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May 2020

Andrew Cuomo in All His Ugliness By Mario Alexis Portella

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/05/andrew_cuomo_in_all_his_ugliness.html

Much of the nation these past few months has focused on New York state since it became the hotspot for the coronavirus outbreak in the U.S.  Many have also complimented Governor Andrew Cuomo’s response in fighting the pandemic, even to the point of suggesting he should substitute for presidential hopeful Joe Biden as the Democratic Party nominee to face Donald Trump in the November election. 

On Tuesday, Cuomo proposed a new law that aims to prevent corporations from receiving stimulus funds as a result of COVID-19.  While he presents himself as a governor who will tackle all forms of injustice, especially in light of his continual hands-on approach during this crisis, Cuomo is anything but the knight in shining armor he is being portrayed as. 

Disregard for the Disabled and Elderly

Cuomo ordered nursing homes for the elderly and infirm to accept patients with  COVID-19.  As reported by Pamela Geller:

“Weeks before [Cuomo] prohibited these homes from turning someone away for having COVID, there were numerous reports that nursing homes, assisted living and congregate care centers were the most vulnerable to Coronavirus.  [This was because] the biggest drag on New York state is Medicaid — what better way to rid the state of the old, sick, and disabled?”

Syracuse University Professor Scott Landes explained that because the home population “in general, [have] swallowing problems or disorders, or choking disorders, or just more susceptibility to lung infections [and] seem to develop pneumonia at a higher rate than those in the general population.”  He added that COVID-19 is even more challenging for those living in congregate residential settings.

The Coronavirus Fifth Column By Eileen F. Toplansky

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/05/the_coronavirus_fifth_column.html

As left-wing Democrat-controlled states continue to keep people in lockdown, it is becoming apparent that they are using the pandemic as a means to gain ultimate control of people’s lives.

In fact, leftists the world over are exploiting the pandemic in order to create their alleged utopias.  Vanessa Vallejo, a Colombian activist and columnist explains that

Whenever they come to power, communists work hard to create a clientele network that will vote for them and support them in the future. So instead of looking for real solutions to lift people out of poverty altogether, they offer them subsidies or useless jobs where citizens are dependent on politicians. At the same time, they make life difficult for entrepreneurs, resulting in more and more unemployed people who can be hooked into their clientele network. Many of them will not be able to get subsidies, but plunging them into poverty will make them easy prey to convince so long as the government offers them aid and blames right-wing entrepreneurs and politicians for their misery.

Sound familiar?  This is happening all across the United States.  The governors of states like Michigan, New York, New Jersey, California, and Pennsylvania continue to hold people hostage to their dictatorial impulses.

After all, “[c]ompanies have been forced to close, people cannot leave their homes so they can not ‘seek’ income on their own, many are sick or have sick relatives, and in this crisis, they have no way to pay the expenses raised by the calamity. In just a few weeks, government spending and the people who need help have both increased dramatically because people have lost their jobs.”

Just How Inflated Are Coronavirus Death Counts, Exactly? By Tyler O’Neil*****

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/tyler-o-neil/2020/05/15/just-how-inflated-are-coronavirus-death-counts-exactly-n394897

This has been cofirmed to me by physicians, nurses and patients….whose death certificates all state Covid as cause of death in spite of no proof…..rsk

“As of Friday afternoon, there have been 87,218 deaths attributed to COVID-19 in the U.S. If Desmond’s claim is accurate and if that 3.2 percent rate holds across the country, and discounting the death certificate inflation, that would mean there are only 2,891 “pure, solely coronavirus deaths” in the U.S.”

Last month, New York funeral home directors blew the whistle about inflated coronavirus death numbers. Death certificates mark “COVID-19” as the cause of death even when the deceased hadn’t tested positive for coronavirus, much less actually died of the virus. This week, a San Diego county supervisor suggested the numbers are even more inflated.

“We’ve unfortunately had six pure, solely coronavirus deaths — six out of 3.3 million people,” County Supervisor Jim Desmond said on the radio show Armstrong & Getty Extra Large Interviews., The San Diego Union-Tribune reported. San Diego County had reported roughly 190 deaths at the time — the current number is 200.

The Lost Schoolchildren of COVID By Mark Ellis

https://pjmedia.com/columns/mark-ellis/2020/05/15/the-lost-schoolchildren-of-covid-3-n394488

They dart out from places where you least expect to see them. Where you’d only expect to see them over the summer months. By the time the summer vacation period begins next month, they will have already had an equivalent amount of time off from school. Some are saying that school may not even start up in the fall.

If Portland schools open in September, an opening not yet scheduled, the children will have been out of school for six months, give or take. If school doesn’t resume in September, the kids will have fallen into a deep chasm of unschooling.

They are the lost schoolchildren of COVID. Yesterday, I saw one up in a tree.

While their parents responsibly socially-distance at home, or go to work in essential jobs, these children are living a life they have never experienced, a spring season without school.

Noon on a Tuesday, you hear them on the streets, in the yards. It’s homeschool recess, while their mothers prepare lunch. At seven o’clock each evening, when the neighborhood comes out of shutdown to bang drums and shake tambourines in tribute to first responders (and remind each other that “life” goes on), the kids dutifully appear, gawk at the spectacle, then disappear back into the hedges like Children of the Corn.

The Lockdown Skeptic They Couldn’t Silence Targeted for censorship in March, Aaron Ginn is becoming an influential voice in cities, states and Washington. By Allysia Finley

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-lockdown-skeptic-they-couldnt-silence-11589566245?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

Mr. Ginn was disturbed that Western governments were relying on questionable Chinese data on infections and fatalities to develop their epidemiological models and reflexively copying its response to the virus. He saw no evidence that the lockdowns suppressed the virus’s spread or reduced fatalities. China has reported new cases since lifting its Wuhan lockdown late last month, Mr. Ginn notes, though its data are still unreliable.

“There was actually lots of good evidence that we knew about the virus that we were ignoring, that I included in my original Medium piece as things that we should consider, in terms of moderation,” he says. Nobody challenged his data, he says, only his interpretation of it.

“I believe in the free expression of ideas,” he says. “I had a more positive view of the data than the broader norms were, but its removal was not justified.” He acknowledges that some of his inferences may prove wrong—but notes that’s equally true of his critics. “Science is the process of understanding the data and testing hypotheses and making sure that our underlying biases are being controlled for as much as possible.”

Mr. Ginn spends his days sifting through coronavirus studies, news stories and data, which he compiles in exhaustive daily news feeds that he sends to policy makers, including White House officials as well as state and city lawmakers. His goal is to balance the media’s prevailing pro-lockdown bias by amplifying the voices of skeptical experts.

One of his priorities is reopening schools. “When it comes to children, the data coming out of Europe is very, very strong,” he says. “You have, I would say, near-unanimous consensus among European scientists, public-health officials—including in Australia, South Korea and Japan—that children, for some reason, while they do get infected, they are not very infectious.”

Foes of Israel Misread Outlook For Annexing Judea, Samaria By Benny Avni

https://www.nysun.com/foreign/anti-israel-crowd-misreads-outlook-for-annexing/91133/

Relax everyone. It turns out that Israel’s annexation of Judea and Samaria isn’t around the corner.

Even as Jerusalem edges toward concluding the two-year political crisis that deprived the country of an elected government, the entire world is aghast at the possibility of applying Israeli sovereignty to parts of the West Bank.

The Hashemite king, Abdullah II, threatens “massive conflict” with Israel. The European Union weighs sanctioning the Jewish state. Arabists predict an eruption of violence. The United Nations warns of an end to a peace process that expired a long time ago.

In America, Israelis and their supporters predict a rift between Jerusalem and a future Democratic-led administration.

All because of a promise, made by Prime Minister Netanyahu amid endless campaigning in three unresolved election cycles. Trying to lure right wing supporters, he vowed to extend Israeli law to the Jordan Valley and large Israeli settlement blocs in the West Bank.

Emmet Sullivan vs. the D.C. Circuit Another precedent that rebuts the judge’s ruling in the Flynn case.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/emmet-sullivan-vs-the-d-c-circuit-11589583144?cx_testId=3&cx_testVariant=cx_4&cx_artPos=1#cxrecs_s

“Who wrote that opinion? None other than Sri Srinivasan, a Barack Obama appointee and now chief judge of the D.C. Circuit. He was joined by conservative giants Laurence Silberman and David Sentelle. The court didn’t dismiss Judge Leon from the case, but it did overrule his objections to the deal and remanded the case back to him with those instructions.”

Federal Judge Emmet Sullivan has refused to accept the prosecution and defense agreement to drop the charges against Michael Flynn for lying to the FBI, despite a mountain of law saying he doesn’t have the authority. We wrote Friday about Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s recent ruling that cuts against his decision to solicit outside briefs. And now we’re reminded of another precedent that is even more on point about the judge’s wayward logic.

The Chinese Challenge to the U.S.-Israel Relationship Beijing brings investment dollars, but also tensions with America. Douglas Feith

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-chinese-challenge-to-the-u-s-israel-relationship-11589576485?mod=opinion_lead_pos8

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met on Wednesday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem and warned that further Israeli economic linkage with China will hurt relations with the U.S. Coming from an administration far warmer toward Israel than any in the past, that message packs a punch.

Mr. Pompeo is making clear that the world has entered a new era in its relations with China. While some pushback against hostile Chinese actions occurred in the Obama years, it has intensified in the Trump period and gained bipartisan support. Pushback is now U.S. policy, expected to continue no matter who wins November’s presidential election. Israel remains focused on Iran and other regional concerns, but it can’t ignore the world’s new great strategic challenge.

At issue in Israel are commercial activities of Chinese companies, but the first two major U.S.-Israel clashes over China were about military contracts. In the late 1990s, U.S. officials objected to a planned sale to China of the Israeli-made Phalcon airborne radar system. Israel bowed to U.S. pressure in 2000, canceled the sale, refunded China nearly $200 million, and paid it more than $150 million on top in damages.

The second clash, which occurred during George W. Bush’s presidency and involved Israel’s Harpy antiradar missile, had far-reaching consequences. In 2005 the director general of Israel’s Defense Ministry was fired after losing the trust of U.S. defense officials. The Knesset enacted new export-control legislation and Israel’s Defense Ministry concluded an information-sharing agreement with the Pentagon. Most important, in 2005 Israel terminated altogether its defense trade with China.

The Unelected Can’t Wash Their Hands   Jack Weatherall

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2020/05/the-unelected-cant-wash-their-hands/

“The true measure of all that has been inflicted upon the Australian people will emanate from the above narrow infections/death parameters well after the hysteria around this virus has dissipated. Australians thrown on the scrap heap will not forget. There will be constant reminders of the damage that has been wrought and the misery inflicted, and continuing to be inflicted, upon millions. Public health authorities will not be able to hide behind their corrupted models and their ‘saving lives’ mantras when exactly the opposite is both true and obvious. The attempts now by Australian public health authorities to decouple the ruinous effects of their heavy-handed response from the social and economic fallout will not go unchallenged.”

 

 

As the back-slapping of state and commonwealth public health authorities and their politician overlords echoes through the mainstream media the real costs of their misguided approach to managing COVID-19 are starting to emerge. While our politicians and CMO’s daily pronounce their efforts in “flattening the curve” and “saving lives”, they focus as the measure of their self-determined success on two numbers alone — confirmed cases of COVID-19 and associated deaths as the only measures of their success.

The World Health Organisation now concedes the virus is likely to become yet another endemic coronavirus that is here to stay. Antibody prevalence studies from Spain to New York indicate that prevalence of the virus is ten- to twentyfold greater than officially confirmed cases. In Spain this means there are 2.5 million cases, rather than 220,000. To add to the implausibility of containment as a strategy, a whopping 26 per cent of Spanish cases were entirely asymptomatic. The containment strategies have failed and the horse has bolted. Extrapolated globally, this would indicate 50–100 million cases, and that is probably wildly conservative as the virus runs unchecked in many Third World nations. Yet the impact on lives, health and wellbeing through the asphyxiation of the real economy has rippled throughout the whole of Australian society, resulting in an outcome that is profoundly and incalculably negative. The obsession with infections and deaths in assessing the impact of this response is as scientifically absurd as the models that informed it.

China Threatens GOP Lawmakers. Their Responses Are Perfect.     Leah Barkoukis

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/leahbarkoukis/2020/05/15/china-threatens-gop-lawmakers-crenshaw-says-bring-it-n2568863

Republican-led efforts to hold China accountable for the spread of the Wuhan coronavirus are being watched closely by the communist regime.

State-run media reported Thursday that Republican lawmakers will “face severe consequences” for speaking out against China, pursuing lawsuits, and pushing “anti-China” legislation.

“Republicans who have been groundlessly accusing China and inflaming the ‘holding China accountable’ political farce will face severe consequences, sources said, noting that the aftermath will also impact the upcoming November elections, while business and trade between Missouri and China will be further soured,” the Global Times, a branch of the Communist Party of China’s People’s Daily, wrote in an article. 

The article focused on efforts by Missouri’s Attorney General Eric Schmitt who sued the country last month on behalf of the state arguing the communist country is responsible for Missourians’ suffering, death and economic hardship.

“The Chinese government lied to the world about the danger and contagious nature of COVID-19, silenced whistleblowers, and did little to stop the spread of the disease,” Schmitt said. “They must be held accountable for their actions.”

The article also singled out Sens. Josh Hawley and Tom Cotton and two other members of Congress over legislation that would allow Americans to sue China, saying they will be added to the country’s sanctions list. 

Reps. Dan Crenshaw, Chris Smith, Jim Holzapfel, Greg McGuckin and John Catalano as well as Sens. Marsha Blackburn, Rick Scott, Martha McSally, and Lance Gooden were also named in the piece over their support of legislative efforts that would let U.S. citizens sue China. 

“We must resolutely hit back at those politicians who, for no reason, undermine China-US ties for their own political benefits. For those who promote anti-China legislation, we need to find out what the business ties are between those officials or their families with China,” one research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences told the paper. “We can’t just strike back symbolically, but should impose countermeasures that could make them feel the pain.”

Republicans were unfazed by the threat.