Here is the link for the guidelines: Guidelines for Opening Up America Again
President Trump has unveiled Guidelines for Opening Up America Again, a three-phased approach based on the advice of public health experts. These steps will help state and local officials when reopening their economies, getting people back to work, and continuing to protect American lives.
A new Department of Homeland Security study shows that heat, humidity, and sunlight could help to kill the coronavirus, offering a potential literal ray of hope against the pandemic as summer nears.
“Our most striking observation to date is the powerful effect that solar light appears to have on killing the virus both [on] surfaces and in the air,” Bill Bryan, the head of the DHS science and technology directorate, said Thursday at the White House press briefing. “We’ve seen a similar effect with both temperature and humidity as well where increasing the temperature or humidity or both is generally less favorable to the virus.”
Bryan pointed to displayed charts that showed on surfaces with temperature between 70-75 degrees Fahrenheit, and 20% humidity, the half-life of the coronavirus was 18 hours.
When humidity was cranked up to 80%, the half-life dropped to six hours. With temperature at 95 degrees and 80% humidity, the half-life of the virus was only one hour. It even worked with no sunlight.
In these trying times, we must turn to the greatest document in the history of the world to promise freedom and opportunity to its citizens for guidance. Find out more now >>
>>> When can America reopen? The National Coronavirus Recovery Commission, a project of The Heritage Foundation, is gathering America’s top thinkers together to figure that out. Learn more here.
Bryan said the test was done on nonporous surfaces such as door handles and stainless steel.
“As the temperature increases, as the humidity increases, with no sun involved, you can see how drastically that half-life goes down on that virus,” Bryan said. “The virus is dying at a much more rapid pace just from exposure to higher temperatures and just from exposure to humidity.”
Bryan stressed that this is not a reason to stop social distancing in summer months, and that continued testing will be done.
President Donald Trump was enthusiastic that outdoors might be preferred to indoors.
“I think a lot of people are going to go outside all of a sudden. People that didn’t want to go outside, they’ll be going,” Trump said.
Even before Bryan’s presentation, Vice President Mike Pence said the White House coronavirus task force looked forward to early summer.
“Our task force actually believes, Mr. President, that if we continue these mitigation efforts in the days ahead as states implement their policies, including phased reopenings that will preserve those gains, we do believe that by early summer we can be in a much better place as a nation with much of this coronavirus pandemic behind us,” Pence said.
Pence said that 16 states have released formal reopening plans—13 of those since the Trump administration issued its three-phase “Opening up America” guidelines for governors last week.
“To your point, Mr. President, states are beginning to make those plans,” Pence said. “We are encouraged to see so many states embrace the phased approach to reopen their economies.”
However, in response to a question, Trump again expressed his anger with Georgia’s Republican Gov. Brian Kemp for allowing spas, salons, tattoo parlors, and other similar businesses where germs can easily spread to reopen.
“I want the states to open more than he does,” Trump said, adding, “I wasn’t happy with it and I wasn’t happy with Brian Kemp. I wasn’t at all happy, and I could have done something about it if I wanted to, but I’m saying let the governors do it. But I wasn’t happy with Brian Kemp.”
On another front, many hospitals across the country feeling financial strain from the COVID-19 virus heard welcome news.
“Given the unique burden on hospitals, we are now encouraging states to restart elective surgeries wherever possible, either statewide or on a county-by-county basis,” Pence said. “We recognize the role elective surgeries play in finances for local hospitals. We will be working with states to enable that.”
COLUMN BY
Fred Lucas is the White House correspondent for The Daily Signal and co-host of “The Right Side of History” podcast. Lucas is also the author of “Tainted by Suspicion: The Secret Deals and Electoral Chaos of Disputed Presidential Elections.” Send an email to Fred. Twitter: @FredLucasWH.
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This is a critical year in the history of our country. With the country polarized and divided on a number of issues and with roughly half of the country clamoring for increased government control—over health care, socialism, increased regulations, and open borders—we must turn to America’s founding for the answers on how best to proceed into the future.
The Heritage Foundation has compiled input from more than 100 constitutional scholars and legal experts into the country’s most thorough and compelling review of the freedoms promised to us within the United States Constitution into a free digital guide called Heritage’s Guide to the Constitution.
They’re making this guide available to all readers of The Daily Signal for free today!
EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.
Suppose an online technology platform’s lack of safety features and irresponsible policies allowed a sexual predator to have access to your child in order to sexually abuse and exploit them. In this tragic scenario, you can’t bring a civil lawsuit against that online technology platform because Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act prevents them from being held liable in any way.
It’s why a company like Pornhub is protected from being hit by a civil lawsuit after it came to light that dozens of videos featuring the rape of a 15-year-old sex trafficking victim were being hosted publicly on its site. It’s why companies like Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok (among others) aren’t being slammed with civil lawsuits even though sexual predators are able to get direct access to minors via technology platforms that lack appropriate safety features. It’s why Facebook isn’t concerned about legal repercussions stemming from the fact that a National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) investigation found 9x more instances of child sexual exploitation on its platform than Facebook itself reported finding.
The National Center on Sexual Exploitation is continuing our policy work on these issues, calling for Congress and local governments to include online safety in any legislation and announcements during this difficult period.
We’ve endorsed and actually helped to shape the EARN IT bill in the U.S. Congress that has great potential to provide online safety for children like Leo.
Because of the carte blanche legal immunity that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act currently grants, technology companies have no legal incentive to prevent predators from grooming, recruiting, and trafficking children online. As a result, countless children have fallen victim to child abusers on online platforms with seemingly innocent intentions, like Leo and his wish to chat with friends while playing games online.
The EARN IT Act provides crucial incentives to technology companies by making their current gift of immunity conditional based on a demonstration that they are actively working to prevent online sexual exploitation of minors AND child sexual abuse material. This is a game-changer!
Congress has an overriding interest in protecting the safety of citizens from profound harm and EARN IT offers that much-needed protection in the digital space.
We’re working hard to make sure Congress hears the research that shows the harm, listens to the stories of the children harmed, and acts on this critical piece of legislation soon.
This effort cannot happen without your help. Right now, we’re mobilizing our team, meeting remotely with key officials, and campaigning hard for the EARN IT bill to move forward.
Will you help us in this important effort with a tax-deductible donation of $50, $100, or $500? When you do your gift will be matched dollar for dollar by a generous anonymous donor and will ensure that Congress hears your voice and passes this incredibly important legislation to protect the innocent.
EARN IT has the capability to protect and prevent the online exploitation that is happening every day because it requires the tech companies to put children first! This is especially critical in this time of increased online activity by children across the world.
We know you are passionate about helping keep children safe from the online dangers, especially during this time of increased online activity. You can make a difference today in the lives of our children!
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Let’s see, where do I begin this one? Wow! I still cannot believe what transpired at the Planned Parenthood in Boca Raton, Florida on April 16, especially when I am the one who called Palm Beach Sheriff”s Office the day before and told them exactly what I planned on doing that morning (Thursday). They specifically told me what to do and we all agreed that it was a terrific Game Plan. So, I thought.
To really see what transpired that morning at the Boca Raton Planned Parenthood clinic, you have to watch the video:
I tried to narrate what I was going to do at this abortion clinic; took some photos and video footage of what I could and now allow you all to see for yourself just how our taxpayer dollars are working during this pandemic. Once again, I went to this PP as the President of the P.B.C. Right to Life League and as the Chairman of “Pro-Lifers 4 Trump” as Boca Raton is part of my jurisdiction and part of our beloved county. With the abortion numbers going up in PB County for the first time in my 7 years as the President of P.B.C. Right to Life League (from 5,033 in 2018 to 5,483 in 2019), I am beyond furious for that increase as every single life in our county matters and losing 450 more lives in one year does not sit well with this Christian on a Mission. ALL LIVES MATTER, folks, and many of them are being lost at this PP in Boca Raton, where their business has gone up considerably during this deadly pandemic. In essence, if this country really wanted to be honest with its citizens, they should include all babies killed in abortion clinics during this pandemic as part of their stats – only because the demonic Planned Parenthood have been targeting the most vulnerable during this pandemic (young, pregnant women like Jessica), telling them that they need to get rid of their baby because their immune system is down and they are way more vulnerable to catching the coronavirus. Watch and see how many records PP breaks during this deadly pandemic.
Thursday’s Mission: To go to the P. Parenthood in Boca; pray before I go in; and deliver a copy of Governor DeSantis’ Executive Order 20-72 to the manager on duty at this demonic dungeon as if I was “serving them”. Heck, nobody else will, so I might as well do it. Then, I was going to let the manager read the Executive Order and ask him or her why they are defying the governor’s orders and are still open for business where this Executive Order clearly states that they need to cease and desist during this pandemic,
as everybody in this country knows that “ABORTION IS A NON-ESSENTIAL, ELECTIVE PROCEDURE”. End of story.
But, that’s when things got a little funny as dealing with these deputies was very different than dealing with Sergeant Grisell Liriano, the sergeant in charge at March 21st’s Protest at this same abortion clinic. During that protest, things went smoother than smooth! And, at that Protest, we had 30 Pro-Lifers on hand and everything went very well. Our Team even saved a baby! Today, it was just me, all by myself, and I was not carrying a gun or protective gear – just a document and my rosary beads in my front pocket.
It’s a shame that I was not able to video-tape this entire encounter as I wish I could have caught some of our more intense conversation as the shorter, Latino deputy thought he was The Boss and wanted to show off in front of his peers. I did not appreciate his attitude towards me at all. Very unprofessional…And, to top things off, when I asked the two deputies who were addressing me in front of the PP to please take a minute to look at Governor DeSantis’ Executive Order 20-72, they both looked at me in a most disrespectful manner refused to take the copy from me. I then placed the Order on the grass in front of them by their feet and the little Latino deputy kicked the three sheets in the air that were stapled together, tearing the top sheet. That was as disrespectful as it gets and a slap in the face to our Governor Ron DeSantis.
Everybody should know by now how hard I have been fighting to close all abortion clinics in the state of Florida!
I have never worked this hard in my life as this was the “window of opportunity” that we Pro-Lifers were afforded by GOD and as far as I can see, we missed that golden opportunity mainly because of the State Leaders – our Elected Officials – that you and I put into office. From Governor DeSantis to Attorney General Ashley Moody to RPOF Gutless Gruters to the leaders of A.H.C.A. – not one of them has had the guts and integrity to listen to their constituents (which includes all of you), to even entertain our requests. Hell, not one of them has the guts to enforce Executive Order 20-72 – and that was signed in as law by our own governor!! Go figure!
When our own governor and our own attorney general don’t enforce their own Executive Orders and simply pass the buck to Mary Mayhew and Stefan Grow (A.H.C.A.) – then, we know that they have fooled all of us and that Re-election is their main mission! Once again, I am just stating the facts and telling the Truth and NOT attacking these State Leaders. They should be doing their jobs.
Please take 6 minutes to watch this bold video [above] that will show you exactly how our tax dollars are being spent and what happens when Governor Ron DeSantis’ Executive orders are not being enforced. There were four Palm Beach County Sheriff deputies involved in this encounter. If they would have had a bit more compassion against the killing of unborn babies and would have listened to me right from the beginning, we might have been able to get something done at this Planned Parenthood in Boca Raton. As the President of the P.B.C. Right to Life League, I was simply there to deliver Governor Ron DeSantis’ Executive Order 20-72 while protecting my most vulnerable constituents – The Unborn – only because Planned Parenthood is killing them during this deadly pandemic. You talk about deadly.
The first Planned Parenthood that I hit was the one in Boca Raton, where his team of “Pro-Lifers 4 Trump” held a Protest on March 21st and saved a Precious Baby. Thanks be to God…Thanks be to Jessica. I’d rather die from the Coronavirus from hugging a 19-year old black girl who is about to kill her baby than stay home playing it safe and watching the news telling us how we’re going die.
Protect the unborn at all costs and at all times and God will reward you with a “precious save!” We met at the Planned Parenthood in Boca Raton on March 21st, 2020. I spoke to Jessica in the parking lot, the “Visiting Angels” prayed over her and she decided to keep her baby. She is now living in Tallahassee, is going back to school and is going to church every Sunday.
I sent Jessica this video of me at Planned Parenthood yesterday evening via text message and here is how she responded:
Yessss Willy! I finish watch the video and I must say you’re very brave and I’m proud of you. Because you was there by yourself knew your right stand up for what’s right in great manners. If law enforcement could at least more open minded to read the papers they could prevent that young lady from entering instead help The PP business remain open. Amen!
️ the time will come for all abortion clinics to be shut down for good.
Protect the unborn at all costs and at all times and God will reward you with a “precious save!”
RELATED VIDEO: Bold Christian on a Mission visits another Planned Parenthood!
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World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, under fire for defending China’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, has a similar history of covering for a government that repeatedly denied cholera outbreaks.
“A leading candidate to head the World Health Organization was accused this week of covering up three cholera epidemics in his home country, Ethiopia, when he was health minister…” the New York Times reported.
The Times reported that Tedros led Ethiopia’s public health at a time when it declared itself free of cholera for a decade by diagnosing patients with the disease as having “acute watery diarrhea” instead.
“In an interview, Dr. Tedros, who was Ethiopia’s health minister from 2005 to 2012 and remains highly regarded for his accomplishments then, denied covering up cholera,” the New York Times reported. “Outbreaks occurring in 2006, 2009 and 2011, he said, were only ‘acute watery diarrhea’ in remote areas where laboratory testing ‘is difficult.’ That is what the Ethiopian government said then and is saying now about an outbreak that began in January.”
6 Known Connections
In 2017, Tedros ran for the post of Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), a specialized agency of the United Nations. But at that same time, a report appeared in the Ethiopian News & Views bulletin stating that he stood accused of complicity in the commission of “crimes against humanity.” That charge was related not only to the three aforementioned cholera coverups, but also to allegations surrounding Tedros’s longstanding political affiliation with the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), an organization that: (a) grew out of the Marxist-Leninist League of Tigray (MLLT); (b) was responsible for horrific atrocities in Ethiopia — particularly targeting the Amhara ethnic group in the country’s northwest region; and (c) had become Ethiopia’s principal ruling party. In the 1990s, the U.S. government listed TPLF as a terrorist group. The Global Terror Database continues to list it as such, given the organization’s ongoing commission of armed attacks in rural areas. Meanwhile, the aforementioned Amhara Professionals Union has issued many accusations of systematic discrimination and human-rights abuses perpetrated by TPLF.
To learn more about Tedros, click here.
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“A wise and frugal government… shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government.” – Thomas Jefferson
“What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated.” – Thomas Paine
“As the happiness of the people is the sole end of government, so the consent of the people is the only foundation of it, in reason, morality, and the natural fitness of things.” – John Adams
It’s time for every state to stand up and say, “Enough! Open us up! Back to work! The whole danged thing was a trial balloon! America’s citizens have grown tired of being denied their civil liberties and having our economy ruined, all to destroy President Trump.
I’ve come to the conclusion that the majority of this pandemic was a giant hoax perpetrated by Drs. Fauci/Birx, the NIH, WHO, China and the Dems. Remember when Clinton was campaigning for a second term? Remember that it was Billy boy who brought China into the WTO and gave them “Most Favored Nation?” Well, the Chinese regime liked old Bill, so Al Gore called them up and said they needed bucks for Bill’s second campaign, and it only cost us some military secrets.
I believe the Dems had a chat with Xi Jinping and told him what they needed to oust Trump from office, knowing China would agree. It was Dr. Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) who gave the Wuhan Lab a $3.7 million grant to continue the study of the bat virus since America had a moratorium on this type of research.
The virus shutdown of America’s economy was a test to see if American citizens were dumbed down enough to fall for it and allow their civil liberties to be suspended. They gave us depression era unemployment and destroyed more than 30% of small businesses. And all they had to do was use the fear factor, which we all know is not from God.
Thanks to VP Pence’s chosen “experts,” we’ve been purposely lied to, and ruined and the more information we find out, the more we know America’s economy never should have been shut down.
Finally, some of our state citizens have gotten ticked off enough to march against their governors’ unconstitutional lockdowns and I say, “About bloody damned time!”
After Alex Azar was sidelined, President Trump’s second choice to head the Coronavirus Task Force was establishment globalist Vice President Mike Pence. Trump knew it was a make or break job, and how has that worked out for us?
Pence brought in the Bill Gates/Rockefeller WHO team of Deborah Birx and Anthony Fauci. Their false prognostication models were used to purposely lockdown and destroy America’s economy. Why? Because the Democrats knew the one thing that would guarantee Trump’s second term was his booming economy. Oh yes, this was planned. Bill Gates forecast a pandemic in 2015, and Anthony Fauci forecast a pandemic for President Trump in January of 2017 at Georgetown University. It was set in motion.
Former Congressman Henry Waxman, Fauci, Elton John and Pelosi
Both Fauci and Birx urged America to follow communist Red China’s example of shutting down our entire economy. In contrast to most countries, states, and cities globally, Sweden has kept most businesses open and placed few restrictions on daily life, relying on citizens to choose to socially distance. We should have followed Sweden who retained their work force and life styles while sheltering their senior citizens and those with compromised immune systems.
Dr. Fauci has been the leading proponent in unnecessarily quarantining all Americans in their homes, rather than simply focusing on those with comprised immune systems.
MIT scientist and biological engineer, Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai crushes Dr. Fauci, exposes Dr. Birx, the Clintons, Bill Gates and Dr. Tedros’ World Health Organization (WHO) in this 15 minute video.
In an open letter to President Trump, Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai, who holds a PhD from MIT in biological engineering, systems biology, wrote, The current trajectory of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s public “health” policy will result in the short- and long-term destruction of our citizen’s immune health as well as our nation’s economic health – perhaps a conscious and intended goal. Dr. Fauci’s policy, at best, is based on a 1950s outdated “one-size-fits-all,” non-personalized approach to medicine and public health; at worst is derived from a “fake science” understanding of the immune system.
Former U.S. Congressman Dr. Ron Paul has also called for Fauci to be fired. On the April 9, 2020 episode of the Ron Paul Liberty Report, Dr. Paul said, Of course, a significant move would be to get rid of Fauci. He should be fired, but if you don’t do it in the literal sense the people have to fire him. They have to fire him by saying, “He’s a fraud!” He doesn’t give us any good information.
Dr. Rashid A. Buttar goes even further and blames Dr. Anthony Fauci for the pandemic. Why? Dr. Buttar tells that this was a chimeric version virus, something that was developed here in the United States in 2015 and was published in Nature Magazine. The virus was originally developed at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and that’s where all the initial studies were done. They were doing chimeric research despite a moratorium by the U.S. government preventing it.
Our Government said there was no reason for this kind of research because there was a potential for it to cause harm and a pandemic, and that’s why the government passed a moratorium in 2014. Dr. Buttar says that Fauci basically broke the law, that he went against a government moratorium, he used taxpayer money through his National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID) division of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and funded research that led to Covid-19, and then he was documented at Georgetown University in 2017 saying that President Trump will face a pandemic.
Chimeric research means they are taking a naturally occurring virus and mutating it, genetically modifying it, and changing the configuration morphologically to gain function. Dr. Buttar says it’s called a “Gain of Function” study. That means that they’re taking something that may already have the potential to cause harm and making it more harmful, more virulent and more resistant. Dr. Buttar found that they had taken a strain of the coronavirus and added the backbone of the SARS virus and then inserted HIV and MERS orthologs on top of it to make a more detrimental virus. (Orthologs are genes in different species that evolved from a common ancestral gene by speciation, and, in general, orthologs retain the same function during the course of evolution.)
This research was outsourced to the Wuhan lab in China to be continued since America had put a stop to it, and it was Anthony Fauci’s department in the NIH who gave the $3.7 million grant to Wuhan lab for more research. That study confirmed in 2018 that humans have died from coronavirus, but coronaviruses even include the common cold!
Watch the full Buttar interview.
CDC/WHO Models Dropped
President Trump and Surgeon General Jerome Adams have dropped the CDC and WHO models and are now working with numbers that are still inflated. Dr. Scott Jensen claims, “Right now, Medicare is determining that if you have a COVID-19 admission to the hospital you get $13,000. If that COVID-19 patient goes on a ventilator you get $39,000, three times as much. Nobody can tell me after 35 years in the world of medicine that sometimes those kinds of things don’t impact on what we do.” They’re cooking the books. Stay off ventilators…they’re killers!
The real numbers from Covid-19 still don’t equate with the seasonal flu. Sadly, Trump trusted his globalist VP to bring in specialists, and instead, he brought in enemies of the American people…enemies tied to WHO, China, Bill Gates, and the Clintons.
The U.S. State Department was worried about Wuhan’s bat virus laboratory two years ago and inadequate safety at the Wuhan Institute of Virology lab. They passed on information about scientists conducting risky research on coronavirus from bats…so why was nothing done? Because the goal of Bill Gates and our government is mandatory vaccines.
Thomas Jefferson said, “If people let the government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny.” President Jefferson’s prediction was spot on. Autism is now at high risk from vaccines. What was once one case in thousands, is now one in 59 nationally and one in 32 in the State of New Jersey. Bill Gates’s wants everyone to be inoculated with his vaccines. The Gates Foundation, the number two funder of WHO, set up and “partnered” with GAVI Vaccine Alliance, the number four WHO funder.
Gates is calling for a “digital certificate” to identify vaccine receivers. Since 2000, the Gates Foundation has given $4.8 billion to WHO research initiatives. Gates holds an extreme amount of influence over the research directives. This may be one of the many reasons for President Trump’s defunding of WHO.
Since at least 2015, Bill Gates has spoken in public about a coming epidemic, and since the beginning of the coronavirus epidemic, he has been an enthusiast both for the development of vaccines and tracking tools needed to control quarantine violators.
In an interview with Fox News host Laura Ingraham, Attorney General William Barr declared that he is “concerned” about Bill Gates’ idea of “developing digital certificates that would certify that individuals, American citizens, have an immunity to this virus and potentially other viruses going forward to then facilitate travel and work and so forth.” Ingraham said, “Digitally tracking Americans’ every move has been a dream of the globalists for years. This health crisis is the perfect vehicle for them to push this.”
Fauci and Birx are both heavily tied to Bill Gates who is funding Coronavirus vaccine candidates that would compete with hydroxychloroquine, and Dr. Fauci’s Agency Is co-partnering on the project. Gates met with Fauci in 2017 “to discuss research opportunities in global health.” In 2010, Fauci was named to the Leadership Council of the “Decade of Vaccines” Collaboration, which WHO, Fauci’s agency NIAID of the NIH, UNICEF, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation convened.
In October 2019, Fauci announced a partnership between the Gates Foundation and Fauci’s Agency, in which the Gates Foundation pledged to spend $100 million.
They’re purposely ignoring a prominent Israeli mathematician, analyst and former general who claims simple statistical analysis demonstrates that the spread of COVID-19 peaks after about 40 days and declines to almost zero after 70 days — no matter where it strikes, and no matter what measures governments impose to try to thwart it.
In a recent interview, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claims that Bill Gates’ coronavirus vaccine will pay out billions in profits to Dr. Fauci’s agency, the National Institutes of Health, and Fauci is heavily campaigning for the vaccine.
Any rebound effect will be blamed on the president when the country is opened. You can’t legislate a virus out of existence. The only way to get rid of it is to shelter the people most compromised, then let it run its course throughout the population so that immunity is built. Only then does the virus die. This closure early on will make recovery that much longer…and we have VP Mike Pence and his choice of leftist globalists who hate Trump to thank for it.
The virus agenda plays right UN Agenda 2030 regarding population reduction and control, especially of the elderly who know true freedom in America.
Globalists are using COVID-19 to usher in UN Agenda 2030’s “Brave New World” ten years ahead of schedule. Their trial balloon via this Chinese bioweapon, originally started in the USA, has worked extraordinarily well with a majority of the population who has fallen prey to the epidemic of fear.
Like all the other attacks President Trump has suffered, he will weather this storm as well, and with God’s help, he will revive our purposely destroyed livelihoods.
The damage to America’s citizens from this shutdown now rivals the damage of the virus. Unemployment figures are now at 22 million people.
Unemployment updates confirm that over the last month, 22 million Americans have been laid off because of the shutdown. That’s nearly 15 percent of the nation’s workforce. It’s not just an economic fact. It’s a public health disaster. If the shutdown drags on in many states, as many public health experts recommend, it is almost certain to kill more Americans than coronavirus.
Job losses cause extreme suffering. Every one percent hike in the unemployment rate will likely produce a 3.3 percent increase in drug overdose deaths and a 0.99 percent increase in suicides according to data provided by the National Bureau of Economic Research and the medical journal Lancet. These facts are not models, but documented past experiences.
If America’s unemployment hits 32 percent, the death and despair rates of fatalities means approximately 77,000 Americans are likely to die from suicide and drug overdoses. That doesn’t count the predictable deaths from alcohol abuse from job loss. The death rate for the unemployed is 63 percent higher than for someone with a job.
Layoff-related deaths are likely to far outnumber the 60,400 coronavirus deaths predicted through August.
President Trump knows Mike Pence has very strong presidential aspirations and that Pence opened his own PAC practically the minute he took office.
The former governor wanted to run for President in 2016, but his desire for same was torpedoed with his appearance on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos regarding the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The LGBT crowd had seen discrimination within the bill, and there was a frenzy within the state. American Family Association had been in the state and inflamed the rhetoric by LGBT groups, Democrats and business leaders. Pence failed miserably in his explanation of the bill, and his presidential hopes were dashed. When Eli Lilly pharmaceuticals threatened to leave the state, Pence caved. He lost support from both left and right. His second term as Indiana Governor was teetering on massive failure.
President Trump keeps giving Pence top jobs, and Pence keeps failing. Pence took over the transition team when his friend, Chris Christie was ousted from that position. Everyone Pence brought in were friends from the Indiana and DC establishment and the only one left is Betsy DeVos, all the rest have been fired or resigned.
Betsy and Dick DeVos have funded Mike Pence from the inception of his political aims. What few people know is that the DeVos family is largely involved with Jeb Bush and his Chiefs for Change nationalized education standards called Common Core.
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States should “expeditiously” allow Americans to go back to work in certain areas during the COVID-19 pandemic while proceeding cautiously with targeted mitigation, caring for the vulnerable, and making realistic boosts in testing and contact tracing, The Heritage Foundation’s National Coronavirus Recovery Commission recommends.
The 17-member commission released a host of recommendations Monday designed to guide the private sector and governments at every level in reopening the coronavirus-battered economy.
The panel chaired by Heritage Foundation President Kay C. James also calls for the federal government to relax regulations to speed up innovation in health care.
The 17-page report, with 47 specific recommendations, emphasizes the need for President Donald Trump, Congress, and state and local leaders to exercise bipartisanship to restore public trust.
In these trying times, we must turn to the greatest document in the history of the world to promise freedom and opportunity to its citizens for guidance. Find out more now >>
The recommendations, approved after the group’s second meeting Monday, cover the first two phases of its five-phase plan for reopening America. These two phases are 1) “Return to a more normal level of business activity at the regional level based on scientific data” and 2) “Slow the spread of the coronavirus while expanding testing, reporting, and contact tracing.”
Still to come are the commission’s recommendations for three more phases: 3) “Continue to build the science,” 4) “Establish U.S. leadership in leading the free world in economic recovery,” and 5) “Reduce future risks of pandemics.”
“These initial recommendations for recovery provide governments at every level and the American people with a framework to slow the spread of the virus and to prudently begin getting back to work and to some sense of normal,” James said in a prepared statement.
“The commission is moving quickly to make sure our five-phase plan will save both lives and livelihoods,” she said. “I look forward to bringing these ideas to President Trump’s Great American Economic Revival effort and to the American people.”
The National Coronavirus Recovery Commission assembled by Heritage includes experts with experience in government, public health, disaster response and relief, academia and education, business, and religion.
Its suggestions come just days after the Trump administration released a three-phase approach for restarting the nation that will be decided on a state-by-state basis.
“Businesses in counties with low incidence should be allowed to reopen,” the report says, adding:
In some cases, it may be necessary to impose some limitations. For example, restaurants might have to limit the number of patrons they seat at any given time, and staff might be required to wear masks and gloves; grocers may continue to take steps to ensure that commonly touched items are kept clean. Healthy, low-risk workers should be allowed to return to their jobs immediately, and vulnerable populations (the elderly and people with underlying medical conditions) should remain at home.
The report says states should continue to take steps to protect those at special risk for contracting the disease, such as the elderly, those in nursing homes, and those with preexisting conditions.
Individuals who develop coronavirus symptoms “should immediately notify their employer, remove themselves from the workplace, and self-isolate,” the report states.
The recommendations call for “repeat testing” in 48 hours if a symptomatic person tests negative. The result would determine whether a person returns to work or follows the latest mitigation guidance.
“Governors should also focus on the remaining populations unable to return to work, including individuals who do not feel comfortable returning to work but otherwise can be offered an antibody and an antigen test and then offered the opportunity to return to work,” the report says.
The commission recommends that states gather better data through targeted testing and contact tracing, but specifies that governors should “reject calls for complete testing of every American prior to loosening social distancing.”
States instead should “embrace targeted testing,” the commission says, adding: “We must not keep the economy shut down until universal testing is available.”
The panel also calls for testing asymptomatic Americans and “random-sample” testing” at the state and county levels to “help to determine the prevalence of the virus.”
States should develop contact tracing with privacy protections, the commission recommends. Contact tracing means determining who someone diagnosed with COVID-19 came in contact with in recent days.
“As very large numbers of those who are infected are asymptomatic, they do not know they have the virus and they pose a major threat to older Americans, particularly those that have certain underlying health conditions, such as cardiac and respiratory problems, or who suffer from diabetes and obesity, the report says.
The commission calls for containing virus infection hot spots and those areas where evidence suggests a hot spot is likely to develop, through “targeted mitigation measures.” The panel says public officials “should consider taking more aggressive steps to combat the contagion in these areas.”
On the state level, the commission also recommends that:
The commission suggests that local public health officials and governments at the county and municipal levels work to protect vulnerable populations, limit the spread of the virus, and ensure the health care system responds effectively. It says local officials should leverage “unique relationships” with community leaders, businesses, nonprofits, and the faith community to address local needs.
At the federal level, the commission calls for Trump to “direct federal agencies to provide additional access to information on the spread of the novel coronavirus, including [computer] modeling and data.”
The commission suggests the president should direct agencies not to enforce a range of regulations against small businesses, which have been hit hard by the pandemic.
“The commission recommends that the president call for a review of all regulations that inhibit economic growth and extend the two-for-one and centralized review requirements to the independent regulatory commissions and agencies,” the report states.
The Trump administration early on implemented a policy of rescinding two government regulations for every new one imposed.
The Department of Health and Human Services should do more to increase innovation in medicine, the commission says. Other relevant agencies should make permanent all “interim guidance and interim final rules streamlining crisis response,” it adds.
The commission says the administration should reduce tariffs to reinvigorate supply chains:
Unsurprisingly, global trade will decrease because of the coronavirus. The World Trade Organization has forecasted global trade to fall between 13% and 32% in 2020. The removal of U.S. tariffs would benefit the economy not only in the long term but would also help speed up recovery.
The commission’s report makes numerous recommendations to Congress, focused on containing the virus and on targeted and temporary economic relief that avoids bailouts. These suggested congressional actions include:
Of civil liberties, the report says:
The erosion of civil liberties in the name of security is never temporary, as we have seen post–September 11. America must not devolve into a surveillance state; such power is always susceptible to abuse and is a distinct danger inherent in the deployment of contact-tracing technologies. Congress should both investigate privacy issues regarding utilization of IT [information technology] solutions and provide incentives for the development and deployment of those technologies consistent with American values and law.
The commission suggested that the private sector and civil society do more to inform and educate young people and minorities about COVID-19.
Faith-based groups and nongovernmental organizations should increase their focus on mental health, the commission says:
Community organizations are already noting mental health challenges for people experiencing social isolation and stress. Communities need programs designed to address mental health problems specifically related to the isolation of pandemic.
For the health care sector, the commission calls for ensuring that vulnerable populations don’t wind up at the bottom of the triage process.
“The elderly, medically fragile, and persons with significant disabilities should always be treated with dignity and a recognition of their inherent and equal worth as a human being, the report states.
When businesses open, it says, they should have a plan for doing so safely and responsibly:
Businesses have learned much about the value of work from home arrangements, and should continue to encourage and facilitate ‘work from home’ wherever possible. Where this is challenging, businesses should encourage and facilitate appropriate public health measures in the workplace, including as appropriate shift-work strategies and minimizing mass gatherings wherever possible.
COLUMN BY
Fred Lucas is the White House correspondent for The Daily Signal and co-host of “The Right Side of History” podcast. Lucas is also the author of “Tainted by Suspicion: The Secret Deals and Electoral Chaos of Disputed Presidential Elections.” Send an email to Fred. Twitter: @FredLucasWH.
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This is a critical year in the history of our country. With the country polarized and divided on a number of issues and with roughly half of the country clamoring for increased government control—over health care, socialism, increased regulations, and open borders—we must turn to America’s founding for the answers on how best to proceed into the future.
The Heritage Foundation has compiled input from more than 100 constitutional scholars and legal experts into the country’s most thorough and compelling review of the freedoms promised to us within the United States Constitution into a free digital guide called Heritage’s Guide to the Constitution.
They’re making this guide available to all readers of The Daily Signal for free today!
EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.
This video is brought to you by a Freedom Center-Glazov Gang collaboration on a new exclusive webinar series, Teach-Ins for the Twenty-First Century. Join us as some of the leading thinkers and pundits on the scene today discuss key issues related to the coronavirus pandemic and its ongoing implications, confronting the Left, the jihad terror threat, and much, much more. And make sure to ask your own questions of our experts.
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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.
Perhaps I am a bit edgy due to corona virus house arrest. Just kidding. However, this guy’s email really annoyed me.
“We’re in lock down and people are hurting wondering how they will pay their bills. All this was not happening 4 years ago. Over the last 4 years we have continued to see our freedoms erode. Yet, some keep hoping Trump will be our savior. What has he done over the last 4 years? All I’ve seen was more decay.”
Here is my response:
“Where do you think we would be had Hillary won? Trump has fought for our freedoms like no Republican since Reagan. He has Republicans, Democrats, never Trump conservatives and 99% of the media fighting against his America first agenda. I give the guy credit.”
Folks, I refuse to dump on the only guy with the guts to fight for us. Trump has accomplished an extraordinary long list of unprecedented achievements for We the People.
Corona virus placed Trump between a rock and a hard place. Upon learning about the corona virus, Trump immediately implemented a travel ban from China. Democrats and fake news media accused Trump of overreacting and racism.
Democrat and conservative media began reporting corona virus as the worst to hit the planet and we’re all gonna die. I stopped watching Tucker Carlson on Fox News because every evening his reporting about the virus became scarier and scarier. Media scared the crap out of Americans on both sides of the political aisle.
Some folks say Trump should not have gone along with Dr Anthony Fauci and other experts’ proven-false prediction of 2 million deaths. Trump could not challenge the “experts”. With nationwide fear so high, members of his base would have joined fake news media and Democrats in crucifying him. Therefore, I do not think Trump screwed up by appearing to listen to Dr Fauci. Trump did what he had to do. He did not willingly risk collapsing the remarkable economy he built via deregulation.
With the exception of Rush Limbaugh, pundits and politicians on both sides of the aisle were afraid to oppose the shutdown. Everyone surrendered to the narrative, “We can not sacrifice lives for money.” Was Trump suppose to stand out there all alone, appearing to endanger lives by refusing to support the shutdown? Fake news media would have eaten him alive with many of his supporters joining them.
Trump is a master deal maker with excellent instincts. He had to go along with the program until more Americans realized that the predictions of catastrophic high deaths was fake news. People realize that the so-called corona virus crisis is Democrats’ dream weapon to unconstitutionally control every aspect of our lives.
I am hearing tons of heartbreaking horror stories about the shutdown destroying lives. Cruelly, Democrats and fake news media are lovin’ it. They plan to blame Trump for the economic suffering to stop his reelection. In realty, their insidious fear-mongering pushed America into this self-induced mess.
A 106 year old woman recovered from corona. Ninety-eight percent of people who catch corona virus recover. Rush Limbaugh pointed out that in 2018, the normal flu season caused 810,000 to be hospitalized and 30 to 60,000 died. Hospitals were not overrun and we did not shutdown the country. We are nowhere near such numbers with corona virus.
Still, a lot of Americans remain petrified of corona and oppose Trump reopening America. At the same time, many Americans are fed up with governors’ draconian edicts.
The swiftly growing nationwide rebellion against the shutdown gave Trump ammo to be the adult in the room. Despite the fears of many, Trump announced “Opening Up America Again” beginning May 1st. Trump said some states will reopen before May 1st. Governors are empowered to tailor the reopening of their state. It is up to residents of each state to aggressively protest to rein in their power-obsessed governor.
Speaking of wacko power-obsessed governors, California Gov Gavin Newsom implemented an extreme lock-down for residents while tent city vagrants and illegals roam free. Newsom’s boot on the neck of residents contributed to creating mile long lines of cars to get to Second Harvest Food Bank. Meanwhile, Newsom proudly announced he will give $125 million in corona relief checks to illegal aliens.
Thomas Jefferson said, “The government you elect is the government you deserve.” How on earth did Gavin Newsom get elected? Californians should start saying no to Newsom’s insanity.
After Trump announced his plan to reopen America, CNN immediately began cranking up more corona virus fear to undermine reopening America. We all know that upon the first death after the reopen, Democrats and fake news media will call Trump a murderer, guilty of crimes against humanity. They’ll say ego-driven Trump selfishly sacrificed lives to save his economy. They will even find a way to absurdly throw racism into the mix.
Who in the political universe would be able to withstand such attacks other than our Superman president, Donald J. Trump? Trump’s leadership, guts and commitment to the American people will make him victorious over their evil smears.
I’m on the Trump Train, folks, riding it all the way through November 2020 and beyond.
© All rights reserved.
I have been silent.
I have been silent long enough.
I have been silent for too long.
Covid-19 has forced me into silence, so I tell myself. But that is not the whole truth. The whole truth is I was tired. I was mentally drained. I was shut down by social media. I almost gave up.
Almost.
You see, there is only so much a human can take. Even someone who is as experienced in the world body politic as I am. There comes a point when you think “what’s the point”?
You see people willingly give up their freedom out of fear in order to be safe. The problem is, they know in their own little minds, they are not safe. But they give up that freedom and real security because everyone else is doing so.
I felt like I was shouting in the face of a category 6 hurricane. Nobody could or would hear me. I was not alone. A few months out there were shouting the same warning. But it seemed as if we were not, could not be heard.
But then, events in the states of Michigan and Montana changed everything. Yes, two small events, as the media would have you believe, could indeed change everything.
Some of my fans would tell me to not give up. Don’t give in. Your words are being heard. It just takes some time for the majority to process them. It takes some time for the majority to actually live out what they believe at first to be the “new normal”.
Most folks don’t like this new normal. By the way, where have we heard that before? New normal?
Normal is not new. It is as it has always been.
But, I hear that Social Distancing is the new normal. This is nothing more than a Millennial construct that means nothing in reality. Let’s face it, it does not and cannot work. Frankly, the truth is if one violates this “rule” just once, then it is a moot point.
Let me ask you, have you always maintained a safe Social Distance of at least 6 feet ALL the time when you are in public? Of course not. As soon as you pass by someone in the grocery isle, you have negated this stupid rule.
I love it (not really) when I do my grocery shopping and I freely interact in less than 6 feet with other shoppers in the isles only to end up in the check out line where there are marks on the floor imploring me to stand here and not there.
Then I get to the checkout register and of course, the clerk is not 6 feet away from me. But they do have a plexiglass partition. As if Covid or any other virus could not find its way around and over that hastily applied barrier.
Oh, and the store emplores shoppers to use their credit or debit card. I comply with that request only to find that the terminal is covered in plastic wrap. The problem is, I have to enter a lot of information into that terminal. And so do countless other shoppers before and after me.
Does the store change that plastic barrier after every shopper? Nope.
My logical brain cannot compute the idiocy in which it is currently living. I can walk within inches of another customer, but I must stand in line 6 feet from that same customer. I have to use a terminal touched by that other customer. But, that customer was wearing a mask so I must be safe.
Don’t get me started on those stupid mask. Every medical professional I have spoken to, (and it has been more than a few) have told me the masks that most are wearing are almost totally useless.
But folks “feel” safe wearing them. Folks “feel” safe with Social Distancing. But then if you have ever listened to my program or read any of my articles or blog posts you would know, your feelings don’t count’
Covid-19 and every other virus out there, does not care if you FEEL safe. Terrorist don’t care if you FEEL safe. (I have often said the people on those jets during 9-11 FELT safe, but were they? Obviously, they cannot answer you because they are all dead.)
What we have going on now is a vast experiment on how to take away people’s rights and freedoms without a war. It’s as simple as that. And the majority of us have fallen into line without question.
This is not about Covid-19 and it never has been about Covid-19. It is about destroying economies that were booming without government intervention. It was about destroying President Trump in the USA and any leader elected around the world who was like Trump.
It was about the Globalist grasping at their waining power to instill their will upon the people of the free world. Nothing more and nothing less. And much of the world fell in line out of fear. Not logic.
I was screaming into the wind about this. And I got tired. But the actions of people in a few states here in the USA has given me a glimmer of hope that all is not lost.
I may be tired, but I am not out of energy.
I will not be silent any longer.
As the coronavirus pandemic continues to kill thousands a day and bring the global economy to its knees, the origins of the virus are still being investigated and debated.
A recent Fox News report said that the virus came from a lab in the Chinese province of Wuhan, contradicting earlier reports that it originated in one of China’s infamously unsanitary wet markets.
The Wall Street Journal reported last month that coronavirus “Patient Zero” may have been Wei Guixian, a 57-year-old seafood merchant who felt like she was coming down with a cold on Dec. 10, and found herself unconscious in a hospital just eight days later.
From there, the situation spiraled as the number of cases climbed. Wuhan doctor Li Wenliang attempted to sound the alarms in late December, but was threatened and admonished by China’s totalitarian government. The government forced Wienlang to write a self-criticism letter, where he said that his decision to blow the whistle had a “negative impact” on China’s ability to investigate and control the virus. Wienlang himself succumbed to the virus in early February at the age of 34.
Chinese Communist Party Dictator Xi Jinping ordered Wuhan to get things under control on Jan. 7, and locked down the city on Jan. 23. During that time period, China was covering up the extent of the virus, with the help of the World Health Organization (WHO). Millions of people were still allowed to leave the country in January, and Dr. Anthony Fauci later said the devastating outbreak in Italy occurred largely as a result of Chinese tourists. President Donald Trump banned travel to the U.S. from China at the end of January, but over 40,000 people have arrived from there since then, taking advantage of exceptions. Experts have suggested that 95% of the outbreak could have been avoided if China had not attempted to cover up the virus.
The WHO wrote on Jan. 14 that ” based on the available information there is no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission,” which turned out to be gravely wrong, and severely tarnished the organization’s credibility. Later analysis found deep ties between the WHO’s leadership and China, leading President Donald Trump to suspend U.S. funding for the organization. China has relied on organizations like the WHO to provide cover for its campaign of censorship and disinformation.
As the official coronavirus death toll in the U.S. nears 40,000, China continues to report less than 5,000 deaths. U.S. intelligence later confirmed that China has been under-reporting its numbers. Even as the effects of the virus became evident, the Chinese Communist Party continued to go to great lengths to cover it up. China announced in mid March that they were expelling U.S. journalists from the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and The Washington Post. The regime previously expelled three Wall Street Journal reporters from the country in February. Despite the communist country’s repeated missteps, China has not taken responsibility or demonstrated any remorse for the havoc the virus has wreaked on the world. Chinese government officials have continued to underreport their numbers, and have promoted conspiracy theories that the U.S. Army injected the virus into China.
The coronavirus spread and China’s attempts to cover it up have thrown the future of their relationship with the U.S. into doubt. President Donald Trump has stated that China will face consequences if it is proven that they knowingly covered up the virus, while members of Congress have vowed to make China pay. The future of the U.S.-China relationship will also play a significant role in the upcoming presidential campaign. Trump and presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden have already run advertisements accusing the other of being weak on China. Republicans have highlighted Biden’s family ties to China, as well as his past praise for the communist regime. A Pro-Trump Super PAC recently labeled the former vice president as “Beijing Biden,” in a campaign commercial being run in the crucial swing states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
China hawks have spent years warning about the communist nation’s deception, which has now been exposed for the whole world to see. While the origins of the virus and the extent of China’s cover-up are not yet known, there seems to be a consensus that they must be held accountable for the damage inflicted upon the world.
COLUMN BY
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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.
This is not to say that the virus does not exist, nor that pockets of America do not suffer disproportionately from the health consequences of COVID-19. As the hysteria-driven lockdowns of coronavirus persist, constitutional conservatives are slowly emerging from under their beds.
Spear carriers for social isolation and economic constriction in America have reacted to critics with the same derision accorded wearers of red MAGA hats.
In less than thirty days, Americans have been persuaded to swap Constitutionally-guaranteed civil liberties in exchange for the illusion of protection from a virus that has touched a relative few.
However, neither the vast majority of Americans, nor family, friends, or neighbors, have been infected by the virus. Yet, the American public is expected – no, required – to support a one-size-fits-all national response that, to this writer, is akin to killing a flea with an elephant gun.
As international travel is acknowledged as the world’s COVID-19 courier, I’m led to an inescapable conclusion:
COVID-19 is, first and foremost, an unintended consequence of three factors, in order of significance: Open Borders movement, business globalization, and international tourism.
Presently, the nation of Sweden has the most relaxed posture in western Europe regarding COVID-19; she has no lockdown whatsoever. Many media pundits are nearly gleeful in reports of higher infection rates in Sweden compared to the rest of Europe. However, in its daily briefings on the virus, the Sweden Department of Public Health insists that its infection rate would be much lower, had the government enacted screening measures early on, for Swedish vacationers returning from Italy.
According to the state department of health here in Minnesota, our rate of infection as a percentage of the population is the lowest of any state in the nation.
The mean age for deaths attributed to COVID-19 here is 86. Pre-existing health problems accompany nearly all the fatalities, and the majority have been residents of nursing homes.
This past week, several meatpacking companies throughout the Midwest – names like Smithfield, Cargill, Tyson, and Brazilian conglomerate JBS – reported closures of plants in which anywhere from 20 to 80 employees tested positive for corona virus. What do nursing homes and meatpacking plants share in common? The majority of workers in both industries – industries hard-hit by labor shortages- are recent arrivals from third-world nations; populations for whom international travel is commonplace.
New York City – the epicenter of COVID-19 in the United States – is also America’s symbol for the “nation of immigrants.” Additionally, she is a preeminent international business center. Business travelers from across the globe travel in and out of New York City by the hundreds every single day.
Finally, New York City may be the most popular tourist destination in America for foreign travelers. Walk down Fifth Avenue on any given weekend in Autumn if there is any doubt.
Is it any wonder, then, that COVID-19 fatalities in the New York Tri-state area make up as much as half of the nation’s COVID-related deaths?
What we are witnessing is the unintended consequence of unbridled, open borders migration, be it for business, escaping third world poverty, or tourism.
Globalists are hard at work on damage control. Their messengers of doomsday scenarios will claim victory regardless of the outcome. If the death count is high, they’ll say “we told you so”. If the death rate is low, they’ll take credit for convincing the world to heed their warnings.
And let’s not forget the icing on the cake.
Leftists the world over are not about to pass up an opportunity to exploit a crisis that could hurt the President’s re-election campaign. If turning a blind eye to civil liberties sends President Trump packing and derails the conservative/national sovereignty contingent, well, you gotta break a few eggs to make an omelette. Collateral damaged be damned.
And the collateral damage? There are many versions of death. Nearly all agree that economic recovery will be long and drawn out, at best. The fallout will certainly be the death knell for many rural towns throughout the Midwest that have been hanging on by fingernails for years as it is. Hospitals will go broke. Record numbers face unemployment. Children are kept from schooling. Small retail businesses and the hospitality industry are crushed, many for good. Socializing is verboten. All in the name of containing a virus for which attributable deaths in New York’s Tri-state area (a population of nearly 20 million) make up roughly FIVE ONE HUNDREDTHS OF ONE PERCENT of its population.
My late mother, a nurse, had a one-liner of dark humor she picked up on the hospital floor: “the operation was a complete success, and the patient died.”
NOTE: This is a guest column by my friend Bob Enos of Willmar, Minnesota. Regular readers of Refugee Resettlement Watch may remember Bob who compiled a great deal of information on the economic cost of migrant and refugee labor and wrote several articles for RRW in the past.
Watch Mr. Enos give a presentation to a county board meeting in 2015 about his economic analysis of the cost to the county and state of the immigrant labor that benefits large global corporations at taxpayers’ expense.
Go here to read previous posts at RRW either written by him or about his work.
EDITORS NOTE: This Frauds, Crooks and Criminals column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.
Good question. After two months, a lot of people are itching to lose the masks and gloves, return to work, and get their lives back to normal. Believe it or not, others want to see the country stay in paralysis until the election making it a sore political subject. We obviously cannot do the latter as the United States would become a burned out shell by then. The question though is when to re-open the country, and that will be the toughest question President Trump will face as he knows the clock is ticking on our ability to recover from this mess.
Whatever day President Trump picks, the press will, of course, ridicule his decision and the Democrats will turn it into a political football. In other words, they do not want him to win on this one which is why they are trying to undermine him every step of the way. Frankly, we do not have time for such hi-jinks; the show must go on.
The decision to open back up will be shared between the president, and the state governors. The Republicans will, of course, side with the president, and the Democrats will not. Nonetheless, if the Republican led states begin to open up, the liberal news media will criticize them, but they will still open up, thereby applying pressure on Democrat states to do likewise. Please keep in mind there are more Republican-led states than there are Democrat-led. It will be interesting to see how the larger Democrat-led states will react, particularly New York, Michigan, Illinois, Washington, Oregon, and California.
The one Democrat-led state to pay particular attention to is Nevada where the gambling and tourist trade has been crippled by the coronavirus. Gov. Steve Sisolak (D) will be pressured to open the state, not just by the casinos and resorts, but by members of his own party who desperately want to go back to work. If Nevada opens, this will put pressure on West Coast Democrat-led states to do likewise, particularly California who has been struggling financially for quite some time.
The opening of states like Nevada and Florida will not only pressure tourist attractions to open, but will also push sports venues to reopen, particularly Major League Baseball. As for basketball and hockey, they may go into tournament play, but I believe their seasons are essentially over. Interestingly, the NFL will be untouched by the virus, but will instigate precautions for safeguarding attendance at their games.
Following this, watch the transportation industry begin to rebound.
The “anti-open” people will rebel loudly, but this is to be expected. By doing so, they run the risk of becoming an annoyance and losing votes in November. In other words, they will be coerced into accepting the reopening of the country.
So, when exactly should we re-open? This too has been a tricky question, one the president has been shrewd to avoid. During the presidential virus news conferences, reporters have repeatedly tried to pin him down to a date, so they can spread false alarms and insist the commander-in-chief is incompetent to remain in office (sound familiar?). Fortunately, the president has a lot of data available for his team to analyze and make a recommendation. Whatever date is picked, it will remain an educated guess, but it will be better than simply picking a date out of the air. Again, whichever date is picked, the president’s opponents will seize on the moment and politicize it.
The point is, we obviously have to re-open sooner or later; otherwise we will go into a death spiral. Whatever day Mr. Trump picks, it will be ridiculed by his opponents. This is all inevitable. However, if the American people truly want to return to work, as I suspect they do, they will support the president’s decision and move on with their lives.
Let’s be clear on one point, regardless of the day picked to re-open, life will not be quite the same anymore. For example, masks and gloves will not disappear any time soon, particularly at sporting events, and people will keep their social distance from each other in general.
As to an exact date, I will leave it the president’s team, but we typically like to marry it to a well known holiday. The betting is on a date in May, of which we have plenty of choices:
Tue, May 5th – Cinco de Mayo – Yea, let’s get drunk one last time before going back to work.
Sun, May 10th – Mother’s Day – Not a bad time to return back to work in support of Moms everywhere.
Sat, May 16th – Armed Forces Day – Also a good day to return to work following a patriotic day.
Mon, May 25th – Memorial Day – This will be the favorite as it is a three day weekend. However, it is far away.
Actually, I think it would be more appropriate to use Monday, May 11th, as this is Twilight Zone Day. It makes sense to me.
Keep the Faith!
EDITORS NOTE: This Bryce is Right podcast is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.
It’s looking more like the experts got the handling of COVID-19 wrong. Maybe really wrong.
In analyzing the data from countries who took dramatically different measures in response to COVID-19, from the most severe restrictions to very few restrictions (countries that keep and share good data, not China or Iran) it appears they are all showing essentially the same spread, spikes, flattening and decline. This includes Sweden and others that did not shutdown.
The same phenomenon is playing out among individual states in the U.S. Some went into Stalinist lockdowns (Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer) while others never locked down at all and only encouraged social distancing (South Dakota Gov. Krist Noem.) Florida technically did a lockdown, very “late” as Gov. Ron DeSantis is constantly lectured, but even then DeSantis exempted so much it was really not much different than the voluntary social distancing. And Florida’s numbers, which were supposed to be the next hotspot after New York, are tracking ballpark with those that took the most draconian measures.
So again, as with nations, the states are at different timeframes on the graphs, but all looking very similar in a timeframe to timeframe comparison — similar to each other and, this is critical, similar to previous coronavirus outbreaks. That’s a head-scratcher.
Another data set is adding to the suspicions.
Denmark, Scotland and Germany have done thorough antibody testing in specific locals and found infection rates between 12 and 27 times higher than they thought and models had projected. And a majority of the people were either asymptomatic or had very mild symptoms. This means that the death rate might be wildly lower than is currently suggested, as low as 0.2 percent — which would be very near to the normal flu. It could be close to 1 percent, but that is seeming less likely now, and still way below the 3.4 percent the World Health Organization put out that was used in the Imperial College projections of death totals.
“Many magnitudes more people have been infected with it than we realized,” Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, professor of medicine at Stanford university, said on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show. “That means the death rate is lower than we thought, by orders of magnitude.”
It’s important to remember that because it is so contagious, the overall numbers may be higher, but then they may not be because of how quickly the peak is reached and the downside starts — much faster than anticipated even with the full lockdowns. Again, that is according to the models.
None of this was jibing with what the experts had said.
And then journalist John Solomon interviewed Dr. Knut Wittkowski, a biomedical researcher, statistician and modeler at Rockefeller University in New York, on his Just The News podcast. And a lot of bewilderment came into clarity. The numbers began making sense if, IF, Wittkowski is right.
First off, he is obviously an expert, but he also is a major outlier among the expert class. However, he mentions in the interview that more and more of his colleagues are agreeing with him and his bottom line, to wit: We not only did not need to shut down economies, we should not have. We may have made it worse by creating a second wave — which coronaviruses in the past did not have.
Wittkkowski said the first big mistake was closing the schools. If they had been left open, it would have gone through the children, who are least affected by the virus, and their parents, who also have low impacts from it. That’s a big way towards herd immunity of 60-70 percent. And the people who are vulnerable to it should stay away from children for the duration, which is a few months.
He said the threat continues to be for the elderly and those with underlying health conditions — something we’ve known almost from the beginning. In that way, he said it is just like all of the previous respiratory viruses such as MERS and SARS. They all differ some in both contagiousness and fatality rate, but the similarities are strong.
Here’s the key: Wittkowski said the shut down probably did not slow the spread because herd immunity would have started kicking in now, or soon, as has been the case in the previous coronavirus outbreaks. However, by truncating the opportunity for herd immunity, we have set ourselves up for the feared “second wave” — something that did not happen in previous coronaviruses because we did not prevent herd immunity with the shutdown.
If Wittkowski is right, at least to some degree, these shutdowns may well have destroyed the strongest economy in history and ultimately made the virus impact worse. That would be a failing of the expert class in truly epic fashion.
Now I do not blame politicians from either party without more information. They relied on experts and did what they were told they should do. DeSantis and some other governors pushed back, but the pressure was great. However, I do blame the experts and the media’s near idolatry of the expert class. Just do what they say!
In reality, we will know by probably mid fall if the expert class made a colossal mistake. And if so, a lot of heads should roll, because mistakes of this magnitude cannot be tolerated.
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EDITORS NOTE: This Revolutionary Act column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.
We are a few days away from a rendezvous with some tough conclusions about COVID-19.
A number of concurrent developments are coming to a head. Most will bring light where so far there was only heat.
Greater information about the new coronavirus might cause as much acrimony as conciliation. Some experts will be discredited, others reaffirmed.
Antibody testing is expected to get underway shortly. Soon, several representative studies will give the country an accurate idea of how many Americans have been infected in the past few months.
With a more trustworthy denominator to compare against known deaths, we will finally learn just how lethal the virus is and whether comparisons to a severe annual flu are legitimate or still inapplicable.
Likewise, there will be greater precision in distinguishing those whose deaths were exclusively virus-related from those who were afflicted by serious chronic illnesses along with the virus. That will also help provide better data about the actual toxicity of the virus.
Those with antibodies will likely be able to return to work with little risk. Arguments will arise over whether their status should be cataloged and banked, or whether such classification would institutionalize creepy two-tier categories of citizenship.
The prior pessimism of most epidemic models will either be confirmed or refuted, depending on the percentages of Americans who have already weathered the virus.
If past predictions are proven too gloomy, their authors will still claim that their doomsday prognoses at least prompted needed social distancing. Critics will counter that their paranoia caused untold social and economic damage.
If other experts are discovered to have unduly played down the deadliness of the virus, they will be derided as callous and partly responsible for the outbreak’s mayhem.
There are ongoing trials to determine the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19. President Donald Trump and some health officials have touted the controversial anti-malarial drug as a possible treatment. Other health officials are skeptical.
But soon, the formal trial results should determine whether the drug offers only false hope or speeds recovery and saves lives. Lots of reputations are on the line.
The weather is warming as we reach midspring, and summer approaches. Still another debate may soon be settled. Will rising temperatures slow the epidemic, as some confidently predicted based on other viral outbreaks? Or are skeptics right that the coronavirus will still spread and is hardier than the seasonal flu?
Some parts of the country are now nearing a month of shelter-in-place policies. The economists warn that we are already in full recession and the current lockdown is not sustainable for much longer. Their mounting worry is not just about economic devastation but about a greater loss of life than COVID-19’s toll through wrecked livelihoods, stress, substance abuse, suicides, and the inability to address medical issues.
The somnolent economy is analogous to a patient who is to be brought back from a forced coma. No one quite knows how, or even if, the economy will fully awaken—only that the chances it might not increase the longer it stays comatose.
In the coming days, the president will have to make a lose/lose decision to either inaugurate a graduated return to work or keep the country locked down for weeks longer.
Economists will likely urge him to restart the economy as fast as possible. Epidemiologists will warn of a second viral spike if millions go back to work. Trump will either be praised for saving the American economy or damned for dooming thousands.
Timelines grow shorter. The virus and the draconian reaction to it are wearing down a quarantined America.
Thousands of scientists worldwide are running a frantic Nobel Prize race to discover a vaccine for COVID-19. Each week, we will hear that they are either getting closer to discovery or learning that the code of the new virus is proving harder to crack.
China has never come clean about the origin and spread of the virus that broke out in Wuhan. But more information is leaking out. Soon, Beijing will have to decide whether it will become part of the answer to the mystery or continue its cover-up.
As the days pass, the November election also draws nearer. Every presidential decision concerning the epidemic will be inevitably politicized. Trump supporters will likely favor a quick return to work to avoid a November recession. His opponents prefer a longer shutdown.
Both sides know, but will deny, that politics plays a role in how they view the crisis.
Nothing about this epidemic was ever static. But we are on the verge of learning a lot more about the virus that will result in as much disagreement as relief.
(C) 2020 TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.
COMMENTARY BY
Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and author of the book “The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won.” You can reach him by e-mailing authorvdh@gmail.com. Twitter: @VDHanson.
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