It is a very good thing that, in this time of danger to the health of the people, the president of the United States is neither a doctor nor an economist. As a highly competent administrator who strives to do whatever he does to a high standard, President Trump seeks the knowledge of doctors and economists, and then decides what to do for the good of the nation’s health and economy.

An article by Ruth Papazian* at American Greatness, shows why experts must be asked for their knowledge but not be allowed to make the decisions:

During the daily briefings of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, repeatedly referred to reports from frontline clinicians that the combination of the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine and the antibiotic azithromycin can completely clear coronavirus from the body within six days as “anecdotal” evidence.

And, as such, inadequate. As she puts it, “To a political journalist, ‘anecdotal’ evidence is unsubstantiated hearsay.”

But –

To a medical journalist, “anecdotal” evidence is what doctors in the field are reporting.

… Over and over again, Fauci gave the false impression that the experimental treatment regimen would not, or could not, be given to severely ill patients before data from large-scale, randomized double-blind clinical trials becomes available: “My job as a scientist is . . . to prove without a doubt that a drug is not only safe, but it actually works.”

All well and good, but a clinician’s job is to save lives. And in the midst of a burgeoning global pandemic when speed is of the essence, field experience with two drugs whose safety profiles are well understood suffices to treat patients who are likely to die. For this reason, the FDA-approved chloroquine … for “compassionate use”. …

The combination of HCQ+AZ could cause abnormal heart rhythms and would not be given to patients with known atrial flutter or atrial fibrillation. Research suggests one alternative for these patients: The combination of chloroquine and zinc, which can stop the virus from replicating.

“Anecdotal” evidence typically prompts new, off-label uses (not FDA-approved) of available medications that eventually become standard treatment after the controlled clinical studies are done. For instance, doctors used HCQ off-label to treat lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, scleroderma, and sarcoidosis, and this is now standard treatment for these conditions.

Making the perfect the enemy of the good, Fauci was dismissive both of clinical use of HCQ+AZ in China and South Korea, but also of small clinical trials in China and in France. …

There is one critical clinical trial Fauci should have initiated as soon as it became apparent hospitals nationwide lacked adequate supplies of face masks and shields, gloves, gowns, and other personal protective equipment to handle the pandemic: The prophylactic administration of HCQ to frontline healthcare personnel in coronavirus hot spots.

Doctors and nurses at one hospital in Seattle, Los Angeles, and New York City could be given the anti-malarial drug to see whether they are more resistant to coronavirus infection than their counterparts at another hospital in those cities not taking it.

After 50 years in Washington, Fauci has become an overly-cautious bureaucrat: “It probably would be several weeks and maybe longer before we know whether [containment measures] are having an effect.”

No, we will know by mid-April whether the rate of infection has been significantly slowed by taking bold action to augment containment with widespread clinical use of HCQ+AZ to cure hospitalized patients and reduce the length of time they can pass on the infection to others, as well as to prevent infection in those caring for them.

Not taking these steps will unnecessarily prolong the pandemic, which will unnecessarily prolong and deepen the adverse economic effects of federal and state containment efforts.

We at The Atheist Conservative have no medical expertise, so we are not of course making a recommendation. We will just mention that we are drinking more gin and tonic than usual. The tonic gets its slightly bitter but pleasant taste from the quinine in it. It’s the quinine in hydroxychloroquine that – the medical experts say – helps to overcome the coronavirus. So while it is a pleasure to drink, gin-and-tonic might – just might – also be a life-saver.

 

*Ruth Papazian is the Republican candidate running for election against Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in New York’s 14th. Congressional District.

It seems more than probable that the rickety, corrupt, gynocratic, dictatorial European Union is being finally destroyed by the Chinese Virus.

Its ultimate test came with the pandemic. The country worst affected – even worse perhaps than China itself where the pestilence originated – is the EU member-state, Italy.

In an article published today (March 21, 2020) by Gatestone, titled European Union: The End?, Judith Bergman writes:

Italy appealed [to the EU] for help at the beginning of its coronavirus crisis – and received in return exactly nothing. …

In addition, Germany and France, leading EU member states, even imposed bans or limitations on the export [sic] of facemasks and protective equipment.

The very idea that the countries of Europe, with their different characters, temperaments, languages, histories, traditions, capabilities and cultures, could form a union like the United States of America, was farcical. The attempt to implement it has been a prolonged pretense, a staged sham, a parody doomed to the ugly failure it is now proving to be.

Reality is exposing the make-believe, breaking up the theatrical performance:

When an entire continent is in the midst of a highly contagious virus epidemic, solidarity becomes a more complex issue. Every state inevitably considers whether it can afford to send facemasks and protective equipment that might be needed for its own citizens. In other words, every state considers its own national interest first. In the case of Italy’s appeal for help, EU member states made their own interests their highest priority. This is classic state behavior and would not have caused any outrage prior to the establishment of the European Union.

What the coronavirus crisis reveals is that the member states of the European Union will revert to national interests when extreme circumstances call for it. While such revelations may not spell the immediate end of the European Union, they certainly raise questions about the point of an organization that pledges solidarity as a founding principle, but abandons that principle the moment it is most called for.

And it’s not only the awful reality of a highly infectious disease that is forcing the diverse nations to admit and attend to necessary self interest. There is also the Islamic invasion, now reaching a climax as Turkey threatens to pour a million Muslim immigrants – aka “refugees” – into Europe through the poor EU member-state Greece. Greece found itself standing alone against an incoming human tide. Greek soldiers guarded the border, shot live ammunition into the invading hordes, and even exchanged fire with a Turkish tank or two.

As Judith Bergman says –

Coronavirus, however, is not the only recent issue to put into question the viability of the European Union.

The current crisis on the Greek-Turkish border has shown the EU not only as unhelpful, but an actual liability: The EU left an already overwhelmed Greece to deal with the migrant crisis — manufactured by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for political gain – on its own, despite the apparent rhetorical support by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who called Greece Europe’s “shield”.

President Erdoğan wants Turkey’s admittance to the EU, and billions of Euros in aid. Angela Merkel, still de facto leader of the wealthiest member-state Germany and therefore also of the EU, pays again and again.

Turkey’s migrant blackmail worked surprisingly well and surprisingly fast. …

Erdoğan got what he wanted.

The money, anyway. Five billion euros already given is only a start.

Consequently, on March 18, Erdoğan announced that the migrant crisis that he had orchestrated was officially over: Turkey was closing its borders with Greece and Bulgaria, ostensibly due to the coronavirus. The Telegraph cited reports from Turkish news website Medyascope that around 150 buses had been readied to collect migrants from the border and ferry them back to Istanbul and refugee camps.

Erdoğan can use the same threat as often as he chooses. And it will continue to work for him. Until Angela Merkel goes. Or the EU itself has gone with the infected wind of change.

The EU may not formalize its disbandment for a while yet, but who can continue to believe in its viability now?

The coronavirus is Chinese. It comes from China.

President Trump is right to call it “the Chinese Virus”.

China is virulent. Infections seep out of it and poison the world.

Ann Coulter writes at Townhall:

Here’s a thought: While self-quarantining with their families in multimillion-dollar Manhattan co-ops, Wall Street wives ought to have a chat with their Master of the Universe husbands about China, globalism and political correctness. Those are the vectors of their robber-baron wealth.

Thanks to “globalism” – i.e., cheap goods from China – we’ve gotten many wondrous things, for example:

Toothpaste on American shelves made with a poison found in antifreeze;

Toxic Chinese drywall installed in about 100,000 U.S. homes, emitting noxious fumes that destroyed electrical wiring and metal fixtures and sickened homeowners. Replacement of the drywall, pipes and wiring cost Americans billions of dollars.

Hundreds, possibly thousands, of American dogs killed by melamine-laced Chinese dog food in 2007.

The loss of about 200,000 beautiful maple trees lining the streets of small New England towns, eaten by Asian long-horned beetles that arrived on Chinese cargo ships in 1996. The U.S. taxpayer spends hundreds of millions of dollars to eradicate the repeated outbreaks that continue to this day, despite promises from the Chinese to do better.

Viral pandemics – H1N1 (from China), bird flu (from China), SARS (from China) and now the Wuhan virus (from China).

Is it really worth paying $3 for a T-shirt at Walmart, rather than $9? The precise reason Chinese goods are so cheap is that they skip the crucial quality-control step.

The media’s reaction to this latest pandemic out of China is to say …

Let’s get one thing straight: the Chinese have nothing to do with this! 

Well, like most animal-to-human viruses, this one did originate in China and then spread across the globe when Chinese tourists infected people in other countries. …

When the pandemic arrived, at least the World Health Organization leapt to action. First step: Find a cure? Develop a vaccine? Demand protections for the elderly?

NO!

WHO officials got together and worked on coming up with a new name for the “Wuhan virus” that sounded less Asian.

Next, the WHO put out a “Fact Sheet” to ensure that those with Kung Flu would not be stigmatized. It instructed:

DO talk about people “acquiring” or “contracting” #COVID-19.

DON’T talk about people “transmitting COVID-19”, “infecting others” or “spreading the virus” as it implies intentional transmission & assigns blame.

The WHO is a UN agency and therefore incurably corrupt, friendly to tyrannies, deceitful, anti-American, and evil through and through.

And therefore Americans on the Left appreciate it immensely.

Americans on the Left “think” that to be racist is much worse than to be a spreader of coronavirus:

As fear of the Chinese virus spread, Gloria Allred brought a lawsuit against a Los Angeles school for sending an Asian student to the school nurse after he coughed in class.

Americans are cowering in their homes. Airlines, restaurants, beaches, ski resorts, professional sports, colleges and stores have been shut down. But we must never violate the fundamental civil right of an Asian to cough in class and refuse to see the nurse!

The New York Times has also been on the racism beat, with these pressing stories:

As Chinese Grapple With a New Illness, an Old Stigma Is Revived

An Outbreak of Racist Sentiment as Coronavirus Reaches Australia

As Coronavirus Spreads, So Does Anti-Chinese Sentiment

And there’s more!

Virus Fuels Anti-Chinese Sentiment Overseas

Coronavirus Outbreak Risks Reviving Stigma for China

… A few weeks ago – before a trillion dollars in wealth was destroyed by the coronavirus panic and we learned the real disease was racism – everyone, including the [New York] Times, admitted that the virus was brought to Italy by two Chinese tourists.

“[T]here had not yet been any confirmed cases in Italy,” the Times reported, “until Jan. 30, when the government announced the first two cases.” The scientific director of an infectious diseases hospital in Rome identified them: “Two Chinese tourists visiting Rome.”

[But then] the Times buried this fact in an article perversely titled: “Cruise Passengers Are Held at Italian Port in False Alarm Over Coronavirus.” On one hand, a bunch of cruise passengers were inconvenienced for 12 hours; on the other hand, a viral pandemic that could kill millions was introduced to Italy. You write the headline.

Lombardy is the Italian region most devastated by the Wuhan virus. As far back as 2003, a Library of Congress report cited Lombardy as having the highest concentration of Chinese immigrants in Italy. Our media refuses to tell us this fact today – or any day. …

According to the dire estimates of the Imperial College of London – whose assessment we are following – excepting those with underlying medical conditions, the new coronavirus is far less deadly than the seasonal flu to anyone under 60 years old. It’s no worse than the 2017-18 flu season for those in their 60s.

But it’s five to 10 times more deadly than the regular flu for those in their 70s and 80s, respectively.

We ought to surround old folks homes with the National Guard and call it a day. It would probably save more lives and wouldn’t destroy the economy.

But there’s no time to think about saving lives.

The important thing is to stamp out the idea that a virus that originated in China has anything to do China.

Because in truth it has everything to do with China.

Democrats object to that being said, not only because in their race-obsessed minds saying so is “racist”, but also because their policies for America are of a Chinese Communist kind.

The whole line of Democratic presidential candidates were for Communist policies: national health (death panel) service, open borders (for world Communist government), abortion on an industrial scale, leaving newborn babies to die, censoring news, disarming the citizens …

John Nolte writes at Breitbart:

With some experts predicting, at a minimum, anywhere from 480,000 to 1.6 million American deaths from the coronavirus over the next three to 18 months, how smart does urban living, mass transit, open borders, reusable straws, reusable grocery bags, reusable water bottles, gun restrictions, over-regulated housing, using the Centers for Disease Control to fight gun violence, and outsourcing to China look now?

Hey, we don’t know what’s going to happen with the coronavirus. What we do know, though, is that between last Sunday and this Sunday, things went from Zero to Crazy in one week: We shut down our economy, store shelves are empty or emptying, the president’s on television every day, and there’s serious talk of a national quarantine.

We are also learning, at a fairly rapid pace, how a pandemic operates, how a virus spreads, and how vulnerable we are to such things, and just how so many leftist ideas have made us even more vulnerable.

Just for a moment, close your eyes, and picture the establishment media’s and left’s (but I repeat myself) idea of The Virtuous American…

• • Virtuous American wakes up in a small efficiency apartment located in a densely populated high-rise, eco-friendly building where there’s no fresh air because you can’t open the windows. But all that recycled air ensures a perfect 72 degree lifestyle.
  • Virtuous American exits his high-rise building for a half-mile walk through Virtue City, which is teeming with people.
  • Along the way, Virtuous American stops at a coffee shop, which is packed with other Virtuous Americans, who are handing reusable, eco-friendly containers to a barista who fills everyone’s order without changing his gloves (to save plastic) or washing his hands (to save water).
  • Virtuous American rides to work in jam-packed subway car.
  • Virtuous American exits the subway and walks to work through a sanctuary city teeming with illegal aliens who have been allowed to sneak in from every foreign country and stay without being screened or tested.
  • Virtuous American goes to work in an urban high-rise building that is hermetically sealed to save energy, which means recycled air instead of fresh air… You can’t open the windows.
  • Throughout the day, Virtuous American sips water from a bacteria-infested reusable bottle (that he might have rinsed out with cold water a few days ago). He refills his environmentally friendly, reusable bottle from a centrally located, environmentally friendly dispenser everyone touches throughout the day.
  • For lunch, Virtuous American enters a crowded deli and orders food prepared and served by illegal aliens who have never been screened or tested.
  • On the way back to the office, Virtuous American digs into his man-purse and removes a bacteria-infested reusable straw (he or may not have run a little cold water through a couple of days ago) and pops it into his iced coffee while gingerly walking through a poopy homeless encampment because Virtue City’s building regulations protect Gaia.
  • After work, Virtuous American stops at the grocery store and fills his environmentally friendly bacteria-infested reusable cloth grocery bags (that he might have washed two weeks ago) with fresh fruits and vegetables.

Then the pandemic hits… And thanks to a dense population, crowded mass transit, recycled air, poopy streets, bacteria-infested (but environmentally friendly) cups, straws, bottles, and bags, it spreads like wildfire though Virtue City.

Will Virtuous American be laughing at McMansion American while looking for a place in that tiny (but environmentally friendly) apartment to store enough food and water for four weeks?

Will Virtuous American be laughing at Gun-Nut American when tensions increase due to empty store shelves and the only thing between Virtuous American and I’m Taking All Your Shit American is a door made from 100% recycled paper products?

Will Virtuous American be laughing at Hick American who lives anywhere from 50 feet to 50 acres from any potential Possibly Infected American?

And what about Globalist American? When his parents can’t get their medications because they’re made in China, how funny is America First American looking now, pal?

And let’s not forget Social Justice American, the American who demands the Centers for Disease Control atomize its focus to include obesity and guns.

What do these environmental loons think? That the whole idea of disposable items was just for laughs? That single-use was developed by some Bond villain desperate to destroy the planet? That going out to the country for “fresh air” was just some quaint concept?

No, the reason disposable items became so popular was sanitation. What could be safer than removing a straw from a sealed paper sleeve? Those straws are now outlawed in California.

What could be safer than single-use grocery bags where you throw away that leaked meat juice instead of carrying it around until you finally throw the bags in the wash? Those single-use bags are now banned in eight states, including New York, whose ban took effect on March 1.

What could be safer than opening your own factory-sealed water bottle?

What could be more secure and safe than a home large enough to self-quarantine for two months and the firearms to protect it?

What could be smarter than not relying on China, a country that is infamous for being Pandemic Ground Zero, for our supply chains?

Why do you think we had immigrants funneled through Ellis Island? So we knew who was coming in. So we could give them a medical check, dumbass.

Oh, and by all means Medicare for All! Even as the private sector gears us up for the testing our government couldn’t handle, even as Democrat governors beg for more state autonomy to handle these health issues… By all means, it’s time to hand our health care over to the one-size-fits-all geniuses whose health care killed countless American veterans. 

But there was Joe Biden … promising that in the first 100 days of his administration the borders will be wide open.

And he’s going to pass tougher gun laws.

And he’s going to make us even more dependent on foreign oil.

And he doesn’t take the threat of China seriously.

And he opposes travel bans [even when they help to stop the spread of a disease].

And, and, and…

And no matter what happens, the Left will never, ever, ever change their ways or stop promoting their ideal of The Virtuous American.

*

Not only did the virus originate in China – the Chinese dictatorship went to some trouble to let it spread.

To emphasize China’s guilt we quote this, by Guy Benson writing at Townhall:

A recent study determined that if the Chinese government had listened to an early whistleblower and quickly initiated containment efforts, rather than punishing and censoring the information, cases in their country could have been reduced by up to 95 percent: “The early detection and isolation of cases was estimated to prevent more infections than travel restrictions and contact reductions, but integrated NPIs would achieve the strongest and most rapid effect. If NPIs could have been conducted one week, two weeks, or three weeks earlier in China, cases could have been reduced by 66%, 86%, and 95%, respectively, together with significantly reducing the number of affected areas.”

We are living through another grave legacy of Communism. That won’t do much to help alleviate our current immense health and economic challenges, and it doesn’t absolve western leaders of any accountability for poor decisions, but it’s still the truth.

In this interview Mark Steyn denounces with indignation the Left’s inability to talk seriously about the coronavirus pandemic. Instead those “shrieking twerps” bring all discussion within their own “shriveled pointless parameters”, forever crying “racist”:

https://youtu.be/FmMKjHyn410

 

And Deroy Murdock writes at TrumpTrain on the Left’s irrational Trump hatred and its tedious inappropriate accusation of racism:

President Donald J. Trump could announce tomorrow morning that he pulled an all-nighter, whipped out the Bunsen burners and Petri dishes, and created a combined vaccine and treatment against the deadly COVID-19 virus. Furthermore, under his new Injections for All program, 330 million free shots would be available for every American, starting with doses at every Walgreens and Duane Reade, as of High Noon.

Rather than cheer the president’s diligence and creativity, the guttersnipes who slam him at every turn would moan: “So what? Why didn’t he cure breast cancer? Does he hate women? And what about Tay-Sachs Disease? No cure for that? At last, this proves conclusively that he’s an anti-Semite.”

Soon after this pandemic emerged in Wuhan Province, China, and began its long march overseas, Trump banned the arrival of foreign nationals from China and those who had traveled there within 14 days of reaching the U.S. Rather than applaud Trump’s January 31 action to defend America from these dreadful pathogens, his indefatigable foes lined up to smite him.

“This is no time for Donald Trump’s record of hysteria and xenophobia – hysterical xenophobia – and fearmongering to lead the way instead of science,” former vice president Joe Biden thundered [or quavered] on February 2.

Three days later, Senate Democrat leader Chuck Schumer said via Twitter: “The premature travel ban to and from China by the current administration is just an excuse to further his ongoing war against immigrants.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D – California) attacked Trump for “using scare tactics about people coming back to our country”.

CNN warned that “the US coronavirus travel ban could backfire” and wind up “stigmatizing countries and ethnicities”. CNN also berated Trump’s panel of experts on public health and infectious disease for its “lack of diversity”, as if germs gave a damn about skin color.

CNN’s odious Jim Acosta berated Trump for calling COVID-19 a “foreign virus”, since this, too, would fuel — what else? — xenophobia. Never mind that this microbe first arose in China, which is not an American state, but a foreign country. Also, on January 23, Acosta referred via Twitter to “the growing spread of Wuhan Coronavirus.” Wuhan is not in Wisconsin. It’s in China. So, Acosta lacks even toothpicks on which to stand when he spews his ugliness.

Despite the Left’s destructive sniping, Trump’s “bigoted” travel restrictions kept infections and deaths far lower than they would have been otherwise.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, lauded the “original decision that was made by the president”. He added at a February 29 press conference: “If we had not done that, we would have had many, many more cases right here that we would have to be dealing with.”

If Trump had not taken these tough-but-effective steps six weeks ago, dead bodies likely would have piled up, as they have in Italy, and these very same Left-wing jackals would be screaming, “Why didn’t Trump ban flights from China? He knew each one was a missile brimming with biological weapons. But he let them land here anyway. Monster!”

The Daily Mail transmitted this lie via Twitter on March 9: “Trump REFUSES to say if he has been tested for coronavirus and storms out of White House briefing on crisis.”

Garbage!

As Turning Point USA’s Benny Johnson demonstrated via a video clip that he posted on Twitter, President Trump finished his press conference and said, “Thank you very much.” As he turned right to exit the White House press room, the gathered journalists inelegantly hollered questions at him, as they have done in that situation for decades. “Have you been tested?” a man in the crowd shouted. “Have you been tested? Mr. President, have you been tested? Mr. President, have you been tested?”

As presidents have done for decades, Trump ignored these screams and very casually walked out the door. He did not “REFUSE” to say anything, nor did he storm out of anywhere.

LIES! Or, more politely, fake news.

The dinosaur media also claimed that President Trump called COVID-19 “a hoax”. In fact, he referred to the Left’s critique of his Corona response as a hoax, designed to sandbag him, like the Russia and Ukraine hoaxes.

Revolting.

It doesn’t matter.

Trump is evil for not getting tested for Corona virus.

“If he understood his role as a moral leader, Trump would submit to the test — modeling appropriate behavior for the public,” CNN’s Chris Cillizza scolded. He cited the president’s CPAC speech, where he had no direct contact with someone who tested positive for COVID-19. “Sure, it would be done out of an abundance of caution, given that he almost certainly hasn’t been infected. But it would also provide leadership, destigmatizing and demystifying the idea of being tested. It would show that Trump was willing to go above and beyond prescribed conduct for the good of the American people.”

Cillizza added: “The Point: Trump has never understood the moral responsibilities and imperatives of being President. And he doesn’t appear to be starting now.”

So, to summarize: Trump is immoral and failed to destigmatize a non-mysterious test for which people are clamoring and whose limited supply is overwhelmed by enormous public demand.

But if Trump had gotten tested, just imagine the outrage. Cillizza and others would have demanded to know:

Why is Donald Trump wasting precious test kits on himself, while he is asymptomatic? Doesn’t he know that these test kits are extremely scarce, or his he too stupid to understand this? Who the hell does he think he is? This proves, once and for all, that he is a terminal narcissist!

For weeks, these vultures have called Trump’s response lackadaisical.

“What he’s doing is late, too late, anemic,” Pelosi whined. “Hopefully, we can make up for the loss of time.” On February 24, Schumer said Trump was “asleep at the wheel” and had “no plan”.

Perhaps President Trump could have fought this headache harder and sooner if he were not busy battling something that Pelosi, Schumer, and their Democrat comrades concocted all on their own: his impeachment by the House and trial in the Senate. While COVID-19 incubated and expanded, Trump was at least slightly distracted by Democrats’ despicable, futile, and totally failed bid to dislodge him from office. In fact, Trump’s February 6 Senate acquittal came a full week after his Chinese-travel ban.

According to NBC News, “The president doesn’t appear to be taking seriously the threat Americans see to their physical and financial health.”

Trump has failed to take COVID-19 seriously, specifically, through these initiatives: his initial Chinese-travel ban, his original public-health-emergency declaration, his formation of a task force to coordinate these efforts, under the leadership of Vice President Mike Pence; his signature on an $8.5 billion Corona emergency spending bill, meetings with drug companies to speed vaccine development, pressure on the FDA to remove Obama-Biden-era red tape that hinders new-drug production, negotiations with insurance companies to encourage them to offer COVID-19 tests for free (absent co-pays, etc.), and more.

Also, the president addressed the American people from the Oval Office Wednesday night. That’s as serious as a president of the United States can get. He announced a 30-day moratorium on flights from 26 European nations, starting tonight. (The UK and Northern Ireland are exempt.) Centers for Disease Control chief Robert Redfield said: “If you want to be blunt, Europe is the new China.”

Well, now Trump is overreacting. It’s too much. He’s out of control.

“Coronavirus knows no borders but borders are the only thing that President Trump knows with regard to Covid-19,” global-health expert Thomas Bollyky told Vox in an article headlined Coronavirus is already here. Blocking travelers won’t prevent its spread. …

Allowing new cases into America would not be spreading it?

And now that Trump is blocking flights from Austria, France, Germany, Norway and other countries that quite fairly can be called white, does this expose his anti-Caucasian bias? If so, his self-hatred would seem to negate charges of his towering vanity. If not, this suggests that such travel limits are color blind and are a necessary evil when coping with people who, through no fault of their own, carry disease — whether they are Chinese, European, or simply traversing those locations.

It never stops.

Trump haters pummel him with sledgehammers all day, every day, no matter what.

It doesn’t matter.

This reprehensible headline in America’s so-called “Paper of Record” serves as an instruction manual for the enemies of the President of the United States to respond to anything and everything he does or says while battling this national emergency:

“Let’s Call It Trumpvirus.”

So proving the accuracy of Mark Steyn’s description of those “shrieking twerps” on the Left! Having no cause but hatred of President Trump, nothing to say but  “Racist!”, those are the “shriveled parameters” of their discourse.

It becomes obvious that governments unaccountable to the people are dangerous to the whole world when they cannot control and contain a viral epidemic. Countries and continents  are now too interconnected, people travel far too much for an infection not to spread rapidly everywhere. In our time, such governments are intolerable to the entire human race.

We are pointing an accusing finger at China, of course. But it is not only China and the other Communist countries whose governments are not accountable to the people and can all too easily spread disease and death.

To a lesser extent, but still dangerously, the Deep State, or the Administrative State, or the Swamp (aren’t they really the same thing?) of the United States does it too.

Daniel Greenfield writes at Front Page:

The decision to fly back infected American passengers from the Diamond Princess … helped spread the virus inside the United States.

President Trump had been told that nobody with the coronavirus would be flown to America.

The State Department decided to do it anyway without telling him and only made the announcement shortly after the planes landed in the United States.

According to the Washington Post, as unfriendly an outlet to the administration as there is, “Trump has since had several calls with top White House officials to say he should have been told, that it should have been his decision and that he did not agree with the decision that was made.”

Who in the State Department actually made the decision? That’s a very good question.

According to a State Department briefing, the missions were carried out by the Directorate of Operational Medicine within the Bureau of Medical Services. You might think that sounds like it would be part of HHS or NIH, but the Bureau of Medical Services is actually an arm of the State Department.

The State Department is notoriously an extra noxious region of the Swamp.

The Directorate of Operational Medicine is a part of the Bureau assigned to deal with crisis response with a $250 million portfolio and a lot of employees that almost no one outside D.C. ever heard of. At least unless you remember an event at which Barack Obama honored Dr. William Walters, the head of the Directorate, for evacuating Ebola patients to the United States.

“Now, remember, the decision to move Kent back to the United States was controversial.  Some worried about bringing the disease to our shores.  But what folks like William knew was that we had to make the decisions based not on fear, but on science,” Obama said.

By “some”, Obama meant, among others, Trump, who had been a strong critic of the move.

Despite Obama’s end-zone dance, the State Department had badly botched the Ebola evacuations.

Under Bush, the CDC had prepped an evacuation aircraft for flying out contagious Americans. The Obama administration shelved the gear because of the cost, and then failed to make use of it. The evacuation process led to the same infighting between the State Department and the CDC as now.

Dr. William Walters is still on duty. In 2017, Walters was boasting of prepping more Ebola evacuations even over President Trump’s opposition to the practice. And he was once again at the wheel now.

“The question was simply this: Are these evacuees?” Walters explained the decision to evacuate coronavirus patients to the United States. “And do we follow our protocol? And the answer to that was yes on both accounts.”

Consulting President Trump was not part of the protocol even on a major national security issue.

In a Congressional briefing, Walters boasted that, “the Department executed the largest non-military evacuation of U.S. citizens in its history. The safe and efficient evacuation of 1,174 people from Wuhan, China and people onboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan is a testament to the agility, proficiency, and dedication of our workforce to accomplishing our core mission – advancing the interests of the American people.”

And the triumph of the administrative state and its bureaucratic protocols over the President.

At a State Department briefing, Walters stated that, “The chief of mission, right, through the U.S. embassy, is ultimately the head of all executive branch activities.”

That is the problem. Right there.

Walters got his job in 2011. He’s a relic of the Obama era. That doesn’t mean that his politics are those of his former boss. But this is not about him. It’s about the reality that the White House doesn’t make many of the most vital decisions and doesn’t even know that they’re being made until it’s too late.

And what that means, beyond the politics of the moment, is that the people don’t decide.

You can vote one way or another and the real decisions that matter will still be made by the head of a directorate that is a subsection of a bureau that you never heard of, but that has a budget in the hundreds of millions, a small army as its disposal, and will follow whatever the protocol is.

This is how the country is really run. And that’s the problem.

The underlying problem with our government is that it’s too big to control. Voting in an election or even sitting in the Oval Office doesn’t mean you’re in charge. The problem goes beyond the current obsession with the Deep State. The real issue has always been the Deep Industry or the administrative state.

If the coronavirus becomes a critical problem in this country, the blame will go back to an obscure arm of the State Department, but it will never be placed there. Whatever happens a year from now, no one outside a small professional class will have ever heard of the Directorate of Operational Medicine.

The media will spend all its time bashing President Trump, Pence, assorted cabinet members, and perhaps the CDC, without ever drilling down to the facts, even though it has them at hand. The media’s rule of thumb is that natural disasters and disease outbreaks are always successfully managed by Democrats and mismanaged by Republicans. Katrina and Maria were disasters, but Sandy was a success story. The coronavirus is a catastrophe, but the Ebola virus was brilliantly handed by smart people who are handling the coronavirus response. But it’s different because the guy in the White House is.

The truth is that all of these were mismanaged by the same agencies, many of the same people, and by a government infrastructure that excels at drawing up big budget proposals, but is inept at solving problems when they actually emerge, and just follow whatever protocols will cover its collective asses.

All the rest is a matter of the uncontrollable, the innate qualities of the storm or the disease, and the story that the media chooses to tell about the disaster in the service of its political agenda.

Even during the dying days of impeachment, the media was forced to realize that there was more interest in the coronavirus than there was in its attacks on Trump. The unfortunate decision to evacuate infected people to this country, against President Trump’s explicit wishes, provided the media with the opportunity to combine its attacks on Trump with the coverage of the coronavirus for ratings gold.

And if the stock market goes on falling, and the economy declines, it can even pull off a narrative coup.

Just as after Katrina and Maria, watch for the outpouring of lies, the claims that New Orleans had reverted to cannibalism and that everyone in Puerto Rico was dead, will be matched and exceeded.

There will be a cure for the coronavirus. But there’s no cure for the spread of viral fake news.

There is however a cure for the decisions that led to a coronavirus problem in the United States.

It’s called the Constitution.

America was meant to have a small government under the control of the people, not the bureaucrats. The real disease is bigger than the coronavirus. It’s a fatal illness called big government. Unlike the coronavirus, it has a total mortality rate. No society that has succumbed to it has ever survived.

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Our Facebook abstract of a Teaparty article:

The common influenza viruses have symptoms worse than those of the coronavirus and a much higher mortality rate. When are people going to wake up and stop buying into the propaganda about the dangerousness of the coronavirus being spread by the irresponsible leftist media which are literally looking to cause widespread chaos? A world in chaos is the only way the Left’s globalist agenda will come to fruition and here we are accepting it. Everyone needs to take a deep breath and realize that just because a virus has an official name does not mean it is cause for mass panic and chaos.

The American Left, to our joy, is dashing itself to pieces on the rocks of its own nonsense.

But the biggest strongest menace will continue to advance from the Left. From the farthest Left. From Communist China. 

In addition to its inimical trade practices – which President Trump is actively combating – China uses multifarious means against us.

The johnny-come-lately to the Democratic line-up of presidential candidates, former mayor of New York Michael Bloomberg, shills for China. We wouldn’t be surprised to learn that his billions have been augmented by generous emoluments from the Chinese communist regime.

China indoctrinates Americans through our own educational institutions and undermines our scientific and technological superiority with our own inventions and discoveries.

Professor Walter Williams writes at Townhall:

Charles Lieber, former chairman of the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard, was arrested earlier this year on accusations that he made a materially false, fictitious and fraudulent statement about work he did for a program run by the Chinese government that seeks to lure American talent to China. He was paid $50,000 a month and up to $158,000 in living expenses for his work, which involved cultivating young teachers and students, according to court documents. According to the Department of Justice, Lieber helped China “cultivate high-level scientific talent in furtherance of China’s scientific development, economic prosperity and national security“.

It’s not just Harvard professors. Newly found court records reveal that Emory University neuroscientist Li Xiao-Jiang was fired in late 2019 after being charged with lying about his own ties to China. Li was part of the same Chinese program as Lieber. A jury found a University of California, Los Angeles, professor guilty of exporting stolen U.S. military technology to China. Newsweek reported that he was convicted June 26 on 18 federal charges. Meanwhile, NBC reported that federal prosecutors say that University of Texas professor Bo Mao attempted to steal U.S. technology by using his position as a professor to obtain access to protected circuitry and then handing it over to the Chinese telecommunications giant, Huawei.

China is steadily building up its military power.

And even that is not all or the worst of it. China harms the world without firing a single missile. Because it is a badly governed country, it can do nothing effective about epidemics of disease that break out among its own vast population and spread over every inhabited continent – as is happening now with the coronavirus.

Communist government – cruel and oppressive though it is – is not even efficient government. Marxism, collectivism, socialism, communism – call it what you will – is too often spoken of, written about, thought of as ensuring security. At the price of freedom, yes. Given that choice, many, it is said, would choose security over freedom.

Nothing could be plainer now than that Communism does not guarantee security.

To the contrary. All it guarantees is enslavement, poverty, sorrow, sickness and mass death.