UPDATED: Another Thing That Bill Barr Is Doing

Not long ago, in a comment, I listed a variety of things that AG Bill Barr has done or is in the process of doing. Things like,

Shutting down the Mueller Witchhunt,

Starting the Durham investigation,

Dismissing the Flynn Case (also addressing the Manafort sentencing),

Vastly increasing investigation and data collection on Leftist sponsored terror (this will take on enormous importance after the election),

Suing Yale for discrimination,

Suing Google for antitrust violations,

And etc.

Today AP reminded me of another important Barr initiative. And if Trump wins, as I expect, this is not going away, any more than any of these other initiatives will be going away. Here's the first part of the article:

Justice De­partment ramps up inquiry into NY care home deaths

BY ASSOCIATED PRESS NEW YORK STATE

PUBLISHED 6:15 PM ET OCT. 28, 2020

NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. Justice Department vastly expanded an inquiry Wednesday that could determine whether New York is undercounting coronavirus deaths among nursing home residents, demanding detailed data from hundreds of private facilities.

The demand ratchets up pressure on Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo after months of bipartisan criticism that the state’s official tally of 6,722 dead at long-term care facilities is probably off by thousands. That's because New York, unlike nearly every other state, counts only residents who died on a nursing home’s property and not those who died after being taken to a hospital.

Cuomo's administration has repeatedly refused to release such nursing home data to lawmakers and the media, including a public-records request from The Associated Press dating back to May.

His spokesman, Rich Azzopardi, called the Justice Department's latest request just days before the presidential election a politically motivated “sham” and a “scummy abuse of power.”

An AP analysis in August found New York is probably undercounting nursing home deaths by thousands, noting that a separate federal count since May that included resident deaths in hospitals was 65 percent higher than the comparable state count.

Cuomo, who has generally been praised for flattening the curve in a state hit with a nation-topping 33,400 deaths, has nonetheless faced unrelenting criticism over his handling of nursing homes, particularly a controversial March 25 order that sent thousands of recovering COVID-19 patients from hospitals into nursing homes at the height of the pandemic.

New York's method of counting allows Cuomo to boast that his state has a lower percentage of nursing home deaths compared to other states.

The point, as always, is that Barr has been extraordinarily active on many fronts, all of which are important and well chosen for attention but most of which get little day to day attention. Assuming Trump wins, the dam breaks:

🚨🚨🚨 "...there will be indictments after the election. I just broke news on your show." — @MariaBartiromo

Order her new book here: https://t.co/IJaGMofBYQ pic.twitter.com/AZ4VNkkxdx

— Howie Carr (@HowieCarrShow) October 28, 2020

In other Covid! Covid! Covid! news. Yes, the scare that's supposed to keep you home and stop you from voting for Trump ...

News from Wisconsin. I read a doctor saying they're feeling a lot of pressure in hospitals from all the Covid "cases." As if in a normal season hospitals aren't stressed by flu patients. Except this year--for reasons nobody quite understands--flu cases, i.e., real infections, are extraordinarily low. That leaves hospitals freer to deal with Covid patients. 

But what's the real bottom line? Deaths. And here's the reality on the ground in Wisconsin's biggest city:

Current COVID-19 Surge in Milwaukee County(WI) Killing Only Elderly, Very Sick (Only 3 0f 51 without health problems)

WISN Talkradio ^ | 10/.287/2020 | Dan O'Donnell

A closer look at the past month of COVID-19 deaths from the Milwaukee County Medical Examiner's Office reveals that the virus is killing only elderly people and/or people with serious underlying health conditions.

The Milwaukee County Medical Examiner's Office is one of the only in Wisconsin (and perhaps the only) that maintains a comprehensive, publicly available list of the county's deaths and "The Dan O'Donnell Show" used it to create a composite of the "average" COVID-19 death during Wisconsin's current October surge in cases. The average person who died with COVID-19 in October is 75.9 years old with 2.39 comorbidities listed as a contributing cause of death.

From October 1st through 12:00 pm October 28th, the Medical Examiner's Office identified 51 deaths for which "Complications of infection with novel Coronavirus (COVID-19)" is listed either as "Cause A" or "Cause B." All but two of the 51 people who died with COVID-19 in the past month had serious underlying health conditions that ranged from heart failure to cancer to rejection of organ transplants. One patient did not have a cause of death listed but was included in the Medical Examiner's Office list of those who died with COVID-19.

36 of the 51 people (70.5%) who died were over the age of 70. 22 of the 51 (43.1%) were over the age of 80. Eight of the 51 (15.6%) were over the age of 90. Just seven of the 51 (13.7%) were under the age of 60. The average age of the 51 people who died with COVID-19 during the current October surge in cases in Wisconsin was 75.9.

No one under the age of 40 has died in the past month, and the only two people under the age of 50 included a 41 year-old woman who had hypertension and diabetes and whose body rejected both kidney and pancreas transplants.

40 of the 51 victims (78.4%) had some form of heart disease--which includes such serious ailments as hypertensive and atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, cardiomyopathy, atrial fibrillation, and hypertension. 10 of the 51 (19.6%) had chronic congestive heart failure. 17 of the 51 (33.3%) had diabetes. 11 of the 51 victims (21.5%) suffered from renal failure. Four of the 51 (13.7%) had cancer. Four of the 51 (7.8%) had Alzheimer's Disease or dementia.

48 of the 51 people who died with COVID-19 over the past month (94.1%) had at least one co-morbidity listed as either the "A" or "B" cause of death. One of those was a 72 year-old woman who died at 11:30 am on October 28th, indicating that underlying conditions might not have been known when this article was published.

The conclusion is inescapable: During the current surge in COVID-19 in Wisconsin, the virus is--in Milwaukee County, at least--almost exclusively killing the elderly and the very sick.

 

Evidence that the public is catching on to this reality--and what it should mean for their lives--comes from just south of the Cheddar Wall, in Illinois. Illinois' obese governor, Pritzker of the Pritzker family that funded Obama's rise, delights in daily pontificating about Trump causing Covid, or something like that. Now he's ordering drastic lockdown measures because of the surge in "cases", i.e., positive tests results.

This has resulted in immediate pushback. The Illinois High School Association (IHSA), which largely controls high school has defied Pritzker and will start the basketball season on schedule. Chicago's mayor asked Pritzker to "reconsider" (he refused) his orders, but backed down. However, multiple large suburbs (including Orland Park and Aurora) are flatly stating that they will "not enforce" the orders.

Meanwhile, parent led protests are spreading in the Chicago suburbs. Parents by large margins (typically exceeding 70%) are demanding that schools reopen full time, showing up at school board meetings and making their voices heard.

H/T Mike Sylwester, an excellent and very relevant (to this post) Youtube video--only about 15 minutes. It focuses on Ireland and the UK--the narrator is Irish--but the principles are broadly applicable: