RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nysun.com/editorials/the-governors-mutiny/91093/

President Trump clearly overstated the case when he asserted that the president’s authority in the current crisis is “total.” The fact is that the Constitution doesn’t grant total authority to any branch of the government. It looks, though, at least to us, as if Mr. Trump was set off by news that some states were entering into regional compacts to plan the reopening of their economies.

If that is what set Mr. Trump off, it’s easy to see why. Mr. Trump and all other officers and legislators and judges of the federal and state governments are bound by oath to the Constitution. Yet that same parchment absolutely forbids the states, without the consent of Congress, from entering into “any agreement or compact with another state”

That is American bedrock. It’s right up there with the prohibition on states granting titles of nobility, say, or keeping ships of war in time of peace. One doesn’t have to be a Civil War buff to see that states forming compacts or agreements with other states smacks of a challenge to federal authority, no matter how un-total a president’s authority might be.

https://amgreatness.com/2020/04/14/politicizing-the-demographic-disparities-in-death-rates-from-coronavirus/

If progressive politicians have their way, the premier healthcare system and the heroic healthcare workers who are saving so many lives will themselves become victims of the legacy of the Coronavirus in the continued march to single-payer healthcare.

Although African Americans constitute just 13.4 percent of the U.S. population, they account for more than 42 percent of all COVID-19 deaths. African Americans are our “sickest sick” with the virus as they comprise more than 33 percent of all those hospitalized with Coronavirus.

During an April 8 press conference, Dr. Anthony Fauci revealed the significant racial disparities in hospitalizations and death rates from coronavirus and advised that “when all this is over . . . and we will get over coronavirus, there will still be health disparities, which we really do need to address in the African American community.”

While there had been no attempt to politicize the fact that males of all races and ethnicities are dying from COVID-19 at significantly higher rates than females, the racial disparity data has opened the floodgates of blame directed toward the Trump Administration. Not a single lawmaker has tried to claim that unequal access to healthcare is contributing to the disproportionate number of males who have died from Coronavirus, but lawmakers are already claiming that African Americans are dying because of our privatized health care system.

On March 27—long before the public release of the official racial disparity data—U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), and Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), as well as U.S. Representatives Robin L. Kelly (D-Ill.) and Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass) demanded that the Department of Health and Human Services publicize racial data on coronavirus cases. The lawmakers knew that, as with all public health crises, the people who suffer the greatest casualties will be those with the greatest number of preexisting conditions.

https://amgreatness.com/2020/04/14/coronavirus-racial-disparities-miss-the-bigger-picture/

Public officials and activists are sounding the alarm about alleged racial disparities in the coronavirus death rate. New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams claimed last week that the city’s official responses to the virus have “clearly” discriminated against black and brown New Yorkers, as evidenced by fatality data. Blacks make up 22 percent of New York City’s population. As of April 6, they made up 27.5 percent of virus fatalities where the race of the deceased was recorded. (Such data were compiled in 63 percent of all cases.) White New Yorkers are about 33 percent of the city’s population. They made up 27.3 percent of virus fatalities where the race was recorded.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot said that the black fatality rate for coronavirus in her city—68 percent of all such fatalities—was “among the most shocking things” she had seen. Blacks are a little under one-third of the city’s population. “Those numbers take your breath away, they really do,” she said.

The chief equity officer of the American Medical Association invoked the “widely known history that American health institutions were designed to discriminate against blacks” as an explanation for the disparities.

The racialization of the coronavirus discourse is now pervasive. News outlets across the country are rushing to compile racial data on their local caseloads. President Donald Trump, Dr. Anthony Fauci, and Surgeon General Jerome Adams have all addressed the issue; questions about racial disparities are now an almost inevitable part of local or federal press briefings.

These black and Hispanic virus deaths are a tragedy, especially for the victims’ families and acquaintances. But many of the same politicians and race activists who are now so incensed by coronavirus deaths have been virtually silent for years about far greater disparities in black-white fatality rates: those that result from urban crime.

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/04/15/who-will-get-blamed-if-coronavirus-shutdown-turns-out-to-be-a-massive-overreaction/

As the Trump administration tries to figure out when to reopen the economy, and Democrats try to blame President Donald Trump for every coronavirus death, there’s another question lurking in the background. What if we learn that trillions of dollars in economic costs from the coronavirus shutdown bought us little or nothing in terms of public health?

As the disease progresses and our understanding of it increases, that possibility grows.

Consider these facts:

Death projections were wildly exaggerated. On March 16, epidemiologists at Imperial College London predicted that 2.2 million could die here if the country didn’t impose draconian lock-down orders. Even with those in place, it said, the deaths would likely top 1 million.

The White House later downgraded the death toll, but still predicted that as many as 200,000 could die. In late March, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington released a model that projected more than 80,000 deaths, assuming the U.S. maintained its lockdown, which prompted the Trump administration to extend the shutdown through April.

But within a week, that projection dropped to a little more than 60,000, as actual deaths started to come in much lower than expected. In the past week alone, the death toll has been 2,267 lower than the model initially forecast. That puts coronavirus deaths more in line with deaths attributed to a bad flu season.

Reports of overwhelmed health care were exaggerated. There was a steady stream of warnings that the coronavirus would overwhelm the U.S. health system.