Short and sweet!

February 23, 2023

          Tonight, I have about 15 minutes to write and publish the newsletter before packing and preparing for a 5:00 AM wake-up call, so I will outline the stories I would have discussed if I had more time. I plan to catch up with an extra edition of the newsletter over the weekend.

“Not too soon.”

          After mass shootings, Republicans routinely claim it is “too soon” to politicize the tragedy by assigning blame and discussing solutions. Republicans have abandoned the “It’s too soon” rule in the Ohio derailment disaster. They are calling for Pete Buttigieg’s resignation, faulting the federal response in a still unfolding remediation effort, and blaming Biden for not (yet) visiting East Palestine, Ohio. The two topics that Republicans are NOT talking about are (a) the cause(s) of the derailment and (b) new regulations / legislation to avoid future disasters. Hypocrites!

Special counsel issues subpoenas to Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump.

          Jack Smith issued subpoenas for Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner to testify before the grand jury investigating the January 6^th insurrection and attempted coup.

          It’s about time!

          Kudos to Jack Smith, but he is playing catch-up, big time! Ugh.

Arizona Attorney General concealed results of investigation regarding voter fraud.

          Former Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich is an election denier and “Big Lie” promoter. After the 2020 election, he investigated alleged voter fraud in Arizona. He learned there was none. Rather than assuring Arizonans that their election system was secure and that their elections were fair, he concealed those facts. At the same time, Brnovich was a lead plaintiff in a suit that further eroded the Voting Rights Act of 1964.

          Joyce Vance explains Brnovich’s duplicity and voter suppression tactics in her excellent post in Civil Discourse, Tell Us Who You Are, Mark Brnovich. Vance’s post is important and informative. I urge you to read Vance’s post and—if you aren’t already a subscriber to Vance’s Civil Discourse—that you subscribe to her Substack blog, here: Civil Discourse with Joyce Vance.

More on the Cochrane metadata study of masks.

          From Vox: The new scientific review on masks and Covid isn’t what you think. Per Vox:

The [Cochrane] review includes 78 studies. Only six were actually conducted during the Covid-19 pandemic, so the bulk of the evidence the Cochrane team took into account wasn’t able to tell us much about what was specifically happening during the worst pandemic in a century.

Instead, most of them looked at flu transmission in normal conditions, and many of them were about other interventions like hand-washing. Only two of the studies are about Covid and masking in particular.

Furthermore, neither of those studies looked directly at whether people wear masks, but instead at whether people were encouraged or told to wear masks by researchers. If telling people to wear masks doesn’t lead to reduced infections, it may be because masks just don’t work, or it could be because people don’t wear masks when they’re told, or aren’t wearing them correctly.

See also, Dr. Steven Novella, Science Based Medicine, Masks Revisited. Regarding the Cochrane metadata study, Dr. Novella writes:

[T] he biggest error I see in reporting this study is the conclusion that it shows that “mask mandates don’t work”, when that was not even studied. Studies looking specifically at mask mandates show that they do work. The most recent and largest study looking at this concludes:

“Our estimates imply that the mean observed level of mask wearing corresponds to a 19% decrease in the reproduction number R. We also assess the robustness of our results in 60 tests spanning 20 sensitivity analyses. In light of these results, policy makers can effectively reduce transmission by intervening to increase mask wearing.”

Concluding Thoughts.

          What’s not to like about a dogsled ride?

Talk to you tomorrow!