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April 2020

A Rant against the Media By David Harsanyi

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/a-rant-against-the-media/

Why is the first inclination of Donald Trump’s supporters to lash out at the press when he says something ridiculous? Part of it is political expediency, of course. Most of it, though, is completely understandable.

Even when Trump badly mangles science, journalists, who spend vast amounts of their time chasing gotchas, offer a misleading and histrionic rendering of his comments. Trump doesn’t want Americans to inject themselves with disinfectants or ingest bleach and die. Journalists know this.

The media are a collection of well-funded outlets that set the agenda, narrative, tone, and focus of coverage while conspiring with a major political party. Reporters don’t openly collude with Democrats (well, most of the time they don’t), they merely share the same objectives and set of values. This wasn’t a problem created by Trump’s emergence. It’s problem that’s been festering for decades.

Now, I wish conservatives would build their own journalistic outfits to proactively chase down big stories and, in part, dictate the conversation. I’ve never understood why more big donors, and there are plenty of them, haven’t diverted dollars from political candidates, think tanks, and PACs to help build a reliable and serious conservative news infrastructure.

What we are learning and, sadly, confirming • Peter Smith (From Australia)

https://quadrant.org.au/

One of the things this infernal Wuhan virus has taught us is that many of our fellow citizens will dance to any tune governments play. I find it entirely credible that instructions to cower in the bathtub would be greeted with, ‘Oh well you know, the government must be right’. Sheep, looking for all the world like people, are seemingly in great abundance.

The are no doubt other things we are learning but I want to end with a confirmation rather than with an instance of new learning. As we know from the economic desolation they cause when in charge; from their national self-loathing; from their agenda to rob us of pride in our past; from their determination to tear down institutions (like traditional marriage) which have served us so well; from their overt hostility towards Christianity; from their intrigue to divide us by race and by sex, leftists are a plague on the world, more virulent than any virus. And, true to form, is their doleful advocacy in the current crisis.

Want more stringent lockdowns to keep more people out of work and in despair? Look left. Want ever-longer lockdowns to maximise long-lasting damage to people’s livelihoods, mental health and wellbeing? Look left. Want the loss of yet more individual liberties and inalienable rights? Look left.

Is Canada’s Response to COVID-19 Led by China Sympathizers? By David Solway

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/is-canadas-response-to-covid-19-led-by-china-sympathizers/

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks during a news conference in Ottawa on May 31, 2018. (Patrick Doyle/The Canadian Press via AP)

The controversy over Canada’s Public Chief Health Officer Theresa Tam continues to fester. Her lack of consistency, credibility, and competence—the three Cs of responsible authority—is a matter of public record. As I wrote previously, Tam has become the face of the anti-COVID task force. But she remains something of an enigma, including her date of birth, her actual place of birth and the dates of her degrees.

What do we know? We know that she initially downplayed the scope of the disease. We know that she is intimately associated with the World Health Organization as one of seven physicians who sit on its oversight committee. We know that the WHO operates as an arm of the People’s Republic and that its Director-General Tedros Adhanon Ghebreyesus has no medical expertise, is an ardent lifelong Marxist, and is a loyal defender of China.

Tam’s public record is deplorable. Indeed, she has been wrong at every turn. “Right now,” she said at a critical juncture, “the risk is low in Canada.” She assured us that travel bans were not necessary since they were not recommended by the WHO. Recently, Conservative Member of Parliament Derek Sloan, one of the four contenders for the party leadership vacated by Andrew Scheer, circulated an email highly critical of Tam recommending that she either resign or be fired.

‘Let Me Go Instead” Valor in Gallipoli 1915 : Riccardo Bosi

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/anzac-2/2020/04/let-me-go-instead/

Riccardo Bosi is a former Australian Army Special Forces Lieutenant Colonel. This is the slightly edited text of his  address on Anzac Day

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/anzac-2/2020/04/let-me-go-instead/

‘Let me go instead’.These words from over a century ago were spoken by a Digger pleading with his officer in the trenches.

The reason? “He has a wife and family to look after, Sir.”The Digger’s wish was granted. His mate’s life was saved. The young Digger died that night. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

‘Let me go instead’.

There will be those who denigrate the commemoration of this day, the 25th of April. They will speak at length about the purposelessness of war, that it is only to frighten little children and to open wounds of those who have lost loved ones.

They will say it glorifies war and lionises warmongering thugs. But it does not. And it is both ignorant and naïve to think so. Those who say these things know little of Australian history and less about Australians at war.

Every generation believes they have evolved beyond barbarism, and at particular times and in particular places that might have been true. But there are always some who never evolve, who confuse sophistication with civilisation, and so there will always be another war, another tyrant with whom we cannot negotiate, cannot find peace.

The Hospital Crisis of Our Making By Rich Lowry

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/04/coronavirus-crisis-some-hospitals-overwhelmed-many-underutilized/

We feared hospitals would be overwhelmed. Instead, in many states, they’re emptying out and laying off doctors and nurses.

We had to destroy the hospitals to save them.

You could be forgiven for thinking that’s the upshot of the coronavirus lockdowns that have suspended elective surgeries and generally discouraged people from going to hospitals.

Many hospitals are getting pushed near, or over, the financial edge. At a time when we feared that hospitals would get overwhelmed by a surge of patients, they have instead been emptied out. At a time when we thought medical personnel would be at a premium, they are instead being idled all over the country.

We are experiencing an epidemic that bizarrely — and in part because of the choices of policymakers — has created a surfeit of hospital beds and an excess of doctors and nurses.

Joe Biden’s Dr. Death By David Harsanyi

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/04/joe-bidens-dr-death/

Ezekiel Emanuel has some unsettling beliefs.

Does Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel believe Joe Biden would be better off dead?

That would be a peculiar position for Biden’s chief adviser on medical issues and a member of the candidate’s Public Health Advisory Committee to take. But if we accept the reasoning behind Emanuel’s infamous 2014 essay, Biden is nothing more than a resource-sucking shell of himself who should stop trying to prolong his life.

I suspect that if one of Trump’s advisers on coronavirus had once taken to the august pages of The Atlantic to reason that men who reach the age of 75 are useless to society, the press would be vigorously exploring and amplifying his position. Reporters have rarely bothered to bring it up with Emanuel, who is constantly on TV — or with Biden, who is now “sheltered in place” and trying to prolong his life.

It’s quite simple: Does Emanuel believe that Biden, aged 78 on Inauguration Day, is faltering or declining, or in a state that may not be worse than death but is nonetheless deprived? Does Emanuel consider Biden to have been robbed of his ability to contribute to work, society, and the world? Does he believe that Biden will now be remembered as feeble, ineffectual, and even pathetic? Is Biden’s creativity, originality, and productivity pretty much gone? Surely a younger person, according to Emanuel’s own societal prescription, would be better prepared for the job.

While some of us believe age is catching up to Biden — time waits for no one, etc. — we still believe his life is more than political aspirations. Does Emanuel?

Our ‘Corona Project’ By Victor Davis Hanson

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/04/coronavirus-crisis-americas-high-risk-high-cost-project/

America has never undertaken its like — a high-risk, high-cost endeavor launched amid uncertainty, panic, and pessimism.  Whatever we eventually call it, there is a coronavirus “project.”

Chemotherapy
It’s a race to identify the origins, nature, and danger of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the best way to treat, vaccinate against, and mitigate the effects of the COVID-19 disease — all without destroying America to save it.

However the Corona Project is defined, it remains different from all previous existential American efforts. We are not building any new weapon or infrastructure or deliberately adopting a radical new policy. Much less are Americans fighting a visible enemy, poverty, or just bad habits.

Instead, we are giving ourselves massive social and economic chemotherapy to weaken or retard the virus within us before our massive therapeutic shutdown kills the U.S. economy — a sort of neutron bomb that destroys human interaction without incinerating visible infrastructure. In other words, we the patient apparently must be sickened to the point of near death in order to survive the disease.

It is certainly difficult to compare similar American mass efforts in the past. Their costs are murky — and not just because of inadequate record keeping, the adjustment of prior dollars to current time and inflation, or the need to consider the relationship between lives and money. In addition, the tab for past “wars on” something or other (e.g., alcohol, illiteracy, smoking, poverty, drugs, etc.) usually rippled out for years, both positively and negatively.

Hillary Clinton Endorses Joe Biden Amid New Developments In Tara Reade Allegations By Tristan Justice

https://thefederalist.com/2020/04/28/hillary-clinton-endorses-joe-biden-amid-new-developments-in-tara-reade-allegations/

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton formally endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden Tuesday as the embattled presumptive 2020 Democratic nominee ignores new developments in sexual allegations lodged against him.

“I am thrilled to be part of your campaign,” Clinton said during a live-streamed town hall on women impacted from the coronavirus. “I want to add my voice to the many that have endorsed you to be our president… This is a moment we need a leader and a president in Joe Biden.”

Clinton’s endorsement comes on the heels of several other high-profile endorsements once all other options in the race were eliminated. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders dropped out of the race earlier this month. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi endorsed Biden on Monday and former President Barack Obama declared his support for his former vice president after Biden became the last man standing.

Clinton’s announcement however, comes as Biden is faced with sexual assault allegations that have so far appeared markedly more credible than accusations launched by Christine Blasey Ford just a year and a half earlier against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Clinton at the time said Blasey Ford deserved “the benefit of the doubt” despite Ford offering no proof the she and Kavanaugh had even ever met. To the further detriment of Ford’s unsubstantiated claims, Ford was unable to produce a single witness who could corroborate her story, and even her lifelong friend, Leland Keyser, offered no evidence to support Ford’s accusations. Keyser was named by Ford as a witness, one of four who denied any knowledge of the event in question.

I’ve worked the coronavirus front line — and I say it’s time to start opening up. By Daniel G. Murphy

https://nypost.com/2020/04/27/ive-worked-the-coronavirus-front-line-and-i-say-its-time-to-start-opening-up/

I’m an emergency physician at St. Barnabas Hospital in The Bronx. I have been in the ER every day these last few weeks, either supervising or providing direct care. I contracted a COVID-19 infection very early in the outbreak, as did two of my daughters, one of whom is a nurse. We are all well, thank God.

COVID-19 has been the worst health care disaster of my 30-year ­career, because of its intensity, duration and potential for lasting impact. The lasting impact is what worries me the most. And it’s why I now believe we should end the lockdown and rapidly get back to work.

From mid-March through mid-April, the ER staff at St. Barnabas huddled in groups of about 20 every morning. We asked ourselves what had happened over the previous shift. We generated a list of action­able tasks for the following 24 hours. At first, we addressed personal protective equipment and the management of patients with mild illness who were seeking COVID-19 tests.

Then came the wave of critically ill patients in numbers none of us had ever seen. This lasted for two weeks. The number of patients on ventilators accumulated in the ER and throughout the hospital. We witnessed an unprecedented number of deaths. The tone of the huddles became more somber. We became accustomed to the morbidity; we did our jobs.

It is precisely what I have witnessed that now tells me that it’s time to ease the lockdown. Here’s why.

Why Illinois Is In Trouble – 109,881 Public Employees With $100,000+ Paychecks Cost Taxpayers $14B Adam Andrzejewski Adam Andrzejewski

https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamandrzejewski/2020/04/27/why-illinois-is-in-troubl

Illinois could soon be the first state in history to have its bonds rated as “junk.” Last month, both Moody’s MCO and Standard & Poor’s downgraded Illinois debt to just one notch above junk status.

Last week, the Illinois State Senate President Don Harmon (D-Chicago) wrote a letter to Congress requesting a $41.6 billion bailout. Critics balked.

In many ways, Illinois may have already crossed the Rubicon.

Our analysis at OpenTheBooks.com shows that an Illinois family of four now owes more in unfunded pension liabilities ($76,000) than they earn in household income ($63,585). In a state of 13 million residents, every man, woman, and child owes $19,000 — on an estimated $251 billion pension liability.

Our auditors discovered 110,000 public employees and retirees who earned more than $100,000 last year.

We found tree trimmers in Chicago making $106,663; nurses at state corrections earning up to $277,100; junior college presidents making $491,095; university doctors earning up to $2 million; and 111 small town managers who out-earned every governor of the 50 states ($202,000).