Tucker Carlson believes the Democratic Party will replace Biden

In the Washington Examiner, Matthew Leonardi reports,

Fox News host Tucker Carlson said insiders in the Joe Biden presidential campaign believe he will not be mentally fit to be president come Election Day.

While appearing on the Charlie LeDuff podcast, Carlson claimed that Biden insiders told him they don't believe the former vice president has the mental fortitude to last until the 2020 election in November, speculating that the Democratic Party may revoke his potential nomination.

"I sincerely and totally believe that Joe Biden will not be the Democratic nominee on Election Day," Carlson began.

"How does that math work?" another podcast host pressed. "It's not about math. It's about will," Carlson said, saying the Democratic Party is "intent on taking power."

"Two competing imperatives: We've got to win, but we've got a guy who can't win. Therefore, they're going to replace him," Carlson continued. "He's not going to make it, and the people around him know that. Trust me, I know them. And I know they know it, because they've said it to me."

Carlson went on to estimate that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is "most likely" to replace Biden for the Democratic nomination.

6.5 earthquake today in Idaho

T.V. Channel 4 in Spokane gives us this report on today's 6.5 magnitude earthquake near Challis, Idaho.

Thanks to Paul Goldberg in News Thud.

"We must reopen as soon as possible -- before they regain their ability to have independent thoughts,"

From the Babylon Bee:

U.S.—Teachers at government schools have raised their concerns that the recent closure of their institutions will have a damaging effect on students. In particular, the nation's educators are worried that the longer the schools are closed, the more likely it is that students will begin thinking for themselves, learn life skills away from the government school system, and realize how much more they learn at home.

"We must reopen as soon as possible -- before they regain their ability to have independent thoughts," said New York 4th-grade teacher Ms. Jenny Mudd. "This is an urgent crisis. We realize we have to do our part to prevent the spread of the virus, but we must also prevent the spread of unapproved ideas. There's a balance there."

"Reopen the schools before it is too late."

Sure enough, studies have already shown a strong correlation between everyone being homeschooled and a concerning spike in independent thought. Students who have been away from the government school system for even a week stop feeling depressed and anxious all the time and even show a shocking increase in the ability to form thoughts and ideas not approved by the government.

Teachers have further pointed out that parents aren't properly equipped to indoctrinate their children with government propaganda. "I went to school for eight years to be able to do this," said Portland kindergarten teacher Ms. Pinkerton. "Parents just don't have the experience of stuffing kids' heads full of a statist worldview seven hours a day like I do."

Masks work!

In Wired, Ferris Jabr reports,

...widespread use of masks is one of the many reasons why China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan have controlled outbreaks of coronavirus much more effectively than the US and Europe. “Of course masks work,” sociologist Zeynep Tufekci wrote in a New York Times editorial. “Their use has always been advised as part of the standard response to being around infected people.” Public health expert Shan Soe-Lin and epidemiologist Robert Hecht made a similar argument in the Boston Globe: “We need to change our perception that masks are only for sick people and that it’s weird or shameful to wear one … If more people donned masks it would become a social norm as well as a public health good.” Last week, George Gao, director-general of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said that America and Europe are making a "big mistake" by not telling the public to wear masks during the ongoing pandemic.

It is unequivocally true that masks must be prioritized for health care workers in any country suffering from a shortage of personal protective equipment. But the conflicting claims and guidelines regarding their use raise three questions of the utmost urgency: Do masks work? Should everyone wear them? And if there aren’t enough medical-grade masks for the general public, is it possible to make a viable substitute at home? Decades of scientific research, lessons from past pandemics, and common sense suggest the answer to all of these questions is yes.

Read much more here.

Diarrhea is the first sign of illness for some Covid-19 patients

Rachael Rettner reports in LiveScience,

Some patients with COVID-19 experience gastrointestinal symptoms, particularly diarrhea, as the first sign of illness, according to a new study.

Among this subset of patients — who have mild disease overall — respiratory symptoms show up only later in the illness, and some never develop respiratory symptoms at all, the authors said.

The findings are important because those without classic symptoms of COVID-19 — such as cough, shortness of breath and fever — may go undiagnosed and could potentially spread the illness to others, the researchers said.

Still, they note that digestive problems are common overall and don't necessarily mean that a person has COVID-19. But doctors should recognize that sudden digestive symptoms in people with a possible COVID-19 contact "should at least prompt consideration of the illness," the authors wrote in their paper, published ahead of print Monday (March 30) in The American Journal of Gastroenterology. "Failure to recognize these patients early and often may lead to unwitting spread of the disease."

...Overall, "these data emphasize that patients with new-onset diarrhea after a possible COVID-19 contact should be suspected for the illness, even in the absence of cough, shortness of breath, sore throat or even fever," the authors concluded. "Optimally, testing for COVID-19 should be performed using both respiratory and stool samples, if available."

Read more here.

Stop lying to us about masks!

Ace of Spades links to Tucker Carlson, who calls for the government to stop lying to us about the efficacy of masks. Ace writes,

Tucker Carlson: The Government Needs to Stop Lying to Us About Coronavirus
—Ace
He means, specifically, the stories the government put out that "masks don't help you avoid transmitting, or even contracting, the virus."

That was a lie. The lie was told in order to reduce demand on masks, so that health workers -- who do of course have a more pressing need for them -- could get them.

It was a lie, and now people still believe the lie and are still saying "masks don't help."

And can you blame them? The people whose guidances and orders we are supposed to follow without question were just telling us the lie that masks don't work, in order to free up supply for high-risk personnel.

"If you don't do journalism, someone will do it to you!"

Commenters in Instapundit are weighing in on the subject of media bias.

gridlock2 writes, They learned that they could swing an election during Katrina.

They learned that they could no longer swing an election with Trump.

Now they are desperate to get that power back. What they fail to realize is they spent their goodwill, built up over centuries, with Katrina. They burned through all of the trust they had earned by covering stories honestly, by visiting war zones, by confronting tyrants, by sacrificing their own lives, in order to swing one election.

Well, all of that goodwill is gone now. It will take decades to win it back. But in order to start that process, they have to start doing their jobs again.

Jon writes in part,

The turning point was Reagan's election in 1980, coming just six years after Watergate. In the wake of taking down Nixon, the D.C. media thought they were masters of the universe, but the sudden turnaround just six years later, even after they told America Reagan was an evil idiot who was going to start World War III if elected, caused the media outlets to become more and more overtly partisan.

Doug f43 writes,

Katrina didn't damage them at all. Not at all. And Bush did look like a feckless clown during that debacle. I remember the arguments I had with people who told me that the Feds couldn't really do anything unless asked by the incompetents in the City/State administrations.

Do you think Trump would have allowed himself to be pilloried like Bush did, Do you think that Trump would have allowed those days of reports from the Dome showing the conditions there and NO help being delivered.

Do you really think that? Because I don't. The whole thing WOULD have played out differently if Bush wasn't a Bush. Totally useless family for any real role in the GOVERNING positions. Trump would never have tolerated what happened there. It wasn't the levee controversy. It was the stadium thingy that harmed Bush. And rightfully so. He was his usual self. You saw the same incompetence in his Iraq plans. FIVE days of reports from the Dome and that would have been about 3 days too many for Trump.

Prove me wrong.

Read more here.

"It’s no surprise that some call them enemies of the people."

In Instapundit, Glenn Reynolds links to an article about an epidemic of media partisanship. Glenn comments,

There was a sea change with Katrina, where they realized that if they all agreed on a narrative, even if it was false, and all stuck to it despite all criticism, they could swing an election. Since then, they’ve doubled down repeatedly, and every time you think they’ve bottomed out, they go lower. That they do this without concern for any collateral damage they might be doing to their audience or to the nation is particularly reprehensible. It’s no surprise that some call them enemies of the people.

Read more here.

Cuomo day

The Cuomos are in the news today. CNN's Chris Cuomo is reporting from the basement of his house because he has been diagnosed with Covid-19.

His brother Andrew says he will not run for President but Sundance believes he

is being positioned to be recruited as the consensus nominee at the DNC convention. That scheme is 100% on track to be executed; and that plan would involve Andrew Cuomo saying exactly what he is saying in this interview; and then later he is recruited by the DNC club leadership and super-delegates. [Oh, and the club can pull this off… easily.]

Cuomo cannot hint he would be open to such a possibility because the democrat voters, who don’t understand private political club rules, may suddenly realize their precious “democracy”, vis-a-vis an election process, is really just a hall of mirrors.

...This is all rehearsed. Everything about this is a production.

A prepared script, graphics with points of emphasis, along with national media interrupting all broadcasts to run these messages, this draft nomination effort is brilliantly designed. People in Ohio, Florida, Arizona, Wisconsin, California and Michigan are wondering why they are watching a New York governor presser every day on their televisions.

You have to admit these are brilliant political operations.

Read more here.

"The media continues to protect a Senile Rapist from scrutiny."

Although several days have passed since The Hill did a video podcast with Tara Reade, no one in the media has asked Joe Biden to comment on Reade's allegation that he digitally penetrated her. Ace has a couple of posts on it and these comments, among others.

There is no excuse for this, and there is no other explanation for this except that the media is a propaganda arm of the George Soros Left.

The media continues to protect a Senile Rapist from scrutiny.

And yes, per many states' rape codes, forcible digital penetration would be considered rape.

Credibly accused of rape, but the Believe All Women refuses to even interview his accuser.

Read more here.

"That’s America folks; in all her magnificent colorblind glory."

Do you want to be inspired? Go to the Conservative Treehouse and read this article by Sundance entitled, This Too Shall Pass.

How the U.S. Treasury will distribute the money to local businesses and their employees

As usual, we can depend on Sundance in the Conservative Treehouse to help us understand what is going on. In this post, he explains the system the Treasury Department is setting up with local businesses. It provides loans to local businesses and those loans do not have to be repaid if the business keeps their employees, each of whom will get $1200! The system should be ready Friday! Read more here.

Will we see an Italexit?

In the American Thinker, Monica Showalter reports on political unrest in Italy due to the European Union's lack of support for Italy during the Covid-19 outbreak. Will we see an Italexit? Read more here.

Are we disconnecting from reality?

Auguste Meyrat writes in part in American Greatness,

...The promise of the tech age and the ubiquity of smartphones and the internet was that it would arm people with relevant information and rational courses of action. Rather, it has done the opposite—magnifying doubts and fears about everything and everyone.

...And yet, for all their distrust of the media, people still seem inclined to believe the pundits and clueless scientists over their own experience.

This then leads to a lack of context. Everything seems new and unprecedented, and therefore unknown and scary—except that this isn’t true. Pandemics have always existed, and there are proven ways to deal with them that don’t involve shutting down the economy and putting everyone under house arrest.

...Moreover, the average age of those who die from Wuhan virus is 77 and mainly poses life-threatening risks to those over 60 (earning it the nickname “The Boomer Remover”) or those who suffer from other health problems, which made up 99 percent of the victims in Italy. It is understandable for those who are elderly to fear this disease, as they should fear all diseases, but it makes little sense for everyone else immediately to self-quarantine for a month or more only to still catch the virus right after the quarantine ends.

...With people fearing the worst and struggling with math, it is only normal that logic will also fall away. Nothing makes sense. Crowds can lead to the spread of disease, so people congregate at stores to panic buy. Only specific locations (mainly those with large elderly populations like retirement homes and churches) have experienced fatal outbreaks of the Wuhan virus. Yet every place is closed, including schools, amusement parks, restaurants, and bars. Only certain people are at risk of having the Wuhan virus, so everyone and their pet should be tested for it. The abandoned shops and ongoing panic may encourage looting, so cities should release their prisoners and stop arresting vandals. And of course, the Wuhan virus originated in the Wuhan province of China, so it’s racist to refer to this fact.

Read more here.

"Do you think this hasn’t been noted by the Democratic powers that be?"

Roger L. Simon writes in part in Epoch Times,

...the likelihood of Donald Trump’s reelection has been rising with public approval of his handling of the CCP virus crisis hovering around 60 percent, a hitherto unheard of number for the controversial president.

Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, on the other hand, has done particularly poorly, fumbling his “digital front porch campaign” in a drastic manner as detailed in a Wall Street Journal editorial. “Not ready for prime time” is only one cliché that seems to fit the rapidly aging former vice president. (If we have learned one thing from the virus, it is that nature can be cruel.)

...Do you think this hasn’t been noted by the Democratic powers that be?

One explanation of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s seemingly self-destructive overreach during negotiations over the multi-trillion-dollar rescue plan—tacking virtually every dream from the liberal-progressive playbook illogically onto the legislation—was that it was a kind of “Hail Mary Pass” as the last gasp for their wish list before the fall, i.e., Trump II.

As this happened, Cuomo was acting like the adult in the room, receiving boffo reviews from the left and the right (Broadway was closed, after all) for his daily press conferences and intelligent management of the crisis for his state.

Unlike almost all Democrats and media, he doesn’t seem overly infected by Trump Derangement Syndrome and was able to work productively with the president, while opposing him at other times—a difficult balancing act for a Democrat.

...In any case, though I doubt Cuomo could defeat Trump, my guess is he would ultimately fare better than the increasingly hapless Biden, who might be headed for electoral disaster.

Read more here.

"In a sense, we have a “politics pandemic” as well as a medical one."

In the Epoch Times, Roger Simon writes in part,

In our world political hostility seems to overrule everything, obliterating common sense and collegiality in a crisis. In a sense, we have a “politics pandemic” as well as a medical one.

...As we know, these political hatreds in our society have been with us for some time, rupturing workplaces, friends, and family. It’s a game that we can play or not. Better yet, we can keep it in its proper place and not let it take over every aspect of our lives. That’s something we can learn during the pandemic that will reward us afterward.

Read more here.

Layoffs continue, but some companies are hiring vigorously.

Steven Malanga reports in City Journal about businesses who are hiring during the Covid-19 crisis. Read more here.

Is the cure worse than the disease?

In American Greatness, Roger Kimball quotes Dr. John Lee, a retired professor of pathology in the United Kingdom:

...How do we measure the health consequences of taking people’s lives, jobs, leisure and purpose away from them to protect them from an anticipated threat? Which causes the least harm?”

In the United States, we have locked down whole counties and shuttered businesses across the country. We have erected scores of soapboxes upon which ambitious politicians and venal media hacks pontificate and spread panic and misinformation. Congress has just passed, and the president has just signed, a $2 trillion “stimulus” package. I put “stimulus” in quotation marks because what government stimuli stimulate is more government spending, along with inflation and ever increasing government bureaucracy.

President Trump has shown great leadership during this manufactured crisis. I hope he will continue to ponder his observation that we do not want to get ourselves into a situation in which the cure is worse than the disease.

Read more here.

Lessons from this time of plague

In American Greatness, Victor Davis Hanson writes in part,

conventional Washington wisdom assumed that appeasing the commercial banditry of an ascendant China, at best might ensure that its new riches led to Westernized political liberalization, and at worst might at least earn them a pat on the head from China as it insidiously assumed its fated role as global hegemon.

...Today, even liberals are furious that the Chinese Communist Party put their families and businesses at risk by systematically lying about the origins, transmission, and lethality of the coronavirus. When you need a mask or antibiotic, it can cut through a lot of political rhetoric.

...Americans were startled at how quickly the brotherhood of the European Union collapsed. Within days, individual countries were ignoring the Schengen open-borders rules and reinvented themselves as nations. None were eager to welcome in their neighbors. Few were willing to share medical supplies and key pharmaceuticals across ancient boundaries. And fewer still wished to allow even more illegal aliens from the Middle East and North Africa to continue to pour into their nations.

...When the jails are emptying, was it then wiser to have a pro-Second Amendment president or one who wished to restrict the availability of guns and ammunition, Beto O’Rourke style?

In short, Trump’s prior initiatives eased the implementation of many of his most effective orders during this crisis. And his general suspicions about China and globalization, his distrust of bureaucratic regulations, his support for domestic production of key industries, his promotion of the interests of farmers and frackers, and his vehement opposition to increased gun control, all reflect a world view of national and self-independence, in which Americans can only count on themselves and their fellow citizens.

Trump often loudly and crassly pushed these policies. He fought tooth and nail with his opponents. He replied with nuclear tonnage to preemptive media and political attacks on his person and family.

All that also might suggest that presidents really should start being judged by their actions rather than the degree of mellifluousness of their words—yet another lesson from this time of plague?

Read more here.

What a contrast!

In FrontPage Magazine, John Perazzo writes,

It has been a very long time since Americans last saw such a clear distinction between the considerable leadership qualities of their president, and the shameless political maneuverings of an opposition party constantly lusting for power. Let us review exactly what has happened in this country over the past two months, vis-a-vis the coronavirus pandemic.

Perazzo does a thorough job documenting President Trump's superb leadership and the vicious lies spewed about him by the media and Democrats here.

Moving on up!

from Oregon Muse

Keep washing your hands really well and do not touch your face! (easier said than done)

Jesse Watters featured Dr. David Price of Weill Cornell Medical Center on "Watters' World" Saturday, where the New York City doctor gave advice on how people can prevent spreading the coronavirus. Read more and watch the video here.

Wet markets, wildlife trade, and Covid-19

"China pretends to be a world power, but is terrified of words!"

In Steynonline, Mark Steyn links to an article he wrote for the Sunday Telegraph on June 12, 2005. His preface:

...Pretending, in the face of all the evidence, that this nation is a normal economic power like Germany or America has been deeply damaging, and may yet (virus-delivered or otherwise) prove fatal:

China is (to borrow the formulation they used when they swallowed Hong Kong) "One Country, Two Systems". On the one hand, there's the China the world gushes over - the economic powerhouse that makes just about everything in your house. On the other, there's the largely unreconstructed official China - a regime that, while no longer as zealously ideological as it once was, nevertheless clings to the old techniques beloved of paranoid totalitarianism: lie and bluster in public, arrest and torture in private. China is the Security Council member most actively promoting inaction on Darfur, where (in the most significant long-range military deployment in five centuries), it has 4,000 troops protecting its oil interests. Kim Jong-Il of North Korea is an international threat only because Beijing licenses him as a provocateur with which to torment Washington and Tokyo, in the way that a mob boss will send round a mentally unstable heavy. This is not the behaviour of a psychologically healthy state.

...China hasn't invented or discovered anything of significance in half a millennium, but the careless assumption that intellectual property is something to be stolen rather than protected shows why. If you're a resource-poor nation (as China is), long-term prosperity comes from liberating the creative energies of your people - and Beijing still has no interest in that. If a blogger attempts to use the words "freedom" or "democracy" or "Taiwan independence" on Microsoft's new Chinese internet portal, he gets the message: "This item contains forbidden speech. Please delete the forbidden speech." How pathetic is that? Not just for the Microsoft-spined Corporation, which should be ashamed of itself, but for the Chinese government, which pretends to be a world power but is terrified of words.

...Does "Commie wimps" count as forbidden speech, too? And what is the likelihood of China advancing to a functioning modern stand-alone business culture if it's unable to discuss anything except within its feudal political straitjackets? Its speech code is a sign not of control but of weakness; its internet protective blocks are not the armour but the, er, chink.

...India, by contrast, with much less ballyhoo, is advancing faster than China toward a fully-developed economy - one that creates its own ideas. Small example: there are low-fare airlines that sell £40 one-way cross-country air tickets from computer screens at Indian petrol stations. No one would develop such a system for China, where internal travel is still tightly controlled by the state. But, because they respect their own people as a market, Indian businesses are already proving nimbler at serving other markets. The return on investment capital is already much better in India than in China.

I said a while back that China was a better bet for the future than Russia or the European Union. Which is damning with faint praise: trapped in a demographic death spiral, Russia and Europe have no future at all. But that doesn't mean China will bestride the scene as a geopolitical colossus. When European analysts coo about a "Chinese century", all they mean is "Oh, God, please, anything other than a second American century". But wishing won't make it so.

China won't advance to the First World with its present borders intact. In a billion-strong state with an 80 per cent rural population cut off from the coastal boom and prevented from participating in it, "One country, two systems" will lead to two or three countries, three or four systems. The 21st century will be an Anglosphere century, with America, India and Australia leading the way. Anti-Americans betting on Beijing will find the China shop is in the end mostly a lot of bull.

Read more here.

Spring semester halted. Will Harvard house the homeless in their empty dorm rooms?

In Campus Reform, Leo Thuman reports,

When Harvard told students to leave its dorms for the rest of the spring term earlier in March, most would have expected that they would be empty until the fall. But if some students have their way, the dorms will soon be filled with a new kind of resident.

A petition calling for Harvard to house homeless people in its residential properties has gained serious momentum, having already amassed over 1,000 signatures.

Read more here.

More success in treating Covid-19!

The Tech Startups website reports on the French researchers who have had fantastic success treating Covid-19 patients with results showing a combination of Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromycin to be effective in treating COVID-19. Read it here.

He successfully treated patients with Covid-19 infections

In News Thud, JC McCallum brings us this vital report from a doctor in New York.

Dr. Zev Zelenko is a doctor in New York who just wrote an open letter to President Trump and medical professionals around the world alerting them to a possible solution to the coronavirus.

Zelenko says he has been treating patients with a drug cocktail and has seen some promising results. Specifically, he is claiming he has seen “zero deaths, zero hospitalizations, and zero intubations.” Remember, always talk to your doctor before you do anything.

Zelenko wrote: To all medical professionals around the world:

My name is Dr. Zev Zelenko and I practice medicine in Monroe, NY. For the last 16 years, I have cared for approximately 75% of the adult population of Kiryas Joel, which is a very close knit community of approximately 35,000 people in which the infection spread rapidly and unchecked prior to the imposition of social distancing.

As of today my team has tested approximately 200 people from this community for Covid-19, and 65% of the results have been positive. If extrapolated to the entire community, that means more than 20,000 people are infected at the present time. Of this group, I estimate that there are 1500 patients who are in the high-risk category (i.e. >60, immunocompromised, comorbidities, etc).

Given the urgency of the situation, I developed the following treatment protocol in the pre-hospital setting and have seen only positive results:

Any patient with shortness of breath regardless of age is treated.

Any patient in the high-risk category even with just mild symptoms is treated.

Young, healthy and low risk patients even with symptoms are not treated (unless their circumstances change and they fall into category 1 or 2).

My out-patient treatment regimen is as follows:

Hydroxychloroquine 200mg twice a day for 5 days

Azithromycin 500mg once a day for 5 days

Zinc sulfate 220mg once a day for 5 days

The rationale for my treatment plan is as follows. I combined the data available from China and South Korea with the recent study published from France (sites available on request). We know that hydroxychloroquine helps Zinc enter the cell. We know that Zinc slows viral replication within the cell. Regarding the use of azithromycin, I postulate it prevents secondary bacterial infections. These three drugs are well known and usually well tolerated, hence the risk to the patient is low.

Since last Thursday, my team has treated approximately 350 patients in Kiryas Joel and another 150 patients in other areas of New York with the above regimen.

Of this group and the information provided to me by affiliated medical teams, we have had ZERO deaths, ZERO hospitalizations, and ZERO intubations. In addition, I have not heard of any negative side effects other than approximately 10% of patients with temporary nausea and diarrhea.

In sum, my urgent recommendation is to initiate treatment in the outpatient setting as soon as possible in accordance with the above. Based on my direct experience, it prevents acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), prevents the need for hospitalization and saves lives.

With much respect,

Dr. Zev Zelenko

"From field to fork"

In the Conservative Treehouse, Sundance brings us up-to-date on our supply chain.

The United States of America has the greatest food production system in the world. From field to fork this massive network has operated almost invisibly to the majority of Americans. The coronavirus issues have highlighted just how critical our supply chain is within the U.S. As a result now we understand how important these comfortably invisible people are, and we have the opportunity to thank them.

Read many important details here.

Democrats fear the drugs may work!

Don Surber points out in his blog,

The biggest fear for Democrats today are chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine. Democrat governors in Michigan and Nevada have banned their use to fight COVID-19, not because the drugs may harm people but because the drugs may work.

Read the whole thing here.

"We had plans to meet the neighbors!"

Satirical blog Scrappleface reports,

COVID-19 Kills Plans to Eventually Meet Neighbors


Security camera footage captures the neighbors walking their dog at a time when the COVID-19 pandemic has killed long-held plans to get to know them.

(2020-03-23) — In perhaps the most devastating impact of the COVID-19 novel Coronavirus pandemic, Americans say the contagion brought to a complete halt their plans to eventually meet and get to know their neighbors.

“We were just saying last month that we should have them over for dinner or something,” said one township woman, whose neighbors moved in next door just 63 months ago. “This damned virus has killed our plans for a backyard barbecue with the…uh…the people at 1437 Spring Street. They don’t have their name on the mailbox or anything, but we keep seeing them on the security camera.”

Indeed the social-distancing tragedy has rippled through entire families, she said.

“My son is stuck, self-quarantined with his video games at all hours of the day and night,” she lamented, “and because of the pandemic, he may never get to meet the neighbor’s kid, who, I think, is about his age.”

It seems like it was only September (2017) when the concerned Mom told her boy he should go over and say ‘Hi’ to the neighbor kid, and her son expressed “some interest in doing so when he got a chance.”

“Now we don’t know if that chance will ever come,” the township woman said, choking back her emotions.

Replacing the tags

From the Babylon Bee:
BEIJING—In a PR disaster for the Communist government of China, President Xi Jinping suddenly realized he forgot to take off the "Made in China" tags from all copies of the coronavirus his government shipped all over the world.

"Oh, shoot, I knew I forgot something," the totalitarian Communist president muttered as his scientists examined COVID-19 viruses under microscopes and realized every copy of the virus had the telltale tag attached. "All this time I've been trying to blame America for this thing and the evidence was right there."

"How embarrassing!" Luckily for the Communists, the American media immediately began calling anyone who pointed out the tags' existence a racist, buying the CCP some time to deal with the PR fiasco.

The CCP has issued a recall on the virus, asking everyone with copies of the novel Wuhan coronavirus to ship them back to mainland China so the tags can be replaced with new ones reading "Made by Evil Pig-Dog President Trump."

Release the records!

Steven Mosher writes in part in American Greatness,

...Without question, China for years has been doing research at its Wuhan biolabs that could be used to create coronaviruses harmful to humans. The researchers have left a clear paper trail.

In a 2008 article in the Journal of Virology, WIV researchers described how they were genetically engineering SARS-like viruses from horseshoe bats to enable them to use angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) to gain entry into human cells.

In other words, more than 10 years ago the Wuhan biolab was already creating entirely new and deadly viruses by inserting that part of the dangerous SARS virus that allows it to infect people into a second bat coronavirus, which was then able to attack human cells just like the Wuhan Flu virus does.

Then there is a 2013 article in Nature by some of the same WIV researchers entitled, “Isolation and characterization of a bat SARS-like coronavirus that uses the ACE2 receptor.”

They conclude that “Chinese horseshoe bats are natural reservoirs of SARS-CoV, and that intermediate hosts may not be necessary for direct human infection by some bat SARS-like coronaviruses.”

...Now if either genetically engineered or naturally occurring coronaviruses capable of infecting people escaped from the Wuhan biolab, this could be the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic.

...Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and I are being hammered in mainstream media outlets for even suggesting that the Wuhan virus may have escaped from a Chinese lab. They have tried to “fact check” our concern to death by mischaracterizing it and by citing so-called experts.

A left-wing site called Health Feedback falsely accused me of suggesting that the virus was definitely a genetically engineered bioweapon. A Forbes columnist claimed that both Cotton and I had said it “was manufactured in a lab.” The Daily Mail wrote “Sen. Tom Cotton and American social Scientist Steven Mosher push this theory that the virus was manufactured.”

On and on it goes.

What Cotton and I actually said was that it may have escaped, in one way or another, from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

...To determine the actual origin of the pandemic we need only one thing. China must immediately release all of the coronavirus research records of the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the Wuhan Center for Disease Control.

Once we have these records from China, it will be easy to do a comprehensive sequencing comparison of the Wuhan Flu virus, SARS-CoV-2, with all of the coronaviruses isolated, sequenced, and studied at these biolabs.

...In particular, we would want to take a very close look at how the Wuhan virus compares to all the human-ACE2-binding coronaviruses that these biolabs have created or collected. This is the feature that allows SARS-CoV-2 to invade the lungs, where it causes the pneumonia that is characteristic of COVID-19 illness.

If we find no matches in the research records, this will prove China’s innocence, at least in terms of the origin of the epidemic.

If there is a match, we will know not only that it escaped from the lab, but we will also learn from the research records whether it was in some way engineered.

Now, if the Beijing regime has nothing to hide, then it should be happy to authorize the release of the records that will clear its name. So should the Wuhan Institute of Virology, whose director recently said in an emotional interview that she swears on her very life that her Institute did not release the virus.

Fine. Then release the research records to prove it.

Because of the importance of finding out the truth, I believe that President Trump should both personally and publicly request Chinese President Xi Jinping to authorize the release of the research records.

If President Xi refuses, that should be taken as an admission of guilt on China’s part.

Then we will have one more reason to continue calling this “made in China” pandemic the Wuhan Flu. Or, if you prefer, the China virus.

Read more here.

30 day trial

Keep praying for him.

Here is an update from Rush Limbaugh on his battle to overcome stage four cancer.

The lab became a value-added partner in the market's supply chain

A commenter named disglem said this in PowerLine about the connection between the biolab and the wet market in Wujan.

I think the jump to humans was designed-in. It's a feature, not a bug.

The mass exposure at, and transmission through, the Wuhan wet market happened because that market is the primary client for the hundreds of pounds of exotic delicacies (deceased lab animal meat) that the lab has on hand every week.

Tons of valuable product, tens of thousands of dollars worth. Every week. Do you believe it would be thrown away? I don't. Wuhan is an enormous city of 11 million people. That's FOUR TIMES the size of Chicago! The very-rich are always eager to serve something "different" to their party guests. Caterers and high-end restaurants compete to meet that demand. The wet market serves the food preparers.

From shortly after the lab was opened, and became a value-added partner in the market's supply chain, everyone connect to it would have to have known this was happening.

Suppliers in the countryside, who probably previously sold the exotic species directly to the market's buyers, now had a client (the government lab) who paid better.

On the one hand, the lab had a ready-made supply of unusual species, and on the other, a means of repurposing its waste products that would produce a steady supplemental income to share among those lucky staff, researchers, administrators, and security personnel who found a way to take a slice of the pie.

We'll never know for sure, of course. This is just my guess as to what went on.

Flaunting

Thanks to hoarders!

Contain the spread!

Xenophobic?

I can just hear him say these exact words in this order!

Dusting off the Katrina playbook

In PJ Media, Ed Driscoll helps us remember how the Democrats used the Katrina hurricane to regain Congress and the presidency. Also, it might help us to re-watch the Manchurian Candidate to show us how we now have a Manchurian Media. Read more here.

Do the numbers justify the response?

Yesterday, in Ace of Spades Weird Dave wrote this and much more.

It's obviously a serious situation, but serious enough to justify throwing our economy into a blender (and then increasing our national debt by 10% in one stroke because “the economy is in a blender!” ) in a nation that murders 2500 babies a day in service of a woman's constitutional right to fuck her brains out as much as she wants without any chance of consequences? I'm having a real hard time seeing how the numbers justify the response, Jack, a real hard time, and it's starting to piss me off. I doubt I'm the only one.

Oh, and one other thing that I asked the other day and haven't really seen an answer to: Where are all the homeless deaths? If Wuhan Flu is as deadly as they say, why isn't it ravaging a population that, generally speaking, is less healthy, lives in less sanitary conditions, and has higher rates of drug addiction and mental health issues?

"It was really a different time!"

Have you ever seen an interview with Paul Simon? I do not remember if I have, but here he is on David Letterman's show in 1982.

Simon and Garfield tell us the story of Bridge Over Troubled Water

"major American corporations are now openly and defiantly engaging in behavior that is just plain evil."

Bruce Throckmorton writes today in the Ace of Spades blog,

Battling the Appeal of Socialism While Corporations Engage in Evil Behavior

Only 30 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the appeal of socialism among so many Americans is very distressing, especially when you consider that Cubans are still risking their lives to flee it, and Venezuelans are now eating rats to avoid death by socialism-induced hunger. But domestically we have a different challenge in fighting socialism’s appeal – major American corporations are now openly and defiantly engaging in behavior that is just plain evil.

“Apple to pay $500 million settlement for throttling older phones”

Can you imagine if Toyota sabotaged your car if you took it in for routine maintenance? And then lied about it repeatedly until caught? That is what Apple did, and if you talk to cell phone repair shops there is strong sentiment that they continue to do so. When both my wife’s and my 2 1/2 year-old iphones suddenly started having all sorts of problems (speakers, photos, camera, volume, email exchange, etc), we went to two different phone repair stores and they both told us matter of factly that the problem is a software issue caused by Apple sabotaging our older model phones with software updates. That may not be true. But I believe it to be true because Apple has lied about doing this exact thing before.

“Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint face $200 million in fines from FCC for sharing user data”


Listen to the words of leftist Senator Ron Wyden (D – OR). He called the fines “comically inadequate” and that these wireless companies have “reckless disregard for Americans’ personal information, knowing they can write off comparatively tiny fines as the cost of doing business.” He’s correct, and it’s awful that he is correct, because Wyden is far enough left to embrace nationalizing these corrupt companies as a solution to their bold lawlessness.

“Did Mark Zuckerberg lie under oath about Facebook eavesdropping through your phone?”


When asked if Facebook uses “audio obtained from mobile devices to enrich personal information about its users?” Zuckerberg said Facebook did not do that. He lied. Only when the lie was no longer operable did Facebook come up with a new lie excuse for doing what he perjured himself about before Congress. But it’s OK for Zuckerberg to commit perjury. He heads a monster tech company, and monster tech companies are exempt from those pesky laws that ordinary Americans have to obey.

“Uighur ‘forced labor’ reportedly used in Chinese factories making US tech”


Other than Principled Free Traders, is there anyone not disgusted to read that Uighur Muslims are being forcibly relocated throughout China to provide slave cheap labor for US companies such as Apple and Nike. Wait - Apple again? No way! Who would ever think they would do anything as evil as using the labor of Chinese political prisoners to pump up their profits? Nike gets a pass, of course, because every time they spit on the American flag they earn a human rights offset for their child-labor / prison-labor sweatshops in Asia.

There are plenty more examples of American corporations engaging in evil behavior. And don’t forget, the monster tech oligopoly has the power to deny individual Americans access to the 21st century utilities which are necessary for daily life. It’s a power they enjoy exercising. Nationalizing companies isn’t the solution, but powerless people who have access to the ballot box may feel it is the only way to rein in evil corporations.

Instead, lawless behavior from the monster tech cartel needs to be dealt with harshly – CEOs need to go to jail for perjury and violating privacy laws. Of course, the best way to stop this evil is to break these giant companies into a bunch of little companies. It’s time for some trust busting.

Does it get any better?

Playing from their homes!

Not all the news is bad!

In PJ Media, Victoria Taft recommends,

Turn up your speakers and take in a group of Nashville musicians on cellphones singing an old-time hymn, "It Is Well With My Soul."

You'll be glad you did.

"Presto, you're an instant victim!"

From Oregon Muse: Teen-aged attention whore and religious scold St. Greta Thunberg claims she "likely" has the coronavirus WuFlu. She wasn't tested for it, nor was she hospitalized or even examined by a doctor. She just diagnosed herself, self-quarantined, and then took the opportunity to piously lecture the rest of us sinners about the need to stay at home.

And speaking of attention whores, TDS deranged "comedienne" Kathy Griffin is complaining that she's in a coronavirus "isolation ward" with 'unbearably painful symptoms' but they're refusing to test her for the coronavirus. Because Trump. She's obviously lying her ass off and her claims have been thoroughly demolished already.

So perhaps a coronavirus infection is becoming a new thing that allows the unscrupulous to claim victim status. It's a particularly easy one to claim, because you don't to do anything or look a certain way, you just claim that you have it and hey presto, you're an instant victim. The only question is where it should be placed in the Grievance Hierarchy. I'm thinking above "womyn" but below "gay." But views may differ on this.

Note: Greta is apparently all better now. What a relief. We can now look forward to many more years of her sanctimonious sermons.

relying on conspiracy theories and misinformation for their revenue.

Ace today:

The same media that deplatforms competitors and critics for pushing alleged conspiracy theories and misinformation sure does rely on conspiracy theories and misinformation for their revenue.

Read more here.

“The majority of viral infections come from prolonged exposures in confined spaces with other infected individuals.”

Roger Kimball writes in part in American Greatness,

...the biggest threat to mankind that the world has ever seen: the COVID-19 virus, also known as the Chinese flu, which to date has killed—are you ready—276 people in the United States, almost all of them over 80, almost all with serious co-morbidities.

Two-hundred-and-seventy-six people! And yes, that frightening number will rise. It will be 400, 500 before you know it. Maybe when all is said and done, we’ll see 1,000-1,200 identified who have died from complications that can be traced to this respiratory illness.

Meanwhile, somewhere between 22,000 and more than 50,000 people have died from the seasonal flu in the United States this year. Why is there no panic about that?

The Wuhan virus is a bad bug. But far more lethal than the “pandemic”—it sounds so much scarier to say “pandemic” than “epidemic,” even if the term is not justified—far more lethal, I say, are two other “P” words: panic and passivity.

Perhaps the single best overview of what I like to call Wuhanomania is a long post by Aaron Ginn called “Evidence over hysteria—COVID-19.”

...The panic, the hysteria, the mob mentality that has swept over the country is an amazing and disheartening thing to witness. Unfettered exhibitions of insanity are always disquieting. But even more alarming is the twofold dialectic operating in tandem with the panic. I mean the sheep-like passivity of the public, on the one hand, and the eager exercise, at every level, of state power on the other.

...Then why is your kid’s baseball practice canceled? Well, might you ask. Ginn quotes Dr. Paul Auwaerter, the clinical director for the Division of Infectious Diseases at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. “If you have a COVID-19 patient in your household, your risk of developing the infection is about 10% . . . . If you were casually exposed to the virus in the workplace (e.g., you were not locked up in the conference room for six hours with someone who was infected [like a hospital]), your chance of infection is about 0.5%.”

How do you spell “negligible”?

...Here are some things that don’t work and militate against the Hippocratic oath, which applies in politics as much as in medicine:

Shuttering the local economy. This irritates and depresses people and shoves a drainage pump into local businesses, bankrupting them by the scores and hundreds. The evidence, Ginn points out, is “overwhelming” that airborne or “aerosol” transmission is “not a threat.” In more and more places, you can’t go out to eat, you can’t go to the gym but “We don’t have significant examples of spreading through restaurants or gyms.”

Hoarding. It’s silly. It’s counterproductive. It “demonstrates an irrational hysteria (stocking up on useless masks, trying to corner the market in toilet paper). But the hysteria, the fear, is ultimately being driven by governmental action, by fear of “what the government will do next.”

Read more here.

Better start planning for the divorce

Dov Fischer writes in part in Spectator,

...We all knew that we save a few bucks on every iPhone, on every pair of Kaepernick-endorsed and LeBron-hustled Nikes we buy, because these Left-Democrat companies all evade labor unions and the American worker to get dirt-cheap labor from bat-eaters. As Americans, we all contributed, with willing suspension of knowledge, to this game. Along the way, we became a country Made in China. One industry after another moved there, to get away from mandatory union contracts and from paying for American-required “entitlements” so we could employ bat-eaters on the cheap. We thought we are safe forever, so we can move even our aluminum factories to China, our steel production, almost our national security. We even moved our pharmaceuticals to China.

...The list of filthy-food incidents with China is huge. But we all wanted to save a buck on our iPhones, on our underwear, and on the toys we buy for birthdays and Christmas presents.

...We all have known all along that they cheat. They steal our intellectual property — over $200 billion worth of American business and technology secrets every year. They dumped cheap steel in England to drive British competitors out of the market. They dumped so much cheap steel into America that our industry had to lay off 13,500 workers four years ago during Obama’s last year. Yet any of our businesses that want to operate there have to agree that China nationals get majority ownership. We all have gone along with this manifest evil to save a few bucks on batteries, light bulbs, and string lights.

...President Trump’s tariffs have forced trade concessions from China, but not nearly enough. After November, he will have only four years left to win the trade war with China. And especially to get our aluminum, steel, and pharmaceuticals — all critical to national security — made here.

...Just as he has inspired millions to believe in a great America again, the President will have a brief window to create a national consciousness that Americans with a conscience gladly pay the extra cost, if any, for products made just as cheaply outside of China. Thus, for example, if Nike is to remain invested in Colin Kaepernick and in China, then at least half the country needs to be inspired to a consciousness that proud Americans do not wear Nike and should be ashamed to wear anything with that logo.

...Yes, tomorrow and the day after we still will need to focus on coronavirus and on restarting our economy. But the day will come soon enough when that is behind us. We then will have a very narrow and fleeting moment — with cash flowing back into Americans’ pockets and with a nation ready to pay a bit extra for products not “Made in China” — to go full gangbusters and divorce. Better start planning now.

Read more here.

"You're nothing!"

On today's Rising podcast in the Hill, we learn about Joe Biden's sexual assault of Tara Reade.

"It wasn't just the assault itself, but being called "nothing" by someone I admired and trusted and who was my boss.

Joe Biden wanted me to serve drinks to donors. He said he thought I was pretty and had nice legs. He just made it clear that he liked me. The scheduler told me that he did.

I tried so hard to forget. I only told a couple of people at the time. So I just don't remember certain things. I remember the assault and the aftermath and the reverberating effect of that. The scheduler asked me to bring his gym bag to Biden. He saw me and said, "Come here." When I gave him the gym bag, it happened all in one motion almost. He had me against the wall. His hands were down my skirt and up my skirt and I wasn't wearing anything underneath. He entered me with his hand as he was trying to kiss me and say things to me.

I remember feeling shocked. There was no conversation right beforehand. When he did that, I was obviously pulling away and he pulled back and said, "come on, man, I heard you liked"...something to that effect that's what guilted me. I was trying to figure out what I did wrong to bring that on. He looked angry and irritated with me. That's when I knew I was in a very difficult position because he was my boss..."

"we must not simply gloss over the truths this crisis has revealed."

In the Federalist, Ben Weingarten writes in part,

1. Communist China Is a Global Menace

This pandemic should represent the most tangible sign yet for all of America that we must decouple from communist China in every strategically significant sector. We cannot put our survival in the hands of a hostile adversary.

2. Coronavirus Starkly Illustrates Globalism’s Downsides

This pandemic spread as a result of human-to-human transmission beginning in a far-flung province in central China. As it metastasized, the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations-based agency on which governments around the world rely, parroted the Chinese Communist Party’s chosen narratives, including that the Wuhan virus could not be passed from one human to another, and that it was “racist” to refer to the virus by its place of origin.

The chief praiser of China’s response, and propagator of its favored messages, was WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. He won that position with Chinese backing and collaborated with China as Ethiopia’s health minister.

As the pandemic spread to the United States and criticism of the CCP grew, China again threatened to leverage its dominant position in the production of essential medical supplies to cut off Americans from vital equipment. It signaled that either we tow the CCP line or people will die.

3. We Must Establish Principles for Dealing with Crises
As a society, we must create some agreed-upon principles for dealing with a pandemic or analogous crisis. One of the most astounding aspects of the response to the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic has been the willingness of our leaders to call for societal shutdown based on shoddy data and flawed source models. Those leaders have definitively damaged our economy, stretched the limits of constitutional governmental power, and threatened to inflame and endanger civil society by forcing people to comply with draconian lockdowns while releasing criminals into the streets and ceasing policing — all on the basis of hypotheticals.

4. The GOP Needs a Real Response for Democrats’ Games

5. We Need to Get Our Fiscal House in Order

It is paramount that the American people get healthy and that our country gets back to the business of business. But we must not simply gloss over the truths this crisis has revealed. Recognizing them and incorporating them into future policies will ensure the long-term vitality of our country.

Read more here.

The case for Controlled Voluntary Infection

Dr. Douglas A. Perednia, a physician in Portland, Oregon, writes in part in the Federalist,

By now, we all know America’s immediate COVID-19 action plan is to avoid rapid spread of the virus through good hygiene and isolation. The logic of this mitigation strategy is quite sound. As Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has repeatedly explained, this approach will buy us time and flatten the curve of the national infection rate.

Both of these steps are needed because intensive care unit (ICU) resources are essential to managing the disease in older and sicker patients, but are inherently expensive and finite. We cannot afford to overwhelm them.

The problem with mitigation is that it is entirely defensive; it does little to make the country safe for a return to widespread social and economic activity. If and when social isolation and quarantine measures relax, coronavirus infection rates will rise in tandem.

The Imperial College has modeled the effect of imposing four interventions — social distancing of the entire population, case isolation, household quarantine, and school and university closure — then relaxing them periodically to allow daily life and economic activity to partially recover. They found, “Once interventions are relaxed … infections begin to rise, resulting in a predicted peak epidemic later in the year. The more successful a strategy is at temporary suppression, the larger the later epidemic is predicted to be in the absence of vaccination, due to lesser build-up of herd immunity.”

In other words, a mitigation strategy based on shutting down the economy is like asking society to hold its breath to keep from inhaling a toxin. It can’t keep up forever, and when it does breathe, all that gasping for air is going to undo much of the benefit we’d hoped to derive.

The alternative to mitigation is active suppression of the disease. The conventional approach for suppressing epidemics is the development of: 1) an effective vaccine and 2) drugs that could be used to reduce the severity. Despite record-time development of potential vaccines and the beginning of Phase I clinical trials, we are not likely to have a coronavirus vaccine widely available until at least mid- to late-2021. We can certainly hope effective drug therapies become available in that time, but there are certainly no guarantees.

Neither mitigation nor waiting for a vaccine is acceptable given the magnitude of the problem we are facing. Economies are like a living organism — as soon as their normal functions are shut down, they begin to die. Savings, capital, income, and taxes all evaporate. Companies begin to close, and many will not have the resources to begin again. Massive deficits will become a huge burden for future generations. Meanwhile, the regular health care system is all but shut down.

It is time to think outside the box and seriously consider a third, somewhat unconventional alternative: controlled voluntary infection (CVI).

What Is Controlled Voluntary Infection?
CVI involves allowing people at low risk for severe complications to deliberately contract COVID-19 in a socially and medically responsible way so they become immune to the disease. People who are immune cannot pass on the disease to others.

If CVI were to become widespread and successful, it could be a powerful tool for both suppressing the Wuhan coronavirus and saving the economy. It could reduce the danger of passing COVID-19 to vulnerable populations, drastically reduce the amount of social isolation needed, reopen businesses, and even help achieve the level of “herd immunity” needed to stop the spread of the disease within the population.

Herd immunity, of course, is the phenomenon whereby contagious infections can no longer spread if a large enough percentage of the population is immune to the disease, and CVI is a means to achieve it. Many over the age of 60 might remember an interesting historical precedent for CVI: chickenpox parties.

Before vaccinations for childhood diseases such as chickenpox and German measles were developed, families would hold chickenpox or German measles “parties” when one child contracted the disease. All the neighborhood children were invited to play with the infected child with the understanding that they would probably become infected as a result. The entire community would get the disease out of the way in one little local epidemic. Since many childhood diseases are far more severe if contracted as an adult, voluntary infection minimized the potential for future adverse consequences.

CVI for COVID-19 is based upon a unique characteristic of the Wuhan virus: Its infections are known to be clinically mild in much of the population, specifically healthy young people — even to the point of being asymptomatic. According to data collected from the National Health Institute in Italy and a recent article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the mortality rate for the disease is 0 percent in patients 0 to 29 years old. Mortality then begins to increase with age and with underlying defects in respiratory function or certain other disease conditions.

Read more here.

Gallup: Trump's popularity is highest ever

In Instapundit, Glenn Reynolds highlights a tweet from Brit Hume, after Gallup came out with its latest survey showing Trump's popularity at its highest ever. Brit tweets,

That’s as high as he’s gotten and perhaps more striking, his approval rate on handling Covid 19 is 60%. I bet that owes something to his much-criticized briefings and the participation in them of top public-health officials.

Read more here.

And then came Trump!

In the American Spectator, Dov Fischer writes in part,

...Part of Trump’s greatness is that he is not intimidated by anything. In this, he differs from virtually every previous potentially great conservative American leader. Sooner or later, each has buckled under unremitting pressure from the Democrats and their left-wing media. When Nixon’s first Supreme Court choices were beaten back by the Left, he capitulated and named terrible justices in their stead. Reagan, too, was so desperate to mollify the left media that he began by naming Sandra Day O’Connor so that he could prove to be the first to name a woman. After elevating William Rehnquist to Chief Justice and thereafter naming Justice Antonin Scalia, Reagan next tried to appoint Robert Bork. The Left defamed and destroyed Bork, and Reagan buckled and went with Anthony Kennedy. Those two justices, O’Connor and Kennedy, disastrously impacted aspects of American society’s subsequent evolution in areas ranging from admissions and employment quotas (affirmative action) to abortion to the classic American family unit. The Bushes likewise mixed good and bad. From the first we got Clarence Thomas but also David Souter, and the second gave us Samuel Alito but also John Roberts and almost Harriet Miers.

Reagan gave in to leftist pressure and conferred a mass amnesty on millions of illegal immigrants, planting the seeds for the mess that has turned conservative states, including his own California, into leftist People’s Democrat Republics. One Bush gave in on taxes despite an ironclad promise. Another Bush likewise failed to lead strongly on the economy or immigration. The turning-point moments in American history were lost and cannot be retrieved. Now we are stuck with the fruits of nearly a century of government by liberal Democrats alternating with Republicans who promised to govern from the right and soon moved to the center-left. And then came Trump.

If Gen. Thomas Jackson of Clarksburg, Virginia, had not already become identified with the “Stonewall” sobriquet, it could have fit Trump. He has been standing there like a stone wall. Yes, he has compromised, especially in his early months in office, as he sought to govern effectively across the board. He was persuaded that Paul Ryan could deliver, that Reince Priebus could handle his role, that Rex Tillerson could lead at State, that Jeff Sessions could navigate the attorney general job. Trump was new to Washington but now knows, three years later, where he was wrong to take others’ advice and recommendations. And through it all, he increasingly has governed like a stone wall.

...Trump did not back down. Maybe that cost a few borderline Republican House seats in 2018. By contrast, LeBron James was such a coward that he could not say in China that the people of Hong Kong deserve freedom. And how fitting that the China Virus 19 and that dictatorship’s refusal to acknowledge the truth has resulted both in the NBA having to close down its basketball season while Nike has lost over $17 billion! How fitting! Go ahead and sign Colin Kaepernick to a new endorsement with that.

But Trump does not get intimidated. As weak-kneed Republicans behind the scenes have begged him to change course — on immigration, on trade, on almost everything — he has remained a stone wall, and it is they who ultimately have been the ones to change course as his instincts repeatedly have proven correct.

At this moment in time, Trump is precisely the person we need to lead America through the present mess and to recharge the economy as a societal “new normal” unfolds.

He is strong. He also has a fabulous Vice President in Mike Pence. Pence is cut out of different cloth, to be sure, but also is a tremendous conservative leader. The man is a deeply religious Christian and does not apologize or back down. He is principled, and he is exceptionally competent. This is exactly the leadership we need now and for the next 13 years, at least.

We saw what happened when the second Bush ran the economy into the ground, as had his father, and he was succeeded by Obama. Through the Wasted Obama Decade we watched the economy sputter and barely move. Yes, some numbers got better under Obama, but anyone who understands anything about economics knows that, after a recession, there always is a recovery. It is basic. A country is in a recession, so everyone chooses not to buy a new car, a new laptop or smartphone, or new clothes at the moment. Then, after a few years, everyone’s car starts breaking down beyond repair, everyone’s technology is out of date, and everyone’s clothes wear out, so everyone has to start buying again. And that, in two sentences, is why there always is a recovery after a recession. But somehow Obama managed to put a damper on the recovery. With all his welfare and food stamps and other “entitlements” inducing people not to return to work, all his anti-business regulations crippling entrepreneurs, all his anti-energy actions forcing us to rely on foreign oil from Arab Muslim dictatorships, and all his trade deals driving American manufacturing out of business — while shoveling our tax dollars into sweetheart deals with losers like Solyndra and into “shovel-ready” jobs that were never going to materialize but only would enrich and line the pockets of Obama friends and supporters — the Wasted Obama Decade managed to emerge with a dead economy. And then came Trump.

...For three years all the political experts on both sides have been jockeying and leveraging and investigating and impeaching, but the November 2020 election ultimately may turn not on whether you are better off today than you were four years ago — but on whether you want to return rapidly to the greatness you only recently experienced under a dynamic leader or to sputter backwards under a blowhard who talks a quasi-coherent talk and who has a documented record of voting the wrong way on major issues for decades. Biden has spent much of the past year apologizing for many of the most critical votes he ever cast. G-d forbid that we have a bumbler like him in power at a time like this.

Read more here.

"Want people to stop thinking you’re garbage? Stop being garbage."

Glenn Reynolds writes in Instapundit,

THEY ATE FISH-TANK CLEANER, BUT LOOK HOW CBS DESCRIBES IT: Arizona man dies, wife ill after taking drug touted as virus treatment: “Trump kept saying it was basically pretty much a cure.” It’s not a “drug touted as virus treatment.” It’s fish tank cleaner, with warning labels, containing an ingredient that sounds similar.

Press: Want people to stop thinking you’re garbage? Stop being garbage. And CBS, you’re garbage for running this story with this headline. Absolute garbage. And you don’t care, and we all know why.

Go here to follow the link and read the comments.

"I want to know the exact level of cross-ownership and exact level of favor-trading going on between our media behemoths and a hostile foreign communist power."

From Ace of Spades today:

As Leftwing China-Colluding Media Claims That Fox News is to Blame for the Chinese Flu, Tucker Carlson Reviews The Media's Constant Downplaying of the Seriousness of the Disease
—Ace
I say again: I want investigations into how heavily our media is invested in China, and how much China is invested in our media.

If our media is, as it appears, a corrupt organization dominated financially by a hostile foreign communist power, we should know that.

I want to know the deals Disney, for example, makes with China -- and what impositions it puts on ABCNews -- to get its stupid gay-ass Marvel movies exhibited there.

I want to know what promises Warner Bros. makes to China to get its movies played there -- and I want to know how WB communicates its preferences to its Fake News unit, CNN.

I want to know the exact level of cross-ownership and exact level of favor-trading going on between our media behemoths and a hostile foreign communist power.

The media is against foreign collusion, right?

Right?

...How far is the Corporate China-Shill media willing to go to protect China?

This far: The New York Times writes an article praising China for so effectively containing their own hell plague, but waits until the end of the article to mention, oh yeah, China is still disappearing scientists who say the plague has not been contained.

Gee, seems like something that should have been mentioned in the headline, no?

Read much more here.

A dog and his family

"You could be spreading the coronavirus without realizing you have it!"

Graham Lawton reports in part in NewScientist,

You could be spreading the coronavirus without realizing you’ve got it

...For most people who do fall ill, symptoms are usually mild and develop slowly, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While many have heard that a cough, fever, shortness of breath and fatigue can be signs of covid-19, the condition’s symptoms can also include a runny or stuffy nose, sore throat, headache, muscle pain, diarrhoea, nausea and vomiting.

...We know that coughs and sneezes spread the virus, so how is it possible for asymptomatic people to spread the infection?

People with mild or no symptoms can have a very high viral load in their upper respiratory tracts, meaning they can shed the virus through spitting, touching their mouths or noses and then a surface, or possibly talking. Even people who don’t feel ill occasionally cough or sneeze.

Once symptoms develop, a person’s viral load declines steadily, and they become increasingly less infectious. However, people appear to keep shedding the virus for around two weeks after they recover from covid-19, both in their saliva and stools (medRxiv, doi.org/dqbs). This means that even once a person’s symptoms have cleared, it may still be possible to infect other people.

...Once symptoms develop, a person’s viral load declines steadily, and they become increasingly less infectious. However, people appear to keep shedding the virus for around two weeks after they recover from covid-19, both in their saliva and stools (medRxiv, doi.org/dqbs). This means that even once a person’s symptoms have cleared, it may still be possible to infect other people.

Airborne droplets are likely to be the main infection route, but contaminated surfaces could play a role too. Health advice typically says the virus can persist for about 2 hours on surfaces, says William Keevil at the University of Southampton, UK.

But a study published last week suggests that this is a serious underestimate, with viable virus surviving on cardboard for 14 hours and plastic and stainless steel for up to three days (New England Journal of Medicine, doi.org/ggn88w). It can also hang around in the air for at least 3 hours.

“Survival of coronaviruses for days on touch surfaces is a hygiene risk,” says Keevil. “It is difficult to avoid touching [contaminated objects or surfaces] such as door handles and push plates, bed and stair rails, public touch screens etc.”

There is also some evidence of transmission from faeces to the mouth, says Elizabeth Halloran at the University of Washington, which reinforces the importance of handwashing.

Keevil recommends regular, rigorous handwashing or using an alcohol hand gel, and avoiding touching the eyes, nose and mouth. “The latter being extremely difficult because humans are tactile and touch their faces many times an hour,” he says.

What all this makes clear is that advising only people with a cough or fever and their families to self-isolate won’t prevent the coronavirus from spreading, thanks to its fiendish ability to cause very mild symptoms in people, and to peak in infectiousness before people even realise they are sick.

Read more here.

Trump's plan to reopen the country by Easter (April 12) 'I think it's possible. Why isn't it? We've never closed the country before,'

Emily Goodin reports in the Daily Mail,

President Donald Trump on Tuesday argued that thousands die every year from the flu and the United States doesn't shut down the economy, adding he wants the guidelines he put in place to stop the spread of the coronavirus over by Easter.

'We lose thousands and thousands of people a year to the flu. We don't turn the country off,' President Trump told Fox News on Tuesday during a virtual town hall.

He said his goal would be to have a return to normal by Easter Sunday, which is April 12. That is 19 days away.

'I'd love to have it open by Easter. I would love to have it opened by Easter,' Trump said. 'I will tell you that right now. It's such an important day for other reasons, but I will make it an important day for this. I would love to have the country opened up, and they are just raring to go, by Easter.'

His policies recommended no social gatherings over 10 people, which has closed several houses of worship and sent religious services online. The guidelines also recommended not eating at restaurants but ordering take out, which would prevent Easter brunch reservations. But the president his timeline for a return is realistic.

'I think it's possible. Why isn't it? We've never closed the country before,' he said.

Read more here.

"Is that even legal?"

From the Babylon Bee:

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Amid political bickering over a potential economic relief package, Democrats warned Americans that the stimulus bill would stimulate the economy.

"This stimulus bill might stimulate the economy -- which would hurt our chances to stop the bad orange man," said Senator Chuck Schumer. "We can't overstate how much damage this would do to our 2020 campaign. The last thing we need is a strong economy going into November."

"This stimulus package is horrifying. It specifically includes funding to stimulate Trump's economy, and we can't have that."

"We cannot pass it to find out what is in it -- then we might accidentally increase Trump's chance of reelection," said Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. "We must move slowly and cautiously here."

Upon reading part of the bill, Democratic leaders were confused to learn that it would give money back to taxpayers instead of taking it away. "Is that even legal?"

How can we learn to stop touching our faces so often?

In Health.com, Claire Gillespie has some tips on how we can learn to stop touching our faces so often.

If you can tune out the noise of the widespread panic around the new coronavirus, the advice from the World Health Organization (WHO) on how to protect yourself from COVID-19 is simple: stay home if you’re sick, don’t get too close to anyone who’s coughing or sneezing, wash your hands a lot, and stop touching your face so much. But honestly, that last bit of advice is often easier said than done.

"Virtually everyone habitually touches their face," David Cutler, M.D., family medicine physician at Providence Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, CA, tells Health. "And this is especially dangerous when there are infectious outbreaks like the current coronavirus [outbreak]." That's because touching your face (i.e., your mouth, nose, and eyes) allows the germs on your hands to reach moist, porous surface tissue where the germs can enter your body and cause infection, he says. "The intact skin on your hands is fairly impervious to infection, but the mucosal tissue lining your eyes, nose, and mouth is not so tough."

While the coronavirus spreads primarily through close contact with infected people, per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—that means via respiratory droplets produced when someone with the virus coughs or sneezes—the virus can also spread through contact with contaminated surfaces. That's where not touching your face so much comes in handy, since it's possible to pick up COVID-19 after touching something an infected person touched, then touching your own eyes, nose, or mouth, Debra Jaliman, MD, board-certified dermatologist and American Academy of Dermatology spokesperson tells Health.

If you’ve read this far without touching your face, great job. Here are some expert tips to help you go a little longer.

1. Be mindful of just how much you touch your face throughout the day.
Face-touching is often subconscious behavior, which means people do it without even being aware of it. If you want a number, you probably touch your face around 23 times an hour, according to the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC). Even health experts have trouble not touching their faces. Case in point: Sara Cody, the public health director of Santa Clara County, California, who went viral last week when she licked her finger only moments after urging the public not to touch their faces to help prevent contracting COVID-19.

Of course, the coronavirus outbreak—and the constant messaging to stop touching your face—isn't helping matters. "The problem with telling anyone to not do anything that is a habit is that generally it makes them do it more," Gail Saltz, MD, associate professor of psychiatry at New York Presbyterian Hospital Weill-Cornell School of Medicine and host of the upcoming Personology podcast, tells Health. "In attempting to remember to stop doing something, that thing is in front of your mind. This means trying to find the urge can often feel more intense."

2. Identify your own personal face-touching triggers.
People touch their faces for lots of different reasons, says Dr. Saltz—and the first step to reducing your face-touching is identifying what part of your face you touch the most and why. "[People] might pick their nose, pick at dry skin on their lips, smooth their eyebrows, touch their eyelashes," says Dr. Saltz. And that' primarily because "we are highly aware of our face because our senses (seeing, smelling, hearing) are basically housed on our face and head.

A lot of face-touching habits can be the result of triggers—like brushing your hair out of your face, picking at a pimple on your forehead, scratching an itch on your nose—but stress and boredom can exacerbate the urge to touch your face too. Of course, the best route for treating persistent stress and anxiety is to seek professional help, but if you find yourself biting your nails more often when scrolling through coronavirus news on Twitter, or watching back-to-back COVID-19 coverage on TV, it may be time to cut back a bit.

3. Find other behaviors to do when you want to touch your face.
Like any habit that is difficult to stop, Saltz suggests performing a “competing behavior.” This means when you have the urge to touch your face, you touch another part of your body instead, such as your arm. “It’s a method of redirecting away from the face-touching,” she says. Another way to redirect? Make it almost impossible for you touch your face: Sit on your hands (really). "I tell [people] to sit on their hands for a while to help break the habit,” she says. “It may take a while, but after a few weeks you really can break the habit of constantly touching your face.”

If that doesn't work, enlist items or habits that enable you to touch your face but also reduce the risk of infection. "For instance, carry tissues at all times so you can wipe away tears or catch a sneeze or cough. Use your knuckles to touch an elevator button instead of your finger, and a paper towel to open a door instead of your hand," says Dr. Saltz. Of course, Jaliman recommends carrying hand sanitizer and using it frequently. She advises using one with added moisturizer so your hands don’t get totally dried out.

And if all else fails, bring in reinforcements. Cutler suggests putting a frequent reminder into your phone telling you every few minutes, “Don't touch your face.” The more you see the message, the more likely it is to sink in, making not face-touching your new habit. Or ask friends and family to point out each time they see you touch your face—and you offer to do the same for them—to make you a little more aware of just how often you do it.

4. Keep in mind that not touching your face is only one way to protect yourself.
Is it important not to touch your face? Of course—but it's crucial not to forget all of the other preventive measures that can help your risk of contracting COVID-19, as well. According to the CDC, other smart flu prevention strategies that can keep you healthy include staying home when you’re not feeling well and avoiding others who are sick, washing your hands often (or using an alcohol-based hand sanitizer with at least 60% alcohol) as well as before eating and going to the bathroom, and cleaning commonly touched surfaces and objects

Also important: Understanding that nothing—even taking all of the CDC-recommended precautions—completely guarantees protection, says Dr. Cutler. But "utilizing as many as possible is your best assurance of avoiding coronavirus and other viral infections," he says.

A couple of success stories after Trump announced he's pushed the FDA to fast-track the approval of the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine to treat patients with the coronavirus.

Matt Margolis reports in part in PJ Media,

...'To fight the coronavirus, President Donald Trump is adopting the audacity of false hope," an article from CNN declared on Friday, after Trump announced he's pushed the FDA to fast-track the approval of the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine to treat patients with the coronavirus. Small studies have shown promising results so far, but more trials are needed. Rather than acknowledge this promising development, CNN, and other media outlets rushed to attack Trump.

The president "peddles snake oil and false hope," wrote the USA Today editorial board. "Trump was at the White House podium peddling a fake cure for a virus that could kill hundreds of thousands of Americans in a way that would have gotten him kicked off the Home Shopping Network and potentially invited federal prosecution for false claims and fraud," claimed Salon.

But a Florida man who was diagnosed with the coronavirus says that the very drug Trump said showed promise in treating it saved him from certain death.

For five days after catching the disease, Rio Giardinieri, 52, experienced horrendous back pain, headaches, cough and fatigue. Once diagnosed with the coronavirus and pneumonia, he was put on oxygen in the ICU, but after more than a week, he was told by doctors there was nothing more they could do. “I was at the point where I was barely able to speak and breathing was very challenging,” Giardinieri said. “I really thought my end was there.” Giardinieri even said goodbye to his wife and three children.

But, after receiving an article on hydroxychloroquine from a friend, he contacted an infectious disease doctor about it.

“He gave me all the reasons why I would probably not want to try it because there are no trials, there’s no testing, it was not something that was approved,” Giardinieri told Fox 11 in Los Angeles. “And I said, ‘Look, I don’t know if I’m going to make it until the morning,’ because at that point I really thought I was coming to the end because I couldn’t breathe anymore."

“He agreed and authorized the use of it and 30 minutes later the nurse gave it to me,” Giardinieri continued.

He received an IV with the medicine, and despite some episodes he experienced during the treatment, by morning it was “like nothing ever happened.” He's had no fever and has no trouble breathing anymore. He expects to be discharged from the hospital this week. “To me, there was no doubt in mind that I wouldn’t make it until morning,” said Giardinieri. “So to me, the drug saved my life.”

Giardinieri is not the only one who says the drug Trump said showed promise helped them.

Actor Daniel Dae Kim, 51, who was on the hit show Lost, also says the anti-malaria drug helped him after he was diagnosed with coronavirus. He took several drugs and treatments: the antiviral medicine Tamiflu, the antibiotic Azithromycin, and a Glycopyrrolate inhaler alongside hydroxychloroquine. He believes they all contributed to his recovery. "I won't say this is a cure and I won't say definitively that you should go out and use it, but what I will say is that I believe it was crucial to my recovery," Kim said.

Read more here.