type of activity. She argued in defense of this activity, as if no one could rightfully condemn it, and as a parent, I was profoundly horrified by her attitude. Perhaps in expressing my horror, I was too flippantly sarcastic, or used blunt language that offended people, and so I have taken down that post. However, in doing so, I wish to make clear that I have not changed my mind on the subject. Selah.




 

Category: Blogging

A ‘Granular’ Re-Opening Plan

Posted on | April 17, 2020 | Comments Off on A ‘Granular’ Re-Opening Plan

 

During the past couple of weeks of daily briefings, Dr. Deborah Birx has popularized the word “granular” to describe how the COVID-19 task force is tracking the spread of the disease. While the news media remain focused on the Big Numbers — the cumulative total of cases and the death toll — those whose job it is to try and control this contagion must pay attention to a series of small-scale pictures: What is causing the increase in cases in one particular county? Are local health officials able to do complete contact tracing on new patients? Does the task force need to move more resources into this region?

During the discussion of when and how to “re-open the economy” (a misleading phrase, because large segments of economic activity have not been restricted by “stay-at-home” orders), the anti-Trump media seemed to be under the impression that a one-size-fits-all approach would be imposed by the White House, which never made sense. There are many parts of the country where rates of COVID-19 infection are still very low, and there is no reason why these communities cannot be permitted to ease restrictions, while at the same time keeping the viral “hot spots” under lockdown orders. For example, in Florida, no one is suggesting that the Miami area should just “go back to business” anytime soon, but it doesn’t make sense to maintain indefinitely the same restrictions in Lakeland and Kissimmee.

If the level of infection, on a per-capita basis, is comparatively low in a community, and if the number of new cases is small enough that each individual case can be contained via quarantine and contact tracing, then a return to something like “normal” life is possible. Of course, there must be measures to protect the elderly and other high-risk individuals, but let me quote something from an Associated Press article:

For most people, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia and death.

That’s from an article about Brazil, whose president fired the health minister this week, but it is a fair summary of what we know: Most people who become infected with COVID-19 are never hospitalized; some are asymptomatic, or nearly so, while a relatively small percentage of those infected develop serious problems which may be fatal. Thursday’s report from Florida, for example, shows 23,340 known coronavirus cases since March 1, of which 3,458 (14.8%) have ever been hospitalized, and 668 (2.9%) have died. Keep in mind, of course, that some unknown percentage of Floridians have actually been infected already, but experienced few or no symptoms, and recovered without ever being tested or treated by any medical professional. So the actual death rate is probably lower than what has been reported, and Florida’s 668 deaths in a population of more than 21 million are but a fraction of the per-capita death rate in New York, New Jersey or Michigan. Letting states and local communities manage their outbreaks, under guidance based on “granular” metrics, is what the Trump plan is about:

President Donald Trump gave governors a road map Thursday for recovering from the economic pain of the coronavirus pandemic, laying out “a phased and deliberate approach” to restoring normal activity in places that have strong testing and are seeing a decrease in COVID-19 cases.
“We’re starting our life again,” Trump said during his daily press briefing. “We’re starting rejuvenation of our economy again.”
He added, “This is a gradual process.”
The new guidelines are aimed at easing restrictions in areas with low transmission of the coronavirus, while holding the line in harder-hit locations. They make clear that the return to normalcy will be a far longer process than Trump initially envisioned, with federal officials warning that some social distancing measures may need to remain in place through the end of the year to prevent a new outbreak. And they largely reinforce plans already in the works by governors, who have primary responsibility for public health in their states.
“You’re going to call your own shots,” Trump told the governors Thursday afternoon in a conference call, according to an audio recording obtained by The Associated Press. “We’re going to be standing alongside of you.”

My guess is that we’ll see a resumption of spring training games in Florida in a matter of weeks. Just keep watching the numbers.




 

Category: Donald Trump, Health Care

In The Mailbox: 04.16.20

Posted on | April 16, 2020 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 04.16.20

– compiled by Wombat-socho

Today’s Page Three Girl is Maria Demina.

From rekt.mag

OVER THE TRANSOM
Red Pilled Jew: Wednesday Whittle
357 Magnum: NJ Governor Vs. The Bill Of Rights
EBL: So How Long Until Democrat-Run Businesses Revolt Against The Coronavirus Shutdown?
Twitchy: Elon Musk OWNS CNN Comms Dude In Ventilators Debate & Then Does His Job For Him
Louder With Crowder: Northern Michigan Sheriffs Say They Won’t Comply With Governor’s Overreach
Vox Popoli: The Devil Mouse Is Dying, also, The Financialization Of The U.S. Economy

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Antisocial Distancing
American Conservative: What If The Coronavirus Really Did Originate In A Red Chinese Lab?
American Greatness: Are We Witnessing A Targeted Hit Against Trump Voters?
American Power: Social Distancing In College Classroom
American Thinker: Hydroxychloroquine – A New Low For The Liberal Media
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily When I Fight Authority News
Babalu Blog: NYPost Confirms & Fleshes Out Ethel Kennedy Story We Broke April 13 But doesn’t Give Us Attribution
BattleSwarm: Red China’s Lies Part III – More Songs About Viral Labs & Propaganda
Cafe Hayek: There Really Is No Such Things As A Free Lunch
Da Tech Guy: The Democrats Held Up The Coronavirus Stimulus So They Could Try And Steal Elections
Don Surber: Outrage Of The Day
The Geller Report: Coronavirus Death Numbers Are A Complete Fraud, also, Pennsylvania State Senate Votes To Override Governor’s Stay-At-Home Order
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of The Day, also, I’m Not Making This Up, You Know
Hollywood In Toto: The Quarry Director Shares Indie Film’s Cold Truths, also, Endings, Beginnings Makes Millennial Love Look Lousy
JustOneMinute: Do Tell
Legal Insurrection: Pelosi Continues To Block Clean Expansion Of Payroll Protection Program, also, Stacey Abrams Campaigning To Be Joe Biden’s VP
Megan McArdle: Why The Lockdown Skeptics Are Wrong
The PanAm Post: Mexican Company Helps Maduro Avoid U.S. Sanctions
Power Line: Domestic Violence Soars Due To Lockdowns, also, Steele’s Russian Disinformation
Shark Tank: Laura Loomer Outraises Dem Rep Lois Frankel For Third Straight Quarter
Shot In The Dark: The Real Virus
STUMP: Non-Taxing Non-Tuesday – A Hit To State Revenues
The Political Hat: Reasonable Measures Don’t Justify Abuse Of Power
This Ain’t Hell: Justice Kavanaugh Vs. Joe Biden
Victory Girls: Trump Shows Leadership, Kamala Harris Fails To Recognize It
Volokh Conspiracy: The Art Of The Troll
Weasel Zippers: Small Business Loan Program Runs Out Of Money, Stops Accepting Applications – Thanks, Democrats! also, Ilhan Omar Funnels Nearly $300,000 More To Husband’s Firm
Mark Steyn: Achoo-Choo Ch’Boogie

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Category: Linkagery

‘Feminist’ Jessica Valenti: Vote for Biden Because ORANGE MAN BAD!

Posted on | April 16, 2020 | 2 Comments

 

When last we took notice of “feminist” Jessica Valenti, she was “despairing” about the failure of Elizabeth Warren’s campaign:

I knew going into Super Tuesday that Elizabeth Warren was unlikely to win big. I had prepared myself for that. What did take me by surprise, though, was just how poorly she fared: Even in her home state of Massachusetts, she finished third. . . .
It’s enough to make me feel, well, despairing: that we had the candidate of a lifetime — someone with the energy, vision, and follow-through to lead the country out of our nightmarish era — and that the media and voters basically outright erased and ignored her. . . .
Whoever the nominee is, their campaign is going to have to come to terms with the intense misogyny so many female voters have dealt with — and understand that it’s an issue we care deeply about. And their supporters are going to have to let us be sad — depressed, even — that once again we’re going to watch a race to leadership between old white men.

Cry more, bitch. Anything that makes you unhappy is objectively good.

By the way, what’s the COVID-19 rate in your posh Brooklyn neighborhood? But never mind that, there’s your latest personal disaster:

On election night in 2016, my six-year-old daughter and I wore matching “feminist” T-shirts, ordered a pizza, and sat glued in front of the television with my mother. Assuming three generations of women were about to watch the first female president be elected, I bought a bottle of champagne. (It’s still sitting in a dusty corner of my bar.)
This November, there won’t be buzzy excitement or matching T-shirts with my daughter. On election day, my choice will be between Donald Trump, a dangerous bigot who has been credibly accused of rape, sexual assault, and harassment by more than two dozen women over a more than four-decade period, and Joe Biden, a man recently accused of sexually assaulting a Senate aide in the 1990s, and who has made fun of the women who complained about his penchant for unwanted shoulder rubs.
Biden is the better choice by a mile, and I’ll do what’s right for the country and vote for him. But I’m still furious: I can’t believe that when faced with the most dangerous president of our lifetime, Democrats are moving ahead with a nearly 80-year-old moderate who has shown himself time and again not up for the fight. I am livid that Democratic women will be called on, once again, to cast our vote in the name of reducing harm to the country rather than moving it forward.
Most of all, I’m angry that people who want Trump out are expected to just vote without airing our concerns about the man who stands between him and another four years. . . .

Joe Biden is the Democrat you deserve, Jessica. Your particular hustle — two decades of promoting a brand of “feminism” that is, in fact, nothing but partisanship aimed toward mobilizing women to vote Democrat — has finally been exposed as the shabby grift is always was. You have about as much credibility as Bill Kristol, Rick Wilson and the rest of the #NeverTrump crew, which is to say, no credibility at all.

Amazing what Trump Derangement Syndrome does to people . . .




 

Category: Donald Trump, Feminism, Joe Biden

In The Mailbox: 04.15.20

Posted on | April 15, 2020 | 1 Comment

– compiled by Wombat-socho

OVER THE TRANSOM
Ninety Miles From Tyranny: The 90 Miles Mystery Box Episode #957
357 Magnum: Welcome To The Police State
Ammo.com: Patriots’ Day – Its Forgotten History & What It Commemorates
EBL: It’s Time To Resist The Coronavirus Shutdown!
Twitchy: WaPo Updates Its Story On Stimulus Checks Being Delayed Because Of President Trump’s Signature
Louder With Crowder: NYC Adds Thousands To COVID Death Count Who Never Tested Positive

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: You Gotta get With The Program
American Conservative: Rich & Healthy Vs. Poor & Dead
American Greatness: Coronavirus Racial Disparities Miss The Bigger Picture, also, Hope Without Change
American Power: Competition, The Coronavirus, & The Weakness of Chairman Xi
American Thinker: The Media Controls The “Crisis”
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Hump Day News
Babalu Blog: Eleven Cuban Refugees Interned & Quarantined In The Bahamas
Baldilocks: The Illegal And/Or Unconstitutional Acts Of President Barack Obama, Part III
BattleSwarm: Wuhan Coronavirus Origins Part 2 – The Timeline Of Red China’s Lies
Cafe Hayek: Cleaned By Capitalism XLI
Camp Of The Saints: Remembering 15 April 1865
CDR Salamander: Red China Rings The Nuclear Bell
Da Tech Guy: The President’s WHO Declaration Is An Instant GOP Ad Generator On Twitter
Don Surber: Press Finds A COVID-19 Cure It Likes
First Street Journal: Another Republican Who Doesn’t Care About Your Constitutional Rights
The Geller Report: Pelosi Brags About Blocking Funding That Would Save Millions Of American Jobs, also, Democrat Mayor In Mississippi Forced To Cancel Fines On “Drive-In” Churchgoers After DOJ Intervenes
Hogewash: This TKPOTD Proves Schmalfeldt Knew Exactly Who He Was Getting Involved With, also, Just Passing By
Hollywood In Toto: Red Pilled America Challenges Hulu’s Schlafly Series, also, How The Tenant Captured A Disgraced Auteur’s Mindset
Legal Insurrection: Virginia Is Gone – Gov. Coonface Klanrobe Signs Far-Left Agenda Into Law, also, #OperationGridlock Shuts Down Lansing To Protest Gov. Whitmer’s Shutdown Overreach
Michelle Malkin: Phyllis Schlafly, Godmother Of America First
The PanAm Post: WHO’s Director General Is Beijing’s Stooge
Power Line: Another Dishonest Smear By The Washington Post, also, Coronavirus In One State
Shark Tank: FL AG Ashley Moody Cracks Down On COVID-19 Price Gouging
Shot In The Dark: Blue Fragility, Part III
The Political Hat: Science & Medicine?
This Ain’t Hell: Cooking The Books, also, Bernath’s Crash Analysis
Victory Girls: Matt Gaetz Tells NIH – Stop Funding Wuhan Lab
Volokh Conspiracy: PA Supremes Reject Takings Challenge To Coronavirus Shutdown Order
Weasel Zippers: NYC Adds Nearly 4000 Who Never Tested Positive To Coronavirus Death Toll, also, Sen. Gillibrand Says Illegals Should Get Coronavirus Stimulus & Unemployment Benefits
Mark Steyn: Extra Matzoh – Hold The Bat Soup, also, Fevers, Faith, & Folly

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Category: Linkagery

Ace of Spades Murder Spree Continues

Posted on | April 15, 2020 | Comments Off on Ace of Spades Murder Spree Continues

 

It’s a hate crime, really. He hates him some #NeverTrump cucks:

We could split the anti-Hillary vote in 2016, because the election wasn’t binary.
But now we can’t split the anti-Trump vote in 2020, because the election is binary.
I think in 2016, Kristol, Sykes, French, Goldberg, Hayes, and the rest of the Losers Club thought they would one day be able to grift from conservatives again.
So pretending to not be dedicated to electing Democrats was an important fiction for them.

You’ll just have to read the whole thing to understand why he’s calling them out today. He calls them out every day, but their latest transparent grift is a new nadir of dishonest hypocrisy. Oh, they have “principles,” if you count getting paid as a “principle.”

Ewoks are dangerous, if you piss them off bad enough.




 

Category: Ace of Spades
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