Tag Archive for: coronavirus

GOP Blocks $2,000 Stimulus Payments, House To Hold Roll Call Vote On Proposal Monday

“Congress found plenty of money for foreign countries, lobbyists and special interests while sending the bare minimum to the American people who need it. It was not their fault.”  – President Donald J. Trump


House Republicans blocked legislation Thursday that would have sent $2,000 in direct payments to Americans, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said.

House Democratic and Republican leaders met early Thursday morning in a pro forma session and held a unanimous consent vote on the direct payments proposal, according to CNBC. Republican leadership voted the measure down, which required all lawmakers present to unanimously vote in favor for it to pass.

“Today, on Christmas Eve morning, House Republicans cruelly deprived the American people of the $2,000 that the President agreed to support,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement. “If the President is serious about the $2,000 direct payments, he must call on House Republicans to end their obstruction.”

Pelosi said during a press conference that the House would hold a recorded roll call vote on the measure Monday, Fox News correspondent Chad Pergram reported. If succesful, the measure would alter the the omnibus bill Congress passed Monday night by changing stimulus checks sent to Americans from $600 to $2,000.

Virginia Republican Rep. Rob Wittman attempted to get the House to vote on reconsidering the much-criticized foreign aid included in the omnibus bill, according to CNBC. Democrats blocked that proposal.

“Speaker Pelosi tried to use the American people as leverage to make coronavirus relief contingent on government funding – which includes billions of foreign aid at a time when there are urgent needs at home,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said in a statement Wednesday night.

The coronavirus stimulus relief bill hangs in the balance after President Donald Trump announced Tuesday he wouldn’t sign the bill Congress passed. Trump criticized both the $600 direct payment, saying they were too small, and the foreign aid, saying it was wasteful.

“Congress found plenty of money for foreign countries, lobbyists and special interests while sending the bare minimum to the American people who need it. It was not their fault,” Trump said.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

‘OPEN THE SCHOOLS’: President Trump Calls For Defunding Schools That Remain Shuttered

President Donald Trump demanded that Democrats assist him in re-opening public schools on Thursday, saying schools that remain closed should lose government funding.

Trump has pressed for reopening schools for weeks, making several threats to limit or cut funding altogether if children continue to be forced into distance learning. The main opposition to reopening comes from teachers unions, which consistently align with the Democrats.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1304055016731422722?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1304055016731422722%7Ctwgr%5Eshare_3&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fdailycaller.com%2F2020%2F09%2F10%2Ftrump-schools-reopen-democrats-funding%2F

Trump first began his push to reopen schools in July, arguing that his Democratic opponents were halting the reopening process for political reasons.

“We have to open our schools. Open our schools. Stop this nonsense,” Trump said Thursday. “It’s only political nonsense. They don’t want to open because they think it will help them on November 3rd. I think it will hurt them on November 3rd.”

Governors across the country ordered schools to close for the final months of the 2019-2020 school year, but states and districts disagree on when classrooms should reopen. The Trump administration released a set of eight recommendations in August for how schools can safely reopen.

The White House recommendations are as follows:

  • Educate teachers and students about the symptoms of COVID-19
  • Require students and teachers to “self-assess” their health each morning
  • Encourage frequent hand washing
  • Minimize large, indoor gatherings
  • Maintain high levels of ventilation in classrooms
  • Require students and teachers to socially distance from “high-risk individuals”
  • Encourage the use of masks
  • Post instructions for hygiene and social distancing around the school

Trump maintains that distanced learning is not an adequate replacement for schooling.

“When you sit at home in a basement looking at a computer, your brain starts to wither away,” Trump said when announcing the recommendations. “We have a lot of good experience at that just by taking a look at what’s happening in politics.”

Trump’s comments echoed those of the American Academy of Pediatrics, which came forward last month to urge state governments to reopen schools in the fall, saying risk of COVID-19 spread among students is low. The group also said dangers of keeping students home and away from learning outweighs the potential risk of spread.

“Lengthy time away from school and associated interruption of supportive services often results in social isolation, making it difficult for schools to identify and address important learning deficits as well as child and adolescent physical or sexual abuse, substance use, depression, and suicidal ideation,” the group said according to U.S. News.

COLUMN BY

ANDERS HAGSTROM

White House correspondent.

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

A Physician Investigates: Should You Take Hydroxychloroquine?

A controversy has arisen regarding the utility of using chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine with azithromycin in the prevention and treatment of COVID-19.

On the one hand, there are the purists who maintain that these medications ought not be employed until the proof of their benefits has been established. On the other, some advocate for the aggressive and immediate deployment of these medications. With these two very valid competing arguments proffered by sophisticated scientists and healthcare providers, the question for the rest of us mere mortals is what should we do?

The first step in addressing this question is to evaluate the state of the literature on the topic. An early indication that hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine in combination with azithromycin could be helpful in the treatment of CORVID-19 infection comes from a randomly controlled study from France involving 40 patients with early infection.  All patients in the experimental group improved and did better than those in the placebo group, except for one who was 86 years old and received the medicines in an “advanced form” of the disease.

But the study suffered from its small size and lack of a peer review process.

Other studies seemed to support the French conclusion.  In the laboratory, evidence demonstrates that chloroquine helps defeat the virus by increasing a cell’s internal pH and interfering with the penetration of the virus into the cell. Another study, this time out of China, showed the effectiveness of chloroquine and another medication, Remdesevir, against the SARS-CoV-2 virus (the COVID-19 virus) in Vero E6 cells taken from African green monkeys. Yet another preliminary study out of Wuhan showed that the time to clinical recovery, body temperature recovery time, and cough remission time were shorter in patients treated with hydroxychloroquine than in untreated controls.

There’s also experiential evidence suggesting that people who take chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine in low doses may be prevented from even developing the disease.  Additionally, informally reported observations find that patients who regularly take these medications for other conditions such as lupus are generally not contracting COVID-19.

But conflicting scientific information has also emerged. One study suggests no benefit to the administration of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin in patients with severe infection. The severe nature of the infections in these patients is notable, as it appears that the damage to the body goes beyond what an antibiotic can improve.

In light of all this emerging information regarding the potential benefits of administering the drugs it is tempting to conclude that we should treat all COVID-19 patients with these medications.  But what about the potential harm? Here, there is extensive evidence of the safety of taking chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine. Yes, either medication can cause retinopathy and changes in heart electrophysiology, but these effects are exceedingly rare and take place in patients who consume the medication at higher doses and for much more protracted periods of time.  In reality, the use of hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine in the recommended doses and projected administration times for COVID-19 is very safe.

So should we be taking chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine?  Well, the answer actually comes in three packets.

  • First, with the data available, those patients in respiratory failure ought definitely be treated with a regimen of chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin.  They should also be placed on Remdesevir. These patients, of course, are generally being treated in the intensive care unit setting, and the optimal management controversy does not apply to the general public.
  • Second, for those patients who are not in respiratory failure, but are nevertheless infected with COVID-19, the more proper approach is one of drug administration.  Although treatment should be undertaken under physician supervision, there is little question that the balance between risk and benefit strongly lands in favor of benefit, especially when one considers the potential imminence of patient demise.
  • Third, there is the question of preventive treatment or prophylaxis. Here again, there is a strong suggestion of benefit and a very remote risk of harm particularly when one considers the exceedingly low doses required for prevention.  The conflict here lies in supply. Do we have enough chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine to meet the demands from such a broad swath of the population? Ideally, it would be preferable that everyone takes one of these medications, but in light of supply limitations, at the very least, those coming into frequent contact with COVID-19 patients and elderly persons should be on a prophylactic dose.

What about those on chronic regimens of these medications?  Should they be kept from accessing chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine as many in the media claim is taking place?  They shouldn’t. But even in light of temporary shortages, the prophylactic use of these medications should still be considered.

Let’s face it.  We are looking at a massive pandemic that is devastating the national economy and able to take some victims with great haste.  A short-term interruption of treatment on chronic patients is generally not going to result in their rapid demise, but the contraction of COVID-19 may.  Here, urgency considerations definitely fall on the side of the COVID-19 patient and its prevention.

In the end, these are prescription medications so the decisions for administration or not lie with the physician.  Ultimately, each physician is going to have to make up his or her mind. However, although there is still some room for debate, the answer presently is falling on the side of administering rather than withholding these potentially life-saving medicines.

© All rights reserved.

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Linda Sarsour touts coronavirus fundraiser for Hamas-linked organization

No reason to be surprised.

On September 22, 2011, Sarsour tweeted: “shariah law is reasonable and once u read into the details it makes a lot of sense. People just know the basics.” Her position didn’t change over time. On May 12, 2015, she tweeted: “If you are still paying interest than Sharia Law hasn’t taken over America. #justsaying.” And on April 10, 2016, Sarsour tweeted about Sharia again: “Sharia Law is misunderstood & has been pushed as some evil Muslim agenda.”

Sarsour tweeted on March 8, 2011: “Brigitte Gabriel = Ayaan Hirsi Ali. She’s asking 4 an a$$ whippin’. I wish I could take their vaginas away – they don’t deserve to be women.” This call for physical violence against someone she hates received no notice among her sycophants on the Left.

Linda Sarsour is an energetic purveyor of the “Islamophobia” myth, and has hysterically claimed that “Muslim kids” are being “executed” in the United States. She was instrumental in prevailing upon de Blasio to end legal and necessary surveillance in Muslim communities in New York. She is also a frequent visitor to the Obama White House, and has claimed that the jihad underwear bomber was a CIA agent — part of what she claims is a U.S. war against Islam. She is a practiced exploiter of the ‘hate’ smear against foes of jihad terror and Islamic supremacism, and has never apologized for using the Islamic honor murder of Shaima Alawadi to spread lies about the prevalence of hate crimes against Muslims in America. She is also an enthusiastic supporter of the “Palestinian” jihad against Israel, and has even claimed that feminists cannot and must not support Israel.

“Linda Sarsour Touts Corona Fundraiser for Terror-Tied Org,” by Alex VanNess, Clarion Project, March 26, 2020 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

Islamist activistsharia apologist and co-founder of the Women’s March Linda Sarsour is holding a coronavirus fundraiser to benefit the people of Gaza through Baitulmaal USA, an organization with ties to the Islamist terror group Hamas.

https://www.facebook.com/linda.sarsour/posts/10158585800245572

Baitulmaal is listed as a partnering organization with Unlimited Friends Association for Social Development (UFA).

The Middle East Forum notes UFA’s ties to Hamas:

“UFA has never been shy about its affiliations. It advertises in the prominent Hamas daily newspaper, Felesteen, in which it mentions its support from Baitulmaal. And on UFA’s Facebook page, its officials have written: “We ask God to drive away the anguish of the heroic prisoners in the Nazi Zionist jails and to free Al-Aqsa Al-Sharif [the Noble Al-Aqsa] from the filth of the most dirty Jews.”

“In the West Bank, Baitulmaal’s partners are just as concerning. Baitulmaal fundraises for the Yazour Charitable Association. In 2008, the Israelis accused Yazour Charitable Association of being a Hamas organization, which Hamas media subsequently confirmed. One Palestinian newspaper reports that Baitulmaal and this Hamas front have been working together “for years.”

In 2017, documents  in a federal civil suit noted that Baitulmaal is a member of the Union of Good, a charity sponsored by radical Islamist and Egyptian cleric Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi. Union of Good was tagged in 2008 by the U.S. Treasury as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist Group.

The lawsuit also noted that UFA and Baitumaal share staff, that UFA “is closely aligned with senior Hamas leaders” and that UFA openly “channels funds from Baitulmaal to the ‘families of martyrs of the Palestinian people.’”

This is not the first time Sarsour has worked with terror-tied charities. Last year, she was the keynote speaker at several Islamic Relief USA (IRUSA) fundraisers across the country.

IRUSA is the American affiliate of UK-based Islamic Relief Worldwide (IRW), which has been banned in several countries due to its ties to international terrorist organizations….

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Mozambique: Muslims attack two towns, ransack government buildings, say “We only want Islamic law”

Sudan: Muslim Brotherhood planned jihad attacks, strengthening case for terrorist designation

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

VIDEO: Coronavirus and Anti-Semitism

While the world is dealing with the Coronavirus pandemic, some see it as an opportunity to attack Israel with lies and anti-Semitic slurs.

Watch BDS activists and white supremacists share shockingly similar conspiracy theories about the global crisis, including that Israel and Jews are behind or are exploiting the virus. Meanwhile, Israel is working hand-in-hand with Palestinians to combat the virus!

WATCH AND SHARE!

Have you seen any other examples of this? Share your answers in a comment on Twitter

Watch the video on Twitter 

Watch the video on Facebook  

Watch the video on Youtube

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EDITORS NOTE: This Canary  Mission video is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

New York: Muslim Brotherhood activist, ‘If you have contracted coronavirus, you should exact revenge!’ [Video]

Is Bahgat Saber’s activity in New York under investigation? Why not? Would that be “Islamophobic”?

In any case, his call is completely Islamic: “Muhammad is the apostle of Allah. Those who follow him are ruthless to unbelievers, merciful to one another.” (Qur’an 48:29)

“NY-Based Muslim Brotherhood Activist Bahgat Saber Urges Egyptians to Deliberately Infect Government Officials and Employees at Egypt’s Consulates and Embassies with Coronavirus, MEMRI, March 1, 2020:

Bahgat Saber, a New York-based Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood activist, said in a video he uploaded to his Facebook page on March 1, 2020 that any Egyptian who has flu-like symptoms or coronavirus should deliberately go to Egyptian police stations, public prosecution offices, courthouses, embassies, and consulates and shake hands with government officials in order to exact revenge against President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi’s government, which he said is deeply corrupt, and avenge the people Sisi has oppressed. He added that if he gets coronavirus, he plans to go to the Egyptian consulate in New York and infect the people working there.

Bahgat Saber: “Whoever has flu-like symptoms – cold, fever, sneezing – should pay a visit to his ‘friends’ who work for Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi’s government. The moment you get flu-like symptoms like a cold or a fever, go to the public prosecution office that is closest to your house. Go to any building where they might illegally incarcerate people. If you can, go to a building of the Security Investigations Service, and if you can’t, just wait for them and sneeze on their cars when they pass by.

[…]

“If you want the state to care about coronavirus and start dealing with this disease, whoever among you suffers from influenza, fever, or cold, should just casually walk into a police station, or go to an office of the public prosecution, or to a courthouse. If you are a soldier, you can go into the defense ministry, and shake hands with all the generals of the military and the police. The same is true with the justice system. [People should target] the businessmen and actors who support Sisi. He should go to Media Production City. If there are people who oppose the military coup and work in Media Production City, and who have contracted anything – cold, fever, anything… They should go there and shake hands with everybody.

[…]

“If you have contracted coronavirus, you should exact revenge! Avenge yourself, avenge the honor of your women, avenge the people who are in prison, and avenge the oppressed people. Go there. Why die alone? When you die, why die alone?

[…]

“Perhaps coronavirus will topple Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi. Our Lord is capable of doing anything. But you have to make proper use of this.

[…]

“People who are outside of Egypt should go to any consulate or embassy. They are all licentious villains and sons of bitches.

[…]

“Exact revenge! This is legal and constitutional revenge. No law or constitution prohibits you from paying them a visit. If you know someone [sick], send him on a visit. You’ll be doing him a favor.

[…]

“When you talk to people, they say to you: ‘We don’t have machine guns, we don’t have F-16 plans, we don’t have this and that…’ But now you have the coronavirus culture.

[…]

“If I am infected, I will go to the Egyptian consulate here. They are all corrupt sons of bitches. I’ve been dealing with them for years.”

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

Senate Bill Would Give $1,200 to Many Americans as COVID-19 Relief

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Thursday that the Senate will not leave Washington before approving an aid package to ease financial problems during the coronavirus pandemic through direct payments to individual Americans.

Other provisions of the package, which has a total cost estimated at up to $1 trillion, would provide loans to airlines and other struggling industries.

Under the proposal, couples earning up to $150,000 a year would get checks for $2,400 in the mail and individuals earning up to $75,000 would get $1,200 checks.

After reaching those income thresholds, relief would scale downward to as low as $600 for some Americans.


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 >>


Individuals earning more than $99,000 a year and couples earning more than $198,000 would not get anything from the government under the current bill.

The Democrat-controlled House would have to pass a version of the bill. The Trump administration already has signaled support for many of the initiatives.

“Senate Republicans want to put cash into the hands of the American people,” McConnell said in a Senate floor speech.

McConnell said the goal of the bill—called the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, or CARES Act—is to “get assistance to individuals and families as rapidly as possible.”

“No tangled Washington process with a thousand cooks in the kitchen, no piles of forms for laid-off workers or busy families to fill out,” the top Senate Republican said. “Money for people, from the middle class on down.”

The bill also includes a $500 payment for each child in a household, depending on family income.

This stage marks “phase three” of economic relief packages during the coronavirus pandemic that have gained bipartisan support in Congress.

Congress passed an initial $830 billion relief package in early March focused on medical and emergency relief.

On Wednesday, Trump signed another, $100 billion bill that includes unemployment benefits and free testing for the new coronavirus disease, which health officials call COVID-19.

The proposed CARES Act includes direct payments to Americans, as well as delays in employer payroll taxes and estimated tax payments for businesses.

The proposal also would provide $208 billion in loan guarantees, including $50 billion for the airline industry and $8 billion for air cargo carriers.

The total confirmed U.S. cases of COVID-19 reached 10,442 as of noon Thursday, with 150 confirmed deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Some conservatives, including Sens. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Mike Lee, R-Utah, showed reluctance to support too much spending or large bailouts for industries.

McConnell likely will need support from Democrats to pass the legislation.

In a joint statement from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., the Democrats made other demands. It said, in part:

The number one priority is addressing this health crisis, which requires a Marshall Plan to rebuild our health care infrastructure on a continental scale and ensure the resources are there to test and treat everyone who needs it. To earn Democratic support in the Congress, any economic stimulus proposal must include new, strong and strict provisions that prioritize and protect workers, such as banning the recipient companies from buying back stock, rewarding executives and laying off workers.

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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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.

Muslim cleric: Jews more dangerous than AIDS and coronavirus, jihad is the cure [Video]

“Jews are more dangerous than AIDS, coronavirus, cholera and all the diseases of this world. If you want to be saved from these deadly diseases, we should all remember jihad.”

The Qur’an depicts the Jews as inveterately evil. They are bent on destroying the well-being of the Muslims. They are the strongest of all people in enmity toward the Muslims (5:82); they fabricate things and falsely ascribe them to Allah (2:79; 3:75, 3:181); they claim that Allah’s power is limited (5:64); they love to listen to lies (5:41); they disobey Allah and never observe his commands (5:13). They are disputing and quarreling (2:247); hiding the truth and misleading people (3:78); staging rebellion against the prophets and rejecting their guidance (2:55); being hypocritical (2:14, 2:44); giving preference to their own interests over the teachings of Muhammad (2:87); wishing evil for people and trying to mislead them (2:109); feeling pain when others are happy or fortunate (3:120); being arrogant about their being Allah’s beloved people (5:18); devouring people’s wealth by subterfuge (4:161); slandering the true religion and being cursed by Allah (4:46); killing the prophets (2:61); being merciless and heartless (2:74); never keeping their promises or fulfilling their words (2:100); being unrestrained in committing sins (5:79); being cowardly (59:13-14); being miserly (4:53); being transformed into apes and pigs for breaking the Sabbath (2:63-65; 5:59-60; 7:166); and more. They are under Allah’s curse (9:30), and Muslims should wage war against them and subjugate them under Islamic hegemony (9:29).

Find out more of why Muslim clerics such as Ahmad Al-Shahrouri feel free to spew this paranoid hatred in The Palestinian Delusion.

“Jordanian Islamic Scholar Ahmad Al-Shahrouri: The Jews Are More Dangerous Than Coronavirus, AIDS, and Cholera; Jihad Purifies Our Bodies and Souls, Can Save People from These Diseases,” MEMRI, March 8, 2020:

Jordanian Islamic scholar Ahmad Al-Shahrouri said in a March 8 episode of his show on Yarmouk TV – a Jordanian TV channel affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood – that the Jews are more dangerous than coronavirus, AIDS, cholera, and every disease in the world. He also said that to be saved from these illnesses, one should remember the Al-Aqsa Mosque and Jihad, which he explained is a means of purification of one’s soul and body. Sheikh Al-Shahrouri added that being saved from coronavirus serves to give one the honor of liberating the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Al-Shahrouri is a professor of shari’a at Al-Zaytoonah University of Jordan and serves as the imam of the university’s mosque.

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Georgetown University’s Fake Islamic Pluralism

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

Pence: ‘Socialism Has Failed … Freedom Works’ [Video]

Vice President Mike Pence warned a gathering of conservative activists Thursday about the perils of socialism and its historical record of failure.

“Socialism has failed everywhere it has been tried, in every era in every continent. Freedom works,” Pence told a cheering crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference, known as CPAC. “It was freedom and not socialism that ended slavery, ended two world wars, [and] has made America a beacon of hope.”

The vice president, tasked with leading the government’s response to the coronavirus, also said Americans “expect us to work together” to keep the public safe.

Pence repeated President Donald Trump’s vow that “America will never be a socialist country” as he noted that the ideology has gained in popularity among lawmakers on the left in Congress as well as on college campuses.


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 >>


Socialism is being sold as a promise of better health care and a cleaner environment, Pence said.

“The reality of socialism is different,” the vice president said. “The truth is, citizens in the most free countries in the world earn seven times more than citizens in the least free countries.”

Pence noted Venezuela’s grave problems and shortages as the country is in the midst of a struggle for freedom against what the Trump administration considers dictator Nicolas Maduro’s illegitimate government.

“Venezuela was once the second-wealthiest country in our hemisphere,” Pence said. “Then we wake up after a decade of a socialist dictatorship. Almost 5 million people in that country have fled to neighboring lands.”

Pence spoke about a woman from Venezuela who said her grandchildren had to rise at 4 a.m. to get a ticket to stand in line to buy a piece of bread in the afternoon.

“This president and this administration will continue to stand with the people of Venezuela,” Pence said.

The vice president also said the Democratic Party has embraced socialism.

“Whether it’s called ‘Medicare for All’ or a ‘Green New Deal,’ Democrats have embraced socialism,” he said. “History tells us it has literally impoverished millions of people and robbed the liberty of generations.”

Pence began by speaking about the coronavirus one day after Trump put the vice president in charge of the federal government’s response. The vice president said:

We’re all in this together. This is not the time for partisanship. The American people expect us to work together. … I promise you this administration will work with leaders in both parties, on the state and local level. This president will always put the health and safety of America first.

Pence said the White House’s coronavirus task force has met daily and that as of Thursday, 15 known cases of the disease have been detected in the United States.

“The risk to the American public remains low,” Pence said. “We are ready for anything.”

CPAC, the largest annual national gathering of conservative activists, runs Thursday through Saturday at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland, just outside Washington.

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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‘America Needs Our Help to Keep Her Special,’ Heritage President Tells Conservatives


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.

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The Scale of the Chinese Lockdown — What to make of these scary figures?

The official death toll from the Covid-19/coronavirus now stands at over 2,500 people. There are over 80,000 cases worldwide.

The people I’ve talked to about this epidemic fall into two camps.

Those in the first camp say that this needs to be put into perspective, the number of people who die each year from the flu dwarf the number of coronavirus deaths and it is likely that survival rates will be much better in a first-world, Western health system where the doctors aren’t in fear of the secret police when they say that there is something wrong.

Those in the second camp say that we can’t trust any of the numbers coming out of China, that it is worrying that there seem to be cases cropping up in countries around the world, and that China would not lock down half of its country for a disease that is less deadly than the flu.

“But Marcus!” I hear you say, “Don’t use hyperbole for effect! China hasn’t locked down half of its country!”

Well, according to this report from CNN, I am not exaggerating that much. Almost half of China’s 1.3 billion-strong population remain subject to varying forms of travel restrictions and other quarantine measures. Or, to put it another way, some 780 million people are living under some form of restrictive movement. This is an unbelievably large number.

These restrictions are in place across all of Hubei, the northeastern province of Liaoning, as well as Beijing and Shanghai. Now, these restrictions are not uniform and range from self-quarantine (also known as my normal Friday night … thank you, yes I’m here all week – try the veal) to limits on who can come and go from neighbourhoods.

Some of the restrictions are very strict: Wuhan, Huanggang, Shiyan and Xiaogan (the four cities at the epicenter of the outbreak in Hubei province) have completely sealed off all residential complexes and communities and the use of non-essential vehicles is banned. Residents have food and other necessities delivered to them because they are not permitted to leave their homes. (Apparently online gaming is surging in China at the moment…)

This is all having a massive effect on the Chinese economy. I saw a graph based on shipping that showed that imports to China were down a third and exports from China were 50 percent below their post-Chinese New Year historical averages. For a country that is heavily dependent on its economic growth to distract its citizens attention from its horrific human rights abuses, restricting half of its citizens’ movements in some degree seems an overreaction to what is apparently less deadly than the flu.

But let us have some optimism!

China has announced that some of the restrictions in Wuhan have been lifted…oh wait, no, it has renounced that announcement and the officials that prematurely announced that easing have been “reprimanded” (and their families have been invoiced for the 5.8mm “reprimand”).

What a wonderful country we have economically bound ourselves to hand and foot.

COLUMN BY

Marcus Roberts

Marcus Roberts is co-editor of Demography is Destiny, MercatorNet’s blog on population issues.

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

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