RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/03/the_covid19_paradigm_shift_on_war_and_weaponry.html

It’s time to shift our thinking about an arms race coming in the form of a nuclear mushroom cloud and devote some serious thought to biological warfare.

Over the course of the last two months, we have witnessed how a virtually invisible yet highly insidious weapon like a virus strain can glom onto the human body and wreak worldwide havoc.  We’re witness to wholesale closure of countries, home restrictions, economic slowdown on some fronts with total destruction on others and long-term catastrophic effects on the rest, broken supply chains on a global scale, and a sense of uncertainty to paralyze anyone who has been paying attention.

We’ve all seen the black-and-white videos of nuclear tests, read about the nuclear build-up in Iran, discussions about which countries can be trusted to be in the global “nuclear club,” and heard how rogue elements could detonate a low-yield dirty bomb from a small suitcase in downtown Manhattan.  But the COVID-19 coronavirus strain is right out of a Hollywood movie that we’ve been watching for the last 50 years.  I’m not so far out on the conspiracy theory limb to aver that this is what is happening, but it certainly provokes some thought.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/03/what_did_dr_fauci_have_to_say_in_2009_about_the_deadly_h1n1_pandemic.html

It seems some viral infection pandemics are more equal than others. At least when it comes to burning a vibrant Trump economy to the ground. 

In September 2009, after millions had become infected with the H1N1 influenza and thousands had died, some of whom were young people and children, a relaxed and unalarmed Dr. Anthony Fauci told an interviewer that people just need “to use good judgment.”

“Parents should not send their kids to school if they’re sick, if you’re sick don’t go to work … avoid places where there are people who are sick and coughing, now that’s a difficult thing to do,” he said. “…You can’t isolate yourself from the rest of the world for the whole flu season.” That’s quite a change from the esteemed expert’s views on the current virus from China sweeping the world.

From YouTube:

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/03/coronavirus-response-executive-power-limits-of-law/

The extent to which law is a barrier against to future presidential muscle-flexing, for good or ill, depends not on what the statutes and opinions say, but on how scared we are.

Earlier this week, Jim Geraghty posted about the decision by Dare County, N.C., to close its borders to non-residents. Is it merely a reaction, or an overreaction, to the coronavirus pandemic creeping across the nation?

The county’s move raises all sorts of constitutional questions about federalism. At what level of government do we properly resolve such questions — federal, state, county, municipal? Do Americans have a settled right of travel — intrastate, interstate, international — that applies at all times, or is the law flexible in this regard (as it can be regarding the imposition of martial law in times of war, invasion, and insurrection)? If a county can ban the entry of non-residents from its territory, can it ban the exit of residents, or at least of their property?

We could bat these questions around for some time. The bottom line, however, is that there are probably no settled legal answers. We miss that in normal times of peace and prosperity, when the rule of law governs. But in crisis, we see the limits of law. In essence, these questions call for political determinations. They turn on the perception of peril at a given time, which is a function of fluid circumstances that cannot be forecast with precision.

https://canadafreepress.com/article/is-this-a-pandemic-or-a-dempanic

These are just a few of the forces who have been working overtime for the past four years to sabotage, undermine, and ultimately destroy both candidate and then President Trump

Now that we’re in a de facto Martial Law mode––a shutdown of entire industries and small businesses, nighttime curfews, social isolation, a run on goods, huge sports events cancelled, a “shelter-in-place” mandate in California, releasing prisoners in New York (God forbid these  miscreants get a flu!), Broadway gone dark, and a craven media inciting and delighting in the panic they’re causing, it is relevant to ask:

Are the powers-that-be withholding information about a deadly germ-warfare attack on the entire world, started by an aggrieved Chinese Communist nation that was perfectly happy with the Bush1 and Clinton1&2 and Bush1&2 and Obama1&2 regimes that kowtowed to their outrageous demands and unfair trade deals but is now existentially threatened because a Patriot President expects more equitable deals?
Isn’t it both alarmist and immoral, as reported in American Thinker by Andrea Widburg, that the fake-news media have never told the American people that the scary statistics from Italy are the result of Italy’s recent Silk Road Project agreement with China, which resulted in more than 300,000 Chinese workers entering Italy?
Is it just one of those strange coincidences that one of the four richest men in the world, the uber-leftist and population-control fetishist Bill Gates––just weeks after the corona virus hit in January––stepped down from the Microsoft giant he founded in 1975, and just weeks earlier, in December, sponsored a “fictional” simulation of such a corona virus catastrophic event which  spread wildly and caused 65 million deaths worldwide? Just asking.

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

With some exceptions, the Idiot Left has howled about President Trump’s handling of the ‘Kung Flu.’ As if they’d have done anything differently. They’re only howling because it’s Donald Trump, not because there’s anything wrong with his judgment or his timing. A reporter asks an obvious troll question, Trump shuts him down, and the media scream in agony.

Agonize, baby, agonize.

When Trump shut off travel from China at the end of January, the Left as usual leapt to slash his throat. Then it turned out he had done the best possible thing at the best possible time. Now they’re screaming about shortages of masks, test kits and so on, as if Hillary or Obama or Biden or Liz or Kamala or Buttigieg or Mini Mike would have anticipated all these things. Nobody would have (or could have) anticipated any better than this administration did.

Until we know more about this virus, anticipating it isn’t even possible. From all I’ve read – and that’s been a great deal in the last week or so – the Chinese (both in China and in northern Italy) are especially vulnerable to the virus because their personal hygiene is just awful. Human feces pretty much everywhere, unsanitary food preparation in restaurants, sneezing and coughing on others, etc. These practices aren’t the norm in America and that alone will go far in arresting the spread of the coronavirus in the United States.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-extreme-state-lockdowns-11584745130?mod=opinion_lead_pos2

“These shutdowns are extraordinary and have costs, not least the harm to small business owners. Americans may simply decide to ignore the orders after a time. Absent a more thorough explanation of costs and benefits, we doubt these extreme measures will be sustainable for long as the public begins to chafe at the limits and sees the economic consequences.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-history-of-pfizer-and-penicillin-and-lessons-for-coronavirus-11584723787?mod=opinion_lead_pos8

Often lost in election-cycle diatribes against Big Pharma—which come from all sides—is the power of industry to come together in times of crisis and save lives.

Stories of battlefield heroism during World War II are well known. Lesser known, but relevant for today’s fight against the novel coronavirus, is the story of Pfizer’s Jasper Kane and John McKeen. Kane and McKeen pioneered the mass production of penicillin. Their breakthrough, together with others made by scientists and engineers at the nation’s industrial labs, helped reduce the death rate from diseases in the U.S. military to 0.6 per 1,000 in World War II from 14.1 per 1,000 in World War I. That 96% reduction translated into 200,000 lives spared.

There are lessons for today. First, calls by political candidates to make future Covid-19 vaccines free run contrary to the national interest. Low prices for vaccines and anti-infectives have clipped revenue for startups and led many to file for bankruptcy. Investment has plummeted, leaving the U.S. unprepared to fight off bad bugs.

In times of crisis, however, American industry has shown a willingness to invest, as biopharmaceutical companies around the country are doing today. In the 1930s, Pfizer was a small Brooklyn-based chemical company known mostly for making vitamins and the citric acid used in Coca-Cola. In October 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt convened academic and industry leaders, including Jasper Kane, in Washington. Their charge: Solve the penicillin production problem.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/coronavirus-pandemic-us-fatality-rate-steady-about-1-percent/#slide-1

Like many Americans, I’ve been tracking statistical reports about the coronavirus pandemic. In particular, I’ve been closely following Worldometer, which seems reliable, covers the globe, and gets updated frequently. It has been frustrating, though, to try to find good breakouts on fatality rate numbers.

I do not mean to suggest that this information is not out there. It just does not get the same attention as the total number of cases and the total number of deaths.

Reporting those two stats in isolation makes them seem especially alarming. If, hypothetically, on Day One there were 100 cases, and on Day 5 there were 1,000 cases, that would be a very troubling rate of increase, though it could be mitigated by a number of factors. (For example, if testing has improved in the interim, the surge in reported cases could reflect better information about the overall phenomenon, rather than just a rapid spread of the disease.) Similarly, if there were ten deaths on Day 5 after only one on Day One, that jump would seem frightening . . . but it would be a proportional increase in fatalities given the tenfold jump in reported cases — assuming the fatality rate has been reliably established.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/03/america-is-still-the-best-place-to-be-during-covid-19/

Don’t listen to the media cynics who think coronavirus has turned the U.S. into a third-world country.

The New York Times reports that the United States, and the West, are now the real problem in the fight against coronavirus:

The fear and suspicion directed at China in the devastating early days of the coronavirus outbreak have made a 180-degree turn: It is the West that now frightens Asia and the rest of the world.

The fear and suspicion, of course, were entirely justified, because the Chinese Communist government lied about the existence and scale of the virus, unleashing it on the world. But I’d love to find the insane person who would rather be in Wuhan province or Tehran right now than Ohio or Houston.

There’s a destructive strain of cynicism infecting so much of our media. To contend that the United States was “completely unprepared” for a coronavirus pandemic, as this Politico piece does, or to claim that “America Is Acting Like a Failed State,” as this Atlantic piece does, is journalistic malpractice. I don’t know if these writers, or similarly inclined ones, have some knee-jerk antipathy towards the United States or if partisanship blinds them to state of the world, but none of it aligns with reality.