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Ruth King

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Omar gets married. Again… By Ethel C. Fenig

By on March 12th, 2020

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/03/and_omar_gets_married_again.html

This is the week that began when we lost an hour as we sprang forward to save daylight and continued with a full spring moon, so close and large, enough to give many of us something to admire … while in self-isolation from coronavirus.  Sigh.

And so, in that spirit, Representative Ilhan Omar (D-Somalia in Minnesota) temporarily suspended her professional hate of America to announce, via Instagram:

No, this lucky third husband isn’t her brother as was husband #2 — or was he #1?  He is her married-to-someone else campaign aide and fundraiser who conveniently “earned” several hundred thousand dollars from her campaign when they worked together. But as Omar herself said, they weren’t having an affair, despite that lawsuit from that angry ex-wife who said there was. And now, he is married to Omar.  So she is praising her god for this rather gamy turn of events.  

Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-hating Israel in the safety of Michigan) temporarily suspended her eliminate-Israel-and-promote-an-imaginary Palestine campaign  to offer thousands of congratulations.  

The Democrats in Congress aren’t complaining.  They call it ‘diversity.’  

And tomorrow is Friday the thirteenth.  What else will this week bring?  

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The GOP chairwoman challenges the leftist narrative that Trump is a do-nothing By Andrea Widburg

By on March 12th, 2020

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/03/the_gop_chairwoman_challenges_the_leftist_narrative_that_trump_is_a_donothing.html

Epidemic illnesses are always going to be scary. That scariness is there even when we marshall the facts. One good fact is that this is the flu, with a probable top mortality rate of 4.6 percent, not the Black Death, with its 40-90 percent mortality rate. Another good fact is that the 4.6 percent rate is dropping because we can track the virus better. We’ve always known how many people died, but we’re learning that more people were sick than was first assumed. As the number of recovered sick people expands, the mortality rate drops.

What makes this outbreak exceptionally frightening, though, is the number of people who want it to be awful. Some of them are just drama queens, reveling in the horror of the moment and the even more horrific possibilities of the future. These people are toxic and need to be avoided.

Worse, though, are those people who see this as Trump’s Waterloo. The problem for them, though, is that the only way Trump can measurably fail is if lots of people die and the entire American system collapses. These people, therefore, are cheering on the possibility of death, economic collapse, and social chaos. That’s not just toxic, that’s evil.

One of the things the Waterloo-wishes are doing is attacking everything Trump has said or done. When he banned flights from China and quarantined people, he was racist. When coronavirus still made it to America, he was ineffective. And when he announced that he was closing flights from Europe, people announced, without a scintilla of evidence, that it was too little too late.

Even before Trump’s latest announcements about slowing the spread of coronavirus and securing the economy, Ronna McDaniel, the GOP Chairwoman, had put out a short thread reminding America what Trump was doing, even as the Democrats were attacking him:

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174 House Dems: Convicted Terrorists Must Not Be Barred from Working for TSA Of course. Voting the other way would have been “Islamophobic.” Robert Spencer

By on March 12th, 2020

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/03/174-house-dems-convicted-terrorists-must-not-be-robert-spencer/

As old Joe Biden would say, Look, Fat, look, here’s the deal: I’ve been warning for years that it would sooner or later become “Islamophobic” to offer even the mildest opposition to jihad violence, and that the “Islamophobia” mongers would become increasingly open about their support for jihad terrorists, and here we are. On Thursday, 174 Democrats in the House of Representatives voted against an amendment to the Rights for Transportation Security Officers Act that would prevent the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) from hiring convicted terrorists.

Yes, you read that right: if these House Democrats had gotten their way, on your next flight, you could have gotten a pat-down from a TSA agent who previously conspired to down the airplane you were planning to fly on. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) explained that the amendment “was pulled back by leadership because the socialist wing of the party did not want to have that amendment go forward on this bill. When it was offered, overwhelmingly the majority of the House would like to see the TSA not hire terrorists or those who have been convicted of sexual misconduct with minors and others. But the socialist wing of the party, that controls now the Democratic Party, said that that could not be offered.”

Allahu akbar, as these prospective TSA employees might have said, the whole thing exploded in their faces: enough Republicans and renegade Democrats votes for the amendment to pass it. But among the luminaries who thought it so important to avoid even the appearance of “Islamophobia” that they opposed an amendment barring terrorists from pawing through your belongings as you made your way through security were the infamous “Squad,” Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (D, Minn.), Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.), and Ayanna Pressley (D., Mass.), along with the supposedly sane and responsible House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D., Md.).

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Which Virus Is More Dangerous? Hint: it’s not the one the media is hyping. Bruce Thornton

By on March 12th, 2020

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/03/which-virus-more-dangerous-bruce-thornton/

The two big stories these days are the COVID-19 outbreak and the Democrat presidential primaries. The former is filled with the media’s apocalyptic hysteria about a disease that for now is less deadly than the yearly flu. The latter’s drama comes from the DNC’s and Democrat big donors’ success in neutralizing Bernie Sanders’ candidacy and all but ensuring that an addled mediocrity ends up being the Dems’ presidential candidate in November.

The Democrat primaries, however, are in large part a manifestation of the political virus that has infected the body politic for over three years, and that in the long run is more dangerous than the coronavirus: COVEFE-16, popularly known as Trump Derangement Syndrome. The coronavirus will eventually be contained, as previous viral outbreaks have been over the last few decades. TDS, on the other hand, may pave the way for the Dems’ control of the government come November. Such an outcome will mark a quantitative leap in the century-long dismantling of the Constitutional order that defends our political freedom.

The two diseases have converged in the NeverTrumpers’ attempts to blame the coronavirus on President Trump. A Politico headline sums it up: “Trump’s Mismanagement Helped Fuel Coronavirus Crisis.” A common sense response like barring travelers from China, ground zero of the outbreak, is called “xenophobia” and “racism.” Delays in getting test-kits available are laid at Trump’s feet, as though he directly manages their manufacture and distribution. Trump’s efforts to tamp down the panic are called callous indifference, though we all know if he’d been more urgent about the dangers, the media would have faulted him for stoking a panic.

As usual, all these criticisms never address the important caveat: Compared to what?

How about considering Barack Obama’s response to the 2009 swine flu outbreak? Journalist James Lileks has done so on his blog The Bleat. One critical difference is how long it took each president to declare the outbreak a national emergency: Trump a month after the outbreak was announced, Obama after four months, when the toll in the U.S. had reached 1000 dead (32 have died in the U.S. of the coronavirus, the vast majority over 70 years old). Most important, the media coverage of the swine flu––even though it was more deadly and half its victims, unlike the coronavirus, were healthy and young––was nowhere near the breathless hysteria or extent of the coverage today.

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What’s the difference between pandemic, epidemic and outbreak? Rebecca S.B. Fischer Assistant Professor of Epidemiology, Texas A&M University

By on March 11th, 2020

http://theconversation.com/whats-the-difference-between-pandemic-epidemic-and-outbreak-133048

The coronavirus is on everyone’s minds. As an epidemiologist, I find it interesting to hear people using technical terms – like quarantine or super spreader or reproductive number – that my colleagues and I use in our work every day.

But I’m also hearing newscasters and neighbors alike mixing up three important words: outbreak, epidemic and pandemic.

Simply put, the difference between these three scenarios of disease spread is a matter of scale.

Outbreak

Small, but unusual.

By tracking diseases over time and geography, epidemiologists learn to predict how many cases of an illness should normally happen within a defined period of time, place and population. An outbreak is a noticeable, often small, increase over the expected number of cases.

Imagine an unusual spike in the number of children with diarrhea at a daycare. One or two sick kids might be normal in a typical week, but if 15 children in a daycare come down with diarrhea all at once, that is an outbreak.

When a new disease emerges, outbreaks are more noticeable since the anticipated number of illnesses caused by that disease was zero. An example is the cluster of pneumonia cases that sprung up unexpectedly among market-goers in Wuhan, China. Public health officials now know the spike in pneumonia cases there constituted an outbreak of a new type of coronavirus, now named SARS-CoV-2.

As soon as local health authorities detect an outbreak, they start an investigation to determine exactly who is affected and how many have the disease. They use that information to figure out how best to contain the outbreak and prevent additional illness.

Epidemic

Bigger and spreading.

An epidemic is an outbreak over a larger geographic area. When people in places outside of Wuhan began testing positive for infection with SARS-CoV-2 (which causes the disease known as COVID-19), epidemiologists knew the outbreak was spreading, a likely sign that containment efforts were insufficient or came too late. This was not unexpected, given that no treatment or vaccine is yet available. But widespread cases of COVID-19 across China meant that the Wuhan outbreak had grown to an epidemic.

COVID-19 was first noticed in Wuhan, China, in late 2019 but quickly spread across the globe. This map shows all countries with confirmed cases on March 5, 2020. CDC

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Health Care Is a Right Only if Doctors Surrender Theirs By Frank Miele

By on March 11th, 2020

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/03/09/health_care_is_a_right_only_if_doctors_surrender_theirs_142591.html

Bernie Sanders is convinced that promising Americans guaranteed health care is the modern equivalent of “a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage,” but he is not alone. In some form or another, health care consistently tops every poll that gauges what makes Democrats tick.

So now that the race has narrowed to “Biden vs. Bernie,” it is time to ask what we the American people will be getting if the No. 1 issue on the Democrats’ agenda is actually implemented.

First of all, we should recognize that there is no realistic difference between any two Democrats on this topic, though some pretend they don’t want to bankrupt the economy by fully funding guaranteed health care for all. In fact, they all agree with Sanders that “health care is a right,” and that means they will ultimately try to buy health care for everyone, no matter how expensive it is.

But when you ask them how or why health care is a right in the same way that life and liberty are human rights, you get circular answers or misleading ones. It is a right because it is important, we are told. Or it is a right because it is unfair for some people to get better treatment than others merely because they have more money. By that reckoning, there is a right to fly first class.

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Predictions About A Coronavirus Vaccine Henry Miller

By on March 11th, 2020

https://amgreatness.com/2020/03/10/some-reality-testing-of-rosy-predictions-about-a-coronavirus-vaccine/

A Wuhan virus vaccine in the foreseeable future? Let’s get real. In spite of the rosy predictions by self-interested corporate executives, politicians, and pundits, don’t count on it.

When President Trump met with drug-company executives at the White House on March 2, at the top of the agenda was the development of a vaccine to prevent COVID-19, the respiratory infection caused by the Wuhan coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2 (the World Health Organization’s designation for the virus). “We’ve asked them to accelerate” work, the president told reporters.

As the coronavirus outbreak accelerates, with cases now found on every continent except Antarctica, and the world is hit with widespread social and economic disruption, there is intense interest in the development of a vaccine, and several U.S. drugmakers have begun working on them, independently or with the National Institutes of Health.

The media are hungry for claims about vaccines—the more extravagant, the better.

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Wuhan-Media virus infects America’s information stream Liz Shield

By on March 11th, 2020

https://amgreatness.com/2020/03/11/morning-greatness-wuhan-media-virus-infects-americas-information-stream/

EXCERPT

The ghoulish media and the Democrats continue to showcase Wuhan Flu, criticizing the administration, gleefully reporting its spread, business hardships and event cancellations. How should this epidemic have been handled? We don’t know because we don’t get solutions from the resistance only screaming. And yes, it’s the WUHAN FLU, that’s a fact-based description. It’s not racist, the flu originated from Wuhan. Full stop.

During the daily Wuhan-media virus press briefing yesterday, “journalist” Jim Acosta asked the task force if President Trump was still going to shake hands with people. UM…that’s your question about this plague devastating our community and sickening people?!? Not about the vaccine, not about further travel restrictions or what measures are recommended for nursing home residents but Trump’s hand-shaking. What a clown, really. There’s another crisis in America, and that’s the crisis of trust in the media. We are experiencing a public health crisis and the corporate media cannot be trusted to accurate report information. It’s scary.

Expect this continue because as more tests become available, more people will be officially diagnosed with the virus and the media will proudly display the disease count. Now remember, this virus first appeared at the end of November in China. Infected people were moving around the planet for at least two months before restrictions were put in place. This virus has been simmering in the population for awhile. I’m not downplaying it, if you are older and compromised please take extreme care. I’ve quarantined my mother, she is high risk. But if you aren’t in a high risk category, take steps to keep your hands clean with thorough washing and avoid sick people.

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Biden cleans up at Tuesday primaries Liz Shield

By on March 11th, 2020

EXCERPT

Sleepy Joe who had another “episode” yesterday, gathered more delegates in the primaries than Bernie Sanders. Pundits praised Biden’s electoral prowess but remember this Biden surge is mostly manufactured by the media. Biden was tanking and the establishment-media complex was all about Mike Bloomberg until he beclowned himself beyond belief at his lone debate performance. The Democrat machine doesn’t have anyone else to support after the poor performances in Nevada and South Carolina of Warren, Amy!, and Mayor Pete. It had to be Joe.

The problem is Sleepy Joe has to be heavily managed because he is clearly “off.” He already has had his campaign appearances shortened to prevent him from phasing out and going off piste. This is what Hillary’s handlers did and the media will let them get away with it. I remember after the 2016 election, reading the book “Shattered” which was supposed to be about Hillary shattering the glass ceiling but was quickly edited to reflect her the shattered presidential ambitions. The book was brutal about her campaign shenanigans but all the scoop in the book was withheld from the public during the campaign to protect her. The media will protect Biden in the same way. His campaign handlers will wheel him out with pope-mobile like security, he will speak briefly and they will pack him up and take him to the next location. But it’s a done deal, it’s going to be Biden.

Can Biden be managed in a debate setting? A debate is set for Sunday with Bernie (without an audience) but Biden might just pull out of it claiming nomination victory.  He will have to debate Trump and that will be quite a production.

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Supreme Court Allows ‘Remain in Mexico’ Rule to Remain in Place By Zachary Evans

By on March 11th, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/supreme-court-allows-rem

The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the Trump administration’s “Remain in Mexico” policy requiring asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their applications are processed in the U.S.

The court’s decision overturns a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals injunction against the policy covering the entire U.S.-Mexico border. Justice Sonia Sotomayor was the only judge who dissented. However, the ruling does not dispel other legal challenges currently brought against the policy in other courts.

The Remain in Mexico policy has been touted by the administration as a deterrent to illegal immigration. Around 60,000 asylum seekers are currently enrolled in the program.

Critics charge that it forces migrants to wait in dangerous Mexican border towns. In the 9th Circuit’s injunction, Judge William Fletcher wrote that the policy poses serious harm to migrants.

 

“[The Migrant Protection Protocols have] had serious adverse consequences for the individual plaintiffs,” Fletcher wrote. “Plaintiffs presented evidence in the district court that they, as well as others returned to Mexico under the MPP, face targeted discrimination, physical violence, sexual assault, overwhelmed and corrupt law enforcement, lack of food and shelter, and practical obstacles to participation in court proceedings in the United States.”

On Thursday the Pentagon announced it would deploy a “crisis force” of around 160 troops at two points on the U.S.-Mexico border, fearing that if the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the 9th Circuit, migrants would try to enter the U.S. en masse.

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