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Ruth King

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Europe’s Moment of Truth By Ashoka Mody

By on April 29th, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/04/europes-moment-of-truth/

The COVID-19 crisis has pushed the euro zone to its breaking point.

O n April 16, responding to the COVID-19 crisis, French president Emmanuel Macron said Europe had arrived at its “moment of truth.” Economics is a “moral science,” he insisted. The euro zone’s financially stronger nations, therefore, have an obligation to look after their weakest partners by establishing a fund that “could issue common debt backed by a common guarantee.” It was the expected high-minded call for a technocratic solution, and it dodged the fundamental underlying political question. In a euro zone still based on nation-states, the strong, broadly speaking, ‘northern’ members have always asked why they should aid their weaker southern counterparts. Today, leaders of those northern states are being called to help the southern members on a scale never before contemplated. Not surprisingly, when they all met in a videoconference on April 23, they ignored Macron.

Europe is indeed at a moment of truth, but European politicians have yet to grasp how bleak that truth really is. All economic forecasts today are too optimistic. Even the strongest European countries will have their hands full coping with domestic economic distress. In such conditions, everyone is on his own. Cooperation is hard enough within federal states, as recent tensions in Germany and even more so the U.S. demonstrate. Cooperation on the scale required within the euro zone, based as it is on the E.U.’s confederation of nation-states, would require a remarkable political revolution.

All economic forecasts are optimistic

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3 Digital Realities Arising From The Covid19 Pandemic Chuck Brooks

By on April 29th, 2020

https://www.forbes.com/sites/cognitiveworld/2020/04/28/3-digital-realities-arising-from-the-covid19-pandemic/#14c1c8e634dc

The Covid19 pandemic has brought misery to most of the world. Unlike the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic we do have a better ability to surveil the virus ecosystem and process lessons learned through our digital technologies. There are many lessons still to learn, but three digital realities can guide our future outlook.  

Hospitals And Healthcare Facilities Are Critical Assets That Need To Be Cyber Protected

During the Covid19 Hospitals and healthcare providers have demonstrated the critical importance to our economy and lives. While doctors, nurses and health workers are in the front lines fighting for patients survival, their medical facilities have been bombarded with cyber-attacks, including phishing emails, malicious malware and ransomware. Recently ransomware took down the website of the Champaign-Urbana Public Health District in Illinois, USA. NRC Health, a company that supplies software to healthcare organizations was also hit by a ransomware attack.

The reality is that hospitals are logical hacker targets. Medical care has become more networked and interconnected via computers and devices, and the digital landscape of health administrators, hospitals, and patients, has become increasingly vulnerable. Hospitals are  susceptible to cyber threats because of the large data flows many points of vulnerability throughout their various systems. It is not only the enterprise networks, medical devices such as ventilators, monitors, pumps, electrocardiographs, lasers, medical apps, infusion pumps, and diagnostic imaging systems are also hacker targets.

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Who Wrote This Pro-Communist China Article? CNN Or Xi Jinping?By Kylee Zempel

By on April 29th, 2020

https://thefederalist.com/2020/04/29/who-wrote-this-pro-communist-china-article-cnn-or-xi-jinping/

This kind of false information from CNN demonstrates the U.S. mainstream media cannot be trusted so long as it continues to do the bidding of the Communist Party of China.

While the world runs damage control on a global pandemic that originated in communist China, CNN is praising China’s “model of control” and parroting Chinese propaganda in a story that reads as though it were written by none other than dictator Xi Jinping himself.

In an article Wednesday titled “China’s model of control has been blamed for the coronavirus crisis, but for some it’s looking increasingly attractive,” CNN’s James Griffiths props up the Chinese Communist Party’s coronavirus response, parroting Chinese media’s duplicitous claims that the country sufficiently control of the virus, while downplaying the CCP’s role in spreading COVID-19 to the rest of the world. The article’s inaccuracy is underscored by its internal contradictions, such as acknowledging state-run media as propaganda but then regurgitating its claims.

CNN Acknowledges Chinese Propaganda, Repeats It Anyway

After guilting “numerous Western politicians, particularly on the right” for blaming the CCP for the pandemic, CNN notes that the virus did indeed originate in China, but couches it in laudatory language. “[F]or some, the Beijing model is not necessarily looking so bad,” Griffiths says. “China … has coped with the ensuing pandemic far better than many other countries.”

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AN EGREGIOUS STATISTICAL HORROR STORY  By George Gilder

By on April 29th, 2020

https://www.tothepointnews.com/2020/04/an-egregious-statistical-horror-story/  

With the latest reports of plummeting death rates from all causes, this crisis is over.

The pandemic of doom erupted as a panic of pols and is now a comedy of Mash-minded med admins and stooges, covering their ifs ands and butts with ever more morbid and distorted statistics.

The crisis now will hit the politicians and political Doctor Fauci who gullibly accepted and trumpeted what statistician William Briggs calls “the most colossal and costly blown forecast of all time.”

An egregious statistical horror story of millions of projected deaths, suffused with incense and lugubrious accents from Imperial College of London to Harvard School of Public Health, prompted the pols to impose a vandalistic lockdown on the economy. It would have been an outrage even if the assumptions were not wildly astronomically wrong.

Flattening the curve was always a fool’s errand that widened the damage.

President Trump had better take notice. He will soon own this gigantic botch of policy and leadership. No one will notice that his opponents urged even more panicky blunders.

As Briggs shows (see link), the latest figures on overall death rates from all causes show no increase at all. Deaths are lower than in 2019, 2018, 2017 and 2015, slightly higher than in 2016. Any upward bias is imparted by population growth.

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Remember the Hong Kong flu? Carol Brown

By on April 29th, 2020

www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/04/remember_the_hong_kong_flu.html

An I’m-so-cute-and-clever reporter recently asked the president if he deserved to be re-elected given the number of deaths from coronavirus, noting that the number is greater than American fatalities from the Vietnam war.

People can always find something as a point of comparison as if that automatically adds weight to what they are implying. No doubt this reporter thought stats from the Vietnam war added gravitas to her query.

In any case, her disrespectful and rude question didn’t deserve to be dignified with an answer. But Trump answered her anyway. Unfortunately, he didn’t use the opportunity to his advantage by giving her a little history lesson, as discussed at The Daily Wire:

…She may have been unaware that at the height of the Vietnam war, there was something that killed more Americans than the war did, and it was a similar virus — and no one questioned whether a president should be elected or not because of the virus, known as the Hong Kong Flu.

In 1968-69, the Hong Kong flu ravaged the world; it wound up killing more than one million people worldwide, over 100,000 of them in the United States. No lockdowns were imposed and people still went to work, albeit lessening bus travel and implementing social distancing and more washing of their hands.

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To Prepare for COVID-19 Vaccine, Let’s Ensure Manufacturing Capacity Will Meet Demand Edmund Haislmaier

By on April 29th, 2020

https://www.dailysignal.com/2020/04/28/to-prepare-for-covid-19-vaccine-lets-ensure-manufacturing-capacity-will-meet-demand/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=to-prepare-for-covid-19-vaccine-lets-ensure-manufacturing-capacity-will-meet-demand?utm_source=TDS_Email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=MorningBell&mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiWXprd1l6azRaalV5T1RSayIsInQiOiJMUitrRE9ySFlCczlwQlcra0pERXd5WE9NNTU5aEJcL0llbWVmQUhvU2dMSnpVVEF6dWg5R0ppZVZBaG82aHpkZG5FWkdqY1Ntc1BnR29kRkhGdkMxbmY5emJLZDllY1l5dFZJMXVcL0VnU2xRZ2ZHU3pTSTdFSmJaNmRLVlVsRlwvWSJ9

Pharmaceutical and biotech companies, in collaboration with scientists in academia and government, are working flat-out to develop drugs and vaccines to treat or prevent COVID-19.

Although a vaccine is still months away, policymakers and the public should ask now: If and when their efforts succeed, will there be sufficient manufacturing capacity to meet the likely enormous demand?  

Fortunately, thanks to legislation passed by Congress back in 2004, President Donald Trump and his administration already have the authority they need to support and incentivize private companies with the relevant expertise and skills to build out manufacturing capacity as quickly as humanly possible.

Private industry faces significant risks in building manufacturing capacity at this stage. Given the national interest in making a vaccine available, the president should task his administration with acting now to prepare this capacity. 

In these trying times, we must turn to the greatest document in the history of the world to promise freedom and opportunity to its citizens for guidance. Find out more now >>

How It Works

The Project BioShield Act of 2004 gave the Department of Homeland Security authority to determine if a chemical, biological, or radiological agent presents “a material threat against the United States population sufficient to affect national security.”

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The House of Representatives has identified itself as a non-essential service By Andrea Widburg

By on April 29th, 2020

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/04/the_house_of_representatives_has_identified_itself_as_a_nonessential_service.html

The original plan in Washington, D.C., was for both the Senate and the House to reconvene on May 4. News broke on Tuesday, though, that the House will not be returning to work. It turns out that so many members of the House panicked at the thought of working once more for the American people that House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer was forced to announce that the House would remain closed next week (emphasis added):

We made a judgment that we will not come back next week but that we hope to come back very soon,” Hoyer told reporters on a press call.

Hoyer said he and Pelosi made the decision to halt plans to return after consulting Monday evening with the Capitol’s attending physician, who warned that lawmakers could be at risk given the still-rising number of coronavirus cases in the Washington, D.C. area. Nearly 4,000 people have tested positive in D.C., as of Monday, plus thousands more in the Maryland and Virginia suburbs.

“We had no choice. If the Capitol physician recommends that we not come back, then we have to take that guidance,” Pelosi told reporters on a separate call Tuesday afternoon.

Pelosi’s statement that “we had no choice” is a load of bull manure. All over America, people have been making choices to keep the country functional: Healthcare workers, truckers, factory workers, store clerks, sanitation workers, and many more. The list is endless.

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With States Re-Opening, Where Do We Go From Here? Let this be the moment we show that America is still capable of solving big problems. By Chris Buskirk

By on April 29th, 2020

https://amgreatness.com/2020/04/28/with-states-re-opening-where-do-we-go-from-here/

With many states starting to reopen significant portions of civil society that were closed, it’s time to assess where we are and what should come next. Much of the commentary for the past month or so has revolved around widely varying assessments of the “real risk” from COVID-19. Opinions vary widely, to say the least.

Much of the argument has taken place in a rapidly evolving context which started with very little definitive knowledge. Unfortunately, many policymakers and much of the media cited epidemiological models created very early in the crisis and, declaring them authoritative, used them as the basis to justify mass shutdowns to “flatten the curve.”

When the dire predictions did not come to pass—a good thing—combatants on both sides dug into their positions. Those who had cited the studies generally have taken the position that the shutdowns worked and saved many lives. Those who oppose the shutdowns point to the fact that the numbers of hospitalizations and deaths are much lower than the models predicted they would be with shutdowns in place, let alone without any shutdowns at all.

The good news is that with so much attention focused on this one problem, we are learning about this virus more quickly than humanity has ever learned about any disease ever before. What can be done to end the threat of this virus and create a model for addressing the next one? Because, you can rest assured, there will be a next one. Novel coronaviruses are going to be with us for a while. How did we get here and what should come next? Are shutdowns really going to be the new normal?

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The paranoid style in COVID-19 America The public health establishment is desperate to maintain hysteria in the populace Heather Mac Donald

By on April 29th, 2020

https://spectator.us/paranoid-style-covid-19-central-park-safetyism/

To grasp the urgency of lifting the ubiquitous economic shutdowns, visit New York City’s Central Park, ideally in the morning. At 5:45 am, it is occupied by maybe 100 runners and cyclists, spread over 843 acres. A large portion of these early-bird exercisers wear masks. Are they trying to protect anyone they might encounter from their own unsuspected coronavirus infection? Perhaps. But if you yourself run towards an oncoming runner on a vector that will keep you at least three yards away when you pass each other, he is likely to lunge sideways in terror if your face is not covered. The masked cyclists, who speed around the park’s inner road, apparently think that there are enough virus particles suspended in the billions of square feet of fresh air circulating across the park to enter their mucous membranes and to sicken them.

These are delusional beliefs, yet they demonstrate the degree of paranoia that has infected the population. Every day the lockdown continues, its implicit message that we are all going to die if we engage in normal life is reinforced. Polls show an increasing number of Americans opting to continue the economic quarantine indefinitely lest they be ‘unsafe’. The longer that belief is reinforced, the less likely it will be that consumers will patronize reopened restaurants or board airplanes in sufficient numbers to bring the economy back to life.

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Kori Ali Muhammad Guilty of Multiple Murders Sought to kill “as many white males as possible.” Lloyd Billingsley

By on April 29th, 2020

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/04/kori-ali-muhammad-guilty-multiple-murders-lloyd-billingsley/

A jury in Fresno, California, has found Kori Ali Muhammad, 42, guilty of murdering Zackary David Randalls, 34, Mark James Gassett, 37, and David Martin Jackson, 58, on April 18,  2017. A week before, Muhammad murdered Carl Williams, who was only 25.

Muhammad encountered Williams at a Fresno Motel 6 and felt “disrespected,” so he killed the man, whom he did not know and had not previously met. When police sought him for the shooting, Muhammad planned to “kill as many white men” as he could before being caught. So he drove through downtown Fresno firing at his targets of choice.

When he walked up to a truck, Muhammad said in his confession, “I saw a Mexican driver and a white guy. I didn’t want to target the driver because he was Mexican, so I shot the white dude.” The “white dude” was Zachary Randalls, whom Muhammad did not know and, as with all four victims, targeted solely because of his skin shade.

Muhammad encountered Mark James Gassett emerging from a Catholic Charities USA building and gunned him down with a .357 magnum revolver, shooting the victim again after he fell to the ground. Gassett was the father of two boys, Layten, 9, and Troy, 14.

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