America’s current pandemic is bad, and shows no signs of abating

November 29, 2022

The latest “virus” in our society has been around a good while, but has gotten more active in recent months. It’s not a biological thing, it’s a cultural thing, commonly referred to as the “cancel culture.” It is born of dissatisfaction with something or someone, based upon what is believed, but absent much or most of the relevant facts about the subject at hand. 

Such things as painting or removing statues of well-known people, changing the names of buildings and other things honoring someone, or demeaning traditions are some of the work of the “cancel culture.”

As the Thanksgiving observance approached, the idea that Thanksgiving should be cancelled arose.

But what is there about Thanksgiving that it should be done away with? Thanksgiving is a time for all Americans to “cease from their daily work” and give thanks for their “many and great blessings,” as then-President Theodore Roosevelt noted in his 1908 Thanksgiving Day proclamation.

Taking a different approach to Thanksgiving, Joy Reid, the host of “The ReidOut” MSNBC, said on Wednesday night, "Tonight, we begin with Thanksgiving, the day we gather with friends and family to enjoy turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie. We throw on the game, catch up on with lives and discuss or quite possibly argue about religion and politics. For millions of Americans, it’s been a cherished tradition, and as Americans, we value those traditions. But it is also important to unpack the myth of Thanksgiving."

Enlightening the ignorant people who only think of Thanksgiving as a wonderful day of celebration and thanks, Reid then said: "It is a holiday riddled with historical inaccuracies, built on this myth that the indigenous welcomed their colonizers with open arms and ears of corn. A simplistic fairytale interpretation of a 1621 encounter between indigenous tribes and English settlers that erases the genocide that followed. It is the truth that Republicans want banned from our textbooks because here is the secret they want so desperately to keep: We are a country founded on violence. Our birth was violent."

Fortunately, there are millions of Americans who were not afflicted with this “unpacking,” as they prepared to enjoy the day with their families.

But now that the wonderful day has ended, looking into the substance of Reid’s diatribe can be done.

“We are a country founded on violence,” she proclaimed. Well, yes. Those British citizens who over the years ventured across miles of ocean in weeks-long trips on sailing ships, and through the many decades built themselves colonies which they cherished, were forced to employ violence to escape being under the thumb of their British masters who would not peacefully free them. 

This is not a secret. The Revolutionary War of 1775 to 1783 was an escape to freedom using violence, because that was what colonists were forced to do. Are we today supposed to apologize for that violent beginning? Or, does it make more sense to acknowledge what was needed and what was done, and move forward from there?

She makes fun of the first Thanksgiving in 1621, calling what most of us were taught a “fairytale interpretation.” She said “that the indigenous welcomed their colonizers with open arms and ears of corn,” was a myth.

Obviously, Reid was not there. But there actually is a first-hand account, written by Edward Winslow, who was one of the 102 people who sailed from England on the Mayflower in 1620.  After arriving in North America, they founded Plymouth Colony in what is now Massachusetts. His letter can be found online at mayflowerhistory.com.

According to the History of Massachusetts Blog, “What is known is that the pilgrims held the first Thanksgiving feast to celebrate the successful fall harvest. Celebrating a fall harvest was an English tradition at the time and the pilgrims had much to celebrate.

“The 53 pilgrims at the first Thanksgiving were the only colonists to survive the long journey on the Mayflower and the first winter in the New World. Disease and starvation struck down half of the original 102 colonists.

“These pilgrims made it through that first winter and, with the help of the local Wampanoag tribe, they had a hearty supply of food to sustain them through the next winter.” Later, the colonists had conflicts with indigenous tribes, but not before or during the first Thanksgiving.

Reid’s tunnel-vision view of history from inside her bubble seeks to erase the established history of our country that has been with us for nearly 250 years, and replace it with a story based upon selected facts that support her position that the American people have been horrible from before day-one until today.

She then endorses the fallacious 1619 Project, which attempts to re-date the beginning of America to that year, when a ship with more than 20 enslaved Africans landed in what is now Virginia. In 1619 there was no United States of America, nor even colonies from which America evolved. And no slavery on that first Thanksgiving.

These pathetic efforts to tear down America with intellectually-challenged stories of half-truths and outright lies are dangerous.

America is not perfect. But it is so much better than these self-gratifying falsehoods suggest.

How is Biden’s “Build Back Better” plan working out for us?

Joe Biden’s been in office almost one year. How is his “Build Back Better” plan working? How long should it take to make a pretty good situation better?

Inflation is skyrocketing. “Prices for U.S. consumers jumped 6.8 percent in November compared with a year earlier as surging costs for food, energy, housing and other items left Americans enduring their highest annual inflation rate in 39 years.” So said the Associated Press earlier this month. Prices of some products have doubled, and others have more than doubled. 

Among reasons, the AP said, are that “Employers, struggling with worker shortages, have also been raising pay, and many of them have boosted prices to offset their higher labor costs, thereby adding to inflation.” And, while many workers have gotten raises, inflated prices often negate the higher wages they now have.

A CNN report in December said that “Biden now sports the lowest net economic rating of any president at this point through their first term since at least Jimmy Carter in 1977.”

“In the latest CNN/SSRS poll, Biden comes in with a 44 percent approval rating to 55 percent disapproval rating among registered voters on his economic performance.”

One bright spot, however, is that jobs are being added at a high level, despite all the negatives in the economic data.

Many goods are in short supply, as ships sit off the coast waiting to unload for many days longer than normal. Yes, other ports have expanded or opened up to assist with the problem, but a long and broad list of supplies are still backlogged, including some foods, baby supplies, men’s and women’s products, and other things people need. This is a good reason to start again producing many goods in the U.S.

While lower taxes and government spending support a strong, positive economy, we are seeing both higher taxes and more government spending being enacted and proposed. Biden and Congress had their way on two spending bills, adding more than $3 trillion to the National Debt.

And legislation that Biden supports will move control over elections to the federal government, changing a process that was initially controlled by the states by design of our Founders.  This will eliminate “the most popular and proven safeguards that preserve Americans’ confidence in democracy,” according to Real Clear Politics.    

How are Biden’s plan for ending the pandemic going? "I am not going to shut down the economy, period," Biden said. "I'm going to shut down the virus; that's what I'm going to shut down." Yet, there have been more Covid deaths in 2021 than there were when he criticized how the pandemic was being handled in 2020. And this after he inherited Covid vaccines produced in record time.

Gasoline prices, which were under $2.00 in most places last year, are now near or above $3.00 everywhere, and as high as $5.00 a gallon in some places in California. 

Biden shut down the XL Pipeline here at home that would have moved oil more safely, quickly and less expensively than trucks, but he approved a pipeline that benefits Russia. In addition to negatively affecting US oil production and distribution, shutting down the XL Pipeline also put many Americans out of work.

Crime has gone through the roof in several cities/states. Is that Biden’s fault? No, he didn’t start it, but he hasn’t done much if anything to stop the crime wave. 

His Attorney General, Justice Department and the FBI, instead of focusing on the factors that lead to increased crime, are focused elsewhere: replacing state and local law enforcement in watching parents who are complaining about schools and school systems that indoctrinate their children. And, yes, indoctrination in schools does happen.

The federal governments involvement in keeping an eye on parents, and agents presence outside of school board meetings, serves as intimidation to parents, who are now afraid to speak out on a subject they have every right to speak on.

The debacle in rushing out of Afghanistan left 183 people dead, including 13 American military personnel. In the rush to leave, we abandoned thousands of Afghani allies and Americans trapped there, and a fortune in military equipment, which is now in the hands of the Taliban.

The New York Post reported, “The Taliban has seized US weapons left in Afghanistan worth billions — possibly including 600,000 assault rifles, some 2,000 armored vehicles, and 40 aircraft, including Black Hawks, according to reports.” A more sensible plan for leaving without chaos was ignored.

The southern border is essentially non-existent. The border catastrophe has allowed tens of thousands of illegal aliens to cross the southern border easily, without being controlled by authorities, without anyone knowing whether they are vaccinated, or if they are drug dealers, gang members or child smugglers, etc. 

And while people are allowed to enter the country illegally without being checked for vaccinations, American citizens cannot go do many things, like get on an airliner, without showing evidence of up-to-date vaccinations!!!

All of this bad news in his first year in office calls for Biden’s three-B plan to be renamed: “Biden Blunders Bigly,” or “Building Backward Better” are two possibilities.

Has the United States reacted appropriately to the COVID-19 virus?

As the COVID-19 pandemic drags on, the country is also besieged by pandemic fatigue. Everyone is tired of the restrictions on normal living, even as most abide by them, fearing getting or spreading the virus.

As with every crisis, there are the varying ideas of what is behind it all. Generally labeled “conspiracy theories,” these ideas affect people in three broad categories: true believers, non-believers, and those in the middle who aren’t sure what to believe. 

After all, who in America, a nation founded on principles of individual freedom, wants to believe that government at the national, state, and local levels would impose these heavy restrictions for any reason other than because they are believed to be necessary? 

Yet, many who are not conspiracy theorists do acknowledge the heaviness of these restrictions, and question their true value. 

“First, I have been shocked at the unprecedented exertion of power by the government since last March — issuing unilateral decrees, ordering the closure of businesses, churches, and schools, restricting personal movement, mandating behavior, and suspending indefinitely basic freedoms. Second, I was and remain stunned — almost frightened — at the acquiescence of the American people to such destructive, arbitrary, and wholly unscientific rules, restrictions, and mandates.”

Are those the words of QAnon, a leading voice of conspiracy theories? No. They are the words of Dr. Scott Atlas, a medical doctor and former professor at Stanford University Medical Center, a fellow at the Hoover Institution, a member of the Nominating Committee for the Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology, a special advisor to former-President Donald Trump and member of the Coronavirus Task Force in 2020.

His comments at a Hillsdale College National Leadership Seminar this past February were published in Hillsdale’s monthly speech digest Imprimis.

He readily acknowledges the bad things: “Over 500,000 American deaths have been attributed to the virus; more will follow. Even after almost a year, the pandemic still paralyzes our country. And despite all efforts, there has been an undeniable failure to stop cases from escalating and to prevent hospitalizations and deaths,” Atlas stated.

But he also recognizes the damage done by government-imposed lockdowns. Perhaps with the best of intentions, the lockdowns “have been extraordinarily harmful,” he said, to children by suspending in-person schooling, including poor learning, school dropouts, social isolation, and suicidal thoughts, most of which are far worse for lower income groups.

Further, people who are afraid to go to see doctors has resulted in up to 78 percent of cancers that were never detected due to missed screenings over a three-month period. Atlas noted that “if one extrapolates to the entire country, 750,000 to over a million new cancer cases over a nine-month period will have gone undetected.”

Add to that circumstance the missed critical surgeries, delayed presentations of pediatric illnesses, heart attack and stroke patients, and the number of injuries resulting from the lockdowns grows even greater. And he said that these problems are all well documented.

“Beyond hospital care,” he said, “the CDC reported four-fold increases in depression, three-fold increases in anxiety symptoms, and a doubling of suicidal ideation, particularly among young adults after the first few months of lockdowns, echoing American Medical Association reports of drug overdoses and suicides. Domestic and child abuse have been skyrocketing due to the isolation and loss of jobs.”

He states that hundreds of thousands of abuse cases went unreported, as abuse is commonly discovered when abused children are at school.

And a study by the National Bureau of Economic Research shows that the lockdowns will generate a three percent increase in the mortality rate and a 0.5 percent drop in life expectancy over the next 15 years. This will disproportionately affect African-Americans and women, the Bureau study showed. Those effects translate into what the study refers to as a “staggering” 890,000 additional U.S. deaths. 

To determine the best path forward, Atlas suggests that policymakers should objectively consider the impact both of the virus and the anti-virus policies to date. “This points to the importance of health policy, my own particular field, which requires a broader scope than that of epidemiologists and basic scientists. In the case of COVID, it requires taking into account the fact that lockdowns and other significant restrictions on individuals have been extraordinarily harmful — even deadly — especially for the working class and the poor,” he said.

We can see the benefit of not locking everything down by looking at how Florida has come through the virus to date. Florida remained largely open, and focused its vaccination program first on the oldest, most vulnerable population. 

A Wall Street Journal op-ed stated that “a year after the virus hit the U.S., Mr. Cuomo’s luster has faded, and Mr. DeSantis can claim vindication. The Sunshine State appears to have weathered the pandemic better than others like New York and California, which stayed locked down harder and longer.”

“Between Nov. 1 and Feb. 28, there were 5.8 new cases per 100 people in New York, 6.4 in California, and only 5 in Florida, where businesses could stay open at full capacity,” the op-ed continued.

Not giving into fear and thoughtfully addressing the pandemic has paid large dividends for Florida. We should learn from this.

Dems are frivolously spending money under guise of pandemic relief

In an early-morning vote last Saturday, President Joe Biden’s 591-page American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 passed the full House by a 219-212 vote along party lines. This plan would borrow and spend $1.9 trillion to, we are told, combat the chaos of the COVID-19 pandemic.

There is roughly $825 billion aimed at actual COVID-related spending. So where is the rest of the spending going? The majority of funds, according to the Editorial Board of The Wall Street Journal, is dedicated to “expansions of progressive programs, pork, and unrelated policy changes.” 

“Critics say that my plan is too big, that it costs $1.9 trillion,” Biden said. “Let me ask them: What would they have me cut?”

Well, since you asked: The measure included raising the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour by the fifth year of raises, but must be approved by the Senate, and is in question. This increase will result in reduced hours, job cuts, or price increases, or a combination of those, as employers struggle to offset the increased expenses.

One feature would provide an additional $135 million in funding to the National Endowment for the Arts, on top of the $167.5 million already budgeted for this year.

Rep. Adriano Espaillat, D-N.Y., said recently that he’s “not comfortable” with “embarrassing” spending unrelated to the COVID-19 pandemic. He told CNN of his misgivings on $1.5 million for the Seaway International Bridge between Massena, New York, and Canada, and also $100 million for an underground rail line linking House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco district and Silicon Valley.

There is $350 billion in aid to state and local governments, which is thought to be “bailouts” of poorly run Democrat areas like New York City and the state of New York. California, which recently reported a $10 billion budget surplus, is expected to receive more than $40 billion from the bill. Some folks think California doesn’t need it. The bill rewards poor stewardship of cities and states and is wasteful.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that 95 percent of the bill’s $129 billion for K-12 schools won’t be spent until 2022-2028. That’s because much of the already appropriated $113 billion hasn’t yet been spent. Why not wait and see if all or any of the $129 billion is needed?

Freshman Congresswoman Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., said in a tweet that, “Less than 1 percent of the COVID relief bill will actually go to vaccine development and distribution. When a top priority accounts for such a small part of the overall spending, it just shows how massive (and unnecessarily bloated) this spending bill is.” 

While the Democrat-controlled Congress is busy spending our tax money on frivolous things under the guise of pandemic relief, the attack on our individual freedoms continues unabated.

One of our freedoms that has been under assault for some time is the ability of business owners to control who they do business with.

When the seasoned citizens among us were young, it was common to see signs on the front door of businesses that said, “We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason,” or similar language. These days, the government of our free country will punish you and try to force you to do things that are not just things you don’t want to do, but things that are against your religious or personal beliefs.

No doubt more recent such signs saying “No shirt, no shoes, no service” will likewise be deemed illegal by the control-happy government that that thinks it knows best about far too many things.

A long-standing issue holds that while you may be opposed to abortion for religious or other reasons, if you have a business, you may be forced to provide insurance coverage that pays for abortion.

If you are a service provider — such as a baker, photographer or florist — you may be sued or otherwise punished for refusing service for same-sex marriages, regardless of your beliefs or personal feelings.

More recently is the issue of trans-gender women being allowed in women’s restrooms, locker rooms and showers, and participating in women’s sports.

And the State University of New York (SUNY) Geneseo has suspended a male student from his field teaching programs after he was found supporting conservative ideas, such as, “A man is a man, and a woman is a woman.” 

It is reported that two California Democrats, Representatives Anna Eshoo and Jerry McNerney, are pressuring cable companies to drop Fox News, Newsmax and One America News Network, or pay lower carriage rates in order to shut these networks down. The opposition must be silenced!

It is things like this that cement as reality the idea that our elected representatives have not read, do not understand, or don’t like the rather plain English of the U.S. Constitution’s Bill of Rights.

Why, in the United States of America, the land of the free, is it sensible or permissable to say that being for something like same-sex marriage, trans-genderism or abortion is okay, but being opposed to one or more of them is wrong? 

We are guaranteed the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Does that not include making up our own minds about social and political issues?

Selective coronavirus reporting creates confusion

As time passes we become aware of more and more “oddities” related to the coronavirus pandemic. Cutting appropriate slack for the doctors and other healthcare authorities who advised President Donald Trump and the nation on how to respond to the crisis, it was a new virus and little was known about it. We can hardly get huffy about the mistakes made early on, and to some extent, even those that persist.

Even so, dramatic mistakes were made, and playing Monday morning quarterback shows that the reactions were — and are — over-the-top, and quite harmful, in many instances.

The shutdowns closed thousands of businesses, many permanently, put tens of millions of people out of work, and contributed to deaths and other health problems not directly related to COVID-19, as elective surgeries were cancelled, and needed appointments were cancelled by people afraid to go to see a doctor, or who were afraid to go to the hospital when they were ill.

A Kaiser Family Foundation poll found that 48 percent of Americans said they or a family member canceled or delayed medical care because of the pandemic, and 11 percent said the person’s condition worsened as a result of the delayed care. Some died.

We have problems with the reporting of COVID-19 data. Media reports focus on “cases” and “deaths,” to the near exclusion of negative tests and recoveries. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) rules allow people who die “with” the virus to be counted along with those who die “because of” the virus, expanding the number of deaths attributed to the virus by some unknown amount.

Furthermore, according to the CDC, a positive test allows for the chance that antibodies from a virus in the same family of viruses as COVID-19, like the common cold, were found. And, if a person tests positive for the virus, and is tested periodically to determine when he/she is no longer positive, each of those positive tests goes into the positive test count until the person tests negative. How many of the positive tests result from this repeat testing practice?

A virus test that is positive is called a “case.” That implies to many people that each “case” is an illness, that people who test positive are sick. But many who test positive experience only mild symptoms, or no symptoms whatsoever.

And then, there is this: The Florida Department of Health released its daily coronavirus testing report on July 14 showing a statewide positivity rate of 11 percent. But WOFL-TV (FOX 35) in Orlando reported, “Countless labs have reported a 100 percent positivity rate, meaning every single person tested was positive.

“Other labs had very high positivity rates. FOX 35 News found that testing sites like one local Centra Care reported that 83 people were tested and all tested positive. Then, NCF Diagnostics in Alachua reported 88 percent of tests were positive. How could that be?”

An investigation into these hard-to-believe results showed that Orlando Health’s 98 percent positivity rate was wrong. When the station contacted the hospital, it corrected the positivity rate to only 9.4 percent.

Orlando Veteran’s Medical Center reported a positivity rate of 76 percent. But, again, a spokesperson for the Medical Center told FOX 35 News that the positivity rate for the Center is actually 6 percent.

How often do such “errors” occur?

Florida, of course, has seen dramatic increases in actual positive tests, but on the positive side, the state’s nation-leading increase in positive tests is not matched by a nation-leading increase in deaths, so far.

One Florida death was a man in his 20s who died in a motorcycle accident, but was classified as a COVID death. FOX 35 News received a statement from the Florida Department of Health attempting to clarify how a "COVID death" is determined. If, "COVID19 is listed as the immediate or underlying cause of death, or listed as one of the significant conditions contributing to death. Or, if there is a confirmed COVID-19 infection from a lab test – and the cause of death doesn’t meet exclusion criteria – like trauma, suicide, homicide, overdose, motor-vehicle accident, etc."

Despite the latter point, this death was classified as a COVID death.

Here are some relevant data from covidtracking.com as of July 19, 2020. The overwhelming majority of data comes from local or state/territorial public health authorities:

Total tests = 44,968,536

Positive tests = 3,962,061

Negative tests = 41,273,443

Test results pending = 3,032

Total hospitalized = 276,439

Total deaths = 132,395

These data show that only 8.3 percent of total tests are positive; that only 7.5 percent of those testing positive become hospitalized; that 3.6 percent of those testing positive succumb to the virus.

Also, fewer than half of those hospitalized — 7.5 percent of those testing positive — succumb to the disease, and 96.4 percent of those testing positive survive.

The selective choosing of which data to report can — and does — create a particular response: fear.

It would be far better — and far more responsible — to report the whole range of data so that the public will have a broad set of data on which to base its reaction.

A broad, reality-based COVID-19 perspective is desperately needed

Stipulated: COVID-19 is a serious disease. If you get it, you may be in for a few horrible weeks of fighting it. And, you may lose your life.

This coronavirus sneaked out of China, and caught the world by surprise. Very little was known about it, and dealing with it was difficult.

The warnings from scientists about becoming infected were horrifying. Which explains why such drastic actions by federal, state and local officials were so readily obeyed. At first.

As of Sunday, nearly 90,000 Americans had died from it, and about 1.5 million Americans were known to have been infected with the disease. But there are some problems with these numbers.

We really don’t know how many have actually been infected, because many infected people don’t have symptoms, or have mild symptoms, and are not tested. If they aren’t tested, nobody knows they have the virus. An article in Forbes magazine cited a study by a team at Kyoto University estimating that nearly 18 percent of those with the virus had no symptoms. We have learned the percentage of persons tested that have a positive result is about 13 percent.

If testing shows that 1.5 million Americans have the active virus, applying the Kyoto study’s data to that figure means that approximately 1.8 million actually have been infected. Two hundred thousand to three hundred thousand people were going about their business, never knowing they were infected, and could have been infecting others.

The number of people who actually die from it is also uncertain. That’s because if a person passes away and has been infected, the mandated conclusion often is that they died of COVID-19. There is no distinction between whether someone died “because of” the virus, or merely “with” the virus.

Factcheck.org noted in an analysis that “The CDC guidance says that officials should report deaths in which the patient tested positive for COVID-19 — or, if a test isn’t available, ‘if the circumstances are compelling within a reasonable degree of certainty.’ It further indicates that if a ‘definite diagnosis of COVID–19 cannot be made, but it is suspected or likely (e.g., the circumstances are compelling within a reasonable degree of certainty), it is acceptable to report COVID-19 on a death certificate as probable or presumed.'”

So, if someone has pneumonia or is run over by a beer truck and dies, and they test positive for the virus, they may be recorded as having died of the virus, whether that was the primary cause of death or not.

In dire situations like this pandemic, a reasoned perspective is needed, but is very difficult to develop. We certainly do not want to make too little of the coronavirus, putting Americans needlessly at risk. But we also must not make too much of it by needlessly continuing the heavy economic and social restrictions, and the damage they produce. It is a narrow line to walk.

On May 17 there were 1,507,829 active cases. Of those, 89,589 had died and 275,560 had recovered. For active cases, death occurred for 6 percent, while 18 percent recovered. No information is provided about the other million-plus who tested positive.

USA Today reported earlier this month, “Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, testified to Congress in March that the mortality rate may be as low as 1.0 percent when accounting for people who are infected but don’t develop symptoms severe enough to be tested.”

Some perspective on causes of death in 2018, from the CDC:

Heart disease: 647,457; Cancer: 599,108; Accidents (unintentional injuries): 169,936; Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 160,201; Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 146,383; Alzheimer’s disease: 121,404; Diabetes: 83,564; Influenza and pneumonia: 55,672; Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 50,633; Intentional self-harm (suicide): 47,173.

Available information indicates that unless you are elderly or have some sort of pre-existing health issue, you have a very good chance of surviving COVID-19.

Fauci, who is President Donald Trump's coronavirus expert, stated at a coronavirus task force meeting, “I've looked at all the models, I've spent a lot of time on the models. They don't tell you anything. You can't really rely upon models," according to The Washington Post.

Yet inaccurate models were utilized in developing the measures that health officials said should be implemented to limit the impact of the virus, and a one-size-fits-all list of restrictions was imposed on the nation.

As time passed, while New York, New Jersey and a few other states were hit hard, several states were barely affected. Alaska, Montana, Hawaii, Wyoming and Vermont had fewer than 1,000 cases and fewer than 100 deaths. Eight other states reported more than 1,000 cases, but also fewer than 100 deaths. The harsh restrictions in these states may have done more harm than good.

As more time has passed, some states have relaxed restrictions, allowing a slow, careful reopening to occur. Georgia and Florida have drawn criticism for their re-opening actions, but have shown declining cases, so far.

Abandoning the one-size-fits-all approach and treating areas according to their actual disease level is a sensible way to start getting the economy re-started. That is a very important step.

Opportunism is alive and thriving among Democrat politicians

“Some things never change” is a comment we hear when something negative occurs, yet again. The onset of the coronavirus has turned the country upside down, put millions in jeopardy of one sort or another, and created a situation where national, state and local officials felt the need to enforce behavioral restrictions on citizens.

With that tumult, perhaps that phrase was brought to mind from the fact Congressional Democrats remain undeterred by the pandemic, and are dutifully pursuing their regressive goal of “progressivism.”

Senate Democrats on Thursday stalled the passage of a $250 billion relief package designed to aid small businesses. Trying to speed up the passage of the needed funding, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-KY, called for a vote by unanimous consent.

But rather than pass a measure nearly all senators supported, Democrats requested protections for minority-owned businesses and additional aid to local health care providers, blocking the measure that was intended as an addition to the $350 billion Paycheck Protection Program, which gives forgivable loans to small businesses.

McConnell had said to the Senate Thursday morning, “Do not block emergency aid you do not oppose just because you want something more.” His words fell on deaf ears.

Following the failed vote, McConnell said he did not oppose the Democrats’ requests on principle, but that the Paycheck Protection Program needed urgent relief.

This effort to foul up the legislative process was not the first time Democrats had tried to force unrelated measures into a time-sensitive coronavirus support bill.

On Sunday, March 22, as the bipartisan agreement between the Democrat-controlled House and the Republican-controlled Senate reached over the weekend was about to come to a vote, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, showed up with a wish list of “progressive” goodies, among which were:

1. Union Giveaways:

• Nullifies the White House executive orders on federal collective bargaining and codifies taxpayer-funded union official time.

• Requires a labor union representative on every airline’s board of directors.

• Multiemployer pension bailout lacking needed reforms.

• Permanently raises the minimum wage to $15 for any business that receives federal aid for COVID-19.

• Cancels all debt owed by the U.S. Postal Service to the Treasury.

2. Green New Deal priorities:

• Requires all airlines that receive assistance to offset carbon emissions for domestic flights by 2025.

• Includes a $1 billion “cash for clunkers” airplane program where the Transportation Department buys fuel-inefficient planes from airlines in exchange for agreeing to buy new ones.

• Includes expansive new tax-credit for solar and wind energy.

3. Student Loan Forgiveness:

• $10,000 blanket loan forgiveness.

4. Federalizing Elections:

• Mandates how states must run elections, including the nationalization of ballot harvesting, requiring early voting, same day registration, and no-excuse vote by mail.

• Puts states at risk of costly litigation if they are unable to implement these stringent mandates ahead of the 2020 election.

Fearing they might again lose an election to Donald Trump, presented with the opportunity provided by the coronavirus crisis, and bringing back the elements that didn’t get through in the stimulus bill to change the existing election process, House Democrats have created a measure mis-labeled as the “Take Responsibility Act.”

This recipe for Democrat victory calls for legislative changes to remove the ability of states to manage the “Times, Places, and Manner” of elections as called for in the Constitution’s Article I provisions.

Changes include:

• states must allow 15 consecutive days of early voting

• makes absentee voting universal

• prohibits “requiring identification to obtain an absentee ballot”

• allows “another person” to drop off absentee ballots and removes limits on how many can be delivered by one person

• ensures provisional ballots are always counted (rendering them no longer “provisional”) and provides “blank” (no printed name) absentee ballots to citizens and service members overseas 

Anyone see opportunities for fraud here?

In signing gun control bills into law last week, Virginia’s Democrat Governor Ralph Northam said, “We lose too many Virginians to gun violence.” Notice he didn’t say we lose too many Virginians to “guns,” he said, we lose too many Virginians to gun “violence.”

It is violence that costs too many Virginians their lives, so instead of laws against guns, why doesn’t the General Assembly pass, and the governor sign, laws against violence?

Oh, that’s right. We already have laws against violence, but those laws don’t encroach on citizens’ Second Amendment rights. But the new laws do. And anything Virginia Democrats can do to interfere with the Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms, they will do.

And to make the fairy tale complete, still seeking the dreamt of, and so-far elusive coup de grace: yet another investigation into Trump.

Pelosi made it official last week: House Democrats are opening yet another inquisition against Trump. The last dismal failure actually did accomplish something, however. It distracted the Congress and administration from the developing crisis of the Wuhan virus, which they then could — and did — twist into the charge that Trump did not act swiftly enough to protect the country, and now by golly, that needs to be investigated.

You have to admire the Democrats’ devotion to bring Trump down, so strong as to eclipse any other consideration, like the welfare of the country and their constituents.

Fear, questions and rumors complicate the coronavirus situation

The thought of being infected by the COVID-19 virus is truly scary. The numbers are big. On Monday, the number of Americans infected was 337,933, and the number of Americans who have succumbed to the disease was 9,653. The number of deaths after the virus has run its course is predicted to be 200,000 or more, according to some models.

A new model predicts coronavirus deaths will peak in the United States on April 16, though the research is a preprint, which means it has not yet been peer reviewed. The peer review process is a vital part of assessing new medical research and identifies weaknesses in its assumptions, methods and conclusions. This prediction could very well change.

Accompanying the actual news about the virus are rumors about the pandemic. One says it did not come from a wet market in Wuhan, China as is commonly believed, but from a biological laboratory located there. Another said that the lab developed the virus and purposely released it as a biological weapon against China’s enemies.

In another storyline, a guy claiming to have been employed in a management position in a high-tech firm, and therefore possessing special “inside” information, said that the pandemic isn’t a virus at all, but the effects of radiation poisoning from 5G technology. And it’s all part of a plot by a select few individuals who are determined to wipe out much of human life and take control of Earth.

If the latter theory were true, we might as well go back to work and forget about social distancing and hand-washing; we are all at great risk from 5G, no matter what we do.

As the coronavirus rages, we don’t need bright, happy fairy tales. We also don’t need dark, misery-laced horror stories. We need factual information, the good and the bad, absent emotional baggage. On this point, both President Donald Trump and the news media need to sharpen up.

Trump often puts things in a good light, sometimes in words that are much too positive. Embellishing is a common practice among people trying to persuade. The media, on the other hand, often reports things with a negative tone, frequently more negative than reality requires.

When Trump speaks in traditional Trump-speak, the media accuses him of lying. When the media accuses Trump of lying, he accuses the media of “fake news.”

The news business involves telling people the facts of a story. Report what Trump said, his actual words. Don’t tell us what some reporter or editor thinks he meant. If his meaning is unclear, ask for clarification.

An example, cited in a previous column: Trump said, “And this is their new hoax,” referring to the way Democrats were treating the administration’s response to the virus. This statement was misreported in reports from several respected media sources as Trump calling the virus a hoax. Is that incompetence, or politics?

Our lives have been substantially affected by COVID-19.  The tragedy and pain of suffering and death from it are enormous. And fear is at epidemic levels. Our lives have been turned upside-down, with businesses and schools closed, jobs lost and people told to stay home.

However, some more positive aspects of the pandemic can give some relief to the sometimes-overwhelming negative aspects. While America has recorded 9,653 deaths as of Monday, 17,582 infected people had recovered. And that does not count those who didn’t know they were infected and suffered no symptoms.

And the roughly 338,000 Americans who had been confirmed as infected as of yesterday is only about one percent of the nation’s 330,000,000 total residents.

The University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) produced a model of the virus, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. This model has been widely cited as what to expect.

Writing for Townhall.com, Derek Hunter looked at the model’s projections compared to reality. He wrote, “While the reporting data from some states are lagging, others have provided information that calls into question the validity of the whole model, and with it, all the actions taken by government.”

Citing the IHME model he noted that on April 4th, from 120,963 to 203,436 Americans would require hospitalization, but only 18,998 actually were hospitalized.

Given that not all states had reported complete statistics when the count was taken, Hunter notes that those whose report was incomplete were smaller states with less serious effects. Therefore, even if the reported number was doubled, it was still far below the projection.

Models are informed guesses based upon a data set. The problem is which one is selected, and how much damage will be done if it turns out to be the wrong.

As of April 6, worldometer.info reported the following worldwide statistics: Of the 1,287,284 confirmed cases, 70,540, or 5.5 percent of the total, have died; and 271,950, or 21.1 percent, recovered or were discharged.

In the U.S. there are as of yesterday 337,933 identified positive cases, according to dailyrecord.com, and 9,653, or 2.9 percent have died, and 17,582, or 5.2 percent have recovered.

This isn’t good news, but it demonstrates that reality isn’t as bad as we may think.

The coronavirus COVID-19 problems are not limited to illness

The coronavirus COVID-19 situation threatens both the health of the people and nation’s economic health. And efforts to protect either side of that coin can endanger the other side.

Keeping Americans safe from the virus and possible death is of greatest importance, but when the virus crisis is over, we don’t want to find a decimated American economy, with hundreds or thousands of businesses permanently shuttered, and thousands or millions of previously employed Americans on the unemployment line.

These are the two serious challenges from the virus, and negotiating the proper balance between them is a tricky task. We want to keep people separated from others to reduce the spread of the virus, but we can’t keep the economy in this heavily shut-down state for so long that it does serious damage.

The White House Coronavirus Task Force is staffed with medical professionals and scientists who are advising President Donald Trump on how the country should respond to this crisis.

The actions that have been taken to slow the spread of COVID-19 were based on the Imperial College London Model developed by Professor Neil Ferguson. The Imperial model predicted that up to 2.2 million Americans could die from the virus if nothing is done to stop it, and that it would peak in June. The recommended social distancing and self-isolation policies were put in place in response to that study.

Then last week Oxford University epidemiologist Sunetra Gupta published an article on another model of the virus developed at her university. The Oxford model suggests that the virus had been in the UK for at least a month earlier than originally thought, and if so, then perhaps as much as half the population had already been exposed to it, and most cases resolved themselves without any medical issues, and without an awareness that a new virus was present.

“I am surprised that there has been such unqualified acceptance of the Imperial model,” Gupta commented, arguing that the model is highly flawed.

The same condition that Gupta’s model suggests occurred in the UK may also have existed in the U.S. People with the same symptoms as with COVID-19 infection would not have been diagnosed with a COVID-19 infection, since we had little or no information on the virus, or didn’t know it was present in the country at that time. Ferguson has now revised his initial predictions downward, but believes the Oxford model is too optimistic.

The economy is struggling, and the longer these measures are in place, the worse it will get. Many businesses have closed or are working on reduced hours, and many workers have been laid off, schools are closed and children are at home. 

The longer businesses are closed or experiencing substantially lower revenue, the greater the chances that many will die and be unable to reopen, millions will be unemployed, due to the resulting job shortage. And then there is the shortage of goods and services these closed businesses are no longer producing.

Economist Thomas Friedman addresses the situation that the coronavirus taskforce faces in an op-ed in The New York Times. “Our leaders are not flying completely blind: They are working off the advice of serious epidemiologists and public health experts,” he wrote. “Yet we still need to be careful about ‘group think,’ which is a natural but dangerous reaction when responding to a national and global crisis. We’re making decisions that affect the whole country and our entire economy — therefore, small errors in navigation could have huge consequences.”

Acknowledging the seriousness of the virus and the critical need for doctors and nurses, hospital beds, critical care beds and medical equipment for those who are suffering, Friedman calls for rapid, and widespread testing to “surgically minimize the threat of this virus to those most vulnerable while we maximize the chances for as many Americans as possible to safely go back to work as soon as possible.” He then cited an unnamed expert who thinks that “could happen in as early as a few weeks.”

It is imperative that businesses should reopen as soon as they can do so safely, so that people can get back on the job. Business that are closed cannot produce the goods and services that the nation and its people rely on, and the longer the halt in production lasts, the more serious the shortages become. 

The stimulus package that Congress passed will help people cope by giving them money, but it will not address the problem of the insufficient supply of needed goods and services, such as producing and delivering food and medicines throughout the country. 

The number of Americans suffering from the COVID-19 virus is large, but it is a very small percentage of the population. On Sunday, 138,879 people were confirmed to have the virus. That is a tiny fraction of 1.0 percent of the 330,000,000 people in the country.

That number will continue to rise until we get control of the virus, and we must work hard to keep it as small as possible.

But we must also act to protect the economy from collapse. If we don’t, economic circumstances will add to the number of deaths the virus itself is causing.

A truly serious health situation becomes a political football

Candidates working for a primary or a general election victory in the presidential race naturally chop each other down, and they also highlight what they see as the incumbent’s weaknesses and mistakes. This has reached new heights with President Donald Trump as the “enemy.” Everything he does, from relevant topics to the inane, is targeted by Democrats and their media friends. 

The only thing Trump could do that these folks would approve of would be to resign, or perhaps to drop out of the November election. And then he would be criticized for not doing that the “right way,” either.

Cutting taxes, getting rid of needless and harmful regulations, taking out terrorists who murder American military personnel, and strengthening the position of the United States on the international stage are among the things he’s been recently criticized for. And soon we will likely hear that he wears the wrong color socks and eats too much beef.

The emergence of the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, has gotten the attention of nearly everybody in the United States and, of course, that includes those running for the Democrat nomination for president.

And not surprisingly, they criticize Trump’s official reaction to the threat of the coronavirus in the U.S. When Democrats claimed that his administration was doing a poor job in addressing the threat, Trump declared those criticisms a “hoax.” Not the virus itself, mind you, but the criticism of his handling of it.

The media then took his comment out of contest and ran off the rails. Dana Milbank of the Washington Post wrote: “Remember this moment: Trump, in South Carolina, just called the coronavirus a ‘hoax.’”

Another media mis-statement, by Politico: “President Donald Trump on Friday night tried to cast the global outbreak of the coronavirus as a liberal conspiracy intended to undermine his first term, lumping it alongside impeachment and the Mueller investigation.”

Both NBC and CBS ran similar misrepresentations of Trump’s comment.

Most Americans do not factcheck what they read and hear from news outlets. They trust them to be accurate and objective. As these examples illustrate, the media often fall short of that expected and needed purpose. Whether by shoddy work or deliberate intent, the result is the same: mis-information gets passed on as accurate news, which many automatically believe. Is that “fake news?”

As previously illustrated, this happens too frequently. Therefore, is the President’s charge that some in the media are “the enemy of the people” really so far-fetched?

And it’s not only the news media that gets things wrong. Candidates for the Democrat nomination also got it wrong. Former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg said, “There’s nobody here to figure out what the hell we should be doing. And he’s defunded — he’s defunded Centers for Disease Control, CDC, so we don’t have the organization we need. This is a very serious thing.”

“We increased the budget of the CDC,” former Vice President Joe Biden said. “We increased the NIH (National Institutes of Health) budget. … He’s wiped all that out. … He cut the funding for the entire effort.”

But dang the luck, both are wrong. Trump is trying to reduce government spending to deal with the budget deficits and the huge national debt, which is badly needed. However, none of the cuts he has called for have been enacted; Congress did not pass them.

The Associated Press factchecked these criticisms, and defended Trump: “He’s proposed cuts but Congress ignored him and increased financing instead. The National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention aren’t suffering from budget cuts that never took effect.”

And just because budget cuts were proposed does not by itself indicate that they would have affected fighting the coronavirus. Further, there is an existing fund that was created specifically for health emergencies.

Trump also has asked for additional funding for fighting the coronavirus, but Congress did not grant the request, saying that more money is needed. If so, would it not make sense to grant the initial request and then pass additional funding, rather than turning down what the loyal opposition claims is critical funding?

As for who is on the job, overseeing the work, which Democrat hopefuls also criticized, the major players are Dr. Anne Schuchat, the CDC’s principal deputy director, and a respected veteran of previous outbreaks, Dr. Anthony Fauci, NIH’s infectious disease chief who has advised six presidents. 

These doctors provide the medical knowledge needed to protect Americans from this serious threat. And Trump has formed an administrative coronavirus task force to manage the government’s actions.

Trump has assigned Vice President Mike Pence to head the task force, which includes Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, national security adviser Robert O'Brien, Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun, Department of Homeland Security acting Deputy Secretary Ken Cuccinelli, and Domestic Policy Council Director Joseph Grogan. 

Weaponizing the coronavirus threat into a political issue is both a cheap shot and dangerous. It unnecessarily raises fears among the public where good sense is needed, and it shifts the focus of the Democrat campaign away from the radical political positions the Democrats propose.