Leaks Suggest Durham Probe Is Making Progress

Recent media reports point obliquely to significant developments in John Durham’s special counsel investigation. He’s using a grand jury to subpoena documents and witness testimony regarding the FBI’s illegal spying operation against Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. And now stories in the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post say Durham may be looking to make criminal charges against “lower-level FBI agents” as well as outside sources who passed false information to federal law enforcement.

If that’s accurate, the latter category could include political operatives, foreign spies, big-name Beltway lawyers, journalists, and computer experts. But current and former government officials say the reports seem intended to shape the narrative on behalf of those Durham may really have in his crosshairs—senior FBI officials, including former Acting Director Andrew McCabe.

Since the November election, I’ve expressed skepticism regarding Durham’s investigation. Without Durham’s former boss Attorney General William Barr holding anyone accountable before the 2020 vote, there was nothing stopping the FBI and other federal agencies from continuing to interfere in elections on behalf of their preferred candidates. There was also nothing ensuring that Durham would be allowed to continue his probe with a Trump loss.

With Durham now working under the auspices of Joe Biden’s Justice Department, his ability to make his findings public, never mind bring charges, might be limited. According to the reports, Durham’s witnesses want Attorney General Merrick Garland to shut him down. And the president likely concurs.

Biden was the number two official in an administration that spied on a presidential campaign and then Trump’s transition team. He offered advice on how to frame Trump’s national security adviser Gen. Michael Flynn. Even a man in cognitive decline as Biden appears to be would see that allowing his co-conspirators to be exposed to legal risk might tempt them to detail his role in full.

And if he crosses the FBI, the president isn’t the only Biden family member who might regret it. Recent reports show that the Bureau protected his son Hunter by burying evidence not only of his financial relationships with corrupt foreign officials, but also of a possible blackmail scheme targeting him with the purpose of compromising US national security. Should Biden fail to protect the FBI from Durham, the FBI might stop shielding his son from the law.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/leaks-suggest-durham-probe-making-progress

CDC Buries Study Finding That Student Masking Has 'No Statistically Significant Benefit'

Less than three months ago, the Centers for Disease Control published a mostly-ignored, large-scale study of Covid-19 transmission in US schools which concluded that while masking then-unvaccinated teachers and improving ventilation was associated with lower levels of virus transmission in schools - social distancing, classroom barriers, HEPA filters, and forcing students to wear masks did not result in a statistically significant benefit.

A few major news outlets covered its release by briefly reiterating the study’s summary: that masking then-unvaccinated teachers and improving ventilation with more fresh air were associated with a lower incidence of the virus in schools. Those are common-sense measures, and the fact that they seem to work is reassuring but not surprising. Other findings of equal importance in the study, however, were absent from the summary and not widely reported. These findings cast doubt on the impact of many of the most common mitigation measures in American schools. Distancing, hybrid models, classroom barriers, HEPA filters, and, most notably, requiring student masking were each found to not have a statistically significant benefit. In other words, these measures could not be said to be effective. -NYMag

According to the report, scientists believe that the CDC's decision to intentionally omit the findings on student masking from a summary of the study amounts to "file drawering" the findings - the practice of burying studies that don't have statistically significant results.

"That a masking requirement of students failed to show independent benefit is a finding of consequence and great interest," according to Vinay Prasad, an associate professor in University of California, San Francisco’s Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics. "It should have been included in the summary."

Epidemiologist Tracy Hoeg, author of a different CDC study on Covid-19 transmission in schools said that "The summary gives the impression that only masking of staff was studied," adding "when in reality there was this additional important detection about a student-masking requirement not having a statistical impact."

As Twitchy notes, NYMag's David Zweig questioned why the US is requiring masks when other countries don't.

https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/cdc-buries-study-showing-student-masking-has-no-statistically-significant-benefit

Mask Use and Ventilation Improvements to Reduce COVID-19 Incidence in Elementary Schools — Georgia, November 16–December 11, 2020

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7021e1.htm?

Cuomo Declares State of Emergency for Parts of New York Ahead of Hurricane Henri

NEW YORK—New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has issued a state of emergency for parts of the state, imploring those in New York to take warnings seriously ahead of Hurricane Henri.

He told people to stock up and move to higher ground today, despite the lack of buildup because of the storm’s shifting track.

Service on some branches of the Long Island Rail Road, a major commuter rail system, will be suspended at midnight in eastern Long Island.

Cuomo also warned that heavy rains were expected to create problems far up into the Hudson River Valley.

The governor, who will leave office in two days following a sexual harassment scandal, urged people not to make bad choices and put themselves in places where they needed to be rescued.

The newly upgraded Hurricane Henri closed in on the Northeast.

The storm’s latest track put it on course to collide Sunday with a long stretch of coastline, with hurricane warnings extending from near the old whaling port of New Bedford, Massachusetts, across the luxurious oceanfront estates of New York’s Hamptons, to the summer getaway of Fire Island.

Intense winds and potentially dangerous tidal surges were expected as far east as Cape Cod and as far west as the New Jersey shore, and utilities warned ensuing power outages could last a week or even more.

Henri was veering a bit further west than originally expected, and if that track holds, it would have eastern Long Island in its bull’s-eye rather than New England, which hasn’t taken a direct hit from a hurricane since the deadly Hurricane Bob in 1991.

New York hasn’t had a direct hit from a powerful cyclone since Superstorm Sandy wreaked havoc in 2012. Some of the most important repairs from that storm have been completed, but many projects designed to protect against future storms remain unfinished.

https://www.ntd.com/cuomo-declares-state-of-emergency-for-parts-of-new-york-ahead-of-hurricane-henri_664392.html