NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Cooking the Books on COVID-19 Deaths By Brian C.Joondeph, MD

Posted By on May 26th, 2020

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/05/cooking_the_books_on_covid19_deaths.html

Fox News, and other cable networks, run a COVID death count ticker on the side or bottom of the television screen just as they show the major stock indices during the business day. Why are they so obsessed with deaths from the Chinese virus?

Most peoples’ moods are already melancholic over the unending economic shutdown, along with social distancing, masks, and restrictions on movement and assembly not normally seen in free societies. Why don’t news networks show a tally of recovered patients rather than deaths?

Aside from the morbid, “If it bleeds, it leads” mantra that guides much news reporting, the media wants to pin each death on the tail of President Trump. Twitter has a #TrumpDeathCount hashtag to blame every single death on the president, the more the merrier. This is ahead of the fall presidential campaign where Democrats will attempt to blame the entire Wuhan virus mess on Trump, from the economic devastation to the total number of deaths.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Governor Whitmer Orders Citizens To Barbecue Indoors

Posted By on May 26th, 2020

https://babylonbee.com/news/governor-whitmer-orders-citizens-to-barbecue-indoors

LANSING, MI—Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer has ordered all citizens to barbecue indoors this Memorial Day.

The executive order restricts all Memorial Day barbecue celebrations to inside only.

“You’re more than welcome to celebrate your freedoms with a barbecue as long as you don’t go outside,” she said, wagging her finger like a school teacher. “Naughty boys and girls hold barbecues outdoors where the big, scary coronavirus can get them. Good boys and girls barbecue inside where it is safe.” 

Anyone who disobeys the order will be put on time-out and sent to bed without any dessert. Those who continually disobey will be grounded and have their Nintendo privileges taken away.

At publishing time, sources had confirmed this restriction would likely be extended through Labor Day 2025.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Wuhan Virus Watch: All the catastrophic predictions about reopening Georgia, Florida, and Texas were spectacularly wrong by Leslie Eastman

Posted By on May 26th, 2020

https://legalinsurrection.com/2020/05/wuhan-virus-watch-all-the-catastrophic-predictions-about-reopening-georgia-florida-and-texas-were-spectacularly-wrong/

Today’s update will begin with a summation of the predictions about a coronavirus catastrophe following the economic reopening of Georgia, Florida, and Texas: They were spectacularly wrong!

Three large Southern states that moved aggressively to reopen amid the coronavirus crisis have seen new cases and deaths largely hold steady since then — despite several controversies over some of their data.

In Georgia, where Gov. Brian Kemp bucked the White House and local officials to lift a stay-at-home order on April 24, the state reported 862 cases on Thursday, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

That was less than the 946 new cases counted on Wednesday, but helped spur a slight rise in a seven-day rolling average that’s been basically trending downward since the start of the Peach State’s reopening.

…Florida — which was among the last states to impose a coronavirus lockdown, on April 2 — hit a record 1,413 new cases on April 16, followed by a record 83 deaths on April 28, according to the Tallahassee Reports website.

Since the state began reopening on May 4, its seven-day average of new cases is essentially flat, according to a chart published by the New York Times.

…In Texas, there were 945 new cases on Thursday, for a total 52,268, according to the Texas Tribune.

The seven-day average of new cases rose fairly steadily from around 1,000 on May 1, when Gov. Greg Abbott began lifting the lockdown he ordered March 19, but began dipping on Sunday and is now around 1,250, according to a chart prepared by the Tribune.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

France’s Determination to End Free Speech by Judith Bergman

Posted By on May 26th, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16057/france-free-speech

Private companies will now be obliged to act as thought police on behalf of the French state or face heavy fines.

“Under the pretext of fighting ‘hateful’ content on the Internet, it [the Avia law] is setting up a system of censorship that is as effective as it is dangerous… ‘hate’ is the pretext systematically used by those who want to silence dissenting opinions…. A democracy worthy of its name should accept freedom of expression.” — Guillaume Roquette, editorial director of Le Figaro Magazine, May 22, 2020.

“What is hate? You have the right not to love… you have the right to love, you have the right to hate. It’s a feeling… It cannot be judicialized, legislated.” — Éric Zemmour, CNews, May 13, 2020.

Asking private companies — or the government — to act as thought police does not belong in a state that claims to follow a democratic rule of law. Unfortunately, the question is not whether France will be the last European country to introduce such censorship laws, but what other countries are next in line.

On May 13, the French parliament adopted a law that requires online platforms such as Facebook, Google, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and Snapchat[1] to remove reported “hateful content” within 24 hours and “terrorist content” within one hour. Failure to do so could result in exorbitant fines of up to €1.25 million or 4% of the platform’s global revenue in cases of repeated failure to remove the content.

The scope of online content deemed “hateful” under what is known as the “Avia law” (after the lawmaker who proposed it) is, as is common in European hate speech laws, very broadly demarcated and includes “incitement to hatred, or discriminatory insult, on the grounds of race, religion, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation or disability”.

The French law was directly inspired by Germany’s controversial NetzDG law, adopted in in October 2017, and it is explicitly mentioned in the introduction to the Avia law.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Iran: The Ayatollah, Amid Coronavirus, Calls for Jihad Against the Jewish State by Majid Rafizadeh

Posted By on May 26th, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16062/iran-khamenei-jihad-israel

It is mystifying that Twitter, which wantonly censors so much, continues to allow… Iranian leaders to spread Nazi-inspired language and anti-Semitic sentiments on its platform. In general, “Big Tech” — Google, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter — have long since ceased being “neutral” transmitters of information as if they were “utilities”. Instead, they have become America’s Thought Police. They urgently need to be regulated the same way media is.

The ruling mullahs of Iran need to be held accountable by the international community for threatening to annihilate a fellow- member of the United Nations, the Jewish state. Not only are these threats unacceptable according to Chapter I: Article 2(1)-(5) of the Charter of the United Nations… They are also unacceptable as part of a double-standard in which the United Nations and the international community continue to be silent about Iran’s threats against Israeli citizens — not to mention Iran’s malign actions against its own citizens. Perhaps the time… is long overdue… for the U.S. to cease funding the UN, which seems only to conserve injustice and war.

Under no circumstances should the US, the UN or any other entity — read: Europe — in any way be assisting the malign mullahs of Iran.

Instead of concentrating on assisting and improving the living standards of its citizens, the ruling mullahs of Iran seem to be prioritizing the advancement of their anti-Semitic agenda.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei recently called Israel a “cancerous tumor to be destroyed,” promised “to support any nation or group that fights Israel,” and urged the Palestinian militant groups to cooperate more closely with each other and “expand the field of jihad in all Palestinian lands.”

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Jordanian King Abdullah’s Empty Threats Trying to stand in the way of President Trump’s peace plan. Caroline Glick

Posted By on May 26th, 2020

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/05/jordanian-king-abdullahs-empty-threats-caroline-glick/

Should Jordan’s King Abdullah have veto power over Israel’s plan to apply its sovereign laws to its cities, towns and villages in Judea and Samaria and to the Jordan Valley, in accordance with the Trump peace plan? Just recently, senior leaders of Israel’s Blue and White Party began making noises to that effect.

In an interview with Germany’s Der Spiegel last week, King Abdullah threatened, “If Israel really annexes the West Bank in July, it would lead to a massive conflict with the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.”

Subsequent news updates reported that “senior officials” from Blue and White were working to condition Israel’s implementation of the sovereignty plan on securing prior approval from Jordan.

During the ceremony at the Foreign Ministry marking the arrival of incoming Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi, Ashkenazi said that Israel will implement the Trump peace plan “in dialogue with our neighbors, [and while] preserving of the peace treaties and the State of Israel’s strategic interests.”

Taken together with these news updates, Ashkenazi’s remarks raised the prospect that he and his partner, Defense Minister and vice prime minister Benny Gantz see Abdullah’s threat as a justification for abandoning their support for the sovereignty plan. It bears recalling that during the negotiations leading up to the formation of the unity government between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Likud and Gantz and Blue and White, Netanyahu made Blue and White’s support for the sovereignty plan his only substantive condition for signing the deal.

Abdullah, of course, will never approve the sovereignty plan, so giving him a veto means shelving the plan. This raises the question of whether there is any reason to give the head of the Hashemite clan that sort of power. Can he cause Israel harm so grave that it should abandon the sovereignty plan to appease him?

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

The Donald and the Dow By Sheldon Roth

Posted By on May 26th, 2020

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

Sheldon Roth, M.D., a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, is author of recently published Psychologically Sound: The Mind of Donald J. Trump.

The Ouija Board of Stock Market Indices

Trump-supporters felt anxiety as they watched recent White House Coronavirus Task Force press briefings.  In the face of disruption, disease, and death, the president confidently hyped stock market averages as victory.  In an April briefing, Trump was unequivocal: “The market is smart.  The market is actually brilliant…they’re viewing it like we’ve done a good job.  They view it that way.”

This disconnect — from lives ravaged by death, unemployment, zombification of cities and towns, and an unknown future — is hard to bear and set aside.  For loyal supporters, it is especially painful since oppositional media often rebuke Trump’s showcasing the stock market as evidence of his success: “[During his presidency] Mr. Trump has obsessed over the daily gyrations of the stock market like no president before him.  He trumpeted its relentless rise as a validation of his leadership, his financial acumen and his policies.  Disappointing days were the fault of Democrats, the media or the Federal Reserve” (The New York Times).

President Trump’s Basic Motivation

How can we understand Trump’s monocular view?  What drives his steadfast trust in economics?  If you are thinking strictly along familiar lines of money, politics, power, or greed, you miss the central emotional determinant: love.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Academia Bows to Islamic Terror By Paul Miller and Abraham H. Miller

Posted By on May 26th, 2020

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

The price of liberty is eternal vigilance, but not everyone shares in the cost.

Even fewer comprehend that the threat to our democracy is more likely to come from the internal erosion of our civic institutions than from external forces.

The most corrupting influence on our democracy is rooted in political correctness in our education system. Whereas there once was an emphasis on civic education as a means to imbue the citizenry with the values of the Constitution, that emphasis has long been diminished.

From elementary school through college, basic requirements in American history and civics have been replaced by political trendiness.

Consequently, it is not surprising that our educational system has produced generation after generation of college administrators who suffer from an embarrassing ignorance of the fundamental political values of the republic.

These present-day Gletkins (the character who embodied the ideology of Stalinism in Arthur Koestler’s classic, Darkness at Noon) have been suckled on a steady diet of political correctness, and so it follows that they are quick to trample basic liberty when it gets in the way of political expediency.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The COVID-19 shutdown will cost Americans millions of years of life By Scott W. Atlas, John R. Birge, Ralph L Keeney and Alexander Lipton

Posted By on May 26th, 2020

https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/499394-the-covid-19-shutdown-will-cost-americans-millions-of-years-of-life

Our governmental COVID-19 mitigation policy of broad societal lockdown focuses on containing the spread of the disease at all costs, instead of “flattening the curve” and preventing hospital overcrowding. Although well-intentioned, the lockdown was imposed without consideration of its consequences beyond those directly from the pandemic. 

The policies have created the greatest global economic disruption in history, with trillions of dollars of lost economic output. These financial losses have been falsely portrayed as purely economic. To the contrary, using numerous National Institutes of Health Public Access publications, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Bureau of Labor Statistics data, and various actuarial tables, we calculate that these policies will cause devastating non-economic consequences that will total millions of accumulated years of life lost in the United States, far beyond what the virus itself has caused.

Pandemics have afflicted humankind throughout history. They devastated the Roman and Byzantine empires, Medieval Europe, China and India, and they continue to the present day despite medical progress. 

The past century has witnessed three pandemics with at least 100,000 U.S. fatalities: The “Spanish Flu,” 1918-1919, with between 20 million and 50 million fatalities worldwide, including 675,000 in the U.S.; the “Asian Flu,” 1957-1958, with about 1.1 million deaths worldwide, 116,000 of those in the U.S.; and the “Hong Kong Flu,” 1968-1972,  with about 1 million people worldwide, including 100,000 in the U.S. So far, the current pandemic has produced almost 100,000 U.S. deaths, but the reaction of a near-complete economic shutdown is unprecedented.

MEDIA Comments turned off

Let’s blame China Much of the western media is behaving like a subsidiary of the Chinese Communist party Roger Kimball

Posted By on May 26th, 2020

https://spectator.us/blame-china-communist-wuhan-coronavirus/

Is Cui Tiankai, the Chinese ambassador to the United States, Hillary Clinton in drag? I ask because when he takes to the pages of the Washington Post to lecture us that ‘It is time to end the blame game’ with respect to China’s role in helping to spread the coronavirus, I could almost believe I was back at that Congressional hearing after Muslim lunatics attacked the American consulate in Benghazi and murdered four Americans, including the US ambassador. The dulcet strains of the then Secretary of State Clinton skirling ‘at this point what difference does it make?’ are ringing in my ears. It’s ‘time to move on’, she said later, just as China’s ambassador half-pleaded, half-warned about the ‘mindset’ urging a ‘decoupling’ of America from China. ‘The United States would not emerge as a winner from this scenario,’ he said.

Ambassador Cui writes that: ‘China has done its best to share information about the virus.’ Ha, ha, ha. In fact, it dissembled about the nature of the virus, obscuring the date of the first cases, insisting that there was no human-to-human transmission, even as, in mid-January, it ordered its consulates around the world to stock up on face masks and other protective gear in anticipation of a global outbreak. Chinese doctors and scientists who tried to sound the alarm early on suddenly disappeared, even as the regime destroyed evidence and stonewalled requests from western scientists for firsthand information about the earliest victims. Ambassador Cui is paid to lie for his country. We do not have to be naive and believe him.

But many of us do. Much of the western media is behaving like the World Health Organization, i.e., like a wholly owned subsidiary of the Chinese Communist party. As Bill Gertz points out in his just-published book How China’s Communist Party Made the World Sick, China’s behavior regarding the coronavirus is like the Soviet Union’s behavior after the deadly explosion at the nuclear reactor in Chernobyl. ‘The Chinese lied to cover up a major natural disaster — only now the damage is not simply the irradiation of an area in and around a city in Ukraine. The Chinese have inflicted grave damage on the world economy and put half the world’s population out of work, at least temporarily.’