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Horowitz: New antibody study is strong evidence that the lockdown strategy is the wrong course

How can you stop the spread of a virus that has already spread to every corner of the country, to some degree, for months? And if it was already this widespread, doesn’t it mean the fatality rate of the virus is much lower than what the media and politicians have been warning about in justification of martial law, jailbreak policies, and a total shutdown of our economy?

The answer to these questions has devastating implications for the lockdown strategy employed by Western governments in combating the spread of COVID-19, as opposed to the balanced approach of most Asian countries. A new Stanford antibody study, as well as information from around the country and the globe, now contradicts the entire premise of our government’s strategy in dealing with the SARS-2 coronavirus.

On Friday, Stanford University’s school of medicine announced the findings of the first publicly released random sample antibody study of an entire county in the United States. Researchers sampled 3,330 Santa Clara County residents of all demographics to see how many had the antibodies of SARS-2 in their blood, which would demonstrate how many have already been exposed to the virus and are immune to it. Using basic serology, the researchers at the nation’s fourth highest-rated medical research school concluded that anywhere from 2.49%-4.16% of the people in this county of 1.9 million already had the antibodies in them.

Why is this such a bombshell? It means that instead of fewer than 2,000 people having the disease, as public tallies based on testing show, the virus has really infected 50 to 85 times more people in Santa Clara County. More importantly, what that means is that the infection fatality rate is equally 50-85 times lower than what the government data suggests. For example, in Santa Clara County, the California Department of Health reports that 70 people have died from the virus and that the fatality rate is 3.8%. But based on the new discoveries by Stanford, that fatality rate plummets to roughly flu-like levels.

“If our estimates of 48,000-81,000 infections represent the cumulative total on April 1, and we project deaths to April 22, we estimate about 100 deaths in the county,” concluded the study. “A hundred deaths out of 48,000-81,000 infections corresponds to an infection fatality rate of 0.12-0.2%.”

That is a very different story from the 3-4% figure the global governments and the World Health Organization have been working with.

Obviously, there are hot spots like New York City where the fatality rate is definitely some degree higher, although we don’t know exactly how much higher because the denominator of total cases could be exponentially higher than in any other city. A more densely populated area than Santa Clara County could have a much higher infection rate. For example, another antibody study of Chelsea, Massachusetts, that was just conducted by Massachusetts General Hospital Physicians found virus antibodies in almost one-third of the samples. Chelsea is the second-most densely populated city in the state.

We are seeing this in other countries as well. Researchers at the University Hospital in Bonn tested antibodies in Ganglet, Germany, and found 14% of the residents have already been infected. If that were the average in America, it would mean close to 50 million people have already had the virus, previously chalked up to the winter flu or else completely asymptomatic.

Thus, when the media get apocalyptic upon approaching 1 million confirmed cases in the country, in all likelihood there could already have been tens of millions of cases. This means that it makes no sense to lock down a nation that already has the virus. You can’t stop a spread that has already spread. Moreover, it also means the fatality rate is much lower. Thus, not only is the fatality rate not worth the collateral damage, the strategy of lockdown at this point is actually counterproductive to defeating the virus.

There are few environments that are better controlled for a scientific study than a Navy ship. The Navy recently tested the entire 4,800-member crew of the U.S. aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt and found that 600 individuals, 12.5 percent, tested positive. Roughly 60 percent were asymptomatic! There has been just one fatality so far.

Similar results were found on board France’s Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier. According to the New York Times, of the 2,300 sailors on board, 1,081 tested positive, nearly 550 sailors are symptomatic (51%), 24 are hospitalized, and one is in intensive care.

Another remarkable result comes from a Boston homeless shelter, where 146 of 397 people tested positive and not a single one had any symptoms.

We are starting to see this as a pattern anywhere testing is done universally, not just for those who are seriously ill with obvious signs of coronavirus.

If this is a microcosm of what has gone on elsewhere, then it means we are being lied to by our governments. It also means New York City is either a scientific anomaly or that some of the allegations that the city government is inflating the numbers are true.

Clearly, we need to do more antibody testing. Why is the government not doing this and publicly releasing the information? Why are governments dismissing so many other opinions from prestigious research institutions such as Stanford, Oxford, Yale, Carnegie Mellon, Rockefeller University, and MIT that all question the prudence of lockdown? Why aren’t congressional and state legislative committees holding hearings with competing medical researchers to get to the truth of the matter?

Look at the policy outcomes that result from following Fauci, Birx, and the Imperial College of London, and you will understand why our overlords have made their decision and why their friends in the media are censoring countervailing facts and evidence. They are having the time of their lives with the ultimate pretext to implement 100-year plans overnight without firing a shot. Why would they want to stop the lockdown?

Who then will guard the gates? Before we suspend the Bill of Rights, release dangerous criminals en masse, bankrupt the nation, destroy all small businesses, destroy medical care, and induce depression on the nation, shouldn’t we ask questions when more evidence shows this entire strategy was wrong from the start?

The post Horowitz: New antibody study is strong evidence that the lockdown strategy is the wrong course appeared first on Conservative Review.

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Rep. Dan Crenshaw politely destroys Bill Maher’s blame game against Trump

We all know that decisions are based on best guesses about future events. We don’t get to make prospective decisions with the benefit of hindsight. Of course, some decisions when made are manifestly stupid (no smart decision ever began with the phrase “hold my beer”), and even some thoughtful ones reflect bad reasoning (“I have returned from Germany with peace for our time”).

However, when dealing in real-time with an unknown disease playing out in countries with different population demographics, different healthcare systems, and different record-keeping (and, in China’s case, lots of lies) it’s unlikely that there will ever be a perfect response. Nevertheless, the newest Democrat position is that, because Trump’s response failed to block the Wuhan flu from landing on our shores, he is a blundering, blustering incompetent who is ready for another impeachment.

When someone comes flying at you with that kind of broad accusation, one grounded in emotion and historic rewrites, it’s hard to marshal the appropriate facts and make a sensible argument. Or maybe it’s hard only if you’re not a former Navy SEAL like Dan Crenshaw, a House Representative from Texas. While most of us have been tested solely in the crucible of mean words and dirty arguments, he was tested under fire and, as his debonair eyepatch shows, he paid a high price during that test.

On the same show during which Bill Maher earned deserved kudos for attacking mainstream media’s execrable, emotion-laden, dishonest coverage of the Wuhan virus, he made the mistake of trying to debate Rep. Dan Crenshaw about whether Trump’s response to the Wuhan virus was timely. If we could all learn to debate as Crenshaw does, the world would be a better, more logical, well-ordered, and well-run place.

As Maher hurls out a word soup of alleged facts, all of which are belied by the record, Crenshaw never loses his calm friendliness. Instead, he keeps setting the record straight, always focusing on accuracy, rather than partisanship or the “gotcha” game. It’s a beautiful lesson in how to handle someone who is being factually dishonest.

Certainly, Crenshaw’s performance has resonated with people. As Benny Johnson points out in his tweet about the debate, Maher’s show has an audience of 1.5 million people. Meanwhile, as of this writing, Crenshaw’s devastatingly polite performance, one that leaves Maher intellectually and factually disarmed, has already garnered 2.4 million views on Twitter.

On Maher’s own YouTube channel, more than 700,000 have watched the video. Tim Pool, a popular YouTuber, analyzed Maher getting “annihilated” in an “embarrassing video.” Pool’s video has garnered another 234,000 views.

Although people are tired of angry partisanship, they are hungry for the truth. Crenshaw, with grace and calm, is giving them that truth. This is a video well worth sharing.

We all know that decisions are based on best guesses about future events. We don’t get to make prospective decisions with the benefit of hindsight. Of course, some decisions when made are manifestly stupid (no smart decision ever began with the phrase “hold my beer”), and even some thoughtful ones reflect bad reasoning (“I have returned from Germany with peace for our time”).

However, when dealing in real-time with an unknown disease playing out in countries with different population demographics, different healthcare systems, and different record-keeping (and, in China’s case, lots of lies) it’s unlikely that there will ever be a perfect response. Nevertheless, the newest Democrat position is that, because Trump’s response failed to block the Wuhan flu from landing on our shores, he is a blundering, blustering incompetent who is ready for another impeachment.

When someone comes flying at you with that kind of broad accusation, one grounded in emotion and historic rewrites, it’s hard to marshal the appropriate facts and make a sensible argument. Or maybe it’s hard only if you’re not a former Navy SEAL like Dan Crenshaw, a House Representative from Texas. While most of us have been tested solely in the crucible of mean words and dirty arguments, he was tested under fire and, as his debonair eyepatch shows, he paid a high price during that test.

On the same show during which Bill Maher earned deserved kudos for attacking mainstream media’s execrable, emotion-laden, dishonest coverage of the Wuhan virus, he made the mistake of trying to debate Rep. Dan Crenshaw about whether Trump’s response to the Wuhan virus was timely. If we could all learn to debate as Crenshaw does, the world would be a better, more logical, well-ordered, and well-run place.

As Maher hurls out a word soup of alleged facts, all of which are belied by the record, Crenshaw never loses his calm friendliness. Instead, he keeps setting the record straight, always focusing on accuracy, rather than partisanship or the “gotcha” game. It’s a beautiful lesson in how to handle someone who is being factually dishonest.

Certainly, Crenshaw’s performance has resonated with people. As Benny Johnson points out in his tweet about the debate, Maher’s show has an audience of 1.5 million people. Meanwhile, as of this writing, Crenshaw’s devastatingly polite performance, one that leaves Maher intellectually and factually disarmed, has already garnered 2.4 million views on Twitter.

On Maher’s own YouTube channel, more than 700,000 have watched the video. Tim Pool, a popular YouTuber, analyzed Maher getting “annihilated” in an “embarrassing video.” Pool’s video has garnered another 234,000 views.

Although people are tired of angry partisanship, they are hungry for the truth. Crenshaw, with grace and calm, is giving them that truth. This is a video well worth sharing.

via American Thinker Blog

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Adam Schiff’s Dirty Impeachment Tactics Coming to Light

Rep. Adam Schiff spent months launching secret impeachment hearings, never thinking his conduct would be called into question.

He is now caught in the crosshairs of a formidable government agent, Mr. Brendan Carr, Federal Communication Commissioner. The impeachment may be over, but Mr. Carr is formally investigating Rep. Schiff for violating privacy laws — more like obliterating ethical boundaries — by setting up his own surveillance state to target the president’s allies.

Carr is currently uncovering the diabolical nature of the congressman’s “surveillance state.” At the time, Schiff resorted to such desperate measures because he didn’t have much of an impeachment case: Therefore, he issued secret subpoenas to phone carriers hoping to mine the private data of his political opponents, or in effect ransacking their private lives.

The objective was to obtain and publish the calls of Trump’s allies.

Much to his delight, Schiff’s subpoenas to the phone carriers resulted in their turning over nearly 4,000 pages of confidential records, in the process violating their customers’ rights to data privacy.

None of this has escaped the notice of the top gun at the FCC. Carr is proposing a $200 million fine against the phone carriers for failing to protect their customers who have a legitimate expectation of privacy.

The FCC commissioner, in reviewing the nearly 4,000 pages, had a very pointed question to ask as part of his investigative letter to the House Intelligence Committee (where Schiff serves as chairman). “Is Rep. Schiff continuing to issue secret subpoenas?” That translates to mean: Does the congressman plan to continue to run roughshod over the private lives of political opponents while employing  abusive impeachment tactics?

Before the FCC stepped in, Schiff had already performed much of his cloak-and-dagger work targeting some of the president’s most ardent supporters. Schiff’s committee took additional clandestine measures in issuing the subpoenas, even slapping a gag order on Republican leaders.

Undoubtedly, those targeted by the congressman were blindsided by the process because they were deprived of their legal right to fight the surveillance requests. They included Rudy Giuliani, attorney for the president, Rep. Devin Nunes, ranking Republican on the Intelligence Committee, John Solomon, conservative journalist, and others.

As part of the FCC investigation, Carr dropped a major bombshell, which most likely won’t make the news cycle on CNN or other leftist outlets. Carr lambasted Schiff for “exceeding his authority” by publishing call records that lack “any apparent nexus to the Committee’s legitimate work.”

Some would argue this isn’t the first time Schiff has strayed from “legitimate work”. The congressman, now serving his 10th term in the House, has carved out a special role for himself as the “go to” Trump-hating politician devoting hundreds of hours to interviews with fawning reporters.

It can almost be argued that his audience is the media, filtering everything the public should hear. What more can a politician ask for?

Many of those fawning reporters interviewing Schiff about the impeachment proceedings were the very same talking heads who had heard the congressman impart an endless stream of salacious gossip and “credible” leaks to fuel the Russia-collusion hysteria.

The reporters lack of skepticism and unquestioning loyalty to the politician continues to greatly benefit the Democratic leader. He even gets a pass for his extensive history of fabrications — bouncing from one partisan spectacle (Russia collusion) to another (impeachment proceedings). One must credit Schiff with manufacturing enough “credible” leaks from unnamed sources to keep the Russian-collusion narrative alive for an insufferable three years (no easy feat there).

Rep. Schiff — now onto a new ratings bonanza — began revving up his party’s latest attempt to impeach the president based on an alleged “abuse of power.” Nasty tactics started to surface about the congressman’s insistence on secret meetings in the bowels of government buildings and barring all Republicans from attending. We expect leftist reporters to exhibit their standard bias, but today they are turning a blind eye.

And don’t expect to witness a major network interviewing Carr, or any other government agent investigating the congressman anytime soon.

There isn’t a hint of curiosity about Carr’s assessment of the Intelligence Committee: It is a damning overview asserting the committee was “created out of whole cloth in secret and effectively unreviewable and unchecked mechanism for obtaining call records on any and all Americans.” That said, conservative politicians are cautioned to avoid getting on Schiff’s bad side.

None of this appears of concern to members of the leftist media. Many view Schiff as “the most underestimated politician” California has ever produced, according to Greg Miller, correspondent for the Washington Post. Miller, and many of his colleagues, agree that Schiff “will leave a mark on history, exceeding nearly all contemporaries.”

It would be unfair to Schiff to say that his impeachment efforts came to nothing. The congressman cemented his rock-star status for his “dazzling” speech at the opening of the hearings, according to Jeffrey Toobin, CNN news analyst.

“I don’t want to sound like a partisan,” began Toobin before sounding like a partisan, but he thought it was one of the “best” speeches he has ever witnessed. “Adam Schiff knows the facts. That is something that you can’t fake,” Toobin added. But can you repackage the truth to the point of making the facts unrecognizable (i.e. fake news)?

Toobin was simply part of the media herd offering variations on the same corrupt narrative. Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post provid3ed even more flowery praise of congressman saying: “The most brilliant legal presentation I have heard,” she wrote. “None comes close” to matching him.

Perhaps Richard Stengel, the former editor of Time magazine, has the distinction of concocting the most hyperbolic praise for the congressman. “When we get back to teaching civics in this country — as we must do — Adam Schiff’s sweeping, beautifully-wrought opening argument, should be on the syllabus.” It’s frightening to think of what would be left off the syllabus.

Reporters engaging in this sort of hyperbolic praise are effectively building an impregnable wall between themselves and their sacred duty to the public: Acting as the public watchdog.

Apparently Carr, at the helm of the FCC, cannot be counted on to act in concert with Schiff’s ardent fan base. But he can be relied on to protect the public from having to ask themselves who else’s life is being plundered  by powerful politicians abusing their office.

To quote Schiff, who spoke the words ad nauseam while targeting the president, “No one is above the law.”

Rep. Adam Schiff spent months launching secret impeachment hearings, never thinking his conduct would be called into question.

He is now caught in the crosshairs of a formidable government agent, Mr. Brendan Carr, Federal Communication Commissioner. The impeachment may be over, but Mr. Carr is formally investigating Rep. Schiff for violating privacy laws — more like obliterating ethical boundaries — by setting up his own surveillance state to target the president’s allies.

Carr is currently uncovering the diabolical nature of the congressman’s “surveillance state.” At the time, Schiff resorted to such desperate measures because he didn’t have much of an impeachment case: Therefore, he issued secret subpoenas to phone carriers hoping to mine the private data of his political opponents, or in effect ransacking their private lives.

The objective was to obtain and publish the calls of Trump’s allies.

Much to his delight, Schiff’s subpoenas to the phone carriers resulted in their turning over nearly 4,000 pages of confidential records, in the process violating their customers’ rights to data privacy.

None of this has escaped the notice of the top gun at the FCC. Carr is proposing a $200 million fine against the phone carriers for failing to protect their customers who have a legitimate expectation of privacy.

The FCC commissioner, in reviewing the nearly 4,000 pages, had a very pointed question to ask as part of his investigative letter to the House Intelligence Committee (where Schiff serves as chairman). “Is Rep. Schiff continuing to issue secret subpoenas?” That translates to mean: Does the congressman plan to continue to run roughshod over the private lives of political opponents while employing  abusive impeachment tactics?

Before the FCC stepped in, Schiff had already performed much of his cloak-and-dagger work targeting some of the president’s most ardent supporters. Schiff’s committee took additional clandestine measures in issuing the subpoenas, even slapping a gag order on Republican leaders.

Undoubtedly, those targeted by the congressman were blindsided by the process because they were deprived of their legal right to fight the surveillance requests. They included Rudy Giuliani, attorney for the president, Rep. Devin Nunes, ranking Republican on the Intelligence Committee, John Solomon, conservative journalist, and others.

As part of the FCC investigation, Carr dropped a major bombshell, which most likely won’t make the news cycle on CNN or other leftist outlets. Carr lambasted Schiff for “exceeding his authority” by publishing call records that lack “any apparent nexus to the Committee’s legitimate work.”

Some would argue this isn’t the first time Schiff has strayed from “legitimate work”. The congressman, now serving his 10th term in the House, has carved out a special role for himself as the “go to” Trump-hating politician devoting hundreds of hours to interviews with fawning reporters.

It can almost be argued that his audience is the media, filtering everything the public should hear. What more can a politician ask for?

Many of those fawning reporters interviewing Schiff about the impeachment proceedings were the very same talking heads who had heard the congressman impart an endless stream of salacious gossip and “credible” leaks to fuel the Russia-collusion hysteria.

The reporters lack of skepticism and unquestioning loyalty to the politician continues to greatly benefit the Democratic leader. He even gets a pass for his extensive history of fabrications — bouncing from one partisan spectacle (Russia collusion) to another (impeachment proceedings). One must credit Schiff with manufacturing enough “credible” leaks from unnamed sources to keep the Russian-collusion narrative alive for an insufferable three years (no easy feat there).

Rep. Schiff — now onto a new ratings bonanza — began revving up his party’s latest attempt to impeach the president based on an alleged “abuse of power.” Nasty tactics started to surface about the congressman’s insistence on secret meetings in the bowels of government buildings and barring all Republicans from attending. We expect leftist reporters to exhibit their standard bias, but today they are turning a blind eye.

And don’t expect to witness a major network interviewing Carr, or any other government agent investigating the congressman anytime soon.

There isn’t a hint of curiosity about Carr’s assessment of the Intelligence Committee: It is a damning overview asserting the committee was “created out of whole cloth in secret and effectively unreviewable and unchecked mechanism for obtaining call records on any and all Americans.” That said, conservative politicians are cautioned to avoid getting on Schiff’s bad side.

None of this appears of concern to members of the leftist media. Many view Schiff as “the most underestimated politician” California has ever produced, according to Greg Miller, correspondent for the Washington Post. Miller, and many of his colleagues, agree that Schiff “will leave a mark on history, exceeding nearly all contemporaries.”

It would be unfair to Schiff to say that his impeachment efforts came to nothing. The congressman cemented his rock-star status for his “dazzling” speech at the opening of the hearings, according to Jeffrey Toobin, CNN news analyst.

“I don’t want to sound like a partisan,” began Toobin before sounding like a partisan, but he thought it was one of the “best” speeches he has ever witnessed. “Adam Schiff knows the facts. That is something that you can’t fake,” Toobin added. But can you repackage the truth to the point of making the facts unrecognizable (i.e. fake news)?

Toobin was simply part of the media herd offering variations on the same corrupt narrative. Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post provid3ed even more flowery praise of congressman saying: “The most brilliant legal presentation I have heard,” she wrote. “None comes close” to matching him.

Perhaps Richard Stengel, the former editor of Time magazine, has the distinction of concocting the most hyperbolic praise for the congressman. “When we get back to teaching civics in this country — as we must do — Adam Schiff’s sweeping, beautifully-wrought opening argument, should be on the syllabus.” It’s frightening to think of what would be left off the syllabus.

Reporters engaging in this sort of hyperbolic praise are effectively building an impregnable wall between themselves and their sacred duty to the public: Acting as the public watchdog.

Apparently Carr, at the helm of the FCC, cannot be counted on to act in concert with Schiff’s ardent fan base. But he can be relied on to protect the public from having to ask themselves who else’s life is being plundered  by powerful politicians abusing their office.

To quote Schiff, who spoke the words ad nauseam while targeting the president, “No one is above the law.”

via American Thinker

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China Expert On CNN: ‘Trump Is Absolutely Right On China’, They’re Costing Us Lives

Senior Hudson Institute Fellow Dr. Nadia Schadlow praised President Donald Trump during a CNN interview on Sunday, saying “there’s no question” that Trump is “right” on China.

Dr. Schadlow, who was most recently U.S. Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategy, addressed the issue of the coronavirus outbreak that originated in China and has since devastated the world.

“Trump is absolutely right about China,” Schadlow said. “When he took office, he essentially looked at what China had been doing over the past 15 years that had been noticed, by the way, by bipartisan experts, you know, both sides of the aisle in terms of its unfair trade practices, its theft of intellectual property, its forced tech transfers, its complete lack of reciprocity vis-a-vis the United States.”

Later in the interview, Schadlow continued, “In this particular COVID situation, we have seen exactly what he has said. China’s coverup is costing us millions of lives, thousands of deaths. They have silenced and disappeared people in early December who were the first to call out the problem. They removed and destroyed evidence of the virus, bleaching wet stall markets, closing and shuttering labs, preventing people, still experts, from going and understanding sources of the virus, the genomes of the virus.”

“They denied human to human transmission for up to seven weeks, from early December until January 20th. That’s a long time,” Schadlow continued. “A long time when people are traveling. And speaking of traveling, they stopped internal travel in China, but did not stop external travel, which tells you a little bit about how they were thinking about the rest of the world and a little bit about how they were thinking about not caring about infecting people all over the world.”

Schadlow concluded, “So what President Trump actually has been talking about for the past three years, unfortunately we’re seeing proof of that today. And unfortunately because no one wants to see what’s happening now in the world, the tragedy, economic, health, personal, on all levels. So there’s no question he’s right.”

WATCH:

TRANSCRIPT:

CNN HOST FAREED ZAKARIA: Nadia, let me begin with you and ask you, lay out what you mean when you say that Trump is right about China.

NADIA SCHADLOW, SENIOR FELLOW, HUDSON INSTITUTE: Sure, Fareed. Hi, Kishore. Trump is absolutely right about China. When he took office, he essentially looked at what China had been doing over the past 15 years that had been noticed, by the way, by bipartisan experts, you know, both sides of the aisle in terms of its unfair trade practices, its theft of intellectual property, its forced tech transfers, its complete lack of reciprocity vis-a-vis the United States.

All of these activities had been noticed, as I said, by previous administrations. But President Trump decided to approach the problem in a different way. He basically said constant engagement and constant cooperation without reciprocity wasn’t working. So he changed his tactics. What he talked about vis-a-vis China and what he explained vis-a-vis China is actually not really in dispute across — as I said, a wide range of bipartisan experts.

What’s in dispute is his new tactics. In this particular COVID situation, we have seen exactly what he has said. China’s coverup is costing us millions of lives, thousands of deaths. They have silenced and disappeared people in early December who were the first to call out the problem. They removed and destroyed evidence of the virus, bleaching wet stall markets, closing and shuttering labs, preventing people, still experts, from going and understanding sources of the virus, the genomes of the virus.

They denied human to human transmission for up to seven weeks, from early December until January 20th. That’s a long time. A long time when people are traveling. And speaking of traveling, they stopped internal travel in China, but did not stop external travel, which tells you a little bit about how they were thinking about the rest of the world and a little bit about how they were thinking about not caring about infecting people all over the world.

And in fact, the first couple to infect — to reach Italy, it’s considered the first COVID case there, was a couple from Wuhan who left China around January 23rd right before the international travel ban set in. So what President Trump actually has been talking about for the past three years unfortunately we’re seeing proof of that today. And unfortunately because no one wants to see what’s happening now in the world, the tragedy, economic, health, personal, on all levels. So there’s no question he’s right.

via The Daily Wire

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The left’s new hysterical narrative? Testing! Testing! Testing!

Having essentially lost the narrative on their “blame Trump” for every death, the Democrats and their media droids have this week settled upon the lack of sufficient testing with which to castigate the President.  They would never call out the bureaucrats of the CDC, which dropped the ball throughout the Obama years, or the NIH, or the NIAID for Fauci’s failures to  be prepared for a pandemic.  No, they have all leapt on the bandwagon to blame Trump for every death, every perceived failure of the federal government to stop a virus unleashed on the world by the actual biggest threat to the world, China.  

Nancy Pelosi was positively ghoulish on Fox News Sunday.  She denied exacerbating the virus in San Francisco, when late in February she was encouraging her constituents to join in her city’s Chinese Lunar New Year celebrations.  The woman is the wicked witch of the West.  With her fancy kitchen appliances and her freezer full of $13-a-pint ice cream, she is enjoying her vacation.  She appears to be relishing the destruction of the economy that Trump had so successfully energized.  She is refusing to go back to DC and vote on an additional bill to save small businesses. She does not give a damn about the 22 million people suddenly unemployed; she thinks this crisis can only benefit her party and her power. 

She is as senile as Biden if she thinks this ploy will work.  She is fast becoming the Joker of American politics.

Scrolling through the leftist news sites and the cable and network Sunday news programs, noting the insolent questions the not-journalists ask at the briefings, it is abundantly clear that the latest prescribed attack on the President is TESTING!  They all think they will get away with blaming Trump for a lack of testing for a virus no one knew was coming, thanks to China, so there were no tests for it at the snap of anyone’s fingers, least of all Trump who most likely believed that institutions like the WHO, CDC, NIH, Fauci’s crib, NIAID were doing their jobs with the billions of dollars that are doled out to them.

But they were not doing their jobs.  They had all succumbed to the whims of the social justice warriors.  Race, class and gender topics had superseded the subjects of their research.  It is these institutions that were transformed into nothing more than campus grievance organizations during the Obama administration.  They had all neglected the primary reasons for their existence and taxpayer funding, most of which has been wasted for years and years.

The President has massively stepped up to the plate like no other President would or could have given the circumstances.  But the democrats, embarrassed by their own governors’ failures to prepare for such a crisis, Cuomo of NY being the worst offender, have obviously agreed on a single line of attack this week; the President is to blame for the lack of tests for the virus, as if he were responsible for the work of the CDC, WHO, NIH and Fauci’s organization.  No one with half a brain believes the failures of those deep state associations can be blamed on Trump.  Now they are all just trying to cover their behinds; they all know they dropped the ball.

Those who are attacking the President over testing very likely know nothing about what is involved in developing a test for any virus, let alone an antibody test.  Everyone knows by now that the computer models promoted by Fauci, Birx and others were fantastically exaggerated, and yet the economy was brought to a full stop based on them.  Have Fauci or Birx taken any responsibility for the gross errors of the models on which they recommended closing up all American businesses?  No, they have not.  

Trump’s handling of this crisis has been phenomenal but for listening to the alleged science experts.  He likely figured out weeks ago that he had been misled and knows that the shutdown of the economy has already done far more damage than the virus.  His advocating that people get back to work is welcome news but the left is apoplectic; they want the misery to worsen in the belief it will bring about Trump’s defeat in November.

The Trump-hating American left has lost any sense of decency; they are rooting for the virus.  The more deaths they can blame on Trump, the happier they are.  And now they’ve put all their eggs in one basket:  testing, as if every American life now depends on a test.  We know from the Stanford test that many more people test positive who are asymptomatic.  We know that those most seriously afflicted nearly all have one or more other medical conditions that put them at risk, just like the seasonal flu puts such people at greater risk.  We know that hospitals all over the world are chalking every death up to COVID19, no matter what the cause of their demise.  The numbers of deaths blamed on this virus are vastly inflated.  While it is different and it can be lethal, it is no more lethal than heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, cancer, drug overdoses, deaths by car accidents, etc.  If actual yearly numbers are meaningful, it is far less lethal than any of those causes of death.

So, as with every issue the left sets out to control, the prescribed narrative is dictated from the top, whoever that is it this moment in time.  It used to be the Clintons. Perhaps it is now the Obama clique. Maybe it is George Soros.  Whoever it is, the prescribed word of this week is “testing.”  It is doubtful that any of those people using the word as an assault understand the science behind their mindless charge.  They get their talking points; they don’t bother to research the facts or science, and then excitedly spew their nonsense every chance they get.  Our media is the enemy of our own nation; CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC, NYT, WaPo, LAT, etc.  They are all willing to see the American economy destroyed if its destruction will take Trump down.  

If this virus has made anything crystal clear, it is that the left is by nature authoritarian.  The mayors of NY and LA are calling for people to snitch on, even photograph, people who don’t properly self-distance.  This is the stuff of the old Soviet Union; that is what the American left has become.  We should all celebrate those people around the nation who are protesting the imposition of virtual communism on us all.  The human race has survived many pandemics over millennia.  It will survive this one as well. What is distressing is the cheerleading for it on the left.  

Testing at this point is nothing more than this week’s leftist talking point.  These media whores think they are a Trojan horse with the sneaky power to take over our constitutional republic.

That’s not going to happen. They will forever be known by the company they keep.

Phto credit: YouTube screen grab

Having essentially lost the narrative on their “blame Trump” for every death, the Democrats and their media droids have this week settled upon the lack of sufficient testing with which to castigate the President.  They would never call out the bureaucrats of the CDC, which dropped the ball throughout the Obama years, or the NIH, or the NIAID for Fauci’s failures to  be prepared for a pandemic.  No, they have all leapt on the bandwagon to blame Trump for every death, every perceived failure of the federal government to stop a virus unleashed on the world by the actual biggest threat to the world, China.  

Nancy Pelosi was positively ghoulish on Fox News Sunday.  She denied exacerbating the virus in San Francisco, when late in February she was encouraging her constituents to join in her city’s Chinese Lunar New Year celebrations.  The woman is the wicked witch of the West.  With her fancy kitchen appliances and her freezer full of $13-a-pint ice cream, she is enjoying her vacation.  She appears to be relishing the destruction of the economy that Trump had so successfully energized.  She is refusing to go back to DC and vote on an additional bill to save small businesses. She does not give a damn about the 22 million people suddenly unemployed; she thinks this crisis can only benefit her party and her power. 

She is as senile as Biden if she thinks this ploy will work.  She is fast becoming the Joker of American politics.

Scrolling through the leftist news sites and the cable and network Sunday news programs, noting the insolent questions the not-journalists ask at the briefings, it is abundantly clear that the latest prescribed attack on the President is TESTING!  They all think they will get away with blaming Trump for a lack of testing for a virus no one knew was coming, thanks to China, so there were no tests for it at the snap of anyone’s fingers, least of all Trump who most likely believed that institutions like the WHO, CDC, NIH, Fauci’s crib, NIAID were doing their jobs with the billions of dollars that are doled out to them.

But they were not doing their jobs.  They had all succumbed to the whims of the social justice warriors.  Race, class and gender topics had superseded the subjects of their research.  It is these institutions that were transformed into nothing more than campus grievance organizations during the Obama administration.  They had all neglected the primary reasons for their existence and taxpayer funding, most of which has been wasted for years and years.

The President has massively stepped up to the plate like no other President would or could have given the circumstances.  But the democrats, embarrassed by their own governors’ failures to prepare for such a crisis, Cuomo of NY being the worst offender, have obviously agreed on a single line of attack this week; the President is to blame for the lack of tests for the virus, as if he were responsible for the work of the CDC, WHO, NIH and Fauci’s organization.  No one with half a brain believes the failures of those deep state associations can be blamed on Trump.  Now they are all just trying to cover their behinds; they all know they dropped the ball.

Those who are attacking the President over testing very likely know nothing about what is involved in developing a test for any virus, let alone an antibody test.  Everyone knows by now that the computer models promoted by Fauci, Birx and others were fantastically exaggerated, and yet the economy was brought to a full stop based on them.  Have Fauci or Birx taken any responsibility for the gross errors of the models on which they recommended closing up all American businesses?  No, they have not.  

Trump’s handling of this crisis has been phenomenal but for listening to the alleged science experts.  He likely figured out weeks ago that he had been misled and knows that the shutdown of the economy has already done far more damage than the virus.  His advocating that people get back to work is welcome news but the left is apoplectic; they want the misery to worsen in the belief it will bring about Trump’s defeat in November.

The Trump-hating American left has lost any sense of decency; they are rooting for the virus.  The more deaths they can blame on Trump, the happier they are.  And now they’ve put all their eggs in one basket:  testing, as if every American life now depends on a test.  We know from the Stanford test that many more people test positive who are asymptomatic.  We know that those most seriously afflicted nearly all have one or more other medical conditions that put them at risk, just like the seasonal flu puts such people at greater risk.  We know that hospitals all over the world are chalking every death up to COVID19, no matter what the cause of their demise.  The numbers of deaths blamed on this virus are vastly inflated.  While it is different and it can be lethal, it is no more lethal than heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, cancer, drug overdoses, deaths by car accidents, etc.  If actual yearly numbers are meaningful, it is far less lethal than any of those causes of death.

So, as with every issue the left sets out to control, the prescribed narrative is dictated from the top, whoever that is it this moment in time.  It used to be the Clintons. Perhaps it is now the Obama clique. Maybe it is George Soros.  Whoever it is, the prescribed word of this week is “testing.”  It is doubtful that any of those people using the word as an assault understand the science behind their mindless charge.  They get their talking points; they don’t bother to research the facts or science, and then excitedly spew their nonsense every chance they get.  Our media is the enemy of our own nation; CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC, NYT, WaPo, LAT, etc.  They are all willing to see the American economy destroyed if its destruction will take Trump down.  

If this virus has made anything crystal clear, it is that the left is by nature authoritarian.  The mayors of NY and LA are calling for people to snitch on, even photograph, people who don’t properly self-distance.  This is the stuff of the old Soviet Union; that is what the American left has become.  We should all celebrate those people around the nation who are protesting the imposition of virtual communism on us all.  The human race has survived many pandemics over millennia.  It will survive this one as well. What is distressing is the cheerleading for it on the left.  

Testing at this point is nothing more than this week’s leftist talking point.  These media whores think they are a Trojan horse with the sneaky power to take over our constitutional republic.

That’s not going to happen. They will forever be known by the company they keep.

Phto credit: YouTube screen grab

via American Thinker Blog

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An Earth Day reckoning? Greenies panicking over the discrediting of computer models predicting disaster

We have learned the hard way that the scientists who produce mathematical models predicting disaster are not to be granted the presumption of infallibility. Nor are their demands that we impoverish ourselves in order to aver a disaster a matter of “settled science.” The Coronavirus doom that the Cassandras of prestigious scientific organs predicted is nowhere to be found, and it turns out that models are based on assumptions, and can be spectacularly wrong.

Americans have sacrificed trillions of dollars and turned our lives upside down based on predictions of millions of deaths if we didn’t follow radically change our way of life, based on the pandemic predictions of modelers in the UK and USA.

How embarrassing for the modelers that tell us we have to make even deeper sacrifices for a global warming disaster that is decades away, if it ever develops.  You can smell their panic in this planned propaganda blitz from the Olympian heights of the media establishment. Chris White of the Daily Caller News Foundation writes:

 A project co-founded by the Columbia Journalism Review is asking hundreds of news outlets to focus their reporting on climate change on Earth Day as journalists focus primarily on coronavirus coverage.

The journalist heading the effort believes the media should be devoting the same level of attention to global warming as they do to a virus that has killed more than 100,000 people worldwide. (snip)

The founders behind Covering Climate Now are asking their network of more than 400 media outlets to blanket the airwaves with stories about climate change during the week of Earth Day. Reuters, Bloomberg News, and The Daily Beast are among the biggest names listed as partners of the project.

The project’s co-founder, Mark Hertsgaard, has said news outlets should be devoting the same amount of time to climate change as they do COVID-19.

Paraphrasing the Wizard of Oz, “Pay no attention to the modeler behind that curtain!”

But that’s not going to happen, no matter how much propaganda is put out predicting doom. People are righteously angry over paying a huge price because some boffins with computer models overemphasized risks. They understand that models are just guesses, and that the modelers who predict the biggest disaster also get the most attention.

To the 60,000 or more American fatalities that have fallen to the Wuhan Virus, we can add the demise of the credibility of global warming models. The thin veneer of scientific infallibility has crumbled and cannot be restored.

Graphic credit: Pixabay

We have learned the hard way that the scientists who produce mathematical models predicting disaster are not to be granted the presumption of infallibility. Nor are their demands that we impoverish ourselves in order to aver a disaster a matter of “settled science.” The Coronavirus doom that the Cassandras of prestigious scientific organs predicted is nowhere to be found, and it turns out that models are based on assumptions, and can be spectacularly wrong.

Americans have sacrificed trillions of dollars and turned our lives upside down based on predictions of millions of deaths if we didn’t follow radically change our way of life, based on the pandemic predictions of modelers in the UK and USA.

How embarrassing for the modelers that tell us we have to make even deeper sacrifices for a global warming disaster that is decades away, if it ever develops.  You can smell their panic in this planned propaganda blitz from the Olympian heights of the media establishment. Chris White of the Daily Caller News Foundation writes:

 A project co-founded by the Columbia Journalism Review is asking hundreds of news outlets to focus their reporting on climate change on Earth Day as journalists focus primarily on coronavirus coverage.

The journalist heading the effort believes the media should be devoting the same level of attention to global warming as they do to a virus that has killed more than 100,000 people worldwide. (snip)

The founders behind Covering Climate Now are asking their network of more than 400 media outlets to blanket the airwaves with stories about climate change during the week of Earth Day. Reuters, Bloomberg News, and The Daily Beast are among the biggest names listed as partners of the project.

The project’s co-founder, Mark Hertsgaard, has said news outlets should be devoting the same amount of time to climate change as they do COVID-19.

Paraphrasing the Wizard of Oz, “Pay no attention to the modeler behind that curtain!”

But that’s not going to happen, no matter how much propaganda is put out predicting doom. People are righteously angry over paying a huge price because some boffins with computer models overemphasized risks. They understand that models are just guesses, and that the modelers who predict the biggest disaster also get the most attention.

To the 60,000 or more American fatalities that have fallen to the Wuhan Virus, we can add the demise of the credibility of global warming models. The thin veneer of scientific infallibility has crumbled and cannot be restored.

Graphic credit: Pixabay

via American Thinker Blog

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Senator Scott: Pelosi Holding Small Businesses ‘Hostage’ As Economy Faces ‘Devastation’

Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) called out House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on Sunday for holding small businesses “hostage” over the Paycheck Protection Program, saying that Democrats are negatively impacting people’s ability to pay their bills and feed their kids.

“I always like to say that the Democrats who are holding this up, realize you’re not negatively impacting businesses, as much as you’re negatively impacting people’s ability to pay their rent, to pay their utilities, to feed their kids,” Scott stated, referencing the Democrats’ blocking of additional funding for the Small Business Administration loan program. “This is a serious situation, that we shouldn’t have a lapse in funding for the PPP program. We should tell Ms. Nancy Pelosi, please give us our paychecks. People need their paychecks. And stop holding it hostage in order to do something else.”

“Going forward, I hope that this week, on Monday, the Senate is able to vote on a package that’s agreed upon with the House and the Senate. Tuesday, the Democrats get it passed,” Scott continued. “And Tuesday, one minute later, we start refunding, replenishing the supply of the Paycheck Protection Program.”

Scott added that members of Congress have been getting hundreds of calls a day from constituents demanding that Congress get its act together because they are hurting financially.

WATCH:

TRANSCRIPT:

MARIA BARTIROMO, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: The White House looking to open the country soon.

The president outlining a phase three plan, as he assembled a task force on the issue.

Senator Tim Scott, a Republican from South Carolina, is a member of that task force.

And he’s also author of the new book “Opportunity Knocks.

He joins me right now to talk more about the reopening.

Senator, it’s great to see you this morning. Thank you so much for joining us. And congratulations on the book.

SEN. TIM SCOTT (R-SC): Good morning.

BARTIROMO: Nice play on words…

SCOTT: Thank you.

BARTIROMO: … because I know that you have been working on the Opportunity Zones across the country.

SCOTT: Exactly.

BARTIROMO: So I’m going to ask you about that.

But, first, let me ask you about the opening of the economy. The president came out with three different phases in terms of doing that, saying that gyms can reopen in phase one if strict standards are met, elective surgeries can resume under phase one.

Guidelines say, phase two for states with no evidence of rebound, and urging telework, schools staying closed in phase one.

How worried are you that you open the economy too soon, and then we see a relapse of coronavirus?

SCOTT: The president’s strategy is prudent.

He still focuses on the necessity of isolating hot spots in order to mitigate the spread. If we’re looking at the fact that there are states where there is very or little presence of the COVID-19 and those states that are seeing a drop in the number of cases that has hospital capacity, it is prudent to make the first phase focused on getting the economy rolling in those areas where we have the ability to move forward without a strong concern of spreading the virus.

BARTIROMO: So, Peter Navarro was just talking about the impact of a shutdown economy on American families, and the blow to your finances.

And that also leads to its own set of sicknesses. Let me ask you about the assessment so far on the economy. We saw just last week 22 million Americans filing for unemployment benefits in just the last four weeks.

SCOTT: Yes. Wow.

BARTIROMO: We are expecting a recession, a contraction in the second quarter and the third quarter.

How bad has it gone? The damage has been obviously worse in terms of health and people’s lives. But, on the economic front, how would you assess things?

SCOTT: I think things are — we are in a position of devastation.

And think about places in South Carolina like Charleston, South Carolina. Our unemployment rate was 1.5 percent, Maria, 1.5 percent. And, overnight, we saw thousands upon thousands of restaurant workers, retail workers, folks in the hotel industry driven to the unemployment lines.

We have seen a 4000 percent increase in unemployment benefits in South Carolina. It is consistent throughout this nation.

One of the reasons why the president has got to balance living and livelihood is because poverty also has a negative consequence that lingers for decades, if not generations. So he is understandably concerned not simply about our health. He’s done a great job of trying to balance that.

But he’s also concerned about the economic health of this nation. And we both know that poverty kills. And so what he’s trying to do is to position this economy to come back with a vengeance.

BARTIROMO: Right.

SCOTT: I think, during his State of the Union speech, when he was talking about the great American comeback, he was talking, foreshadowing the necessity of a V-shaped recovery coming out of this virus before we even knew about a virus.

BARTIROMO: Huh.

SCOTT: So it’s really important for us to get back to work.

BARTIROMO: Which is why you and your colleagues have been working on a whole host of stimulus programs. You’re talking about $7.5 trillion in stimulus thrown at this economy, when you consider the Congress, as well as the Federal Reserve, and all of the money being flooded on this economy.

Let’s talk about this upcoming week and see if there is news to break here. Second Mnuchin says that the Congress should reach a deal today on supplemental funding for the Paycheck Protection Program.

SCOTT: Absolutely.

BARTIROMO: He said that he’s hopeful that the deal will happen on another $300 billion in small business funding, and that could be passed in the Senate on Monday and in the House on Tuesday.

What’s your timeline in terms of additional money for the Paycheck Program? And how are you going to vote in the upcoming week for further stimulus, sir?

SCOTT: Well, I support the PPP, the Paycheck Protection Program.

I always like to say that the Democrats who are holding this up, realize you’re not negatively impacting businesses, as much as you’re negatively impacting people’s ability to pay their rent, to pay their utilities, to feed their kids.

This is a serious situation, that we shouldn’t have a lapse in funding for the PPP program. We should tell Ms. Nancy Pelosi, please give us our paychecks. People need their paychecks. And stop holding it hostage in order to do something else.

Going forward, I hope that this week, on Monday, the Senate is able to vote on a package that’s agreed upon with the House and the Senate. Tuesday, the Democrats get it passed. And Tuesday, one minute later, we start refunding, replenishing the supply of the Paycheck Protection Program.

People are calling every single day. Hundreds are calling our offices, thousands, I’m sure, throughout this nation, because they want their paychecks. And we shouldn’t stand in the way of making that happen.

BARTIROMO: Are you expecting any changes in terms of the structure of this program?

Because your colleague Senator Lindsey Graham has said that, in South Carolina, you’re being paid more money to stay home than you are to actually go to work? Also, the structure of the — 75 percent of the money has to go right out the window to employees; 25 percent remaining to pay rent and other expenses may not be enough wiggle room.

Are you expecting changes on that structure? And the fight right now is about what, putting more money toward hospitals and giving more money to the states?

SCOTT: Yes.

BARTIROMO: What specific issues are you wrangling with your Democratic colleagues over?

SCOTT: I think that you make several good points there.

First, we certainly need to make sure that we take a look at phase four, or CARES 2, depending on how you want to call it. Restaurants that are going to reopen, they are going to need more space, which means fewer tables. That means your overhead expenses are going to increase.

Your labor costs may be static or fall down. So, if you have a program that requires 75 percent of the money to go to payroll, 25 percent for overhead, that will not work.

The new normal may require businesses to have higher overhead expenses and few — and lower labor costs. We need to adapt to that reality. And we need to adapt very quickly.

BARTIROMO: Yes.

SCOTT: Gyms, another part of our economy, that needs higher overhead expenses and lower actual number of employees.

So we’re going to have to do that, at the same time we’re balancing why we should reduce the unemployment benefits in the CARES Act. We are saying, if you make $24 or less, you could make as much, if not more, staying home.

BARTIROMO: Yes.

SCOTT: That is a problem. It’s a perverse incentive that only increases our unemployment claims, as opposed to encouraging people to go back to work.

We need to work. We want to work. And we should not…

BARTIROMO: Senator, I…

SCOTT: Yes.

BARTIROMO: I love your book, because it’s so empowering. It takes us through your story and your journey. And you have had some hard — hard hits there.

President Obama endorsed Vice President Biden this week. And he talks about minorities, and tweeted about that portion of the population getting harder hit by coronavirus.

Anything you can say about the black vote right now in terms of their feelings toward President Trump, as well as telling us in terms of why you wrote this book?

SCOTT: Well, two things.

Number one, President Trump is starting to see support from the weirdest corners of the world. And you hear — you heard the African-American Democrat state representative in Michigan praising Donald Trump and the use of chloroquine to help save her life.

BARTIROMO: That’s true.

SCOTT: You hear in Georgia here, right, my cousins next door, African-American state representative who is a Democrat saying that President Trump’s strong support of our economy and the African-American community, historically black colleges and universities…

BARTIROMO: Yes.

SCOTT: … the whole criminal justice reform, we’re seeing support from some very strange corners.

BARTIROMO: Right.

SCOTT: I still hold to my prediction that President Trump will see a 50 percent increase in African-American vote.

BARTIROMO: Wow.

Senator, it’s great to see you this morning. Thanks very much for being here, Tim Scott joining us there.

SCOTT: Thank you very much.

via The Daily Wire

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Sweden Says Battling Coronavirus Without Destroying Economy Is Proving Effective as Numbers Stabilize

The United States passed 40,000 deaths due to or presumed to be linked to the coronavirus on Sunday.
The US has a presumed population of 333,000,000 in 2020.

The US shut down its economy in March thanks to the expertise of Dr. Tony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx.
The two leading health officians warned President Trump in March that if he did not lockdown the US economy and society there would be possibly 2.2 million coronavirus deaths in the US this year.

Sweden did not shut down its economy as the coronavirus pandemic reached their shores.

Sweden today has a total 1,540 deaths due to coronavirus.

Sweden says their approach to the pandemic starting to yield results.
They are actually seeing their numbers stabilize in the country.

Bloomberg reported:

Anders Tegnell, the architect behind Sweden’s relatively relaxed response to Covid-19, told local media the latest figures on infection rates and fatalities indicate the situation is starting to stabilize.

“We’re on a sort of plateau,” Tegnell told Swedish news agency TT.

Sweden has left its schools, gyms, cafes, bars and restaurants open throughout the spread of the pandemic. Instead, the government has urged citizens to act responsibly and follow social distancing guidelines.

Dr. Fauci was wrong every step of the way.
And America will pay for his garbage models and flawed predictions for years to come.

The post Sweden Says Battling Coronavirus Without Destroying Economy Is Proving Effective as Numbers Stabilize appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

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Crenshaw ‘Wrecks’ Bill Maher Over Trump Coronavirus Response; Internet Erupts: Likely ‘Run For President’ One Day

On Friday night, Texas Republican Rep. Dan Crenshaw took on HBO’s “Real Time” host Bill Maher over accusations from the liberal that President Donald Trump and his administration are “passing the buck” when it comes to defending the American people from the China-originated novel coronavirus, or COVID-19.

Crenshaw outlined steps Trump took since January regarding the virus and highlighted Democrats’ downplaying COVID in the same time period, the same politicians now pointing their fingers at the president for supposedly not taking the pandemic seriously enough.

The level headed takedown of Maher gained steam on social media over the weekend. “Crenshaw climbed Twitter’s trending list, where he remained throughout the weekend,” Market Watch reported. “For the most part, he was feeling the love.”

During the appearance, Maher pressed Crenshaw, a former Navy SEAL, for defending Trump, whom he accused of having “pass-the-buck, lie, finger-point, and shirk-responsibility” tendencies. Unfairly tying Trump to COVID deaths, he also suggested Trump’s travel ban from China on January 31 – a ban leading Democrats called “xenophobic” – was not strong enough.

“The reality is about 40,000 people came in after [Trump closed off travel with China]. These were U.S. citizens and green-card holders and passport holders being repatriated. U.S. citizens. So you have to make the argument then that we shouldn’t allow them in,” Crenshaw outlined to Maher, Fox News reported. “It sounds to me that you’re fully agreeing with President Trump on this one, and everybody else disagreed with him. And if you’re saying that the travel restriction should have been more extreme, then fine. You clearly had the foresight back then but nobody else did,” he added.

“Your criticism appears to be based on one thing – that Trump was overly optimistic,” the former SEAL continued. “That’s his style. You can criticize it, that’s fine, but it’s not connected to the actions that were actually taken.”

“I provide all of that context as we try to basically accuse this man of … he’s being accused of having blood on his hands,” Crenshaw said. “And context is so important here. If we’re going to criticize somebody’s actions, we have to do it with the facts they knew at the time. So I’m just trying to be fair here. I don’t really care about defending him or his actions. I just care about letting people know the truth. And when people make these accusations, I have to ask them: Is the goal to make Trump look bad or is the goal to get to the truth? Because there are two separate sets of answers for that.”

The internet was flooded with commentary about Crenshaw, whose name is still trending on Twitter as of Sunday afternoon.

“It’s hard seeing Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) not running for president [one] day. Will do any media outlet, which stems from confidence in himself and his worldview. Possesses likability, authenticity, and pragmatism,” said The Hill’s Joe Concha. “Save the tweet.”

“This @DanCrenshawTX interview is [fire emoji],” wrote Matt Whitlock, senior advisor for the National Republican Senatorial Committee. “He gives perhaps the most detailed timeline of the governments response, Congress’ actions, and Democrats inexcusable efforts to politicize every step of the way, delaying lifesaving relief to American families.”

“I gotta admit: [Dan Crenshaw] has more tools in his kit than an entire Home Depot. A seamless performance,” said Fox News host Greg Gutfeld.

WATCH:

via The Daily Wire

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Coronavirus Sinking Centuries-old Traditional Breweries in Europe

WERNECK, Germany (AP) – The Werneck Brewery has survived a lot: world wars, economic crises and decades of declining beer consumption. But after 400 years in existence it has finally met a challenge it can’t overcome: the coronavirus outbreak.

The brewery, which traces its history to 1617 and has been owned by the same family since 1861, is closing for good, taking with it 15 full-time jobs and more part-time positions. Also gone is a chunk of local history and tradition in Werneck, a town of 10,000 people in the brewery-rich southern state of Bavaria.

German brewers fear its demise is the leading edge of more closures as the virus outbreak threatens the existence of the country’s many local producers of the national beverage – community institutions, often family-owned for generations, whose buildings and affiliated taverns are regional landmarks in a country where the hometown brew is often a sentimental favourite despite competition from national brands.

Hardest hit are smaller breweries that like the one in Werneck that depend on supplying kegs to local taverns and events such as local festivals. Restaurants are closed and the government says mass gatherings will not resume until Sept. 1 at the earliest – and even then it may take years before they rebound to levels seen before the virus outbreak.

Retail sales are providing some support as people drink at home. Breweries are trying things like drive-through sales and even shipping beer and glasses to customers so they can join an online tasting.

But for many the months without income may be more than they can handle.

Family member and brewery manager Christine Lang said the decision to close came with “many tears.” The beer market was already hard fought with tough price competition, she said. Then came the virus, and the restaurant customers the brewery depended on were suddenly closed, with no clarity on when they might open.

“No one knows how long the coronavirus will last, when there will be an improvement, and whether the restaurants will open again at all,” she said. “And in our business it’s the case that a beer that isn’t drunk today won’t be consumed twice in a couple of months, the sales revenue is gone, lost.”

According to a survey by the national brewers association some 87% of breweries say they are putting workers on short hours, taking advantage of a government program that pays up to 60% of net salaries during business interruptions. The program is aimed at getting companies through a crisis, keeping workers from being laid off, and supporting consumer spending in the economy. But other programs such as credits and delays in collecting taxes are less useful, brewers say. Credits mean taking on new debt for the future, and the taxes will eventually have to be paid as well.

Holger Eichele, secretary-general of the German Brewers Association, said that “many breweries will not survive this crisis, that is already becoming clear.” In addition to longtime brewers focused on restaurants, “we also have many entrepreneurs, that is, craft breweries, that are not yet profitable, that have borrowed money to finance their startup, and it’s also very difficult for them.”

The unexpected shock comes at a time when enthusiasm for craft beer and microbreweries has helped the industry overcome several decades of declining beer consumption. The number of brewers has grown in recent years to over 1,500, as startups introduced new products such as India pale ales into what had been a very conservative lineup based on traditional pilsners and wheat beers.

More diversified producers are better equipped to survive. Welde, a family-run brewery near Heidelberg that traces its history to 1752, normally sells about a third to retail outlets, a third to wholesalers who supply events and sports clubs, and a third to restaurants.

Managing director Max Spielmann, who represents the ninth generation of Spielmanns to run Welde, estimates that 30-40% of sales will be lost in April, May and June. “If you have 85% of your sales in keg beer to restaurants, then you only have 15% of your revenue left,” he said. “The only sales channel that is doing well is retail sales in grocery stores, one can see that the consumption that normally would have taken place in restaurants has shifted to home.”

He and other brewers are trying new things out of necessity. Welde offers an on-line beer tasting on Facebook. Participants can have six different beers and the appropriate glass delivered for 25 euros ($27) so they can taste along with the chat on April 23.

The Schumacher Brewery in Duesseldorf is offering drive-through service on Fridays and no-contact home delivery. The website of the Gaffel brewery in Cologne, which makes the city’s trademark beer dubbed koelsch, encouraged home consumption by showing two neighbours on adjacent balconies enjoying what the company says is “the best koelsch, by a good distance,” a pun on the social distancing requirements of the moment.

Says Spielmann: “All my forecasts say that we will get through it, with a black eye.” He thinks the crisis could spur people to support their local brewers, food producers, restaurants and hotels, keeping international tastes for food and drink but indulging them close to home, a prospect he called “glocal,” combining “global” and “local.”

For Lang from the Werneck Brewery, something irreplaceable has been lost.

“My family and I will miss it very much. The brewery has been ever-present, part of every dinner table conversation all our lives,” he said. “We will be missing part of our identity, and in a way the region will too.”

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