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March 2020

Instead of Bracing for Coronavirus, Democrats Focused on Impeachment Now all of us are paying the price for the Democrats’ shortsighted and destructive campaign against the president. By Julie Kelly

https://amgreatness.com/2020/03/12/instead-of-bracing-for-coronavirus-democrats-focused-on-impeachment/

On January 15, House Democrats delivered two articles of impeachment to the United States Senate. Democrats knew the Republican-controlled Senate would not have enough votes to convict President Trump. But that didn’t deter House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) from wasting government time, resources, and attention for months in a doomed effort to remove Donald Trump from the White House. 

Six days later, on January 21, the first known case of novel coronavirus (COVID-19, or the Wuhan virus) was reported in the United States.

While the Left and NeverTrump Right predictably gather steam to condemn Trump for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, congressional Democrats have escaped any accountability for ignoring the early stages of the outbreak. And, with no sense of irony, the very journalists and pundits who cheered impeachment are the same folks now blasting the president for “not doing enough” to stop the spread of COVID-19.

Let’s back up for a moment: Since before Donald Trump took the oath of office, the Left and NeverTrump Right have been on a destructive crusade to crush his presidency. It is unlike anything in recent political history—no tactic has been considered too beyond-the-pale or in violation of sacred limits. The Russian collusion farce and ensuing special counsel investigation into an imaginary crime monopolized the White House’s attention for more than two years. When that failed, House Democrats and their administrative toadies in government concocted the Ukrainegate scandal that began the month after Robert Mueller’s disastrous testimony on Capitol Hill. 

Greening Our Way to Infection The ban on single-use plastic grocery bags is unsanitary—and it comes at the worst imaginable time.

https://www.city-journal.org/banning-single-use-plastic-bags-covid-19

The COVID-19 outbreak is giving new meaning to those “sustainable” shopping bags that politicians and environmentalists have been so eager to impose on the public. These reusable tote bags can sustain the COVID-19 and flu viruses—and spread the viruses throughout the store.

Researchers have been warning for years about the risks of these bags spreading deadly viral and bacterial diseases, but public officials have ignored their concerns, determined to eliminate single-use bags and other plastic products despite their obvious advantages in reducing the spread of pathogens. In New York State, a new law took effect this month banning single-use plastic bags in most retail businesses, and this week Democratic state legislators advanced a bill that would force coffee shops to accept consumers’ reusable cups—a practice that Starbucks and other chains have wisely suspended to avoid spreading the COVID-19 virus.  

John Flanagan, the Republican leader of the New York State Senate, has criticized the new legislation and called for a suspension of the law banning plastic bags. “Senate Democrats’ desperate need to be green is unclean during the coronavirus outbreak,” he said Tuesday, but so far he’s been a lonely voice among public officials. 

The COVID-19 virus is just one of many pathogens that shoppers can spread unless they wash the bags regularly, which few people bother to do. Viruses and bacteria can survive in the tote bags up to nine days, according to one study of coronaviruses.

The risk of spreading viruses was clearly demonstrated in a 2018 study published in the Journal of Environmental Health. The researchers, led by Ryan Sinclair of the Loma Linda University School of Public Health, sent shoppers into three California grocery stores carrying polypropylene plastic tote bags that had been sprayed with a harmless surrogate of a virus.

Evidence: China Executes Political Prisoners to Harvest Organs The Chinese Communist Party treats the question of transplant volume as a state secret. But evidence is emerging that suggests China’s ready supply of organs is related to the dwindling number of government dissenters. By Murray Bessette

https://amgreatness.com/2020/03/11/evidence-china-executes-political-prisoners-to-harvest-organs/

China’s organ transplantation system appears capable of working miracles. Need a new liver? You can get one in 24 to 72 hours—for a price. To anyone familiar with the voluntary organ donation system in the United States, where the median wait time for a liver exceeds 300 days, such availability raises the question about organ sourcing.

How does the Chinese system locate, identify, and match a deceased donor within such a short timeframe?

The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation (VOC) on Tuesday released “Organ Procurement and Extrajudicial Execution in China: A Review of the Evidence,” a report by China Studies Research Fellow Matthew P. Robertson that examines the evidence underlying allegations of extrajudicial killing for the harvesting of organs by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

The report, together with the final judgment of the China Tribunal charged with investigating the question of the criminal liability of the Chinese state with respect to forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience, challenges international complacency on the topic.

The World Health Organization and the International Transplant Society simply accept the assertion of the CCP that the Chinese organ transplant system is both ethical and voluntary. World governments do not publicly challenge China as to the source of its organs, and international medical and human rights organizations fail to raise public concerns as to the scale of the PRC transplant system and the real source of organs.

Given the evidence of ongoing organ trafficking, the falsification of official datasets, and the signs that Uyghur Muslims may be the latest victims of this form of state predation, the necessity of coordinated, international action is clear.

Time To End Coronavirus Hysteria And Focus On Saving Some Lives Terry Jones

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/03/13/time-to-end-coronavirus-hysteria-and-focus-on-saving-some-lives/

The hysteria over the coronavirus has hit, if you’ll pardon the expression, fever pitch. The media are full of dire prognostications about the future, while online sites run scary data projections showing potentially millions dying from the coronavirus, also known as COVID-19. And of course, financial markets have cratered, investors fearing the worst.

But is the hysteria warranted? What do we really know about this virus? There are, according to the most recent estimates, roughly 128,000 people with the COVID-19 virus, spread over 111 countries. So far, about 4,700 people have died.

The problem is, no one knows if those numbers are even close to correct. Reports of new cases keep arising, and anecdotal reports of mass graves for COVID-19 victims in Iran and body disposals in China do little to encourage optimism.

Thousands and thousands of people may be walking around with the virus, and don’t even know it. Some people who’ve contracted the disease have said the symptoms were mild. It seems to be deadliest for the elderly and those with compromised immune systems.

Even the death rate is in dispute. We’ve seen estimates ranging from a high of around 3%, to as low as 0.6%. The common flu, which spreads much faster than COVID-19, has just a 0.1% death rate.

When an Irrational Panic Goes Viral Peter Smith

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2020/03/when-an-irrational-panic-goes-viral/

My last piece was on whether the cure for the (Chinese) coronavirus was worse than the disease. Well, surely, we now know the answer. Italy has closed itself down over 7000 known cases in a population of over 60 million. Imagine the dire consequences of this for businesses across Italy if this were to last more than a few days, and yet, once you close the place down, how the heck do you quickly open it up again?

I would guess that the number of actual cases is a multiple of 7000 and those afflicted haven’t noticed. This of course elevates the assumed death rate to well above the common flu which kills many people each year. It most definitely elevates it among those who are prone to panic.

I am just watching Tucker Carlson 0n Fox News (10 March) who seems to associate transnational public and governmental panic over the virus with the threat of the virus itself. Without realising it, he is on to something. The real threat of this virus is what is being done about it. By the way, as I am writing, I have just heard him saying “people are dying of the plague” in response to Joe Biden making one of his few perceptive remarks, that fear-mongering is going on. You couldn’t write home about it.

Only those old and/or frail are particularly at risk, as they are from the flu and any number of maladies. US Surgeon General Jerome Adams reported yesterday that those who had died in the US from the new coronavirus (twenty-one at that point) had an average age of 80 years. So, cocoon vulnerable people as best can be done. It can be done easily enough in nursing homes and the like, and if you are visiting elderly family members or friends take precautions. Have groceries delivered and provide wipes to wipe the boxes down.

Government should focus on assisting in this process of protecting the vulnerable not in trying to prevent healthy adults from contracting the virus by closing down whole economies. The costs of this in human wellbeing and health will be incalculable and will put the threat of the virus itself in the shade.

Will Iran’s Regime Survive Coronavirus? By Ilan Berman

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/03/will-irans-regime-survive-coronavirus/

Soaring inflation. Deepening domestic discontent. An expanding environmental crisis. Even before the outbreak of the novel coronavirus in recent weeks, the Iranian regime was struggling under the weight of domestic problems that increasingly threatened to undermine the integrity of the Islamic Republic. With the advent of COVID-19, however, matters have become much, much worse for the Iranian regime — so much so that it isn’t unreasonable to think that the Iranian regime could buckle under the weight of its own internal contradictions. That’s because, for Iran’s ayatollahs, coronavirus represents a true “black swan” event.

The term, popularized by the scholar Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his 2008 book of the same name, refers to an improbable occurrence that cannot be reasonably predicted, but which has profound — and potentially catastrophic — consequences. This is what COVID-19 is for Iran.

The problems start with the failing health of Iran’s ruling class. The upper echelons of the Iranian leadership are overwhelmingly aging and infirm, and coronavirus is exacting a deadly toll on this cohort. As of March 4, the Washington Post had documented that the disease had afflicted “about two dozen members of parliament and at least 15 other current or former top figures.” That figure has expanded significantly since then, as has the number of high-profile casualties within the Islamic Republic. To date, the virus is known to have claimed the lives of Mohammad Mirmohammadi, an adviser to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, former deputy foreign minister Hossein Sheikholeslam, parliamentarians Mohammad Ali Ramezani Dastak and Fatimeh Rehber, and at least three other officials. More can certainly be expected in coming days.

Visible From Space, Iran’s Coronavirus Mass Graves Give the Lie to the Mullahs’ Propaganda By Tyler O’Neil

https://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/visible-from-space-irans-coronavirus-mass-graves-give-the-lie-to-the-mullahs-propaganda/

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei has dismissed the coronavirus as “not that big a deal” but Iran’s Health Ministry has reported that 429 people have died of the virus, and the country’s deputy health minister has contracted the virus. New satellite imagery shows that mass graves in Qom, the mullahs’ spiritual center, are visible from space. This graveyard lends weight to the opposition party’s claim that the regime is underreporting the deaths and the number is closer to 1,500.

The Washington Post published images from the Colorado firm Maxar Technologies showing the mass graves visible from space.

The images show the Behesht-e Masoumeh complex in Qom, about 80 miles south of Tehran, where the excavation of a new section of the graveyard began as early as February 21, according to satellite imagery. The digging rapidly expanded as the virus spread. By the end of the month, two large trenches — their lengths adding up to 100 yards — had become visible from space, the Post reported.

Coronavirus spread quickly in Iran, spurred on in part by the Islamic regime’s close ties with China, according to The Wall Street Journal. The regime has reported that more than 10,000 people have contracted the disease and 429 have died. The dead include members of parliament, a former diplomat, and even a senior adviser to the supreme leader. The regime has reported that more than 846 people have contracted the coronavirus in Qom, a city of about 1.2 million.

Turkey Confronts Greece with More Hordes of Syrian Refugees and Migrants Erdogan breaks deal with European Union to extort new concessions. Joseph Klein

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/03/turkey-confronts-greece-more-hordes-syrian-joseph-klein/

Turkey’s Islamist President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is trying to engineer a mass invasion from Turkey into Greece of thousands of Syrian refugees and migrants. He has broken a deal reached with the European Union in 2016 to close its border with Europe to stem the flood of immigrants from the Middle East. He took Europe’s money that was part of the deal but is now reopening his country’s border with Greece to extort more concessions. “We will continue the current measure on our frontiers until all of our expectations are concretely met,” Erdogan said recently.

When Greece pushed back to protect its border from the invasion, Erdogan lashed out. “There is no difference with what the Nazis did and the images from the border,” he declared as he made unproven claims of “barbaric” tactics supposedly used by Greek border guards.

As Breitbart pointed out, “The slur against Greece is notable, as some 300,000 people were killed during the 1941 Nazi occupation of the country, which near-wiped out Greece’s Jewish population.” Then again, we should not be surprised. Erdogan is an avowed anti-Semite who has indulged in conspiracy theories blaming Jews for the world’s problems.

“Greece does not accept lessons in human rights and the respect of international law from the Turkish president,” said a spokesman for the Greek government. He claimed that Ankara’s actions were aimed at destabilizing Greece.

The ‘Big Lie’ About Fox News Who really puts out the fake – and one-sided – news? Bruce Hendry

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/03/bruce-check-lib-guests-bruce-hendry/

Below is Part 7 of a new essay written by Bruce Hendry: Democrats, Progressives and Socialists. Stay tuned for the ensuing chapters. [See links to previous chapters below this article].

17. Global Warming.

There is probably no issue that better exposes all of the devices that Democrats use to advance their agendas than “global warming,” which is the ultimate “shiny object” distraction to what is really going on. There are only three choices on the matter; warming; cooling; or no change. Since the beginning of time, the planet’s climate has always been changing, so we rule out the no change opinion. Although this hasn’t prevented the warming crowd from re-naming their nemesis “climate change,” so they can avoid having to take a hard look at the facts and their implications. That leaves the real alternatives – warming or cooling.

The evidence that the earth is warming is convincing. This brings us head-to-head with their assumption that a warming planet is bad and that it is caused by humans. Without discussing the matter, the “climate change” alarmists just assume that the climate is warming and that’s bad. That leaves us with the single question of how to stop or reverse it.

The left is clear as to what to do about the problem, and that is to entrust governments with enough power to fix it. Sometimes it does make sense to give up some personal freedoms to give the government these powers. The powers given to the government to win World War II is a good example of that.

Joe Biden’s Inaugural Address “I admit it, my fellow Belgians: I am not playing with a full deck.” Bruce Bawer

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/03/joe-bidens-inaugural-address-bruce-bawer/

Introductory note: After his latest round of primary triumphs, not only is Joe Biden confident that he will receive the Democratic nomination for president; he is so certain that he will be elected in November that he has already written his inaugural address. Someone close to the Biden campaign leaked the text of the speech to me, and the editors of Front Page Magazine have decided that it is in the public interest to publish it in its entirety. Okay, full disclosure: the person who leaked the text to me was Biden himself, who actually thought he was handing me a sandwich. – B.B.

President McKinley, Vice President Tyler, King Vidor, Queen Latifah, Duke Ellington, Earl Warren, Baron Trump, Judge Reinhold, ladies and gentlemen and others: this is a day that will live in infamy.

Today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth. Four score and seven years ago I was born in the house my father built, although I can’t recall the address. Today it seems to me providential that Fate should have chosen Braunau on the Inn as my birthplace.

You may have gathered that an iron curtain has descended upon my brain. The mystic chords of my memory are on the fritz and then some. I have slipped the surly bonds of sanity. Old soldiers never die, they just fade away, and though I was never a soldier I am definitely headed south, cerebrum-wise.

But don’t cry for me, Argentina. Ich bin ein Hamburger. And a Frankfurter. And a spring roll. With Bosco! Mmm, Bosco!