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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION

50 STATES AND DC, CONGRESS AND THE PRESIDENT

The Mysterious Rise, Fall, and Rise of Joe Biden By Victor Davis Hanson

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/03/joe-biden-campaign-known-quantity-compared-other-democrats/

As others sank in the polls, Biden seemed a known quantity in comparison.

For most of early 2019, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden — the declared custodian of liberalism who would continue the Obama glory years — seemed unstoppable.

He led all other rivals for months. Biden seemed above the fray. Many Democrats saw the pre-debate and pre-election race for the nomination as more of a Biden coronation than a contest.

In the summer and fall debates of 2019, Biden was occasionally confused about dates, places, names, and facts. In public appearances, he often seemed grouchy or dazed.

Biden was once faulted for being too handsy in his interactions with women; now he was being criticized for losing his temper and insulting people during campaign stops.

Democratic candidates such as Cory Booker, Pete Buttigieg, Julian Castro, Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, and Elizabeth Warren had all wounded the septuagenarian Biden, portraying him as too moderate and out of touch with contemporary green and diversity issues.

Democrat Dark Money Groups To Spend Millions Politicizing Wuhan Flu By Madeline Osburn

https://thefederalist.com/2020/03/19/democrat-dark-money-groups-to-spend-millions-politicizing-wuhan-flu/

A network of Democratic non-profits and super PACs are funneling millions of dollars toward advertisements in key swing states, with the intent of politicizing the Wuhan coronavirus crisis and blaming the pandemic on President Donald Trump.

The Washington Post reported the group Pacronym is planning to spend $5 million on ads attacking Trump’s response to the pandemic. Pacronym, whose board of directors includes former Barack Obama campaign manager David Plouffe, said its ads will target key 2020 swing states like Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Arizona.

Pacronym is the political action committee affiliated with Acronym, the non-profit who also funded Shadow, Inc., the company responsible for the failed Iowa caucuses reporting app. Acronym is financed by a larger democratic dark money group, New Venture Fund.

No, the White House didn’t ‘dissolve’ its pandemic response office. I was there.By Tim Morrison

https://mailchi.mp/5f7e413e09a1/krd-news-politicization-of-coronavirus?e=9365a7c

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/03/16/no-white-house-didnt-dissolve

President Trump gets his share of criticism — some warranted, much not. But recently the president’s critics have chosen curious ground to question his response to the coronavirus outbreak since it began spreading from Wuhan, China, in December.

It has been alleged by multiple officials of the Obama administration, including in The Post, that the president and his then-national security adviser, John Bolton, “dissolved the office” at the White House in charge of pandemic preparedness. Because I led the very directorate assigned that mission, the counterproliferation and biodefense office, for a year and then handed it off to another official who still holds the post, I know the charge is specious.

Now, I’m not naive. This is Washington. It’s an election year. Officials out of power want back into power after November. But the middle of a worldwide health emergency is not the time to be making tendentious accusations.

When I joined the National Security Council staff in 2018, I inherited a strong and skilled staff in the counterproliferation and biodefense directorate. This team of national experts together drafted the National Biodefense Strategy of 2018 and an accompanying national security presidential memorandum to implement it; an executive order to modernize influenza vaccines; and coordinated the United States’ response to the Ebola epidemic in Congo, which was ultimately defeated in 2020.

Rahm’s Rule and the Fourth Coup Attempt  by Linda Goudsmit

http://goudsmit.pundicity.com

 http://lindagoudsmit.com

I could not send my soon-to-be-released, The Book of Humanitarian Hoaxes: Killing America with ‘Kindness’, to print without including the following article as a warning:

Rumblings of a second Democrat impeachment effort against President Trump began immediately after his Senate acquittal on February 5, 2020. All talk of a second impeachment halted abruptly as soon as the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, China made the news.  

Rahm Emanuel, Barack Obama’s chief of staff, is remembered for saying, “You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that is it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.” Rahm’s Rule is a political calculation for exploiting an otherwise apolitical event.

The Russia-collusion coup attempt had failed. The Ukraine quid pro quo coup attempt had failed. The impeachment coup attempt had failed. President Trump’s enormously successful America-first policies remained an existential threat to globalism. The coronavirus outbreak presented an extraordinary crisis of opportunity for the increasingly desperate Democrats and their globalist handlers.

Democracy and Bureaucracy in a Time of Pandemic Charles Lipson

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/03/19/democracy_and_bureaucracy_in_a_time_of_pandemic_142702.html

As the coronavirus spreads and the Centers for Disease Control work around-the-clock to mitigate the disaster, it’s easy to see why we need competent government agencies. We don’t always get them. The CDC and National Institutes of Health botched their initial response to the virus — and we are all paying the price. They distributed unreliable test kits and, incredibly, prevented top research hospitals from developing their own tests. They failed to plan for the now-predictable spike in demand for respirators, ventilators, and beds in intensive-care units. Only now are tests becoming widely available, long after the disease has spread. Ugh.

With the U.S. economy stalled, schools and businesses closed, and families huddled at home, the CDC, NIH, the Food and Drug Administration, and Health and Human Services are finally doing what they should have done weeks ago: cutting through their own cumbersome red tape to respond aggressively to COVID-19. President Trump, whose reelection hangs in the balance, has declared a national emergency, banned most international travel, and encouraged unprecedented collaboration between government agencies and America’s top biotech companies, which are racing to invent vaccines, treatments, and swift, reliable tests. After a month of misleading happy talk, we are finally hearing some hard, ugly truths from the White House about what to expect.

Trump Draws Praise From Critics for Response to COVID-19 Pandemic By Zachary Stieber

https://www.theepochtimes.com/trump-draws-praise-from-critics-for-response-to-covid-19-pandemic_3278346.html

President Donald Trump has earned praise from critics during the COVID-19 crisis, including Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

The Trump administration’s response to the CCP virus has earned criticism for bungling early attempts at testing suspected patients. But his ordering the closing of the country to people from China and many of the administration’s recent efforts have drawn praise, even from unexpected quarters.

The Epoch Times refers to the novel coronavirus, which causes the disease COVID-19, as the CCP virus because the Chinese Communist Party’s coverup and mismanagement allowed the virus to spread throughout China and create a global pandemic.

Bloomberg Promises to Spend $40 Million to Fight Coronavirus in Other Countries By Eric Lendrum

https://amgreatness.com/2020/03/18/bloomberg-promises-to-spend-40

Michael Bloomberg (D-N.Y.), the former New York City Mayor and failed presidential candidate, has vowed to spend at least $40 million to help combat the spread of the coronavirus in Africa and other countries besides the United States, according to ABC News.

Bloomberg made the announcement on Twitter, saying that he and his company are “committing to $40M to prevent and slow [coronavirus’s] spread around the world, particularly in Africa.” Bloomberg said that he will be partnering with international organizations such as the World Health Organization and Vital Strategies, as well as former CDC Director Thomas Frieden.

In an additional statement, Bloomberg said that “millions of lives depend on getting the coronavirus response right – and so does the economic and social health of communities around the world.” The billionaire made no reference to any efforts to stop the spread in his own country, the United States.

Trump Sought to Expand Virus Drug Tests Over FDA Objections Plan would have expanded use of investigational drugs for coronavirus; FDA officials said plan would pose risks to patients By Thomas M. Burton

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-sought-to-expand-virus-drug-tests-over-fda-objections-11584545251

WASHINGTON—The White House considered issuing an executive order greatly expanding the use of investigational drugs against the new coronavirus, but met with objections from Food and Drug Administration scientists who warned it could pose unneeded risks to patients, according to a senior government official.

The idea to expand testing of drugs and other medical therapies was strongly opposed by the FDA’s senior scientists this week, the official said, and represented the most notable conflict between the FDA and the White House in recent memory.

Asked about The Wall Street Journal’s report at a press briefing Wednesday, President Trump replied that he hadn’t seen the article, but added: “We are making a lot of progress with therapeutics.”

Mr. Trump told reporters that his administration is expanding access to tests for the virus, and later said there would be a news conference Thursday involving the FDA.

WHO Needs to Be Held Responsible! US Coronavirus Numbers Including Asymtomatic Patients Shows Mortality Rate 0.2% to 0.8% and Not 3.4% as Reported by WHO by Jim Hoft

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/03/who-needs-to-be-held-responsible-us-coronavirus-numbers-including-asymtomatic-patients-shows-mortality-rate-0-2-to-0-8-and-not-3-4-as-reported-by-who/ The controversial Ethiopian politician and Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, claimed in a press conference in early March that the fatality rate for the coronavirus was many multiples that of the fatality rate of the common flu.  This egregiously false premise has led to the greatest economic panic in world history.

Questions about the Coronavirus By Victor Davis Hanson

Questions about the Coronavirus More data is critical in understanding the virus in general and in particular its transmission in particular countries. Anyone who looks at rates of morality and lethality of influenza and related pneumonia, especially in the elderly and infirm, can be shocked at the wide variances between particular countries.     Reliable […]