Trump Set to Lay Out Plan for Reopening America

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President Donald Trump intends to announce guidelines Thursday for states to “reopen” as the nation makes progress against the coronavirus pandemic.

“The data suggests that nationwide we have passed the peak on new [COVID-19] cases. Hopefully, that will continue,” Trump said Wednesday evening in the Rose Garden at the White House. “These encouraging developments have put us in a very strong position to finalize guidelines for states on reopening the country, which we’ll be announcing tomorrow.”

Trump also threatened to use his “constitutional authority” to adjourn both houses of Congress so that he could make recess appointments because Senate Democrats continue to block dozens of his nominations, some of which he said are important in the fight against COVID-19.

Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution grants the president the power, “on extraordinary occasions,” to “convene both Houses, or either of them, and in case of disagreement between them, with respect to the time of adjournment, he may adjourn them to such time as he shall think proper.”

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 >>

Trump said he and the White House coronavirus task force will brief governors Thursday on the guidelines to reopen the country, then announce them to the public.

The president said the change won’t happen all at once, since each state is different.

“We’ll be opening up states, some much sooner than others,” Trump said.  “We think some of the states can actually open up before the deadline of May 1, and I think that will be a very exciting time indeed. Governors are looking forward, they are chomping at the bit to get going.”

Trump spoke to industry leaders and CEOs earlier Wednesday in a conference call to get feedback on reopening the nation’s economy, among them Heritage Foundation President Kay C. James.

Trump announced Tuesday that James is among influential leaders named to 17 “Great American Economic Revival” groups that he would consult on getting the country back to work.

“I am grateful to work with President Trump alongside economists, scholars, and industry leaders on the Great American Economic Revival,” James said in a prepared statement. “We are committed to developing plans to get Americans back to work as soon as it’s safe to do so and helping the nation recover from COVID-19.”

James, named by the president to the “thought leaders” group, continued:

“Heritage recently formed the National Coronavirus Recovery Commission, bringing together experts in medicine, economics, business, government, disaster relief, and education to develop recommendations to save both the lives and livelihoods of Americans from this pandemic and provide our nation’s leaders with a road map to reopen America when the time comes to do so safely. I am excited to bring those recommendations to the president’s Great American Economic Revival team.”

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

Trump administration officials note that while there are coronavirus hot spots in the Northeast and former hot spots on the West Coast, 25 states have fewer than 2,500 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and nine states have fewer than 1,000.

The U.S. has seen 605,390 cases of COVID-19 and 24,582 related deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, although Vice President Mike Pence put the death toll at over 27,000 Wednesday evening.

Responding to reporters’ questions, Trump again said that the federal government has the authority to require individual states to reopen. But, he said, he prefers not to take that route.

“If we’re not happy, we’ll take very strong action against a state or a governor,” Trump said. “If we’re not happy with the job a governor is doing, we’ll let them know about it. As you know, we have very strong action we can take, including a close-down. But we don’t want to do that. We’re working with the governors.”

Pence, a former Indiana governor as well as congressman, has been the president’s point man in communicating with governors.

The vice president, who also chairs the White House’s coronavirus task force, noted that 3.3 million tests for COVID-19 have been administered, yielding 619,000 positive results.

Still, Pence noted, 24% of all counties in the United States have zero confirmed cases of the contagious disease caused by the new coronavirus that originated in Wuhan, China.

“Sadly, we mourn the loss of more than 27,000 of our countrymen,” Pence said. “Despite the heartbreaking losses, we are getting there, America.”

Rhode Island is getting hard hit by COVID-19 cases that originate in New York City and Boston, even as those cities are seeing a decline, said Dr. Deborah Birx, response coordinator for the task force.

Birx said things are looking up, but offered a sober warning.

“I will just remind the American people again, this is a highly contagious virus. Social gatherings, coming together, there is always a chance that an asymptomatic person can spread the virus unknowingly,” Birx said, adding:

No one is intending to spread the virus. We know if you are sick you will stay home. But to all of you out there that would like to join together and just have that dinner party for 20, don’t do it yet. Continue to follow the presidential guidelines. We really appreciate the work of the American people.

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.

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Public Health Steps Should Benefit, Not Punish, the Public

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.

Trump Pulling Off the Impossible Again — Reopening the Economy!

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While in the paint section at Home Depot, a young couple next to me wore masks. A thought popped into my head, “Am I nuts for not wearing a mask?” “Stop it. Get a grip Lloyd.” When many are responding in fear and panic, it can be a challenge not to succumb.

Governors are allowing people to shop at liquor stores, Walmart, Home Depot, fabric stores and more while banning people from listening to sermons in their cars in church parking lots. And yet, an elderly Christian minister friend is scolding Christians for rebelling against the repeal of their religious liberty. He also believes everyone should wear masks and gloves.

I am a pioneer of the Tea Party movement. Even patriots whom I fought side by side with are so filled with fear that they are willing to surrender their constitutional freedoms over to Democrat dictator governors.

A friend said his 40 something year old son caught corona virus and wrote funeral instructions. His son made a full recovery in 4 days.

I am excited to announce that more and more people are finally realizing fake news media and health experts bludgeoning us with their lie that corona is the deadliest virus of all times is politically motivated.

In the past viruses have come and gone without worldwide attention. Instant internet worldwide communications could be the cause of the global shutdown. Countries and governors immediately began competing to implement the most overreaching draconian decrees.

Knut Wittkowski, PhD formerly of the Rockefeller University said social distancing could be making the problem worse.

“The problem is if we are artificially keeping the number of infections low among low risk people like school children and their parents we may not have reached herd immunity yet.” “The down side of starting containment, we should not believe that we are more intelligent than mother nature was when we were evolving. Mother Nature (God) was pretty good at making sure that we’re a good match for the diseases that we happen to see virtually every year.” 

Some believe America as we know it is gone. They think Trump will allow Dr Fauci to dictate when and how we reopen America. I think not.

Folks, I cannot believe that God would bring our country back from the brink of destruction (President Hillary), only to leave us. Please allow me to recap.

When Obama was reelected, my wife Mary and I were in a hotel room. We had spent several months on the road with Conservative Campaign Committee campaigning for Romney. We were devastated.

Obama has been documented as the most biblically hostile president in US history. I said, “Father, I don’t know why you allowed Obama to be reelected, but I trust you.”

It was impossible to predict that Obama’s mission to usher in America’s decline would pave the yellow-brick road to electing Trump. God is using Trump to bless America beyond our wildest dreams; evidenced by his remarkable and swiftly growing long list of unprecedented achievements for We the People.

Despite billions of dollars worth of negative press to brand Trump a clown, a racist and an idiot, the guy pulled off the impossible. He won the presidency.

Over the past 3 ½ years, Democrats and fake news media launched numerous impossible-to-survive illegal schemes to end Trump’s presidency. Trump survived them all.

Corona virus is the big Kahuna of their schemes to end their nightmare of having a fearless fighter for We the People in the Oval Office. Like every other evil scheme they have launched against Trump, corona-madness will fail.

My faith in the American people is proving correct. I stated that I could not imagine the American people putting up with the shutdown for very long. I am delighted that the nationwide rebellion against unconstitutional corona dictates has begun.

In Michigan, citizens will launch “Operation Gridlock”, a traffic jam protesting Gov. Whitmer’s absurd overreaching shutdown.

Citizens in North Carolina started a social media campaign titled, #ReOpenNC”. They held a protest rally at which a woman was arrested. Like the black civil rights movement, people are willing to go to jail for their rights and freedom.

A hot thread on twitter is #ReopenAmericaNow. Reopen rallies are popping up in Ohio, Utah and other states.

Pat Buchanan’s article “What Price Victory, in the Coronavirus War?” is one of a rapidly growing long list of articles demanding that we immediately reopen America.

Trump is on the same page as Americans who want our country reopened. However, with fake news media lying about everything he says and does, Trump must play his cards close to his vest. As I stated weeks ago, I would not be surprised if Trump begins reopening America before April 30th.

With our prayers, Trump will likely pull-off the impossible again. He will restore our economy and win reelection. Fake news media and Democrats will simply plan their next big lie to stop his keep America great agenda.

God did not bring our country this far to leave us. “Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord…” (Exodus 14:13)

© All rights reserved.

RELATED VIDEO: More protests of the absurd and arbitrary loss of rights in the US.

Pennsylvania Governor Uses Virus Scare To Institute Socialism Measures

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“The plea of necessity, that eternal argument of all conspirators.” — William Henry Harrison, 9th U.S. President

Back on Jan. 15, 2020, I told a group of business owners at a Rotary meeting that freedom for the everyday citizen is in the hands of those who control their economic destiny. The enemy of Marxism is a population who have understanding based on truth. The following has just happened within the past couple of weeks.

Gov. Tom Wolf issued an executive order, dated April 8, 2020, allowing for the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency, in coordination with Commonwealth agencies to “commandeer… personal protective equipment, pharmaceuticals, and other medical resources located within the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.”

The Pennsylvania Manufacturers Association responded with the following blistering statement:

“As with his business closure decree of March 19, the Governor’s order came with no warning and no input from employers. The order is excessive, considering that the National Association of Manufacturers has been surveying inventories for weeks. The order is unwarranted, as PMA and other business groups have been working with DCED to establish a portal for manufacturers to retool to fight the pandemic. The order is contradictory because it conflicts with established protocols between Pennsylvania health care institutions. All of these failings could have been corrected if the Governor or his front office staff had sought input from the stakeholders who actually understand these issues.

“Many manufacturers in Pennsylvania are retooling and assisting in the efforts to battle the COVID-19 pandemic despite Governor Wolf’s best efforts to shut down supply chains and distribution networks. Having our commonwealth’s manufacturers inventory all personal protective equipment, pharmaceuticals, and other medical supplies for state-directed ‘commandeering’ adds uncertainty, complexity, and anxiety to an already strained relationship between the private sector and state government.

“Governor Wolf’s overreaching and extra-constitutional executive order threatens the foundation of the market response needed to battle the COVID-19 pandemic in our commonwealth and across the nation. We call on Governor Wolf to rescind this executive order immediately.”

Gov. Wolf is violating the Pennsylvania State Constitution as Section 12(c) forbids the suspending of laws and Section 32.1 states that the General Assembly shall pass no local law or special law regulating the affairs of counties, cities, townships, wards, boroughs or school districts. Is the Governor aware of the efforts of organizations such as PMA and their advanced experience to deal with such a crisis as opposed to government takeover? What kind of relationship does he have with the private sector? The private sector should be the friend of government to assist in such circumstances, and be a friend to the citizens to help keep government power in check. Overreaches like this are happening in other states.

These are classic Marxist tactics to nationalize business and thus control the money flow, which means controlling people. There is no reason for this overreach. Why not work alongside private industry and let their expertise guide in this situation? Look to history and send out warning sirens to those around you.

The integral relationship between liberty in general and freedom in the economic realm is a reality.  F.A. Hayek states in his book, The Road to Serfdom, Economic Control and Totalitarianism:

The authority directing all economic activity would control not merely the part of our lives which is concerned with inferior things; it would control the allocation of the limited means for all our ends. And whoever controls all economic activity controls the means for all our ends and must therefore decide which are to be satisfied and which not. This is really the crux of the matter.

A modern-day example of the above is Venezuela. This country was once the world’s leading exporter of oil. They were a prosperous nation and the people were self-sufficient. After Chavez came into office, oil workers went on strike and he replaced them with workers loyal to him. This resulted in inexperienced oil workers and a government who had no idea how to run this business soon. It was soon run in into the ground.

We are told by some “experts” that there is no connection between economic liberty and civil liberties. History tells a different reality. As everyday items for living became scarce, the government took control of regulating electricity, food, toilet tissue, etc. Long lines and selective processes for getting necessities ensued. For the everyday citizen, life was all about surviving.

I say this as in early April I drove through King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, a prosperous suburb of Philadelphia, observing long lines outside a grocery store and employees telling people when they could enter and how long they could stay. This is a great time to remind people again about the virtue of self-government (don’t buy ALL the toilet tissue) and help them to learn how some in government use fear to grab power.

As George Bailey tried to explain to his frightened customers in It’s A Wonderful Life, we are responding in fear to this economic crisis and Potter isn’t. He’s buying and we are selling and he’s getting some great bargains. We are acting in fear and Potter is not. I would say the same about some of my fellow Americans based on what I’ve heard and read.

In Pennsylvania, I’ve not seen the state government demonstrate that they are more capable to handle this crisis than the private sector.  I suggest that citizens in Pennsylvania and from all around the country contact their local representatives and tell them they need to be included in the decision making before decisions are made. Let’s dust off our state Constitutions and read them over to be sure they are being heeded. Liberty hinges on it.

Don’t tell yourself that when things go back to normal, control will go back to the private sector. Once again, history is not kind to that idea. Guard your liberty zealously.

COLUMN BY

KIMBERLY KENNEDY

Kimberly Kennedy is Founder of Restoretheculture.org and can be reached at kmmrgroup@gmail.com.

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

Young Boy Groomed via Online Video Game System

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You’ve heard the tragic stories of men, women, and children who have been abused and harmed by the current culture of rampant sexual exploitation.

But did you know that in these uncertain and confusing times of the COVID-19 pandemic gripping our nation and the larger global community, the threat of exploitation looms even larger?

I just heard a tragic story of a young boy who I will call Leo. That is not his real name but he and his story are very real. Leo was just 16-years-old when he was groomed and trafficked through what seemed like an innocent online video game system, one used by millions of American children. He wanted to connect with other players, and when the man who reached out to him acted like his friend, it seemed to both Leo and his parents to be just another way to talk to friends on the Internet.

But the reality was far worse! Men like Leo’s trafficker use and abuse mainstream platforms with children, like video games and other social media, in order to locate and abuse vulnerable victims.

When Leo decided to meet up with his online “friend,” traveling across state lines, he was shocked to discover the person on the other side of the screen was no friend, but rather a group of seven grown men who then trafficked and exploited the young boy.

Leo was used as a sex slave for over a year, trapped in a filthy trailer while the men spent their time trying to lure other victims. It wasn’t until another 17-year-old boy arrived, also groomed and lured through the video game platform, that Leo was finally released from his prison. The men were arrested for sex trafficking, but Leo’s life has been scarred forever from his experience.

It’s no secret or surprise that stories like Leo’s are happening all across the country. And thanks to supporters like you, the National Center on Sexual Exploitation has focused on the policies, education, and advocacy to bring awareness and solutions to these very issues.

We’ve even launched campaigns directly against the video game industry with Dirty Dozen List targets like Steam, the ultra-popular online gaming platform. Our wider #NotAGame project also targets sexual exploitation, violence, and abuse rampant in video games across all platforms.

These have been very successful projects in raising awareness, but tragedies like the one that happened to Leo are still occurring.

We know you care about not only helping boys like Leo as they recover from their abuse, but also about preventing future victims.

Our child protection projects urgently need funding right now not only because we are running short of cash for them but, as importantly, because these projects are gaining so much momentum.  We are changing the big companies that rely on our children for their success by convincing them to beef up their child-protection measures. I’m talking about companies like Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and others that millions of children access every day.

Will you help us stop this scourge of online danger with a monthly donation?

Every amount can be used to make a big difference right now. We’ll turn your monthly donation, whatever you can afford, into advocacy with legislators and corporate executives as well as a means for getting crucial information and resources into the hands of parents so they can protect their children.

With children online more than ever during this period of social isolation and distance, the threat of online sexual exploitation is more pressing now than ever.

Help prevent further boys like Leo by funding these projects today!

PLEASE GIVE TODAY!

EDITORS NOTE: This National Center on Sexual Exploitation column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

Trump Pulls WHO Funding, Says Organization ‘Must Be Held Accountable’ [Video]

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President Donald Trump made it official Tuesday that the administration was halting money to the World Health Organization, the international body that said in January that COVID-19 could not be spread by human-to-human contact, and praised China’s response to the virus.

“Our countries are now experiencing—look all over the world—tremendous death and economic devastation because those tasked with protecting us by being truthful and transparent failed to do so,” Trump said. “It would have been so easy to be truthful. And so much death has been caused by their mistakes. We will continue to engage with the WHO to see if it can make meaningful reforms.”

Trump said funding will be stopped during a review of the organization.

“American taxpayers provide between $400 million and $500 million per year to the WHO. In contrast, China contributes roughly $40 million per year, and even less,” Trump said. “As the organization’s leading sponsor, the United States has a duty to insist on full accountability.”

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 >>

“One of the most dangerous and costly decisions from the WHO was its disastrous decision to oppose travel restrictions from China and other nations,” Trump continued, adding, “The WHO’s attack on travel restrictions put political correctness above lifesaving measures.”

The United States contributes 14.7% of the World Health Organization’s $38 billion budget, while China contributes only 0.21%, according to WHO’s numbers.

According to WHO, contributions from the U.S. government, American citizens, and U.S.-based charities make up 76% of all voluntary contributions to the organization. That amounted to $945.6 million from 2016 to 2017.

Congress authorized about $123 million in taxpayer funding for WHO in the last fiscal year, and Trump’s fiscal 2021 budget request proposed to reduce funding to about $58 million.

The announced review by the administration also comes as the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee has begun an investigation into the WHO.

“The reality is that the WHO failed to adequately obtain, vet, and share information in a timely and transparent fashion,” Trump said from the Rose Garden during the daily press briefing. “The world depends on the WHO to work with countries to ensure that accurate information about international health threats is shared in a timely manner. If it’s not, to independently tell the world the truth about what is happening.”

Trump also faulted the WHO for delays in declaring a public health emergency that he said “cost valuable time, tremendous amounts of time.”

On Jan. 14, WHO unquestioningly circulated China’s official talking points in a tweet, saying, “Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China.”

“The WHO failed to investigate credible reports in Wuhan that conflicted directly with the Chinese government’s official accounts,” Trump said. “There was credible information to suspect human-to-human transmission in December 2019, which should have spurred the WHO to investigate immediately. Through the middle of January, it parroted and publicly endorsed the idea that there was not human-to-human contact despite reports and clear evidence to the contrary.”

Brett D. Schaefer, a fellow in international regulatory affairs at The Heritage Foundation, contends this may not be the best time to cut funding for the WHO, and worse yet, could make it more difficult to hold the organization accountable.

“Instead of ending funding during the current crisis, the U.S. should condition future funding to specific actions by the World Health Organization,” Schaefer wrote in an op-ed for The Daily Signal.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization, said Jan. 30 that “China is actually setting a new standard for outbreak response.”

China backed Tedros in May 2017 when he ran for the top job at the World Health Organization.

During the press conference, Trump also announced the formation of Great American Economic Revival Industry Groups, which would involve bringing together leaders from different sectors of the economy and American life.

“We have a list of people that I’ll be speaking to over the next very short period of time, in many cases, tomorrow,” Trump said.

Kay C. James, president of The Heritage Foundation, is among those in the thought leaders group, which also includes former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and John Allison, former president and CEO of the Cato Institute. Others involved include top executives from health care, retail, sports, tech, and agriculture, among other sectors.

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.

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Michiganders Protest Gov. Whitmer’s Draconian COVID-19 Stay-At-Home Orders

RELATED VIDEO: War Against Corona – The Opposite of War.

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.

Gun Control Advocate Assures Americans: There’s No Need to Buy Guns ‘Cause “the Zombies” Aren’t Coming

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The FBI performed a record-breaking 3.7 million firearm-related background checks last month. According to an April news release from Small Arms Analytics & Forecasting (SAAF), March 2020 estimates of firearm sales show an increase of over 85% from March 2019 – single handgun sales jumped by 91%, and single long-gun sales increased by over 73%.

In an interview with Cheddar news earlier this month, David Chipman, a “senior policy advisor” for the anti-gun group Giffords, was asked about his “biggest concerns” regarding the “coronavirus gun sales spike.” (If the name rings a bell, Mr. Chipman, formerly a “senior advisor” with Bloomberg’s pre-Everytown group MAIG and an ex-ATF agent, has, among other things, advocated that AR-15 rifles should be regulated “just like” fully automatic machine guns.)

During the interview, he claimed that first-time gun owners may think “in their [own] mind they might be competent.” However, they were really “putting themselves and their families in danger” based on whether these guns were being “stored safely” and properly in the home. Sitting in what appeared to be his own kitchen, Chipman advised “those people who were first-time gun owners” to “secure that gun locked and unloaded and hide it behind the cans of tuna and beef jerky that you’ve stored in a cabinet and only bring that out if the zombies start to appear, and I don’t think they are.”

Of course, following this advice means that the firearm isn’t readily available for defensive use should the need arise. (Hiding firearms among the kitchen cabinets, the refrigerator’s vegetable drawer or in the flour bin also isn’t consistent with the Giffords philosophy of mandating that all unattended firearms be kept unloaded, with a lock in place, and secured in a gun safe or other locked container.)

The real issue – apart from why anyone would take the advice of someone who thinks beef jerky comes in cans – is Chipman’s apparent incredulity at the need to keep guns in the home for self-defense. Even with law enforcement stretched thin due to sick or quarantined officers, and hundreds of inmates being released from jails and prisons (here, here, here and here), this former ATF SWAT team member assures us all that there’s nothing to fear because, well, “the zombies” aren’t coming.

Chipman, quoted elsewhere, had expanded on his jerky-zombie theme. “If we can imagine how horrible this crisis is … the people who hoarded the guns might decide six months from now – once they see no zombies around but they’ve run out of tuna and beef jerky – that they need the money to buy food.” The “horrible” part, apparently, is not just running out of food, but the more disturbing possibility of the private sales of these firearms.

In contrast to the weird pointers on how to store guns in the kitchen, the NRA has launched new online gun safety courses to address “the growing number of first-time gun buyers during the coronavirus outbreak.” Joe DeBergalis, executive director of NRA General Operations, says “[t]hese courses will provide an option for first-time gun owners who don’t have the ability to take an NRA certified instructor-led class at their local shooting range at this time. While there is no replacement for in-person, instructor-led training, our new online classes do provide the basics of firearm safety training for those self-isolating at home.”

The zombies aren’t coming, but regardless of how gun control advocates depict this recent, unprecedented affirmation of the constitutional right to keep and bear arms, law-abiding Americans – now as ever – are putting their money on the Second Amendment to keep themselves and their families safe.

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Florida Alert! Liberals Angry to Discover Gun Control Laws Infringing Upon THEIR Rights

EDITORS NOTE: This NRA-ILA column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

While US Focuses on Corona, New Bill Threatens to End All Encrypted Apps

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With all media eyes focused on the COVID-19 crisis, a bill that threatens to end the era of encrypted messaging is being proposed in the Senate.

The EARN IT Act (Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies) is a bipartisan effort to combat child sexual abuse material (CSAM) online.

Introduced by Senators Lindsey Graham and Richard Blumenthal, the legislation would create a National Commission on Online Child Exploitation Prevention. The duty of the commission would be to set up “best practices” for tech companies to prevent child sexual exploitation.

Those “best practices” are yet to be determined. The commission would be composed of government and law enforcement officials, legal and technology experts, representatives from tech companies and former child exploitation victims.

The term “earn it” comes from the fact that, under the bill, tech companies would have to “earn” their exemption from liability which is now allowed to them under Section 230 of the U.S. Communications Decency Act.

Currently, under that exemption, tech companies generally have immunity from legal liability for how people use their platforms.

Under the EARN IT legislation, companies will have to “earn” this exemption by showing the commission that they are following the “best practices” possible to keep CSAM off their platforms.

As Associate Law Professor Alan Z. Rozenshtein explains,

“Because encryption can stymie attempts to prevent, investigate and prosecute child-exploitation offenses—and because Attorney General William Barr has criticized encryption on these grounds—internet-freedom advocates strongly criticized the draft as an attack on encryption.”

Wired Magazine called the legislation a “sneak attack on encryption,” and clarified why:

“Companies might not be able to earn their liability exemption while offering end-to-end encrypted services. This would put them in the position of either having to accept liability, undermine the protection of end-to-end encryption by adding a backdoor for law enforcement access, or avoid end-to-end encryption altogether.”

Proponents of EARN IT claim that the bill is a necessary pathway to fighting child pornography and exploitation online, as Rozenshtein writes,

“This is an issue with serious but uncertain costs and benefits on both sides [however] … the best thing to do is to build a good decision-making process by which to address the issue, and then to trust that this process will lead to the best decision that could reasonably be made amid immense complexity and uncertainty. That’s the most we can ever hope for when addressing hard policy problems in a democracy.” 

Those challenging the EARN IT Act argue that the bill is too far-reaching, and raises serious free speech and privacy concerns.

Others fear EARN IT gives the government broad and undefined powers that might eventually result in scanning the public’s online message — not to mention violate the right to privacy from unreasonable government searches guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment.

As Riana Pfefferkorn, associate director of surveillance and cybersecurity at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society, notes:

“[W]hile it’s certainly a necessary, urgent, and desirable goal to combat the scourge of online child exploitation, there are still limits on what tech companies should do.

“Stepping up to fight CSAM should not mean wholesale converting their services into even more powerful surveillance tools for law enforcement than they already are.”

The New America’s Open Technology Institute, as part of a coalition of 25 civil society organizations, sent a letter to Senators Graham and Blumenthal, along with members of the Senate and House Judiciary Committees. The letter expressed severe opposition to the EARN IT Act, adding that the legislation could:

  • Raise serious concerns about violation of First Amendment rights
  • Make it more difficult to combat the sexual exploitation of children online by jeopardizing the admissibility of evidence in child sexual abuse material cases, because it raises serious questions under the Fourth Amendment
  • Risk national security and privacy by threatening encryption

Questions to Evaluate the EARN IT Act

  1. Is disrupting pedophile networks worth potentially eliminating all online privacy?
  2. To what extent is privacy already compromised due to the Patriot Act and classified NSA collection programs?
  3. Wouldn’t criminal networks simply adapt, thus devastating the privacy of millions of Americans for nothing?
  4. How could a “back door” to encrypted communications be hacked or leveraged by domestic and foreign government interests?

EDITORS NOTE: This Clarion Project column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

Potential for Fraud Is Why Mail-In Elections Should Be Dead Letter

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Twice the usual number of suspects, including CNN’s combative Jim Acosta, have been criticizing President Donald Trump for the concerns he has raised about elections conducted entirely by mail.

As the president said in a tweet, we do need absentee ballots for “many senior citizens, military, and others who can’t get to the polls on Election Day.” But the president is right to be worried about elections conducted entirely by mail.

Absentee ballots are the tools of choice of election fraudsters because they are voted outside the supervision of election officials, making it easier to steal, forge, or alter them, as well as to intimidate voters.

Going entirely to by-mail elections would unwisely endanger the security and integrity of the election process, particularly if officials automatically mail absentee ballots to all registered voters without a signed, authenticated request from each voter.

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 >>

Voter registration rolls are notoriously inaccurate and out of date, containing the names of voters who are deceased, have moved, or otherwise have become ineligible.

Having thousands of ballots arriving in the mail for individuals who no longer reside at a registered address risks those ballots being stolen and voted.

Yet many liberals are pushing that very process.

The coronavirus bill that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., tried to pass would have forced states to mail absentee ballots to all registered voters, rather than allowing states to require a signed, absentee ballot request form that can be authenticated by election officials before a ballot is sent to the voter.

Opportunity for Fraud

The problem (and opportunity for fraud) this could cause is illustrated by something the president talked about at one of his news conferences; namely, the settlement that Judicial Watch obtained from Los Angeles and the state of California over their failure to maintain the accuracy of their voter registration rolls.

The state and LA agreed to remove from the rolls 1.5 million individuals who remained registered even though they no longer were eligible to vote. Imagine what would have happened if 1.5 million ballots were simply mailed out to all of those individuals to addresses where they no longer live.

Ballots are a valuable commodity. How many would have been voted anyway by fraudsters or vote harvesters collecting absentee ballots in neighborhoods throughout Los Angeles?

Just look at what happened in North Carolina in 2018 in the 9th Congressional District race, in which the result was overturned by the state election board because of illegal vote harvesting that included altering and forging absentee ballots.

All-mail jurisdictions such as Oregon like to brag about the supposed “security” of their systems, which consists of almost nothing other than a rapid, superficial signature comparison.

As Melody Rose, an assistant professor of political science at Portland State University, told the Los Angeles Times: “I don’t have much faith in that process. I can forge my husband’s signature perfectly.”

Rose conducted a survey of one county, Washington County, outside Portland. Five percent of registered voters admitted that other people marked their ballots, and 2.4% said someone else signed their ballots.

Rose suspected the actual number was higher, given that most people would not want to admit to being “party to a crime.” That would mean that tens of thousands of mail-in ballots are being cast in Oregon by individuals other than the registered voter.

Voter ID as Security

Trump was also right when he said we need voter ID laws as a basic security measure in voting. As for those who say there is no election fraud in the U.S. that we need be concerned about, they are wrong and the president is right.

As the U.S. Supreme Court said in 2008 when it upheld Indiana’s voter ID law:

flagrant examples of such fraud … have been documented throughout this Nation’s history by respected historians and journalists [including] Indiana’s own experience with fraudulent voting in the 2003 Democratic primary for East Chicago Mayor … demonstrate that not only is the risk of voter fraud real, but that it could affect the outcome of a close election.

The Heritage Foundation’s Election Fraud Database documents almost 1,300 proven instances of fraud, including numerous cases of absentee ballot fraud. That fraud often targets the most vulnerable voters, including the elderly and the poor.

The most recent batch of cases added to the database emphasize that the president’s concern over election integrity is not misplaced.

For example, Richard Davis was convicted of a felony in California after registering his four dogs to vote as Democrats over a four-year period. Davis said his goal was to draw attention to the flawed voter registration system in his state, and he did notify the local district attorney’s office of what he was doing.

Disregarding several warnings to stop those false registrations, and after registering his deceased father, too, Davis was charged and pleaded guilty to voter registration fraud.

He never submitted a fraudulent vote, but he could have done so easily using absentee ballots if he hadn’t told officials what he was doing, since his “signature” for his dogs would have been a match on all of the forms.

Or take Gustavo Araujo Lerma, an illegal alien from Mexico. He voted multiple times in elections in Sacramento, California, under a false identity.

Protecting the Marginalized

Another case out of California demonstrates how voter fraud often hurts the most marginalized individuals in communities.

Norman Hall was involved in a scheme with eight other individuals involving the homeless on Skid Row. According to the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office, they “solicited hundreds of false and/or forged signatures on state ballot petitions and voter registration forms by offering homeless people $1 and/or cigarettes for their participation.”

The ballot petitions for which Hall and others gathered fraudulent signatures included calling for reducing jail time, changing the authority of the sheriff’s office, and increasing taxes on millionaires and other business owners.

Two other cases out of California include two individuals, Jentry and Bradley Jasperson, who forged the signatures of voters for a referendum initiative. They were each paid $5 per signature.

Another case from our newest batch features Frank Rabia, a City Council candidate in Hoboken, New Jersey, who bribed voters with $50 payments for mail-in ballots to support his candidacy.

Heritage’s Election Fraud Database has more than 60 instances of vote buying. Attempting to buy votes or signatures is entirely repugnant to the republic that America is so lucky to maintain. But purchasing votes is much easier with absentee or mail-in ballots.

The purchaser—such as Rabia—can see the voter’s absentee ballot in the voter’s home and ensure he is getting what he paid for. A purchaser can’t do that when a voter goes into the privacy of a voting booth.

Another new case we added to our database arises out of Espanola, New Mexico, where Laura Seeds and Dyon Herrera falsified absentee ballots in favor of Seeds’ husband, a Democratic candidate for City Council.

This is the same state where a lawsuit has been filed to require election officials to automatically mail absentee ballots to all registered voters in the upcoming election.

The Public Interest Legal Foundation pointed out in an amicus brief that it found more than 3,000 individuals registered multiple times in New Mexico; almost 1,700 registrants who are dead; 1,500 voters aged 100 or above (64 of whom are over 120 years old); and almost 200 individuals registered at commercial rather than residential addresses. All of these supposed voters would receive ballots automatically if the lawsuit were  successful.

These cases demonstrate that election fraud does occur and can compromise the integrity of the election process.

Not even the coronavirus can stop the upcoming presidential election, with the 2020 primaries already well underway. Soon enough, the general election will be upon us.

States should be doing everything they can to help everyone who is eligible to vote. But that doesn’t mean casting aside the safeguards in place to prevent elections from being stolen or compromised by administrative errors and fraud.

COMMENTARY BY

Hans von Spakovsky

Hans von Spakovsky is an authority on a wide range of issues—including civil rights, civil justice, the First Amendment, immigration, the rule of law and government reform—as a senior legal fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies and manager of the think tank’s Election Law Reform Initiative. Read his research.Twitter: .

Kaitlynn Samalis-Aldrich

Kaitlynn Samalis-Aldrich is an administrative and research assistant at the Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies.

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.

PODCAST: The Dark Reality of China’s COVID-19 Cover-Up

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China discovered the new coronavirus in December, but chose to hide it from the world. Now nearly every nation on earth is paying the price for China’s actions.

Olivia Enos, a senior policy analyst in the Asian Studies Center at The Heritage Foundation, joins the show to discuss her recent report, “How the Chinese Government Undermined the Chinese People’s Attempts to Prevent and Respond to COVID-19.“

Listen to the podcast below or read the lightly edited transcript.

The Daily Signal Podcast is available on Ricochet, Apple Podcasts, Pippa, Google Play, or Stitcher. All of our podcasts can be found at DailySignal.com/podcasts. If you like what you hear, please leave a review. You can also leave us a message at 202-608-6205 or write us at letters@dailysignal.com. Enjoy the show!

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 >>

Virginia Allen: When the coronavirus was first discovered in Wuhan, China, the Chinese Communist Party tried to cover it up. Doctors who were treating patients with the virus and citizen journalists who [were] trying to report on the situation were silenced.

China has restricted aid from foreign humanitarian organizations and the limits they place on free speech and nonprofits within their own nation have restricted efforts to fight COVID-19 quickly.

Here with us to break down China’s role in covering up the coronavirus and what America’s response should be is Heritage Foundation senior policy analyst in the Asian Study Center Olivia Enos. Olivia, thanks so much for being here.

Olivia Enos: Thank you so much for having me, Virginia.

Allen: Now, you have just completed and published a wonderful long report titled “How the Chinese Government Undermined the Chinese People’s Attempts to Prevent and Respond to COVID-19.”

And Dr. Li [Wenliang], we’ve heard a little bit about him. He was the initial doctor that discovered COVID-19 in Wuhan, China. What do we know about Dr. Li in his attempts to inform the world of, really, the seriousness of this virus?

Enos: Mm-hmm. Yeah, it’s just amazing that China essentially took a classic play out of its playbook this time around by starting to silence whistleblowers like Dr. Li, as you mentioned.

Dr. Li started to see an emergence of a pneumonia-like virus and he really just sort of sounded the alarm on it, and especially given that it was so infectious. He was called in for questioning, forced to recant what he had said about it.

Unfortunately, Dr. Li actually ended up dying of coronavirus himself. But he was sounding the alarm all the way back in December and we really didn’t start hearing reports emerging from China until January.

So I think that there was a lot of lost time due to the fact that Dr. Li was silenced from the start.

And not only did you have Dr. Li and other whistleblowers being told to stay quiet on this, but you also saw China and the Chinese Communist Party saying, “We’re not going to allow civil society to be involved in a really major way. Instead, we want the Chinese Communist Party to be the hero, the primary agent that is acting to respond to this virus and we want to sideline the Chinese people and the civil society,” that really could have helped in responding, especially early on.

Allen: Olivia, I think for so many of us in our Western culture this is just so bizarre for us to hear, that a medical professional would come to the government and say, “I have real concerns about this,” and their response would be total cover-up.

Could you just explain a little bit about how the Chinese really operate and is this behavior really in alignment with what we have seen from China’s party before?

Enos: I think this is very typical and, in fact, when I first started researching for the paper, I didn’t realize that the silencing of whistleblowers in the context of a major health crisis had actually happened previously.

There was a similar incident where a doctor sounded the alarm during the SARS epidemic in 2002 and 2003, and he started calling into question some of the government’s reporting on this and he started to really let the world know that actually the rate of infection and the number of deaths due to then SARS was much higher than what the Chinese government was reporting.

So this is very typical of China and the Chinese Communist Party likes to maintain a tight grip on information.

This is why they have their famous firewalls that restrict people’s access to different resources on the internet.

It’s why the Chinese government has consistently engaged in tamping down on religious expression, whether somebody is a Christian or Muslim or a Falun Gong practitioner or a Buddhist or any faith, because they see it as threatening to the Chinese Communist Party.

It’s also the reason why they have historically tamped down on civil society.

So a lot of the restrictions that were outlined in the paper, for example, the Chinese government preferring, it’s really a misnomer, but they call them government-affiliated nongovernmental organizations, as the only ones that can respond really just shows and demonstrates to us that the Chinese government is willing to sideline civil society.

It’s really, I think, at the end of the day, because the Chinese Communist Party prioritizes its own image and its own well-being above the well-being and health of the Chinese people. And I think we’re seeing that play out during COVID-19.

Allen: Yeah. So, obviously, within China there are restrictions on those “nonprofits” that are allowed to operate, and like you say, they’re really kind of tied to the government and it’s not at all what we would typically think of a nonprofit. What about outside organizations, I mean, groups like Doctors Without Borders, have they been allowed into China?

Enos: By and large any sort of aid and assistance from international NGOs has been turned away and it’s been done in favor of the Chinese NGOs like the Chinese Red Cross.

The Chinese Red Cross actually has a very checkered history but even in more recent days they’ve really fallen under fire for misappropriating the aid that they received because there are documented cases by The New York Times of them essentially taking aid that was supposed to go to the Chinese people and instead giving it to the Chinese government.

So I think you really are seeing the Chinese government hamstringing its own response by saying, “No, we’re not going to allow other NGOs in.”

Just for context, in the U.S., faith-based organizations, faith-based universities or health care systems or other NGOs, they contribute $303 million annually to the economy.

This is huge in terms of total assistance and this is what the Chinese government is missing out on when they say that faith-based organizations aren’t allowed to be represented in China.

Imagine what it would be like if China itself had its own domestic faith-based and, of course, non-faith-based civil society actors that were able to respond on such a massive scale.

Allen: Let’s go back for a second and just talk a little bit about when this first started in China and those initial discoveries that the Chinese people were making.

We know in addition to medical professionals that there were also some citizen journalists that really caught wind of this and they tried to warn the Chinese people and the rest of the world what was going on, what happened to those journalists?

Enos: You’re absolutely right. There were a lot of individuals [that] were, in some cases, human rights lawyers-turn[ed]-citizen journalists. In some cases, businessmen-turned-citizen journalists or just ordinary Chinese.

What we started to see was that the Chinese Communist Party was essentially making them disappear. And the excuse would be that they were going into forced quarantine due to COVID-19, but the forced quarantine happened several months ago and the quarantine time period is 15 to 21 days, typically. And they have not yet reappeared, as far as I can tell.

So this is very typical of China. You see critics often being silenced in one way or another, whether that’s them being subjected to reeducation through forced labor, them actually being killed. We’ve had individuals who’ve actually visited The Heritage Foundation in the past who returned to China and ended up dying like a week and a half later.

And these are very well-known advocates for freedom, for faith-based organizations. Some of them were Christian. So it’s really alarming to see that happening.

But, of course, the most massive scale that we’ve really seen is in more recent years, the rapid collectivization of Uighur Muslims to the tune of 1 to 3 million that are currently held in political reeducation facilities today where they’re subjected to indoctrination, where they’re forced to rescind a lot of what they believe, forced to learn Mandarin, and in some cases tortured or required to engage in forced labor.

So really what we’re getting is this picture of a Chinese Communist Party that does not respect civil liberties, that does not respect individual freedom. And we should be very concerned.

Allen: We also know of a man, he was a Christian by the name of Sun Feng, and in the midst of all this information starting to come out in China, he just sent a message to some friends of his and said, “Hey, we should really all begin to pray and fast that this virus is ended.” What happened to Sun Feng?

Enos: Yeah, it’s a really remarkable story. Mr. Sun was actually called in for questioning and was told that he was called into questioning for offering up “unauthorized prayers.”

I think this example really highlights the fact that the Chinese Communist Party invades into the most private and closely held beliefs of individuals.

I mean, this is a behavior that does not harm anyone, to engage in prayer and fasting, but the Chinese Communist Party sees it as a threat because they’re really threatened by anything that might be perceived as an authority that individuals might give their allegiance to that is not the party.

So I think this is, obviously, very concerning but also typical of China where you do see the targeting of people simply for having faith.

Allen: Yeah. Wow. And one of the ways that now we’re seeing that China is trying to control the virus and the spread is through an app called Alipay Health Code that actually ranks someone in China on how likely they are to be a carrier or to have been exposed to the virus. But there are a lot of concerns about this app and just that it’s really highly invasive of people’s personal privacy.

Can you explain just kind of what the app is, what it does, and why it poses privacy threats?

Enos: Yeah. The Alipay Health Code app is a huge invasion of privacy. It essentially gets downloaded onto your phone and it has the ability to communicate with local law enforcement by sharing very personal data, including your GPS location. I think it actually has the ability to register your temperature too. It definitely tracks transactions.

But it’s incredibly invasive and it does share that private information with law enforcement, and the individual’s ranking—the different color codes, as you mentioned, that people receive—can be affected by whether or not you’re a member of the Chinese Communist Party, which should have absolutely nothing to do with your susceptibility or likelihood of contracting COVID-19, it’s just been really remarkable to watch that.

And especially to see the rollout of this app against the backdrop of the Chinese government’s more sinister use of surveillance technology, which we know is one of the ways that they were able to rapidly collectivize the 1 to 3 million Uighur that are currently held in political reeducation facilities today.

So even though the Chinese government or maybe even other people who are looking at, well, how do we develop the smartest or most effective response to the coronavirus might say, “Well, why don’t we deploy surveillance technology?”

But I think given China’s sinister use of it and the lack of rule of law and accountability that exists in China, I think this is a pretty concerning use of the technology and definitely should lead people to ask questions like, how will this be used once COVID-19 is over?

Allen: Oh, wow. Yeah, that’s scary. So, in other words, it could be an app that the Chinese government kind of decides, “Oh, actually, this is helpful. We’ve liked collecting this information. We’re just going to keep doing it.”

Enos: Exactly. And then they can use it to target their political opposition. And, as we talked about before, just the way that they so quickly pulled citizen journalists aside and put them in forced quarantine or the way that they responded to Dr. Li, it’s just abundantly clear that that surveillance technology can be used to silence their opposition and that they’re not afraid to use that.

Allen: Wow. So considering the way that China has really handled this virus and the whole situation in trying to cover it up, do you think that America should be taking actions right now to really reprimand China for their actions? And if so, what would that look like?

Enos: Well, I think that … the U.S. definitely should call upon China to respect freedom of speech, respect civil society’s ability to act and respond, and, of course, respect freedom of religion.

And that’s something that we have been doing to press on China for a long time now, especially on requesting things like loosening the restrictions for civil society organizations to be able to register, etc.

But I think in the midst of COVID-19 we have an especial amount of leverage in order to press for those because the U.S. is the top single country donor to China in the midst of the coronavirus. We’ve donated, as of mid-March, $1.3 billion to try to alleviate the suffering of the Chinese people.

So, in addition to requesting that China respects these rights and pushing on them in diplomatic engagements with them, I think that we should also be requesting access for the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] because if the Chinese Communist Party isn’t willing to put their best foot forward in order to help the Chinese people, then perhaps the U.S. government can.

I think that beyond that we need to communicate to Chinese government officials that the U.S. is watching and that we have tools in our tool box, Treasury specifically, that would enable us to target individuals on human rights and corruption grounds.

So while we may not sanction them only for things that they’ve done during their coronavirus response, we will definitely be looking for ways to target individuals who are engaging in religious freedom violations and suppressing freedom of speech as a general habit.

Allen: Are you hopeful that we might see China kind of take from this situation, “Oh, wow, there are real benefits to being a freer society, maybe we should kind of try that out”? Is there really any possibility that we might see them loosen anything or do you think that’s highly unlikely?

Enos: I think we can always hold out hope, but I do think it’s unlikely, especially under President Xi Jinping’s leadership where we’ve just seen almost a rapid return to almost an old version of what China used to be like during the Cultural Revolution.

And I think this is especially vivid, as I mentioned before, in the case of their treatment of the Uighur, but certainly true of Tibetan Buddhists, in their crackdown on Christians.

I really think that Xi Jinping has tried to consolidate power and so I’m skeptical of any rapid changes, but I think the U.S. government has long been out there actively promoting freedom, not just for folks in the U.S. but for people all over the globe.

And I think this is a really unique time in the midst of a global pandemic for Americans to demonstrate the resiliency of a democracy.

I mean, one of the most beautiful things—even in going through suffering and being in our social distancing, pseudo quarantine states ourselves—has been seeing average Americans step up. Whether that’s people offering to go and get groceries for their neighbors or churches being willing to give up their tithe or civil society organizations that are making sure that people have masks.

I think that even if we can’t convince the Chinese government to change its ways, at the end of COVID-19, if the Chinese people know that average Americans care about them and want what’s best for them and want them to get healthy and recover from COVID-19, I think we will consider that a success.

Allen: Olivia, thank you so much for your time today, just really appreciate your perspective and all of the research that you have done and just sharing that information with us today.

Enos: Well, thank you so much for having me on, Virginia.

PODCAST BY

Virginia Allen

Virginia Allen is a news producer for The Daily Signal. She is the co-host of The Daily Signal Podcast and Problematic Women. Send an email to Virginia. Twitter: @Virginia_Allen5.

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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.

VIDEO: The Vortex — What Are We Learning? Actually, a lot.

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TRANSCRIPT

So amidst all the precautions and closures and end-of-the-world-type hysteria, what have we learned, or what are we in fact learning?

Well, actually a lot. Much in fact is being exposed — really exposed — politically, culturally and ecclesiastically. Politically, however deep any of us thought the swamp was, we have learned that we were wrong. It’s actually much deeper than we ever thought.

The “Get Trump” brigades are out in full force, with the Marxist media trying anything they can related to tying Donald Trump to COVID-19. They are trying to dream up nicknames to pin the virus to Trump, calling it “CoronaTrump,” “VirusTrump,” and a bunch of other stupid monikers.

So far, none of them seem to be sticking. But it’s blindingly obvious why they are doing it — so when November comes around, Trump loses. They hate him for being pro-life and, in their incorrect view, they see him as stacking the courts to dump abortion. So let’s blame him for the virus.

Likewise, we see the complete, unrestrained response of the media to help whip up all this hysteria, causing people to run on grocery stores, for example.

No one is saying there isn’t a danger, or that people shouldn’t take reasonable precautions. But to keep broadcasting non-stop the latest death numbers — updating them non-stop — it’s reminiscent of the days of the Vietnam War and the nightly network newscasts.

But for Catholics in particular, what we are learning — or rather, confirming — is what we have seen and known for quite a while: Too few bishops have any supernatural faith, or if they do, it’s only a tiny amount, completely insufficient for the sacred office they hold.

Look, Your Excellencies, either this is the Armageddon experience you are all portraying it as, or it’s not. If it is, where are all your spiritual aids? Why aren’t each of you doing daily livestreaming of praying the Rosary — teaching your flock the Rosary — comforting your sheep by sitting in front of a webcam in a studio and reading something of the lives of the saints?

Shall we go on?

Our guess is while you have shut up nearly all the churches, that you haven’t closed down the legal teams and the bean-counters in your employ. For once, publish a letter saying you’re closing the chanceries and not the churches. Are you using the opportunity to speak to so many of your flock locked up behind closed doors — to teach them the catechism that you have been so neglectful about for the past half-century?

Almost every day in this crisis, Church Militant is sending out a spiritual reinforcement e-mail with various assists to remind people about fortitude and perseverance and prayer. You can easily follow suit, you know, Your Excellencies. It’s not that hard, especially since you don’t really have anything else to do until this comes to an end.

Most of you are old, out-of-shape men with probably a variety of underlying health issues. Are you all self-quarantined?

Have you canceled your meetings with millionaire donors whom you schmooze with? How about the CPAs and the lawyers and the marketing guys running your expensive multi-zillion-dollar fundraising campaigns where you lie to the faithful and fleece the flock? Canceled any of those activities, have you? Yeah, we didn’t think so.

Before the parish doors were barred shut, many of you took the opportunity to forbid Holy Communion on the tongue. At last, many of them thought, here’s a chance to kill that medieval practice and blame it on something out of our control.

None of them have confessed that the practice of receiving in the hand, drinking from the cup and laypeople distributing Holy Communion was smuggled into the Church 500 years ago during the Protestant revolt, precisely as a way to kill belief in the Real Presence.

See, the very first Protestants were actually baptized Catholics, who did at one time believe in the Real Presence. But the Protestant revolutionaries had to knock that belief out of the box. So they started these practices to weaken the faith of those first former Catholics.

And the same thing has happened here in the United States, as well as other parts of the world, with the move by various bishops starting in the 1970s to install the disrespectful practice and embed it in the minds of the faithful.

It’s not a big shock that homosexual satanist Cdl. Joseph Bernardin was the one leading the charge nationally — a topic Church Militant covered extensively in our series, Case Files, one of our Church Militant Premiums programs — where we get into the nitty-gritty of how this all came about. Click on the link to see how it all played out.

[Transcript unavailable]

How many bishops are using the COVID-19 crisis as an opportunity to bone up on all this — to learn the real history of why their dioceses are falling apart? Seventy percent of Catholics don’t believe in the Real Presence, so all this could be easily viewed as Our Lord withdrawing access to Himself — just saying.

If the New York Times can openly speculate — recklessly — that 270 million Americans are going to be infected, then why can’t we posit a more sober and serious reflection?

The Church is in a state of disrepair, broken down by decades of lying, cheating, greedy, homosexual, cover-up bishops who themselves don’t seem to believe in the Real Presence, judging by their cowardice to deal with heretics on the political scene.

So just as God withdrew Himself from the temple in the Old Testament, who’s to say He isn’t doing something similar right now — trying to send a message this Lent?

Whether the bishops have any supernatural faith left to be able to read the signs of the times, well, many of these men vote for and support the Party of Death. You do the math.

EDITORS NOTE: This Church Militant video is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

GOVERNMENT CHARITY: More Loss, Debt and Inflation

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“What I’m not saying is that all government spending is bad. It’s not – far, far from it, but there is no free lunch, as a former colleague of mine used to say. There is no public tooth fairy. Father Christmas does not work on the Treasury staff this year. You can never bail someone out of trouble without putting someone else into trouble.” – Arthur Laffer

“I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.” –  Thomas Jefferson

“I have never believed in the fallacy that the federal government can buy its way out of economic troubles through needless spending. For that reason, I am proud to oppose ‘stimulus’ packages and endless corporate bailouts, which will do little but weaken the long-term integrity of the American economy.” – John Fleming

“The appropriation of public money always is perfectly lovely until someone is asked to pay the bill…the people will have to furnish more revenue by paying more taxes.” – President Calvin Coolidge

“There are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpations.” –  James Madison

No society can safeguard public health for long at the cost of economic health.  Whenever massive government interventions have been tried, they have always ended in poverty, scarcity, and too often, mass death and genocide.  The further government takes its power, the harder it will be to wrest it back.  And it has already gone way too far.

We need to pull out of this global shutdown as soon as possible, in fact America never should have been shut down, but the socialist politicians will not easily give up all the police powers they have accumulated over these many Covid-19 weeks.  They have habituated the sheep of America into a “new normal,” a normal that is causing suicides, drug and alcohol addition, and domestic abuse. The shutdown is killing the economy and is no good for our health.

This virus and the stimulus will only result in more loss, debt and inflation.

Congressmen Thomas Massie and Andy Biggs

There are two Republican members of Congress who uphold the Constitution on a regular basis.  They are not always in good graces with the rest of their party in doing so, but they abide by the U.S. Constitution.  I hope they know there are Americans who appreciate their stance and love for country.

Thomas Massie (R-KY) demanded a recorded tally as opposed to a voice vote on the $2.2 trillion ‘‘Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act’’ or the ‘‘CARES Act.”  Rep. Massie tweeted, “I swore an oath to uphold the constitution, and I take that oath seriously. In a few moments I will request a vote on the CARES Act which means members of Congress will vote on it by pushing ‘yes’ or ‘no’ or ‘present.’”  Thomas Massie has repeatedly spoken out against stay-at-home measures and business closures amid the pandemic.

Congressman Andy Biggs (R-AZ) was right there with Massie.  Both of them knew it was important for Americans to know how their representatives voted on this bill.

President Trump excoriated Rep. Massie. “He just wants the publicity. He can’t stop it, only delay, which is both dangerous … and costly,” Trump tweeted of Massie. “Workers and small businesses need money now in order to survive. Virus wasn’t their fault. It is ‘HELL’ dealing with the Dems, had to give up some stupid things in order to get the ‘big picture’ done. 90 percent GREAT! WIN BACK HOUSE, but throw Massie out of Republican Party!”

Throw Massie out?  He and Andy Biggs are two of the finest old right constitutional conservatives in Congress!  I’m sorry President Trump, but your words were malicious and defamatory.

This was the first time I was ashamed of what my President said to a representative who has a 98% conservative voting record and consistently relies on and votes for the Constitution of the United States.

Massie ultimately failed when the House approved the package, but his effort was noted by Americans who love their constitution.  President Trump responded in a negative way to Congressman Massie. Trump loves America and her citizens and he is under great stress trying to help us through this horrid communist China inflicted debacle, but a day or two more wouldn’t have made a difference.  Both of these Congressmen support the president and Tom Massie is owed a public apology and a private phone call.

A yea or nay vote was taken, and we do not know who voted against it other than these two Congressmen.  We know that when Speaker Pelosi returned from vacation, she added enough pork into the bill that had nothing to do with rescuing those who lost jobs and businesses thanks to the politicians shutting down the country and destroying the booming economy and stock market.

Former Congressman Ron Paul called the recent measures to control the spread of COVID-19 a “grab bag” for some in government.  He said what he is worried about is that some in government have inflated the risk and response for their own political gain.  “I think it’s blown way out of proportion to the danger. People who want more government power and more control over people and want to get big appropriations and get their special deals passed, that’s what’s happening now,” Paul said of federal and state government responses to the virus.

Pelosi Pork

The Covid-19 relief aid gave $25 million to the Kennedy Center, $350 million to refugee resettlement, $75 million to PBS, $25 million went to congressional salaries and expenses, a $10 billion loan to the post office, and $150 million in funding to the National Endowment of the Arts and National Endowment of the Humanities.  Her additions are amoral.

Critically, that $150 million comes in the form of grants with no expectation of being paid back. Meanwhile, much of the funding afforded to small businesses in the bill comes in the form of loans, which the companies will have to reimburse.

The word “sunscreen” appears dozens of times, 49 to be exact, in the CARES Act, and it’s thanks to the Treatment of Sunscreen Innovation Act (SIA) being placed into the bill. The Act requires FDA to provide a streamlined approach to approving new over-the-counter sunscreen ingredients, including evaluating applications that an ingredient is safe and effective on an expedited timeline.

What in heaven’s name does this Act have to do with rescuing workers and families in this ungodly crisis — except to say that powerful members of Congress are skilled in never letting a crisis go to waste.  Even the New York Times editorial board wailed that “the urgency of the moment does not justify the egregious misuse of public resources.” Someone should tell Nancy Pelosi the news.

Art Laffer on Stimulus

Several weeks ago, Art Laffer was on Stuart Varney’s program.  Varney was discussing how the “rescue plan” was stalled and that it needed to be passed to save the people. Varney has obviously banned Art from his program even though Art was telling the truth. Laffer was dead set against the stimulus and called the bill “a helicopter money proposal” of handouts that has a bad track record historically.  “It never works, it just causes the problem to get worse and worse,” said Laffer, known for his “Laffer curve.”  “You don’t tax people who work and pay people who don’t work and expect more work,” he said.  Laffer believes the stimulus is extending the self-induced recession.

Laffer noted he’s “been on all of these crises on the inside, from Nixon in 71-72 … through Jerry Ford, up to the present.”

He proposes, instead, cutting the payroll tax for the next seven to eight months “to make sure that it’s more attractive for people to work and more attractive for companies to hire.”  I agree with him.

And he suggests guaranteeing or granting liquidity loans to businesses to help them stay afloat.  “Just the payroll tax cut and liquidity lending,” he said.

Laffer took a shot at Congress. “Whenever politicians make decisions, whether they are panicked or drunk, the consequences are rarely attractive,” he said.  Link

And now, we are printing trillions of dollars that we don’t have…hello to massive inflation.

The Davy Crockett Charity Story

There are a number of stories about Davy Crockett voting against charitable donations that should not come out of the largesse of the U.S. treasury.  However, none of them are historically authentic.  Here are the true facts.  Nowhere in the U.S. Constitution does it avail monies from the treasury to be given to anyone, including American citizens.  It is to be used to run the federal government.

Article 1, Section 8, gives the enumerated powers of the federal government delegated to Congress. The first is the power to tax and to spend the money raised by taxes, to provide for the nation’s defense and general welfare. These were terms transferred from the Articles of Confederation and understood by the men at the 1787 Constitutional Convention, but obviously not by today’s congressional creatures.

This section was supplemented by the 16th amendment, which permitted Congress to levy an income tax, which would not have been approved of by our founders.

Although the Spending Clause is the source of congressional authority to levy taxes, it permits the levying of taxes for two purposes only: to pay the debts of the United States, and to provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States. Taken together, these purposes have traditionally been held to imply and constitute the “Spending Power.”

Unfortunately, Alexander Hamilton’s broad reading of Art. 1, Sec. 8, met with opposition from many of the other Founders. James Madison repeatedly argued that the power to tax and spend did not confer upon Congress the right to do whatever it thought to be in the best interest of the nation, but only to further the ends specifically enumerated elsewhere in the Constitution, a position supported by Thomas Jefferson.

Nevertheless, today, the term “general welfare” is gravely overused to the nation’s demise.  Thus, we see this unconstitutional welfare giveaway that should never have happened, and neither should the shutdown of this nation ever have happened.

Conclusion

Oh, how I wish to write about something other than the virus and America’s police state, but every day more comes to the fore to counter the lies of “experts” and the mainstream media.

The real threat is not the virus, but the spirit of fear spread by federal, state and local governments with the help of the democratic socialists in mainstream media.

Fear is not from the Almighty, it is from the enemy.  God actually commands us not to fear, or worry. The phrase “fear not” is used at least 80 times in the Bible, most likely because He knows the enemy uses fear to decrease our hope and limit our victories.

Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them: for the Lord thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.  Deuteronomy 31:6

But whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil.  Proverbs1:33

For I the Lord thy God will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not; I will help thee. Isaiah 41:13

For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.  II Timothy 1:7

This is Holy Week for both Jews and Christians as we celebrate Passover and Easter.  May the Lord give us all a spirit of peace, love, and joy in Him.

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Making the Most of House Arrest

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During the corona-madness lock-down, I watched my favorite movie, “The Natural” for the ga-zillionth time. Insanely, that movie still makes me tear up. Due to my late preacher dad’s DNA, I see numerous life lessons and sermons in that movie.

Farm boy Roy Hobbs is a gifted baseball player. His supportive dad warns that talent is not enough. On the train to tryout for a major league team, Roy is shot by a wacko woman. Following a long recovery, Roy was told he could never play baseball again. Roy struggled to find work, lost his confidence and wandered.

Sixteen years later, a corrupt major league scout was paid to sabotage a last place team. Believing Roy is a joke, he signed middle-aged Roy Hobbs to a contract to play for the failing team.

When Roy showed up, the angry coach said, “People don’t start playing ball at your age, they retire.” He vowed never to play Roy. All Roy wanted was a chance to show what he could do. No one believed in him. Have you ever felt like Roy Hobbs?

Finally, the coach gave Roy a chance to play. He became an instant major league baseball superstar, leading his team to victories. Roy began dating a beautiful wicked woman who caused him to lose focus. His performance began to decline. Roy’s hometown old girlfriend showed up at a game. Her presence brought Roy back to his roots, restored his focus and set him back on the winning track.

Roy’s baseball bat which he carved as a lad was named “Wonderboy”. The team bat-boy, Bobby Savoy, asked Roy to help him carve a bat.

During the final game of the season with the championship on the line, Roy broke “Wonderboy” hitting a foul ball. Roy instructed the bat boy, “Go pick me out a winner Bobby.” Bobby handed Roy the bat they carved together the “Savoy Special.” Roy hit the championship winning home run. What you do for others, often comes back to you.

By persevering in pursuit of his dream, Roy Hobbs positively impacted the lives of many others; his coach, his team, Bobby and more.

Mary has filled my house arrest time with honey-do projects. Camille, our designer friend said dark gray is the hot new color. Painting our bedroom dark gray is the bravest thing I have done in awhile. It looks elegant and awesome! Mary found plans online for a rolling spice rack that she wants me to build. Oh goody!

On a serious note, I am so tired of Democrats and fake news media caring about nothing else other than using the corona virus crisis to damage Trump. While relentlessly undermining his efforts to restart America at every turn, Democrats are irresponsibly planning a second bogus impeachment in the midst of this national storm.

Lives and fortunes are being destroyed. And yet, Democrats and fake news media insidiously promote false fears to block Trump from ending the shutdown. We must make Democrats pay the ultimate price in November. Not only must we reelect Trump, Democrats must suffer devastating down-ballot losses. It is the only way to keep this party of domestic terrorists off our backs.

Rather than consuming 24/7 fear-inducing media, I’ve been feeding on God’s word, building my faith. Whatever you feed, grows. Evangelist Jesse Duplantis is preaching awesome messages about trusting God rather than fearing corona virus.

By the way, is Tom Hanks dead? No, he is not. Media reported Hanks testing positive for Corona as if his death was imminent. Hanks and his wife are doing fine, recovering from Corona. As a matter of fact, the vast majority of people who catch Corona virus make a full recovery. Yes, you heard me correctly. The reason we are not hearing this calming good news is because our media is evil and treasonous haters of Trump and traditional Americans.

A lot of people are predicting a dark future for America after this corona virus crisis. They believe government will repeal more of our freedoms the way it did after 9/11. I am not ready to take their negative prediction as gospel.

The late Dr Wayne Dyer said, “No one knows enough to be a pessimist.” There are too many unknown variables to automatically declare that America as we know it is over.

The Bible says, “Trust in the Lord with all you heart and lean not unto your own understand.” In other words, do not leave God out of the mix. Smart people who are worshipers of polling data predicted that Trump would never be elected president.

Am I suggesting that we become brain dead? Absolutely not. However, believing fake news corona virus reporting and flawed computer models is stressing the heck out of a lot of people. My late preacher dad said the main take-a-way from one of his pastoral courses is stress can kill you. I choose to trust God and be happy.

At the end of a visit with my 83 year old widowed mother-in-law, Mary gave her a goodbye hug and I gave her a peck on the cheek. She lite up like a Christmas tree. During our last visit, we kept our distance not touching her.

Mr President, please get us back to work. Now!

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After Four Years of Democrat Treachery, I Smell a Corona Virus Rat

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Test time boys and girls. Hint…there is only one right answer––if you don’t get it right, you flunk! And so does America!

Which person, foreign or American, predicted three years ago, in 2017, that President Trump would be challenged by a “surprise global-disease outbreak”?

  • Enemy of Trump Cong. Adam Schiff (D-CA)
  • Enemy of Trump House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)
  • Crazed enemy of Trump Hillary Clinton

Answer: None of the above. It was Dr. Anthony Fauci!

Which person, foreign or American, said that the collapse of the American capitalist system as a result of the corona virus plague would be “inconvenient”?

  • American adversary Xi Jing Ping, President of China
  • American adversary Ali Khamenei, Supreme Leader of Iran
  • American adversary Recep Tayyip Erdogan, President of Turkey

Answer: None of the above. It was Dr. Anthony Fauci!

Which person, foreign or American, said on January 21, 2020, that the corona virus “was not a major threat to the United States” and on January 23rd downplayed the virus’ potential impact on the U.S?

  • U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams
  • TV host Dr. Mehmet Oz
  • The entire staff of the NY Times

Answer: None of the above. It was Dr. Anthony Fauci!

Which person, foreign or American, wrote de facto love letters (actually e-mails) to Hillary Clinton through her lawyer Cheryl Mills, saying that he loved ole Hillary “more than ever”?

MODEL THIS!

I could go on and on, but you get the point, which is that the “experts” are wrong or partisan or biased so often that healthy skepticism is warranted about everything they say.

Examples abound. Here is just a very very small sample:

  • The DES disaster to prevent miscarriages in the 1950s-‘60s that resulted in devastating cancers of the reproductive organs of children.
  • The tragedy of Thalidomide in the ‘60s to calm the nerves, that resulted in grotesque deformities in children born of pregnant mothers who took the pills.
  • The Dalkon Shield intrauterine birth-control devices of the 1970s were taken off the market for causing sterility and pelvic inflammatory disease.
  • Here are some of the drugs taken off the market over the years that caused horrific side effects or death after widespread recommendations by doctors.
  • And let’s not forget Vioxx.

Speaking of the people who occupy the podium with President Trump every day, there is the impressively credentialed Dr. Deborah Birx who apparently thinks she is still in a laboratory with rats on a treadmill and speaking with her research contemporaries instead of the American public when she intones about:

  • “the level of granularity”
  • “triangulation”
  • “a big bolus”
  • “logo-rhythmic bias”
  • “mitigation”

I say to the good doctor the same thing I’ve said to every lawyer I’ve ever consulted: English please!

Like Dr. Fauci, Dr. Birx delivers doomsday messages

Like Dr. Fauci, Dr. Birx delivers doomsday messages––and graphs––in dulcet tones. While Dr. Fauci predicts 100,000 to 200,000 deaths in the most dispassionate, clinical way, Dr. Birx shows us graphs with terrifying peaks of disease incidences and mortality and then “hopes” they don’t happen.

But in spite of the cozy embrace of Dr. Birx by far-left TV and print media whores like the NY Times, Vanity Fair, the list is endless, questions––unanswered questions––abound.

Is it a coincidence that the model Dr. Birx uses to assess the progress of the virus––the IHME, Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation––is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and that she, Dr. Birx, sits on the board of the Bill and Melinda Gates Global Fund and has since 2014.

Is there a hidden agenda about the fact that the IMHE has used the hot spots of New York and New Jersey to project the spread of the virus in the rest of the country, resulting in a shut-down of our economy and massive unemployment?

There is good reason to question the IHME model, to the degree that writer and publisher of CanadaFreePress.com, Judi McLeod, has exhorted President Trump to Save the Western World by booting Dr. Birx off the Corona Virus Task Force! She cites an April 2nd Gateway Pundit story written by Cristina Laila revealing that the model the White House is relying on is “complete garbage.”

  • “It Predicted 121,000 Americans Hospitalized; actual number: 31,142.
  • “It predicted 1,716 people in Texas would be hospitalized; actual number: 196.
  • “It predicted 2,777 people in Georgia would be hospitalized: actual number: 952.
  • In Virginia, predicted 607––actual number 305.
  • In Tennessee, predicted 2,214––actual number 200.
  • In New York, predicted 50,962––actual number 18,368.

Data is showing that this may be one great big mistake or hoax

According to writer Lee Cary, in his follow-the-money, must-read exposé of the corona virus and all its players––Fauci, Birx, the Clintons, Bill Gates, et al: “Today, two physicians essentially control the $22 trillion U.S. economy…It is time for President Trump to utilize his uncommon  common sense and put a stop to this China-orchestrated full-scale attack on our country.”

Indeed….as Jim Hoft reports, the total U.S. deaths in March 2020 were actually down 15 percent from the average of the prior four years.

“What is going on?” Hoft asks. “After shutting down the government and killing the greatest economy in the world due to deathly estimates from specialists on the coronavirus, the data is showing that this may be one great big mistake or hoax.”

For perspective:

I CAN HEAR IT NOW….

“How dare you question the integrity and motives of Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx, or suggest that their associations and political agendas are fishy, or imply that the institutions and experts they cite as unassailable vis-à-vis the coronavirus––the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the World Health Organization (WHO)––are themselves tainted by partisan politics?

Well, thanks to the Democrats themselves, the answer to those questions are easy. Now we know that from 2009 to 2016, the man who occupied the Oval Office weaponized and politicized America’s most trusted institutions, not only defiling and disrespecting the Resolute Desk with his dirty shoes, but converting our most trusted institutions from departments dedicated to justice, law enforcement, national security, homeland security and matters of state into far-left operations designed to bring down America. Here is the short list:

THE DOOMSDAY SET

  • Think John Brennan of the Central Intelligence Agency.
  • Think James Comey of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
  • Think Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch of the Justice Department.
  • Think Hillary Clinton of the State Department.

So no surprise that the guy with his feet on the Resolute Desk also contaminated the CDC and further befouled the already putrid cesspool on 1st Avenue in NY City––the United Nations….and its reliably hate-America satellite, WHO.

Speaking of which, looky here: “The CDC openly admits that it is fudging the COVID-19 death figures,” reports Matthew Vadum. Quoting Dr. Annie Bukacek, M.D. and expert on death certificates, “The CDC counts both true COVID-19 cases and speculative guesses of COVID-19 the same…they automatically overestimate the real death numbers, by their own admission.”

Vadum said the same is true of the lying leftists who run New York City and NY State, Mayor Bill Di Blasio and Governor Andrew Cuomo respectively.

Did you ever see a liberal smile…or laugh out loud? I can actually cite on one hand the times I’ve witnessed such a phenomenon. The reason is that this species seems to have extremely high anxiety levels. They worry about everything and they buy everything that the Chicken Little doomsday purveyors sell.

In 1968, Stanford Univ. Professor Paul R. Ehrlich and his wife Anne wrote “The Population Bomb” which predicted worldwide famine in the 1970s and 1980s due to overpopulation. Liberals bought it.

In the 1970s, the “experts” said that global cooling would soon usher in a new ice age. Liberals bought it.

We all know about the ongoing fetish liberals have with global warming––that made a lot of quacks like Al Gore rich––same as the cooling fetish.

Then there was the scare over running out of food, natural resources like copper, and oil. Liberals bought it.

Now we have liberals––including the experts from Mr. Obama’s CDC and WHO, as well as Drs. Fauci and Birx and the entire leftwing media––wringing their hands and tearing their hair out, absolutely convinced that unless the entire world and all their economies shut down, humanity is doomed.

Well, that’s not the real reason they’re in such visible throes of hysteria. The real reason is because they thought and hoped and chanted to the earth goddess Gaia that if they were able to destroy the best economy and highest employment in world history––among President Trump’s many astounding accomplishments––his reelection would be doomed.

The problem is––liberals are always wrong! They’ve always been wrong! And to their everlasting horror, they were wrong about the presidential election that predicted a Hillary victory right up to 8 p.m. on November 8, 2016.

Then this Democrat cabal of America haters tried to destroy the president with the Russian hoax and the Stormy Daniels hoax and the Ukraine hoax and the impeachment hoax and all of them failed miserably.

So now their nemesis is in power and in charge, driving them even more clinically insane than they are ordinarily.

In mere weeks, President Trump marshals national and international assistance from industry, organizations, political factions, and individuals that would qualify him for Five-Star General status. That is not hyperbole….this is a war, as he says, against an invisible enemy!

He touts the excellent results he’s heard about––which have since been widely affirmed––in treating coronavirus patients with hydroxychloroquine, in combination with Azithromycin and zinc, and the experts on his task force talk about the constipated process of clinical trials and vaccine development that take years.

He embodies the qualities of an optimist, realistic about the present but genuinely positive about the future, and the doomsday liberals resort to their old standbys––gratuitous insults and popping their anti-depressant and anti-anxiety fixes.

He is presented with the kind of daunting existential challenges the likes of which George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Harry Truman faced, and he addresses them with executive confidence, a lifetime of success, and a burning love for America the Beautiful.

Thank you, Mr. President. With you at the helm, Americans are the luckiest people on the earth!

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Covid-19: A Fascist Terror Act Against Humanity

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History is the Mother of all sciences. In this time of crises, stress, anxiety, and fake news, history is the only way to find the Truth. Everything has its beginning and history reports and preserves the reality of the time. The history of the outbreak of coronavirus began in the 20th century in the middle of Europe, when National-Socialism (Nazism) was born. The development of the fascist ideology did not take much time and in 1920’s the fascist government under Mussolini was formed in Italy and in

Germany under Adolf Hitler in 1930’s. By the 1940’s all of Europe was under Fascism. Although fascism is a notoriously difficult ideology to define, the definition given by Wikipedia is close to be correct:

Fascism is a form of government that is a type of one-party dictatorship. They work for a totalitarian one-party state. … Fascism puts nation and often race above the individual. It stands for a centralized government headed by a dictator. Historically, fascist governments tend to be autocratic, militaristic, and racist. Wikipedia

The fascist ideology was not a secret in Europe, there were three highly visible attributes of Fascism: strive even lust for power, identity policy, and excessive violence. So we know fascism as a philosophy of anti-Semitism, but the intent of hate was much wider then extermination of the Jews only; gypsies and Slaves did not have right to live either according to Nazis. The idea to exterminate all of them had been formulated and put in practice in 1942–building of the gas chambers had begun. Here is a list of victims of Nazism and some Nazis’ extermination camps:

Camp Estimated deaths Primary means for mass killings
Auschwitz–Birkenau 1,100,000 Zyklon B gas chambers
Treblinka 800,000 Carbon monoxide gas chambers
Bełżec 600,000 Carbon monoxide gas chambers
Chełmno 320,000 Carbon monoxide vans

For your information, developed technology allows criminals killing people by much cheaper bio-chemical weapons, without building the gas chambers. Just look around the world today.

Soviet Fascism: the Project of 1955

History is the Mother of all sciences. There is no coincidence that in the breakdown of Covid-19, on April 5, 2020, Queen Elizabeth in her televised address, recalled the time in the 1940’s , when England was at war, Nazis were bombing London day and night inflicting enormous damage to the capital of England and hardship to her people. Queen Elizabeth ended her address optimistically: “we will succeed and that success will belong to all of us.” I’d add that success will belong to humanity…

As another generation experiences the same disasters and hardship in the 21st century—Covid-19 is killing people around the globe every day. I’d like to bring to your attention the events that happened in the middle of the 20th century. Those events will present the real project designed by the parents of coronavirus in the Soviet Union. I’ll give you some passages from my book to show the importance of the information, I have conveyed to you. Here are some paragraphs about Soviet Socialism/Communism:

“As you already know, the Chinese Communist State had been built with major Soviet involvement and supervision. You would think that the Soviet/Russian Communists were so engaged and occupied by the Chinese case that they had no time for others. Wrong! In 1955, the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev gave the idea to the members of the Communist Party—drugs and narcotics trafficking should be viewed as a strategic operation that would directly weaken the enemy. Accordingly, he ordered a joint military-civilian, Soviet-Czech study to examine the total effect of drugs on Western society; its effects on labor productivity, education, the military (the ultimate target at that time), and its use in support of the Soviet Bloc intelligence operations.” WWIII was marching on through

Europe to the West…

“The effects of drugs were analyzed by scientists from the Soviet Academy of Sciences and the conclusions were that the drugs trafficking would be extremely effective and the most vulnerable countries would be the United

States, Canada, France, and West Germany. This study was approved in

1955 by the Soviet Defense Council. It was the first formal Soviet decision to launch narcotics trafficking against the bourgeoisie and especially against the American capitalists:

“Soviet strategy for revolutionary war is a global strategy… narcotics strategy is a sub-component of this global strategy. …First was the increased training of leaders for the revolutionary movements—the civilian, military, and intelligence cadres. The founding of Patrice Lumumba

University in Moscow is an example of one of the early actions taken to modernize the Soviet revolutionary leadership training. The second step was the actual training of terrorists. Training for international terrorism actually began as ‘fighters for liberation.’…The third step was international drug and narcotics trafficking. Drugs were incorporated into the revolutionary war strategy as a political and intelligence weapon to use against the bourgeois society and as a mechanism for recruiting agents of influence around the world.”

Just listen to the rest of the quotation: “The fourth step was to infiltrate organized crime and, further, to establish Soviet Bloc sponsored and controlled organized crime syndicates throughout the world. The fifth step was to plan and prepare for sabotage throughout the whole world. The network for this activity was to be in place by 1972. …The decision on organized crime… was to be a global operation targeted against… the

United States, along with France, Great Britain, Germany, and Italy… The main reason for infiltrating organized crime was… information on political corruption, money and business, international relations, drug trafficking, and counter-intelligence—was to be found in organized crime. …A secondary reason was to use organized crime as a covert mechanism for distributing drugs.” Wow!!! Pp.127-1 29 What is Happening to America?

The Hidden Truth of Global Destruction, by Simona Pipko, Xlibris, 2012.

We are at war, in an asymmetrical ideological war waged by Soviet fascism against Western civilization and American capitalism. As you can see, I called this war WWIII and identified it as WWIII: Recruitment and

Infiltration, Drugs and Assassinations. The Project was a declaration of war against humanity by a Communist country and the forces of Soviet fascism there. According to the Project, a new formation of Soviet fascism was established later under the Russian umbrella—the Axis of Evil –the international ideological base of the countries involved: China, North Korea,

Iran, Syria, Venezuela, and possibly Turkey. Read here my column:

Socialism Infects the Globe, It Must Be Defeated, August 26, 2019

Yet, there appeared a courageous man in 1991, who publicly refused to be a member of the Communist Party in Russia and in a televised show returned his Party Book to the Party leadership. This man was Russian

President Boris Yeltsin. The criminal system had made a good man an alcoholic and finally Putin’s KGB won, reviving the ideology of Soviet

Fascism at the end of the 20th century. By the way, Putin has never discredited the system, like Yeltsin publicly did, on the contrary he was deadly upset by the Collapse of the USSR. I met Yeltsin and talked to him in Columbia University in the middle of 1990’s. The smell of alcohol emanated from him was so strong that my head was spinning. Yeltsin had lost and we lost with him—Stalinist Soviet fascism had been resurrected.

Agents of Influence or The Soviet Charlatans

Now, that you are acquainted with Project 1955, I assume that the motivation of the enemy is not a question—American capitalism is the main target of Soviet Fascism in the 21st century. The goal is shutting down

American capitalism and Covid-19 has done just that. Don’t be surprised by the enemies achievement, they had help—the leadership of the Democrat

Party and those Democrats who didn’t know Russia. My five books and over a hundred columns had been aimed at one agenda—to show the real face of a current Democrat Party and educate Americans about our mortal enemy. But my writings were banned by the corrupted FBI. As a result, you were deprived to know the Truth and be ready for a bio-chemical attack and other disasters. Read here my recent column Agony: Face-to-Face with Soviet Fascism Part 2.

Many people asked me: How did you know that the General-Director of

W.H.O. was the KGB agent? To explain it, I’d like to return to that column. “Our Scientific community is also infiltrated by the KGB: Do you remember

Trump’s and Fauci’s dueling narratives? I don’t like Dr. Fauci’s friendly relationship with Tedros Adhanom, the General-Director of W.H.O. In my opinion the latter is a KGB agent. Read about him and you’ll appreciate

Trump’s intuition involving two Anti-Malaria drugs. In a war you use what you have. Two weeks have been stolen from the American people fighting for life against Terror.” April 2, 2020.

Yes, I can recognize Soviet Charlatans very easily. Project 1955, has given us the term “agent of influence” and since then they successfully infiltrated hundreds of world organizations and all corners of American society, hence

I called them Soviet Charlatans. Knowing the ideology of Soviet Fascism, its agenda, tactics, methods, and dirty tricks, I dedicated my life to share that knowledge with Americans and I was warning them for the last thirty-five years to prevent a disaster. I described in detail in my books how the

Soviets orchestrated a civil war in Ethiopia in the 1970’s and established a Communist Party, naming it Tigray Party, which was about to build Kolkhozes, Collective Farms there like in Russia. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is the Soviet Charlatan. We at least, now know one of the thousands of them. Look at what was written about him three days after my column:

According to the BBC , Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director general of the W.H.O, became head of the organization only after “climbing through the ranks” of the government in his native Ethiopia, a career that started with his membership in the Tigray People’s Liberation Front. The group was a prominent player in Ethiopia’s civil war, which raged for over a decade and finally ended in 1991.Wuhan Study Mentioned by Tucker

Vanishes: Claimed Market Didn’t Sell COVID Bats, Was 500 Miles From

Infected Bats, WJ commentary by C. Douglas Golden, Published April 5,

2020.

In all my writings, I was repeating one axiom: knowledge of Russia and her Security Services is a Must. Writing about them, I used the term KGB. I hope now you agree with me. History can help us to expose the

Communist ideology for what it really is, by showing three Communist accomplices in crime at the top of the coronavirus outbreak: the President of China, the President of Russia, and the Soviet Charlatan Tedros

Adhanom Ghebreyesus. The Project 1955 and in particular the Soviet

Charlatans have achieved a gigantic “success” undermining Western civilization, global democratic institutions, and American capitalism. The subject matter is monumental and requires a separate research, evaluation, and assessment. I will try to develop further the investigation of this topic. In the meantime Happy Ester America!

To be continued www.simonapipko1.com and www.drrichswier.com/author/spipko/.

American research team discloses undeclared nuclear weapons development site in Iran

/in , , , /by

In 2018, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu offered proof that the Iran nuclear deal was based on lies. He revealed a cache of documents that demonstrated conclusively that “Iran lied to the world about its nuclear program for years, even after the 2015 nuclear deal with the world.”

Now, “a team of American experts says it has uncovered a previously unknown Islamic Republic nuclear weapons development site in Iran.” The Institute for Science and International Security “says that it has evidence the Islamic Republic operated the nuclear weapons development facility in northern Iran until at least 2011 when it was likely destroyed as Western nations began to investigate the country’s weapons program.”

“It should be remembered in this connection that the concept of taqiyya as such is specifically Shi’ite, developed during the time of the sixth Imam, Jafar al-Sadiq, in middle of the eighth century, when the Shi’ites were being persecuted by the Sunni caliph al-Mansur.”

See more about taqiyya HERE.

Iranian allies have been pressuring the U.S. to ease sanctions amid the coronavirus pandemic, yet it has already been reported that money for domestic interests is being diverted to the jihad terrorist Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

“Research Group Discloses Undeclared Iran ‘Nuclear Weapons’ Development Site,” Radio Farda, April 9, 2020:

A team of American experts says it has uncovered a previously unknown Islamic Republic nuclear weapons development site in Iran.

The Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) called on Tehran on April 8 to acknowledge the previously undisclosed site to international inspectors.

Founded in 1993, the Institute for Science and International Security is led by former United Nations IAEA nuclear inspector David Albright.

ISIS says that it has evidence the Islamic Republic operated the nuclear weapons development facility in northern Iran until at least 2011 when it was likely destroyed as Western nations began to investigate the country’s weapons program.

“Based on documents in the Iran Nuclear Archive, seized by Israel in early 2018, Iran’s Amad Plan created the Shahid Mahallati Uranium Metals Workshop near Tehran to research and develop uranium metallurgy related to building nuclear weapons”, ISIS says.

Amad Plan refers to Iran’s alleged roadmap to developing a nuclear weapon.

“The facility was intended as a pilot plant, aimed at developing and making uranium components for nuclear weapons, in particular components from weapon-grade uranium, the key nuclear explosive material in Iranian nuclear weapon cores,” the institute disclosed.

The site was meant to be temporary until the production-scale Shahid Boroujerdi facility at Parchin was completed….

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