Coronavirus Commission Examines How to Get America Back to Work

/in , , , , , , , /by

Before many Americans are able to go back to work, the country will have to reach four goals amid the COVID-19 pandemic, former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said as the National Coronavirus Recovery Commission began to study related issues.

“No. 1, we need to stop the spread. That has not been stopped,” Frist, a physician who is a member of the commission assembled by The Heritage Foundation, said of the new coronavirus Wednesday in a conference call with reporters.

Second, Frist said, the nation must gear up “contact testing.”

“We have to identify who has the disease and then who they have been in contact with, and we need to develop that infrastructure in every community across America,” the former senator from Tennessee said.

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 >>

“No. 3, we need to define the science,” Frist said, adding: “So we need to further define how long a person has been exposed [and] how good their immunity is in going back to work.”

Fourth is a gradual return to work “community by community, not state by state,” following stay-at-home orders at the state and local levels, he said, while the federal government is encouraging social distancing and coordinating the national response.

The National Coronavirus Recovery Commission includes experts from public health, business, and government who will identify steps needed to rebuild the economy after the pandemic.

The commission’s first formal meeting, to be held remotely, is set for Thursday.

The meeting comes ahead of what the federal government expects to be the peak week for deaths from COVID-19. The United States has logged 419,975 confirmed cases of the disease caused by the new coronavirus and 14,262 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Commission member George Allen, a former U.S. senator and governor of Virginia, said a short-term goal for the nation is to increase production of protective masks and COVID-19 tests to meet the need.

“We need a Manhattan Project approach on antiviral therapeutics that could be produced four to six months before the winter onslaught when recurrence occurs, because the vaccine is going to take over a year and that’s assuming this coronavirus doesn’t mutate,” Allen said during the conference call.

The Manhattan Project was the name of America’s secret effort during World War II to develop the atomic bomb.

Allen predicted that some moderate social distancing is “here to stay,” while teleworking likely is going to be more common even in the long term.

“It’s going to change our society the same way 9/11 has changed our society,” he said of COVID-19.

Allen also called for breaking American dependence on China for pharmaceuticals and other medical supplies.

“We as Americans should no longer be vulnerable to adversarial countries for our supply chain of medicines, pharmaceuticals, and medical services,” Allen said, adding:

Heck, people wouldn’t even feed their dogs dog food from China or want Sheetrock from China. So why should we have our medicines and some of these masks and so forth coming in from China when we can make it here? If not here, then our neighbors in Canada and Mexico can make it.

Two policy experts from The Heritage Foundation, Paul Winfree and Charmaine Yoest, serve as executive directors of the commission.

“We believe fundamentally that good public health policy is going to lead to good economic policy,” said Yoest, vice president of Heritage’s Institute for Family, Community and Opportunity and former president and CEO of Americans United for Life.

“The two have to move forward hand in hand,” said Yoest, who served for almost a year as assistant secretary for public affairs at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services early in the Trump administration. “Once the American people are confident of the health approach, they’ll start feeling confident about going back to work and jump-starting the economy.”

The “big question” the commission will confront is how to expedite an economic recovery through the actions of federal, state, and local policymakers, said Winfree, director of Heritage’s Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies, who was deputy director of the White House Domestic Policy Council during the first year of the Trump administration.

“One of the questions that has come out of the Trump administration is this question about whether we are going to see a V-shaped recovery or whether we are going to experience it for a longer season,” Winfree said.

“I think it’s critical for anything we end up doing from here on out, [to] make sure that folks remain attached to their places of work so that whenever we defeat the disease, ultimately we can get America back to work and cooking again as quickly as possible,” he said.

Heritage Foundation President Kay C. James is the commission’s chairwoman. James was director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management under President George W. Bush and Virginia secretary of health and human resources while Allen was governor.

Commission members also include former U.S. Rep. J.C. Watts, R-Okla.; John A. Allison IV, former CEO of BB&T Bank and retired president of the Cato Institute; Lawrence J. Blanford, president of Green Mountain Coffee; Kevin P. Chavous, president of academics, policy, and schools at K12.com; former Heritage Foundation President Edwin Feulner; and Timothy E. Flanigan, chief legal officer for the Cancer Treatment Centers of America.

Also members are Noe Landini, CEO of Rex Management; the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference; Nelson J. Sabatini, former Maryland secretary of health; Joni Eareckson Tada, founder and CEO of Joni and Friends International Disability Center; and Frances F. Townsend, executive vice president of MacAndrews and Forbes Holdings.

The commission also includes former White House physician and retired Brig. Gen. Richard J. Tubb; Gail Wilensky, economist and senior fellow at Project HOPE; and Robert L. Woodson Sr., founder and president of the Woodson Center.

The Daily Signal is the multimedia news organization of The Heritage Foundation.

COLUMN BY

Fred Lucas

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.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Everything You Need to Know About China and Its Handling of COVID-19

Pompeo: US Brings Home 50,000 From 90 Countries

Problematic Women: The Chinese Government’s Coronavirus Cover-Up

How Reporter From Pro-Beijing Outlet Got Access to White House Coronavirus Press Briefing

COVID-19 Should Make Us Appreciate Miracle of Life, Not Make Abortions ‘Essential’

A Note for our Readers:

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!

GET ACCESS NOW! >>

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

Where Will the First Coronavirus Vaccine Come From?

/in , , , , , , , /by

I think we can guess, don’t you? The United States, or Israel — as the Iranians say, Great Satan or Little Satan – are the two likeliest contenders. For now, it seems as though a vaccine developed in Israel will be the first off the starting block, ready for testing on humans within two months.

The story of that vaccine is here.

Israeli researchers said [on April 3] they are days away from finishing production of the active component of a coronavirus vaccine that could be tested on humans starting June 1.

“We are in the final stages and within a few days we will hold the proteins—the active component of the vaccine,” Dr. Chen Katz, group leader of the biotechnology group at the MIGAL Galilee Research Institute, told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday [March 31].

The human trials will be conducted on “young, healthy individuals” and will then likely expand to the general population, Katz said, adding that he believes the vaccine will be available first in Israel.

MIGAL said in late February that it would complete production of its vaccine within three weeks and have it on the market in three months, but Katz explained to the Post that the process was delayed because it took longer than anticipated to receive the genetic construct they ordered from China, due to airways being closed and the product needing to be rerouted.

The group, funded partially by a NIS 30 million ($8,225,600) grant from Israel’s Ministry of Science and Technology, is working with regulators to ensure that the vaccine is safe to try on human.

Katz said because it will be an oral vaccine, “the quality of this kind of vaccine should be closer to food regulations than pharma regulations or somewhere in between. We hope that we will not need to go through the complete purification process like in the drug industry because that could delay us.”

Another Israeli company, Kamada, a biopharmaceutical company in Rehovot has announced that it has started to work on developing a blood-plasma derived treatment against the coronavirus; it uses the antibodies found in the plasma of those who have survived the coronavirus.

There are dozens of other Israeli researchers, and Israelis outside of Israel, working on vaccines. There is, for example, Dr. Ofer Levy, an Israeli-American who heads the Precision Vaccines Program (PVP) at Boston Children’s Hospital, where researchers are working on developing a vaccine for the coronavirus. Dr. Levy says that among the worldwide vaccine efforts, his group is uniquely focused on a solution for the elderly, a population Levy defines as age 65 or older.

“Vaccines are not one size fits all,” Levy told The Times of Israel via a conference call on Monday [March 31].“Immune response varies with age.” He said that the elderly are “at greatest risk of severe infection,” and thus he is concentrating on this age group.

A physician and associate professor at Harvard Medical School, Levy and his fellow researchers have been working on a vaccine since mid-January. He estimated that over 40 separate groups are working on vaccines, but as of press time, none are approved.

As we have all come to expect, when it comes to medical and technological advances, Israel punches far above its weight. None of us would be surprised were a vaccine to be developed first in Israel. It could be by the MIGAL Galilee Research Institute; the vaccine it has developed is said to be ready for human trials by June. We would take in stride the news that the antibody-based vaccine of the Israeli company Kamada would be ready for human trials by June, or that the vaccine being developed by PVP (Precision Vaccines Program) that Dr. Ofer Levy directs at the Boston Children’s Hospital might start trials in July. And we expect something to come from the half-dozen other Israeli research groups. We would be surprised not if one or more succeeds, but if they all were to fail.

There are, of course, many other vaccines in the works outside Israel. American researchers include Dr. Stephane Bancel and his team at Moderna (among them at least one Israeli-born scientist). Others who come swimmingly to mind as developers of a coronavirus vaccine include: Dr. Chen Wei and his fellow researchers in Wuhan itself; Russian scientists at the Vektor State Virology and Biotechnology Centre in the city of Novosibirsk; investigators. at Imperial College, London. Again, no surprises. We have only rounded up the usual suspects:  America, Israel, China, Russia, the U.K.

But among the 40 or so research groups now working in a half-dozen countries on a coronavirus vaccine, none were to be found in any of the 57 Muslim countries that are members of the O.I.C. (Organization of the Islamic Conference). You are not surprised. But why should that be? Could it be that Islam discourages free and skeptical inquiry? The fear among Muslim clerics has always been that if ordinary Muslims began to question authority in one area, they might end up by questioning aspects of Islam itself, and that would never do. Islam means “submission,” and the habit of mental submission to that authority – that is, to the Qur’an itself, and to the Hadith – has always been encouraged in Islam. Rote memorization confers prestige; the Believer who memorizes the entire Qur’an is deeply respected as a “hafiz,” as if that empty feat signified learning. Would any of us in the Western world celebrate as a gifted mathematician someone who had memorized pi to the 200th decimal point? Of course not. Memorization is favored in Islam because it reinforces authority; we learn by heart what it is the Qur’an tells us; we do not question it. If you need to find out what is halal or haram, ask a Muslim cleric, in person or at the many such sites on-line), who will supply you with a Qur’anic verse, or an “authoritative” Hadith (from Bukhari or Muslim), to answer your question. That “free and skeptical inquiry” that Islam discourages is the very thing that furthers the enterprise of science. Some Muslims, especially those living and working in the West, manage to acquire the habits of mind of their Western teachers and colleagues, and are able to contribute to scientific advances. Alas, how few they are in number.

Some are enthralled with Muhammad, Messenger of God. Others are more interested in Messenger RNA. It is the latter who will discover the vaccine for the coronavirus.

COLUMN BY

EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

Might Trump Reopen America Before April 30th?

/in , , , , , /by

For weeks, with the exception of Rush Limbaugh, public voices were terrified to question health experts’ predictions of apocalyptic high corona virus deaths. Everyone knew they had better embrace the total shutdown of America or be accused of wanting to sacrifice lives for money.

The good news is we are seeing cracks in fake news medias’ tyrannical wall of doomsday corona reporting. Why? Because the predicted catastrophic high numbers of corona deaths have not happened. Of the 40 million people living in California, only 250 have died of corona; equaling 3 per million. A 104 year old WWII veteran recovered from corona virus.

The majority of people who catch corona virus make a full recovery. And yet, practically every corona news report leads with fear inducing words like “staggering”, “skyrocketing” and “deadly.”

Pundits and politicians are beginning to acknowledge that corona virus models could be wrong.

Meanwhile, fake news media gleefully reported that 10 million Americans applied for unemployment and 700,000 jobs have been lost. Fake news media created corona-madness to crush our economy to stop Trump’s reelection. They do not care about the consequences. Suicide hot lines are spiking because of corona-madness. That is sad and shameful.

Some folks fear Trump is being manipulated by his health experts. I think not. Remember, Trump authored the book, “The Art of the Deal”. Corona-madness is still wreaking havoc. Trump is chomping at the bit to reopen America but realizes that the timing must be right.

My wife Mary said even Trump supporters on Facebook are battling each other. Some are furious that Trump has not reopened America. Others demand a longer shutdown with more unconstitutional restrictions.

I pray that God will tell Trump when to reopen America. The right time may come sooner than expected.

Already, more Americans appear fed up with house arrest. They are realizing that the high predicted deaths were exaggerated. Also, Americans don’t like overlords with political agendas deciding whose job is essential; dictating who can and cannot earn a living. This is reminiscent of Obamacare, in which bureaucrats decide who receives medical treatment; dictating who lives and who dies.

Rush Limbaugh is calling for government to give us a date for when the shutdown will end. People need hope. The Bible says without a vision, the people perish.

Life has taught me that sometimes God gives us good gifts wrapped in ugly wrapping paper. We are receiving remarkable gifts wrapped in corona virus. Not in my lifetime has an evangelist (Franklin Graham) run commercials on TV boldly encouraging people to surrender their life to Jesus.

A new poll says millions believe corona virus is a wake-up call to turn back to God. Americans turning back to God is turning back to our roots. Founding father John Adams said, “Our Constitution was made for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” Democrats and fake news media twisted the meaning of “Separation of Church and State” to purge God from our government and culture.

It was thrilling to hear megachurch pastors who never comment about the culture cautioning people not to consume too much of news medias’ doomsday corona virus reporting.

In the Bible, Joseph’s brothers hated him and sold him into slavery, which remarkably led to Joseph becoming a ruler of Egypt. Without malice, Joseph told his brothers, “You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.”

Driven insane by their obsession with destroying Trump and dispiriting his voters, Democrats and fake news media nuclear-bombed America with corona-madness. They meant it for evil, but God is using it for good. Did I mention that the invasion of illegals from Mexico has pretty much stopped?

More pundits and politicians are saying that it is insane to allow corona-madness to destroy everything people have worked for their entire lives. This could empower Trump to put us back to work much sooner. Stopping the insanity April 30th or sooner would be a wonderful miracle!

© All rights reserved.

RELATED ARTICLE: Dispatches of Hope: DOWNWARD Trends on Infections and Deaths

Why Accepting Even Two Million Covid-19 Deaths May be Better Than a National Lockdown

/in , , , , , , , /by

We’ve heard much during the Wuhan flu crisis about a “worst case scenario” of two million dead Americans, a staggering number. But missing from the national conversation is something equally important:

What’s the worst case scenario given our present course of action, largely locking down the country and freezing life like an insect stuck in amber?

What if worse coming to worst means a great depression, descent into tyranny, millions more dead from other causes and a permanently impoverished nation?

Almost the entire virus debate has centered around whether the experts are correct about the infectivity and virulence of the disease and in their projections (which have often been drastically wrong). But even if we assume that the experts having the government’s ear — and there are dissenters who don’t — are absolutely inerrant in their expressed judgments, there’s a problem with just “listening to the health professionals’” prescriptions:

Like most everyone else, these individuals have only a narrow range of expertise; they are epidemiologists, virologists, infectious disease specialists, etc.

They are not epidemiologists-cum-philosophers/political scientists/sociologists/economists.

So they provide counsel on how to achieve a narrow goal contemplated from a narrow perspective. This is not a put-down. It is their job to do just that.

Congruent with this, these experts consider the health related consequences of the disease, not the civilizational-health related consequences of their cure — which may be worse than the disease.

The latter is the job of statesmen, commentators, academics and the wider population. All these groups, unfortunately, are found wanting in this.

Unemployment claims are at a record high, but I don’t have to tell you how the current lockdowns are ravaging our economy. Many businesses and jobs will never come back, yet this concern not only is just the iceberg’s tip, it isn’t even, as critics may say, just about “money” — because money isn’t just about “money.”

Money represents resources, people’s capacity to obtain food, shelter, clothing, health care, education and everything else that preserves life and makes it worth living. Note here that poverty is associated with a host of negative health and health-related risks, such as a higher incidence of manifold diseases, depression, anxiety, stress related disorders, drug and alcohol abuse, suicide, domestic violence, child abuse and crime.

Yet even more must be considered. Remember now that if the following seems radical, it is a worst case scenario. And if we can consider the worst case scenario on one side of the equation, we must for balance and perspective consider the worst case scenario on the other side as well.

What if locking down the nation means causing a great depression lasting a decade or more?

What if this economic disaster leads, as history teaches it can, to the rise of demagogues and loss of freedom?

What if there are consequently millions more deaths from other causes due to economic malaise and descent toward tyranny?

What if, in other words, we essentially destroy our civilization as we know it?

Will it have been worth it to ensure there’d be fewer Wuhan virus deaths — even two million, shocking though that number is? Civilizational destruction, something permanent, would be a steep price to pay to combat a pandemic, something temporary.

Know that I’m not insensitive to the vulnerable’s plight. Near and dear to me are two people in an extreme high-risk category and a handful of others somewhat at risk, and I have an in-law physician relative who contracted the virus, began treating herself with hydroxychloroquine and is currently hospitalized. But I also recognize the truth of economist Thomas Sowell’s observation that sometimes in life “there are no solutions; there are only tradeoffs.” Are we making the right tradeoff now?

I’ll emphasize that my worst case scenario isn’t at all fanciful. Many are concerned about a depression resulting from our lockdowns and about the erosion of freedom as people, as people will, trade liberty for security. In fact, The New York Times, of all entities, recently ran a headline warning, “For Autocrats, and Others, Coronavirus Is a Chance to Grab Even More Power.”

“Leaders around the world have passed emergency decrees and legislation expanding their reach during the pandemic,” the paper writes in its subhead before asking, “Will they ever relinquish them?”

Anyone who grasps the nature of power — and of the power hungry — won’t bet the answer is yes.

Now ask yourself: If the given amount of power is currently being seized, what would happen in an infinitely worse situation such as lockdown-caused depression and social upheaval?

Speaking of autocrats, the mainstream media have rightly been castigated for doing despotic China’s bidding and touting its “response” to the virus; never mind that China created this problem and that its response’s immediate effectiveness is actually unknown because Beijing lies like it breathes. But what if China has responded rightly, not in its tyrannical measures but in one respect?

What if Beijing’s apparent decision to get people back to work and accept virus related deaths leaves it stronger over the long term? There is some possibility, a scary one, that China could emerge from this as the world’s superpower — a status it craves — under our worst case scenario.

Also consider Sweden. That it continues commerce and life largely unchanged and is striving for “herd immunity” may be instructive. Are we just prolonging the inevitable?

Of course, one lockdown motivation is to slow the virus’s spread so that hospitals aren’t overwhelmed. But Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Wednesday that there won’t be a true turning point until a vaccine is developed. Yet some say this could be 18 months away, an eternity in lockdown terms.

In the meantime, restoring normal commerce and freedom without experiencing increased virus contagion appears unlikely. But since such restoration would be beneficial, focusing on developing herd immunity while pursuing wide-scale testing and the insulating of vulnerable groups may be the wiser course.

Remember, too, that we’ve been through this before. During the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918-19, 675,000 Americans died; adjusted for today’s US population this amounts to a bit more than two million people — exactly our worst case scenario number.

We weathered that pandemic, of course. But people were far different then, and, correspondingly, we’re far different politically today. If President Trump advocated the Swedish model and there were hundreds of thousands of deaths, never mind two million, every one would be laid at his doorstep and he’d likely be ousted from office (as it is, it was already suggested last month that Trump may be guilty of “negligent homicide”). The same could befall any governor acting likewise, never mind that he might have helped save the future — because the alternate future would never be known.

This is why I know certain things. No, I don’t have definitive answers; this is a fluid, serious situation with many unknowns, and we all should act responsibly and not claim knowledge we don’t possess. But I do know some questions, as posed above, that should be asked and maturely debated. I also know this won’t likely happen, given man’s nature in general and the state of our politics and media in particular.

This is why we’d better hope for a highly efficacious Wuhan virus treatment — and fast. Because if we’re going to lockdown our nation for months on end, well, we may learn the hard way that we might as well have just thrown away the key.

Contact Selwyn Duke, follow him on Gab (preferably) or Twitter, or log on to SelwynDuke.com.

© All rights reserved.

RELATED ARTICLE: COVID-19 and Prisons A Complicated Issue That Does Not Need Simplistic “Solutions”

5 Things to Know About This Anti-Malaria Drug’s Effect on COVID-19

/in , , , , , , /by

The federal government has stockpiled 29 million pills of the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine as the best known way to treat active cases of COVID-19, and thousands of patients in New York will take it.

But using the Food and Drug Administration-approved drug to treat COVID-19 has sparked an intense political controversy.

President Donald Trump, who has publicly touted hydroxychloroquine since March 19, said of the drug Sunday: “If it does work, it would be a shame if we didn’t do it early. I’ve seen things I sort of like; so what do I know, I’m not a doctor.”

Axios first reported on an internal dispute between White House trade adviser Peter Navarro, who is bullish on the drug, and Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases, who is concerned that only “anecdotal evidence” suggests the drug is effective against COVID-19.

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 >>

Ohio state Rep. Tavia Galonski, a Democrat who represents parts of Akron, said she would make a complaint to The Hague that Trump is guilty of crimes against humanity for promoting a drug before all the facts are known.

“I can’t take it anymore. I’ve been to The Hague. I’m making a referral for crimes against humanity tomorrow,” Galonski tweeted Sunday. “Today’s press conference was the last straw. I know the need for a prosecution referral when I see one.”

The Ohio Democrat’s tweet was in response to one from Go-Blue-44, who has fewer than 600 followers, saying: “And an invitation to The Hague for crimes against humanity for pushing a drug that hasn’t been tested for coronavirus patients.”

The Food and Drug Administration has expedited use of hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19 patients; most other countries also allow the drug to be used to treat the new disease.

Aside from political musings, here are some facts to know about hydroxychloroquine.

1. What Do Studies Say?

Studies so far have shown varying degrees of promise in using hydroxychloroquine against the coronavirus, said Dr. Kevin Pham, a medical doctor and contributor to The Daily Signal.

Pham told The Daily Signal that existing studies are “small or poorly controlled.”

“The results are promising, but leave lots of questions,” he said.

One French study found that COVID-19 patients treated with a combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin recovered more quickly than others.

However, that study involved only 36 patients, and just 20 took the medicine, considered a small sample.

The French study also didn’t look at patients in intensive care units. Most patients who took the drug improved. However, one patient from the group tested positive after taking the medicine.

A more recent study out of China used a larger but still fairly limited sample of 62 people. Half took the anti-malaria drug, the other half did not.

The 62 patients were treated for five days, their fevers and cough monitored. The study found 25 of the 31 patients who were given the drug improved, versus 17 patients in the control group of 31.

The study’s authors determined that additional research should be done.

Another study out of France, with a larger sample of 80 coronavirus patients, found improvements in all but one patient who used the drug.

2. When Will We Know More?

New York, the hardest hit state in the country, will provide hydroxychloroquine to 4,000 COVID-19 patients. The University of Albany School of Public Health is observing the patients who take the drug.

New York University, meanwhile, is setting up clinical trials, enrolling 2,000 adults at six sites, The New York Post reported.

“Thousands are taking it in New York, and we should know if hydroxychloroquine is effective within about two weeks,” Dr. Lee Gross, a family doctor in Florida, told The Daily Signal. “It doesn’t mean we throw caution to the wind. But we should have a relatively good idea based on New York.”

Gross noted that so far the “data is very limited.”

“In a perfect world, we would do more controlled studies, but you go to war with the army you have, not the army you want,” Gross said. “We are facing a pandemic now. To have all the information we want could take six to eight weeks.”

3. How Do You Take the Drug?

Hydroxychloroquine has been around to fight malaria since the 1950s. It is also used to treat rheumatoid arthritis and lupus. So it’s not new on the market.

Individuals usually take a total of 10 pills as part of a four- to 10-day regimen. Typically, the dose is two pills for five days.

This would be followed by taking azithromycin for three days, Gross said.

Gross said he anticipates that one day the drug, if effective against the coronavirus, could become like Tamiflu, an antiviral medicine taken at the earliest signs of the flu for prevention.

“There have been recent articles that this is not effective for the critically ill,” Gross said of hydroxychloroquine. “That might be the case. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t explore this when it’s in the early stages.”

“In India, health care workers take hydroxychloroquine as a preventative measure. I’m assuming, if the data pans out, this may be like Tamiflu, which you have to take 24 to 48 hours after the first symptoms, or it’s useless.”

4. What Are the Side Effects?

“What do we have to lose?” Trump has asked.

For one thing, hydroxychloroquine does have some quite serious side effects.

Those side effects reportedly include fatal heart arrhythmia, vision loss, ear ringing and vomiting, headaches, dizziness, stomach pain, weight loss, and mood changes.

But the medication can be obtained only through prescription, so patients can’t legally access it without medical supervision.

Given that use of hydroxychloroquine is under medical control, the side effects aren’t a major concern. Disappointing the public is a potentially larger problem, Pham said.

“The main downside would be giving people false hope,” Pham said.

5. What Do Respiratory Specialists Say?

Respiratory specialists recommend the use of hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19, but with caveats.

The American Thoracic Society, a medical society specializing in respiratory diseases, led an international task force researching treatments for COVID-19 that released guidelines Monday.

One guideline was to prescribe hydroxychloroquine to hospitalized patients who have COVID-19.

This only applies, the report says, when “shared decision-making is possible,” “data can be collected for interim comparisons of patients who received hydroxychloroquine … versus those who did not,” “the illness is sufficiently severe to warrant investigational therapy,” and “the drug is not in short supply.”

Dr. Kevin C. Wilson, chief of guidelines and documents at the American Thoracic Society, said existing research is flawed, but nevertheless worthwhile.

“We suggest that, if the drug is prescribed, that it be done in the context of data collection for research,” Wilson said. “We believe that in urgent situations like a pandemic, we can learn while treating by collecting real-world data. … Thus, the bottom line is, whether hydroxychloroquine …  confer benefits to patients with COVID-19 are unanswered questions.”

COLUMN BY

Fred Lucas

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.

RELATED ARTICLES:

With These Headlines, It Sure Seems The Anti-Trump Media Lusts For More Wuhan Coronavirus Deaths

Dispatches of Hope: DOWNWARD Trends on Infections and Deaths

Heritage Foundation Launches National Coronavirus Recovery Commission

Trump Critical of IG Report on Hospitals

One Millennial’s Guide to COVID-19: 8 Ways to Embrace Our New Normal

The Importance of Optimism Amid COVID-19 Crisis

In Hiding COVID-19 at First, China Chose Reputation Over Saving Lives

A Note for our Readers:

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!

GET ACCESS NOW! >>

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

Ahead of COVID-19 ‘Peak,’ Trump Touts ‘Light at the End of the Tunnel’

/in , , , , , , /by

President Donald Trump has warned the week ahead could be the worst yet in the COVID-19 crisis, but he and other administration officials also shared a positive note on Sunday, using terms such as “glimmers of progress” and “light at the end of the tunnel.”

“In the days ahead America will endure the peak of this terrible pandemic,” Trump said. “Our warriors in this life and death battle are the incredible doctors and nurses and healthcare workers on the front line of the fight.”

Last week Trump announced that peak death toll is expected to be reached in the next two weeks.

“Things are happening. We’re starting to see light at the end of the tunnel,” Trump said at the press briefing. “And hopefully in the not-too-distant future, we’ll be very proud of the job we all did.”

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 >>

Dr. Deborah Birx, the coordinator for the White House coronavirus task force, noted data coming from two of the hardest hit countries.

“As you can see from the hopeful signs in Italy and Spain, where we see finally new cases and deaths declining, it’s giving us hope of what our future could be,” Birx said.

She turned to charts showing the number of state cases per 100,000 citizens. Washington, D.C. and Pennsylvania are new to jurisdictions where 10% or more are testing positive for the coronavirus.

New York, the hardest hit state, has actually seen a decrease among those testing positive for coronavirus. However, New Jersey is seeing an increase, Birx said.

Other states with high number of cases are Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Connecticut, Washington state, Illinois, and Colorado.

Vice President Mike Pence spoke to governors from New Jersey, Michigan, Illinois, and Louisiana earlier Sunday, and had some positive news.

“We are seeing a trend of some leveling [from] all the governors I spoke to today,” Pence said, later adding:

We are beginning to see the glimmers of progress. The experts will tell me not to jump to any conclusions, and I’m not. But, like your president, I’m an optimistic person and I’m hopeful.

The truth is we’re starting to see cases, most importantly losses, and hospitalizations beginning to stabilize. But, make no mistake about it, I want to say to the American people, if that holds, if that is happening, it’s because what all of you are doing.

During the press briefing, Trump said the government has purchased and stockpiled 29 million pills of the hydroxychloroquine, a malaria drug that has been used in other countries to treat coronavirus, while waiting for a vaccine.

“I’m not looking at it one way or another, but we want to get out of this. If it does work, it would be a shame if we didn’t do it early,” Trump said.

“I’ve seen things I sort of like so what do I know, I’m not a doctor,” he added. But I have common sense. The FDA feels good about it. As you know, they approved it, they gave it a rapid approval.”

COLUMN BY

Fred Lucas

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.

RELATED ARTICLES:

How Capitalism Is Helping US Defeat COVID-19

For Mike Lindell, the Battle Against COVID-19 Is No Pillow Fight

Free People Take Responsibility and Solve Problems

Second Amendment Rights During Coronavirus Pandemic

RELATED VIDEO: Ballmer Says U.S. Virus Data Show ‘Light at the End of the Tunnel’

A Note for our Readers:

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!

GET ACCESS NOW! >>

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

How Capitalism Is Helping US Defeat COVID-19

/in , , , , , /by

In times of crisis, Americans don’t look just to the government to save the day.

In certain intellectual circles in the United States it’s become fashionable to decry free markets, laying every economic woe of any American at the feet of “late stage capitalism,” the buzzword used to decry any business practice that seems designed to promote big business over the little guy.

But right now, as our nation struggles to deal with the coronavirus, we’re seeing proof our American companies are stepping up and helping. Businesses, big and small, are trying to do their part to help the U.S. defeat COVID-19. Just consider these examples:

  • MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell announced last week that 75% of his company’s production will be converted to making face masks.

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 >>

  • AK Wet Works in Seabrook, Texas, a small business that makes industrial painting and coating products, is now using its specialty to sanitize public places and other businesses. “We actually came to the idea of, why can’t we take our blast pots and actually create a vapor that can be mixed with a disinfectant, so we can actually sterilize things around us,” operations manager Dennis Hotz told KTRK-TV, Houston’s ABC affiliate.
  • The Young & Yonder distillery in Healdsburg, California, is now making hand sanitizer and giving it to customers who come in for to-go pickups. “The community has been incredible. Most people who came in also picked up a bottle or two of spirits,” said Sarah Opatz, who founded Young & Yonder with her husband in 2013, according to The Press Democrat newspaper of Santa, Rosa, California. “It’s kept our business alive and growing. … We just wanted everybody to stay clean. We had the supply and ingredients.”
  • General Motors, Ford, and Tesla are ramping up production of much-needed ventilators.

Helen Raleigh at The Federalist compiled an excellent rundown of some of the other businesses that have stepped up during this crisis, including fashion companies that will switch over to making masks by the millions and drugstore chains, among them CVS and Walgreens, that are opening up mobile COVID-19 testing sites.

A coalition of CEOs launched the “Stop the Spread” initiative to organize businesses to address the specific needs of society during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Brooks Brothers, which normally makes suits and clothing, will produce masks and gowns. Flex Ltd., a supply chain and manufacturing company, is ramping up production of ventilators and protective equipment. Many other companies are joining in.

Parkdale Mills Inc. has joined efforts with a team of textile manufacturers to ramp up production of face masks and other similar materials.

“This is … a time of crisis that many people have not seen since the time of the world wars, Vietnam, you know, situations like that,” a Parkdale Mills spokesman said in an interview with The Daily Signal on Wednesday. “And [in] these times, there is a call to action. Who is going to step up and supply a need and do the right thing? We are trying to do the best we can to do what we can for the country.”

Perhaps just as importantly in this time of stress and deep uncertainty, innumerable businesses are doing what they can to give additional aid to employees, many of whom are facing the prospect of losing their jobs and salaries.

The owner of Federico’s Pizzeria & Restaurant in Belmar, New Jersey, is dealing with a lockdown in the state by opening up a $50,000 line of credit to continue paying employees.

“It just seemed like the right thing to do,” Bryan Morin, the owner of the pizzeria, said on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” on the Fox News Channel. “I didn’t want them to worry about me paying my mortgage. I didn’t want these guys … [to] have to worry about paying their rent, their utilities, and insurance, and other stuff.”

The restaurant can still do deliveries, but the potential for employees to get sick and end up in quarantine remains high.

“I just took this [line of credit] out to guarantee that my employees, no matter what, they’ll continue to be able to pay their bills. You’ve got to take care of your employees,” Morin said. “Without your employees, you don’t have a business.”

Smuttynose Brewing in Hampton, New Hampshire, has been forced to close and only do deliveries, but it’s decided to retain and pay all of its full- and part-time staff through the pandemic.

“We feel this was an extremely important decision,” Andrew Hart, Smuttynose director of hospitality, said, according to Seacoastonline. “There is a lot of uncertainty here, and we are in a unique and fortunate position where we are able to financially take care of our employees the best we can.”

There are numerous other stories like this around the country as businesses and employees are doing their best to weather the storm.

The total shutdown of the American economy has few—if any—precedents. If anything, the closest comparison is to World War II, where practically the entire economy was devoted to the war effort in one way or another.

During that war, the power of American government was certainly expanded, as it is now during the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. But America’s strength in war, or at any other time, is not in the power of its government.

The genius of the U.S. war effort was that, rather than relying on the government to fulfill the needs of the nation, the government merely acted to marshal resources to the front lines. Otherwise, the country relied on the surge of private production and the natural inclination of Americans in a crisis to devote all of their energy to tackle the challenge.

As they did in the 1940s, countless businesses, large and small, are now stepping up to aid both in combating the invisible enemy and in helping Americans who are hurting physically and financially at this time.

This is in part the genius of a free market system and why it’s ultimately more successful than, say, socialism. Businesses and free people can quickly respond to the needs of society.

When the need is great, their response is greater and far more efficient than a government-controlled system could ever be. In moments of national crisis, that great and good American system shines through.

During World War II, the auto industry switched production from cars to tanks, planes, and other weapons of war. The results were remarkable.

Edsel Ford, who ran the Ford Motor Co. at the time, vowed that the automaker could produce a bomber an hour at the Willow Run production facility in Michigan, which it did in 1944. It was an incredible achievement.

Today, Ford is making a similar switch in production—not to bombers, but to ventilators to care for COVID-19 patients. Ford is partnering with General Electric to produce 50,000 ventilators in 100 days, according to The New York Times.

“Just as Ford in the last century moved its manufacturing might seamlessly from auto to tank production during World War II, the Ford team is working with GE Healthcare to use its awesome engineering and manufacturing capabilities to voluntarily help this nation solve one of its most pressing problems,” the White House’s Defense Production Act coordinator, Peter Navarro, said in a statement.

There will be plenty in this time of crisis who claim that socialism or other radical solutions are the answer to what ails us in this moment. Some, like Jacobin Magazine, are calling for the nationalization and government takeover of Amazon and other companies.

But Amazon and Walmart, truckers and grocers, and the countless hard-working people who comprise our remarkable supply chain have been keeping the nation fed as the government struggles to meet its basic requirements in this pandemic.

Though many may take this time to attack our generally free market economy, the reality is that even as businesses and industries are decimated, our eventual turnaround will rely on the ingenuity of Americans across the country to reboot when the coronavirus pandemic passes.

It’s time to ignore the haters. Defeating COVID-19 requires joint efforts from both government and businesses—as well as communities and individuals. Private enterprise, as was the case in crises of the past, will play an essential role in getting America back on its feet.

COMMENTARY BY

Jarrett Stepman

Jarrett Stepman is a contributor to The Daily Signal and co-host of The Right Side of History podcast. Send an email to Jarrett. He is also the author of the new book, “The War on History: The Conspiracy to Rewrite America’s Past.”Twitter: .

RELATED ARTICLES:

For Mike Lindell, the Battle Against COVID-19 Is No Pillow Fight

Kowtowing to China on Taiwan and the Coronavirus

Free People Take Responsibility and Solve Problems

Asymptomatic Cases Complicate the Containment of Coronavirus

A Note for our Readers:

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!

GET ACCESS NOW! >>

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

Is The Corona Virus ‘A Crystal Ball’ Into Socialism and Bigger Government?

/in , , , , , , /by

This time in history demonstrates that the government has too much power…it can completely control our lives…it can shut down businesses indiscriminately…it can keep us in our homes…it can shut down gas stations to keep us in place…it can do anything it wants because it has too much power….and then, there are those who want to take our weapons from us too…wake up America! Those that want government to have more and more power are fools. We the people are losing power over our own lives. We need to protect our rights guaranteed us by the Constitution, especially the 1st and 2nd amendments.

For those who want more government in the from of socialism, please take note…

The Corona virus has given government the ability to pick winners and losers. Governor Phil Murphy (D-NJ) has closed all gun shops and stopped all gun background checks but has allowed medical marijuana shops and liquor stores to stay open. This is the same governor who has banned the use of plastic bags. That ban will start very shortly. It is going to be a real comedy to watch all the shoppers leaving grocery stores trying to carry out their groceries as well as their kids!! Abortion is not life saving. Quite the contrary, abortion kills! Yet Gov. Murphy, along with his wife Tammy, insist that abortion clinics remain open. Closings are indiscriminate depending on who is doing the closing! They can even close churches and use Corona as an excuse. Who is to say that closures will not be permanent? After all, they have the police and military at their disposal.

For example, Mayor Deborah Frank Feinen (D) of Champaign, Illinois, signed an executive order to give herself the power to ban the sale of guns, ammo and alcohol after declaring a citywide emergency to address the Corona Virus. In addition, she has the power to cut off access to natural gas, water, and electricity and the ability to “take possession of private property” and order the temporary closing of businesses.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot (D) said she is considering shutting down public areas and made it clear that anyone breaking this new measure will be fined or possibly arrested So, I guess it will be a violation even to go out to exercise. Has any one told her that sunshine and fresh air kill the virus?

Some liberal politicians have had some very novel ideas about how to handle the Corona Virus. Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) said “I think now would be the time to commute some sentences, to exact clemency and to take care of our most vulnerable. Ten percent of those incarcerated are over the age of 60 and already have an underlying condition. We should be using compassionate release” said Pressley.

And then there are the liberal politicians who can only complain about republicans who are doing what democrats are also doing. Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) attacked republicans over the stimulus bill. Would someone please tell her that every democrat voted for the bill including herself!

The power grab actually did not start with the outbreak of the Corona Virus. It was not very long ago that former Mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg (D) banned the sale of sugary drinks over 12 oz.

And how is it that government has gotten all this power? We can only blame ourselves! Government has the right to do the things We the People have allowed! It did not start over night or with the outbreak of the Corona Virus. It has been a steady erosion of our rights and freedoms, very much as the example of boiling a frog… put it in cold water and slowly turn up the heat. If you tried to place it in hot water, it would jump out.

Our economy has been one of the biggest victims of the Corona Virus. Tens of thousands of businesses have been forced by government to close. Millions of people have been thrown out of work. We have been told what we can buy and the quantity limited. And now mayors and governors around the country are mandating that we are not allowed to leave our homes! Not saying that the Corona Virus outbreak is not serious but every year we go through a flu and virus season. The Center for Disease Control estimates that up to 42.9 million people got sick during the 2018-19 flu season…647,000 people were hospitalized and 61,200 died. That’s fairly on par with a typical season, and well below the CDC’s 2017-18 estimates of 48.8 million illnesses…959,000 hospitalizations and 79,400 deaths. But even though tens of thousands died last year do to the flu, not a single school or business was closed and no one was put out of work or ordered to stay home.

Is it a mere coincidence that this is a presidential election year? It is no secret the media hates Donald Trump. Maybe it is the media and their friends on the left that have created this panic. Again I am not saying this is not serious, it is. But can this all be seen as an attempt to destroy our once booming economy, to destroy the Trump Presidency and for the left and the Democrat party to regain power?

Corona virus is just the latest example of how liberal politicians “never let a crisis go to waste”. It will be very interesting how these “temporary powers” become permanent laws that will burden us forever!

And speaking of never letting a crisis go to waste, expect to hear the cry from towns, municipalities, cities, counties and states that the Corona Virus has stripped their resources and insist on state and federal bailouts and tax increases! This would add more insult to injury to the American worker and taxpayer who are already victims of poor government financial oversight! It would be no surprise to me if the politicians that are getting us into this mess are already salivating over these prospects!

We must ask ourselves this question. Are we setting up a very dangerous precedent? Again we must go back to history to see how other epidemics have ended. Even the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918 that killed several million people worldwide ended with the summer season. I can guarantee you this, come next winter there will be another flu epidemic. It may not be the Corona Virus strain but millions of people will get sick, thousands will die, and not a single school or business will be closed, not a single person thrown out of work, or population quarantine. And why will that be? Our 2020 presidential election will be over.

We Americans also need to be asking ourselves another question. Who are we going to trust to rebuild our economy? Who has the knowledge and the proven track record? Is it Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton or even Michelle Obama? NO. Donald Trump is the only one with the knowledge of economics and the proven track record to bring us back to the robust economy his policies created before the corona virus. We are fortunate to have a Donald Trump who knows how to create a booming economy and again the only one with the track record who has
proven it.

Never should we give government absolute power over our lives…that just makes us all slaves to the government. We the people must be vigilant and hold our politicians accountable to protect our freedoms guaranteed to us by our Constitution. Apathy allows the few to take control of us all.

Liberalism, progressive, communism and socialism are synonymous. It kills the American Dream. One day we will wake up and be a socialist country and ask how did this happen? Remember the frog in the cool water that gradually heats up. Wake up America! The water is all around us and it is heating up.

For all who want more Government control of every facet of our lives, let this media created crisis be a Crystal Ball to look into socialism and bigger government. We have been warned about this before, “If government is big enough to give you everything you want, it is big enough to take it all away.”

© All rights reserved.

COLUMN BY

RICK TRADER

Rick Trader is the host, executive producer, and founder of the Conservative Commandos Radio Show. His diverse background in everything from aviation to starting a non-profit educational foundation, to public speaking, gives him a unique perspective to the issues that Americans face today. Rick has worked in the video, television, and radio production industry, as well as hosting of television and radio programs. Rick created the Conservative Commandos Radio Show because he wanted to have a place to voice his conservative opinions, and give other conservatives the opportunity to return our country to the constitutional, Judeo-Christian roots our Founding Fathers envisioned. The Conservative Commandos Radio Show has become a place where conservative ideas, opinions, principles, values, and voices can be heard and shared with rest of the country.

RELATED ARTICLE: Why Socialism Is the Failed Idea That Never Dies

BRUTAL: 5 awful facts about the World Health Organization’s Dr. Tedros Adhanom

/in , , , , , , /by

Rebel News published the following video titled BRUTAL: 5 awful facts about the World Health Organization’s Tedros Adhanom on its YouTube channel.

“WHO” the hell is Dr. Tedros Adhanom, the Director General of the World Health Organization, anyway?

© All rights reserved.

EDITORS NOTE: Go to https://www.RebelNews.com for more great Rebel content.

Palm Sunday Without Palms

/in , , , /by

David G. Bonagura Jr.: Beginning today, we are bereft of our usual Holy Week celebrations; empty-handed, so to speak. But we do have Christ.

Today, in countless Catholic churches the world over, palms will not be given to the faithful. Many of us will watch piously on our TV screens as priests begin by blessing the palm branches in an action that makes this Mass so distinct, so memorable, and, normally, so tactile.

But not this year. We will not be present to receive our palms, to hold them as the Gospel of Jesus’ triumphal ascent into Jerusalem is read, to make crosses out of them, to thread them through our crucifixes upon returning home. It is a Palm Sunday without palms.

The annual commemoration of our Lord’s passion is not meant to be melancholic. Catholics rightly celebrate the events of Holy Week, knowing that the sorrowful passion is the means of our more glorious redemption. And so we begin Mass on this day with a note of triumph: “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, the king of Israel. Hosanna in the highest!”

This year, however, our joy is tempered, with the Coronavirus keeping us from reliving these mysteries, as we ought. Ours is an historical religion, and it is through the Holy Week liturgies, above all, that we are mystically transported to the very moments that changed the world – and each of our lives – forever. Now we have to relive our history with our senses and souls deprived of the accessories: smells, sights, and even physical presence at the liturgical celebrations themselves.

Instead, we will find our historical anchor in something that transcends the senses: the deprivation the disciples felt between the passion and the resurrection.

Normally, receiving palm branches is the first act of our paschal celebration, and it points ahead to the end of the story a week hence. Christ enters Jerusalem today hailed by all as the king of the Jews. The palms, explains the liturgist Fr. Pius Parsch, are “symbols of our loyalty to Him and of our willingness to do Him homage.”

This procession was one of the few times in His life that our Lord accepted public honors. He only did so on His own terms, upsetting all our expectations of what we think a king should be. He received gold, the symbol of kingly power, only as a helpless infant. Now, as a man who has manifested unimaginable power, He chooses the meekness prophesized by Zechariah, repeated in today’s Mass: “Tell the daughter of Zion: Behold, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on an ass, and on a colt, the foal of an ass.” (Matthew 21:5)

“He is the king of peace,” writes Joseph Ratzinger, “and by God’s power, not His own.”

In just a few days, the lauds will turn to sneers: “We have no king but Caesar!” A distressed Pilate puts the question to Jesus, “Are you the king of the Jews?” “My kingdom is not of this world,” He replies. He is Lord not just of a particular people, nor even of “this world.” He transcends all that this world has to offer. He is truth itself, the very foundation upon which the world rests. “For this I was born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice.” (John 18:37)

Those who reject the truth send Him to the Cross, the most ironic of thrones for the king to mount. In Palm Sunday’s Gospel, we hear the chief priests ridicule Him: “He is the King of Israel; let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. He trusts in God; let God deliver him now.” (Matthew 27:42-43)

He does come down – dead. He is buried in a tomb, sealed by a giant stone. His disciples had seen the miracles and had heard the spellbinding discourses. Now they have nothing. They walk away empty-handed.

Today we, too, are empty-handed. We are not holding the palms of victory this year. Unlike the disciples, we know how the greatest story ever told ends, and we draw hope from it. But in that second greatest story, that of each of our lives, we feel the confusion, emptiness, and pain from the coronavirus’s devastating path: lost income, jobs, and loved ones. And the loss of the Mass, the one anchor in an otherwise tumultuous world, makes this all the more painful.

Knowing our need to see and to touch, the Church offers our senses a veritable feast during Holy Week. We do not just revisit the paschal mystery, but feel it, live it. By force this year, we are challenged to take up another spiritual means, that of the greatest saints in our history: the “negative way” of walking in the Dark Night of deprivation and raw faith. The usual aids to belief have been abruptly removed. We instead must follow the declaration in Aquinas’s hymn Pange Lingua, from Holy Thursday’s procession: “Let faith supply for the senses’ defect.” (Præstet fides supplementum/ Sensuum defectui.)

Easter will come, even without public celebration. Even then, we learn through Mary Magdalene that deprivation is part of the life of faith: “Do not hold me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father.” (John 20:17) We have the victory without the palms, because we have faith in Jesus Christ, victor over death.

COLUMN BY

David G Bonagura, Jr.

David G. Bonagura Jr. teaches at St. Joseph’s Seminary, New York. He is the author of Steadfast in Faith: Catholicism and the Challenges of Secularism (Cluny Media).

EDITORS NOTE: This Catholic Thing column is republished with permission. © 2020 The Catholic Thing. All rights reserved. For reprint rights, write to: info@frinstitute.org. The Catholic Thing is a forum for intelligent Catholic commentary. Opinions expressed by writers are solely their own.

Florida Gets Full Stock of Medical Supplies, Media Barfs!

/in , , , , , , /by

The media continues to vomit all over what’s left of their shredded credibility, criticizing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for doing too little for weeks now because he did not panic and shutdown the state, and now casting nasty aspersions at him for, somehow preparing too well.

It’s despicable and true.

The Florida media has harped incessantly that DeSantis is dawdling in not shutting down the state a la New York, California and others. Actually, he’s continuing to navigate the uncharted seas of requiring the closing of businesses and minimizing the infringement on both liberties and the workers who do not have to stay home — such as those in construction.

But now we find that DeSantis has been very aggressive and successful in getting most or all of the medical supplies it appears the state will need for the outbreak. And guess what? Shock of shockers, the media is again hammering him, apparently for being so successful.

In addition to being a Republican, DeSantis is a close ally of President Trump. That alone makes him open season for the Democrat media hounds. But he also seems to be taking a similar tack on handling the disease as the President, not leaping forward too far until the data requires it — if it requires it.

But DeSantis is also like Trump in that he has been successful in his first year and a half as Governor of Florida, getting through a range of issues that the Democrat media hate.

Along these lines, he was quick to order a thorough assessment of the state’s medical needs to deal with COVID-19 and an upcoming hurricane season. Florida requested substantial supplies through Direct Federal Assistance, making a strong case for these needs. It appears as though the state is getting everything it asked for, being stored in a giant, converted warehouse in the centralized city of Orlando, from which the supplies are being distributed throughout the state 24 hours per day.

Here’s the rather impressive list:

  • 5 mobile intensive care units
  • 5,000 ventilators
  • 5,000 hospital beds
  • 50,000 two oz. bottles of hand sanitizer
  • 250,000 coveralls
  • 500,000 gloves
  • 500,000 gowns
  • 500,000 collection kits
  • 100,000 16 oz. bottles of hand sanitizers
  • 150,000 Personal Protective Equipment kits, including coveralls, gowns, and goggles
  • 2 million N95 face masks

In addition, DeSantis and team managed to obtain significant medical supplies from private vendors. They were so successful, infact, that the federal government stepped in and diverted some of those supplies to New York City, whose governor and mayor had not been as successful as DeSantis with the private sector.

(Now however, it appears that some of those private contracts are unfulfilled as distributors from companies such as 3M are profiteering by getting states to bid against each other, or simply not delivering. Florida’s Emergency Management Director called it “chasing ghosts.” There will be a price to pay for that.)

Overall, this all is pretty good news for Floridians, as it suggests the state’s hospitals may not get overwhelmed, despite our large elderly population. Newspapers keep reporting worst-case scenarios and then talking to a nurse somewhere fishing for a quote about how bad it is or could get. But these stories, and model projections that have been shown to be unreliable, frequently don’t comport with underlying actual hard data from the state — such as above.

The Democrat media machine was unable to accept even the blatantly good news that Florida is getting what it asked for from the feds, and spun around to make unsubstantiated insinuations.

This Orlando Weekly headline was one of several I saw around the state, all the same. Headline: “Why did Florida get all the emergency supplies it requested when other states didn’t?” This reporter went so far as to call a hospital in Oklahoma, a state that has received less than requested, to fish for a comment from a nurse saying she was upset because they might not be able to care for their patients. (They will.)

This is the perfect spin because they can malign both President Trump and DeSantis at the same time — the two most hated political figures for the Florida media.

Imagine what these same “reporters” — Democrat operatives with a media platform — would be writing if DeSantis actually failed and got only a fraction of his request and the state was dangerously low on medical supplies. It takes literally no imagination.

Bias partisanship and sensationalism is a toxic combo to media credibility. It’s just not clear they really care anymore.

EDITORS NOTE: This Revolutionary Act column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

Watch Live: Trump’s Press Briefing on COVID-19

/in , , , , , , /by

Do you want to hear directly from President Donald Trump and his advisers about how the fight against COVID-19 is going?

NOTE: President’s COVID-19 briefing begins at the 18:45 mark:

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 >>

RELATED ARTICLES:

A Bigger Government Wouldn’t Have Prevented Coronavirus. It Would Have Made Things Worse.

COVID-19 and Second Amendment: 3 Things to Know

Fauci: Trump Took Coronavirus Seriously ‘From the Beginning’

March Jobs Report: 701,000 Jobs Lost, Unemployment Jumps to 4.4%

Amid COVID-19 Pandemic, What Daily Life Is Like in Italy Now

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal video is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

Will Trump Betray Us After Corona?

/in , , , , , /by

Some people are stunned that government using computer models to predict high corona virus deaths has many Americans willing to gift Democrats/fake news media their lifelong dream of ending the U.S. Constitution. Panic-stricken citizens want everyone non-compliant to immediate dictatorial government demands thrown into jail.

Consequently, Democrats are behaving like power-drunk pirates, raping and pillaging our God given and constitutional freedoms. Incredibly, New York mayor de Blasio has threatened to close places of worship forever. Virginia Gov (supreme dictator) Northam decreed that residents stay at home until June 10th, after the June 9th Republican primary. 

Despite practicing CDC guidelines, a pastor was arrested for opening his church while the nearby Home Depot was packed with people. Planned Parenthood dead-baby-body-parts-chop-shops deemed essential are allowed to remain open.

Across America thousands of inmates are being released from prison because of corona virus. Disease infested tent city vagrants ignore corona restrictions while violators of stay-at-home orders are arrested. Democrats always handle illegal aliens, criminals and those who are irresponsible with velvet gloves while bludgeoning law abiding citizens with an iron-fist.

Drunk with corona-power, Barrack Obama, Andrew Cuomo and Nancy Pelosi are exploiting the virus to pressure Trump to fund a laundry list of unrelated extreme leftist pet projects.

The big question which concerns many is will our constitutional rights be restored after corona? Can the Democrat/deep state evil-genie be put back into the bottle? Will president Trump betray us by rubber-stamping the Deep States’ illegal extreme power grab as the “new normal”?

Candidate Trump was a non-ideological “Mr Smith Goes to Washington” kind of guy, expecting bipartisan support to do whatever is best for America and We the People. His agenda has not changed. President Trump will fight to restore our God given and constitutional freedoms.

Like you, I did not enjoy hearing that America will not reopen before April 30th. However, I understand the situation. Fear is a powerful thing. Due to 24/7 apocalyptic corona virus reporting, fake news media pretty much holds the emotions of millions of Americans in the palm of its sleazy, evil, anti-Trump hand.

Wisely, Trump is allowing another month for Americans to become fed up with house arrest, realize that computer models are not gospel and the sky is not falling. We are Americans. We overcome everything. God is with us.

Due to the extreme unprecedented situation, I am fine with the $2 trillion bailout. The American people did not irresponsibly put themselves into this predicament. We give billions to countries and people who hate our guts. Why not lend a hand to our own.

Democrats are salivating over the possibility of the bailout being the first taste of addicting Americans to the deceptive unfulfilling drug of socialism/communism. Because of who Trump is and who we are, America will not become a socialist/communist country.

Treasonous fake news media corona virus reporting is intended to generate fear, panic and hatred for Trump. Fake news media tried to shame “My Pillow Guy”, Mike Lindell, for expressing his faith in God during a White House briefing. A majority of Americans respect and appreciate our patriot brother Mike for his contribution to fight the virus. We are a Christian nation. God promises that no weapon formed against us shall prosper.

Folks, I do not fear corona virus nor the loss of America as we know it.

Some will say, Lloyd, you’re an idiot for not worrying. Alcoholics Anonymous warns against imagining, when something negative happens, that it will cause a chain reaction of other negative things to happen. Suddenly, that person is foolishly jumping off a bridge based solely on his imagined coming catastrophe. The Bible says worrying about something which you cannot change is unwise.

Trust in the Lord with all thy heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct your path.” (Proverbs 3:5-6) Please do not misunderstand me. Trusting God does not mean we should passively allow out-of-control-fear to flush our economy down the toilet. President Trump must get Americans back to work ASAP.

Meanwhile, my wife Mary and I are frequently washing our hands, using sanitizer, limiting our shopping and catching up on long overdue projects around our house. After much research on Youtube, I painted our bedroom dark gray. It looks awesome!

Romans 8:28 promises that as Christians, God is working all things for our good. So I feel great, enjoying my lovely wife of 40 years and enjoying my creative projects.

Our hope for a greater, stronger and restored America rest in trusting God and our president.

© All rights reserved.

RELATED ARTICLES:

A Bigger Government Wouldn’t Have Prevented Coronavirus. It Would Have Made Things Worse.

NY Governor Cuomo -Does he have blood on his hands?

COVID-19 and Second Amendment: 3 Things to Know

Fauci: Trump Took Coronavirus Seriously ‘From the Beginning’

Iran, Hezbollah Use Mexican Drug Cartels to Infiltrate U.S.

/in , , , , , , , , /by

Iran and its terror proxy Hezbollah are financing Mexican drug cartels, smuggling people into America and recruiting them (for pay) as sleeper jihadist cells.

The recruits are mainly immigrants to Mexico from the Middle East, mostly from Lebanon where Hezbollah is based.

The coordinated operation is part of Iran’s war on America.

While Iran and Hezbollah are known to be active in the drug trade further south in Latin America, many are unaware that Iran, through its proxy Hezbollah, finances money laundering operations and human smuggling through the Mexican drug cartels at the U.S. border.

The operation is founded on the known fact that the U.S.-Mexican border is easy to penetrate, with tens of thousands of illegal immigrants and asylum seekers from Mexico and other Latin American countries coming into the U.S. from Mexico every month.

In southern Chiapas in Mexico, there are Muslim communities. These communities are made up of Syrians and Lebanese who migrated to Mexico decades ago as well as recent Mexican converts to Islam. In addition, Islam is gaining a foothold and in southern Mexico, with indigenous Mayans converting by the hundreds.

These communities are funded in the Diaspora and all contain sleeper cells. With the help of Mexican drug cartels, they finance and traffic extremists to the United States.

Canada has also become their target after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau lifted the visa requirement for Mexican citizens.

For example, Ayman Juma, a Lebanese citizen linked to Mexican drug cartels and involved in the drug trade in Latin America and Mexico, is a member of the Hezbollah. He is also associated with al-Qaeda.

Juma has smuggled tons of drugs from Mexico to the United States. The money made is partially used to fund terrorism, especially to prepare terrorist attacks against Israel as well as Hezbollah’s activities in America.

Hezbollah also managed to smuggle 200 illegal Lebanese immigrants through Mexico to America. All of them are part of a network of Iranian and Hezbollah supporters.

After his arrest, Mahmoud Youssef Kourani, a Lebanese citizen who infiltrated the United States through the Lebanese-Mexican smuggling network, admitted to the FBI that he spent part of his time in the United States to raise funds to support Hezbollah’s activities. His efforts netted $40,000 for the terror group.

According to what Korani also told the FBI, his brother is the head of Hezbollah’s military division.

The smuggling network is a clear example of the symbiotic relationship between the Mexican drug cartels and Hezbollah. Salim Bougader, for example, ran a Lebanese smuggling network in Mexico where he successfully brought in many enemies of the U.S. into the country.

For example, one of the many smuggled in by Bougader worked for a Hezbollah-funded television station that glorified suicide bombers and was part of an anti-American propaganda machine during the time when U.S. soldiers were dying while serving in the Middle East.

Hezbollah, in cooperation with Mexican drug cartels, also smuggles drugs to Europe and the Middle East, as well as to the United States. According to the U.S. Justice Department, it is obvious that Hezbollah views America as a source of funds for its operations.

Due to their partnership, it would be reasonable to assume that Hezbollah is also complicit with the Mexican drug cartels that are responsible for killing tens of thousands in Mexico every year in drug-related violence.

Although the United States has one of the most powerful intelligence services in the world and is not located in the Middle East, radical Islamic terrorism continues to threaten America — especially through Mexico, which has the largest border with America and one that is relatively easily to penetrate.

This leads one to the conclusion that, at the very least, a border wall is needed to protect the U.S.’ national security interests from the likes of Iran and Hezbollah.

COLUMN BY

RELATED ARTICLES:

Bernie Sanders Demands That Israel “Lift Its Restrictions on Humanitarian Aid,” But There Are No Such Restrictions

The book Ilhan Omar doesn’t want you to read

Hamas top dog: “If ventilators are not brought into Gaza, we’ll stop the breathing of six million Israelis”

Saudi Arabia accused of weaponizing mobile technologies against its citizens in the US

Turkey vows to continue forcing more migrants across the Greek border after coronavirus ends

EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

VIDEO: Mike Lindell, Not the Media, Is the Hero

/in , , , , , /by

VIDEO: President Trump’s White House coronavirus briefing to promote corporate allies.

MyPillow CEO Michael Lindell, a self-made former crack addict, is going to transform 75% of his manufacturing capacity to make 10,000 cotton face masks per day by the end of the week, ramping up production to 50,000 a day in a month.

That sounds like a patriotic act to me, especially given that Lindell is undertaking the effort without being forced to do so by a federal agency. I hope the guy becomes a billionaire after this is all over.

NBC? Not so much. The headline on its “analysis” of Lindell’s remarks was “Trump fluffs MyPillow in Rose Garden.”

This matched the basic tone taken by a large faction within the political press. Why? Presumably because, at the end of his remarks, Lindell claimed that the Lord Almighty had helped elect Donald Trump president to save our once-beleaguered nation from its alleged depravations.

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 >>

Listen, if there is a God, I hope He refrains from tipping the scales of presidential contests. But it’s not surprising to hear an evangelical Christian talking about the world this way—unless, that is, you’ve never met one.

Of course, anyone who shows anything less than hostility toward the president is immediately cast as a reactionary and their actions dismissed as questionable and self-serving.

Many of the CEOs who have stood with Trump at his press conferences—this week, or in weeks prior—hold varying religious and partisan beliefs. The press didn’t have similar qualms about the CEOs of CVS or Walgreens, because they kept their views to themselves.

Lindell is a villain for speaking his truth, as the kids say. Yet the real heroes of our age—White House political correspondents—are applauded for speaking theirs.

Yesterday, PBS’ Yamiche Alcindor, one of the many pundits masquerading as a dispassionate journalist, was chided by Trump during his presser.

Immediately, journalists, who are perhaps the most tribalistic group in American political life, rallied around her with fawning tributes to her bravery and victimhood (because Trump only lashes out at black women, apparently). #WeLoveYamiche is the hashtag, if you’re interested.

Philip Rucker of The Washington Post noted that Alcindor “routinely gets under his skin with probing questions,” as if rattling our irascible president was a noteworthy accomplishment, or an act of heroism, or, in and of itself, a reliable indication that a reporter is doing a good job.

The Post’s media critic, Erik Wemple, meanwhile, was forced to reimagine what Alcindor’s question might have sounded like had it been more coherent. And, simply because Trump had been rude to her, he claimed that Alcindor has now become “the symbol of American journalism.”

Yes, that’s the problem.

It’s Alcindor’s prerogative to try and bait the president, as she has done on numerous occasions over the past weeks, and it’s PBS’ prerogative to send her to ask questions that do absolutely nothing to help the public gain a better understanding of the government’s efforts to fight the coronavirus. But we should not forget that most of her narcissistic defenders are really talking about themselves.

Some journalists are indeed on the front lines of “war zones, refugee crises, genocides,” as CNN’s S. E. Cupp put it recently. But Alcindor, whose Twitter feed is littered with all kinds of absurdity, is not.

She risks absolutely nothing by asking the president questions. Like Jim Acosta, who titled his book, “Enemy of the People: A Dangerous Time to Tell the Truth in America,” she is stealing valor.

The overall breadth and intensity of the anti-Trump press demonstrates there are few inhibitions and zero limitations on free press (though many in the media do advocate to limit your free speech). No one has been stopped from engaging, investigating, writing, or sharing their antagonism toward Trump. Nor should they.

Some lucky Americans, such as Alcindor, are afforded the benefit of challenging the president personally. That’s fine. I wish the press had exhibited the same level of reflexive antagonism toward every president. They don’t.

But Lindell’s political and religious views do not diminish his patriotic act, just as Alcindor’s ability to make the president mad does not transform her into a hero. It doesn’t even make her good at her job.

Perhaps our media culture has spent so much time politicizing the world that they’ve confused patriotism with victimhood. Or maybe they’re so obsessed with fighting the president that they can’t recognize that his fans might be capable of a good deed.

But if where you stand on Trump is your guiding definition of patriotism and heroism, your moral compass might be broken.

COPYRIGHT 2020 CREATORS.COM

COMMENTARY BY

David Harsanyi

David Harsanyi is a senior writer at National Review and the author of “First Freedom: A Ride through America’s Enduring History With the Gun, From the Revolution to Today.” Twitter: .

RELATED ARTICLES:

COVID-19 Rocks Hospitality Industry as Economy Sheds 701,000 Jobs

CDC Now Recommending Face Masks, Trump Says

Textile Industry Aims to Manufacture 10 Million Face Masks a Week

RELATED VIDEO: Dershowitz – Demonized by the Left for Defending Trump.

A Note for our Readers:

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!

GET ACCESS NOW! >>

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.