This is just a discussion of what is actually going on. Funny only to us who do not think this way.

More seriously, Trump Calls for ‘Critical Race Theory’ to Be Banned on Every Level. 

This is virtually the entire text from Doctors, Lawyers & COVID. There is no moral sense in any of this.

The Drug that Cracked Covid may be the most important article you’ll read this year. There’s a lot of information there, but at its core is the story of Judy Smetkiewicz, an active 80-year-old who lives near Buffalo, New York.

Three days before Christmas, Judy tested positive for COVID-19. A week later, an ambulance transported her to hospital. By New Year’s Eve, she was on a ventilator in ICU. Her family was advised that 80% of people in her position never recover. They were told she’d likely remain that way – sedated and unresponsive, in a facility they were barred from entering – for a month before she fully succumbed and died.

But Judy’s family was pushy. They watched a video of Pierre Kory testifying before a US Senate committee a few weeks earlier (see above). He’s an ICU doctor who has treated hundreds of COVID patients in New York City and elsewhere. In the video, he discusses Ivermectin – a safe, cheap, generic drug that has potent anti-COVID properties. This drug, he testified, is saving lives wherever it gets used.

When Judy’s family asked her ICU physician to give her Ivermectin, he refused. It hasn’t been explicitly approved by health agencies as a COVID-19 treatment, he explained, and “we don’t experiment on our patients.” Not even when they’re at death’s door, almost certain to perish anyway.

Judy’s family kept pushing. A hospital administrator finally relented, approving a single dose of Ivermectin. Less than 24 hours later, Judy no longer needed that ventilator. Shortly afterward, though, she began to decline. Her family asked for another dose of Ivermectin. The hospital refused. That’s when they hired a lawyer.

How bizarre. In the middle of a pandemic, a group of experienced, accomplished, respected physicians for whom Kory is a spokesperson say they’ve found an effective treatment. But hospitals refuse to dispense that treatment. Which compels already-traumatized families to hire lawyers.

A judge ruled in favour of Judy’s family, ordering the hospital to dispense four more doses. It refused to carry out the judge’s order. Another hearing was held. The hospital finally agreed to dispense additional doses if Judy’s family doctor wrote the prescription.

This looks, of course, like old-fashioned butt-covering. The hospital appears to have been OK with Judy dying. But not OK with using a drug off-label, even though a US government website explains this happens all the time:

Off-label prescribing is when a physician gives you a drug that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved to treat a condition different than your condition. This practice is legal and common. In fact, one in five prescriptions written today are for off-label use. [bold added]

After spending a month in a rehab facility, Judy returned home.

I see his point – attacking Jews outside Israel for acts of the Israeli government in defending itself from Hamas – is attacking people who have nothing to do with the Middle East or with Israeli policy.

Yet I find myself caring about the fate of Israel. And while I also care about Taiwan, the Uighurs, the murder of Christians in all kinds of places at the present time, I do particularly care about the fate and security of Israel. No doubt this is because I am Jewish and I am therefore aware of how precarious Jewish lives have often been over the past thousand years, and certainly over the past century.

We are an unusual people who have been guests in other people’s national homes for the past two thousand years so have become sensitive to certain issues, such as the persecution of foreigners. It has warped the social values of many Jews in ways I cannot support since I feel nationalistic towards the countries in which I have lived – Canada, the UK and now Australia.

Indeed, I feel a warmth and kinship towards Western Civilisation for which Jewish values are an integral part which has occurred via the incorporation of the Old Testament within Christianity.

Anti-semitism is a curse. As it is said, “first they came for the Jews”. Jews are the outsiders who often become the standard around which the oppression of others takes place.

Still the point made in the video is valid and important. And it is clear he has only jumped into this issue because he can see how close the latest version of the oldest hatred has entered into his own life just as it is entering into the lives of all Jews everywhere today.

The heading is what I thought of when I read this article: Red Lines by Michael Anton. This is the para that sets if off:

To recap briefly (but read the whole thing!), the book explains how every prominent and powerful American institution, including the federal government, has been taken over by a hostile elite who use their vast powers to attack, despoil, and insult about half the nation. In the sixth chapter (excerpted here), I outline what I think America will look like if the present ruling class refuses to moderate, cannot be forced to share power, and has the wherewithal to keep its regime going. In the seventh chapter, I sketch several possibilities—from secession to Caesarism to collapse—that might result if it turns out that our overlords are a lot less competent than they think. And in the final chapter (excerpted here), I offer policy and other ideas that might enable America to avoid those fates.

Every forecast is wrong, every prediction is false almost before it’s made. No one is ever in control. Things will fall apart before any kind of order is returned. Not just now, but always.