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Ruth King

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Iran: How the Regime Is Trying to Exploit the Coronavirus Crisis by Majid Rafizadeh

By on April 6th, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15846/iran-exploit-coronavirus

The international community needs to refrain from handing the Iranian regime any direct financial aid. The four-decade history of the ruling mullahs has shown that any extra revenues obtained by the leadership have not benefited the ordinary people in Iran.

If the mullahs are seeking financial assistance because they actually desire to help their own people, why did they refuse America’s offer of medical assistance? Why did their regime revoke its approval for the emergency team sent by Doctors Without Borders (Médecins sans frontières), along with the materials needed to build a 50-bed inflatable treatment unit?

The international community therefore must not directly give the Iranian regime financial aid: it will most likely be funneled into supporting the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its terror and militia groups across the region.

Instead of handing billions of dollars to the ruling mullahs, financial aid can alternatively be towards trustworthy international medical organizations to combat coronavirus directly on the ground, both in Iran and other countries afflicted.

The Iranian leaders have been pushing the international community to provide it with financial assistance to “combat coronavirus” there. The EU has apparently decided to give the mullahs €20 million (approximately $21 million), all while many EU citizens are languishing in Iran’s prisons, often on trumped-up charges. The EU taxpayers’ money will more likely be misused by the Iranian regime to advance still further the mullahs’ malign agendas.

Iran’s leaders are also demanding that the US-based International Monetary Fund (IMF) give them financial assistance. They are asking for a $5 billion emergency loan after the IMF declared that it is making $50 billion available to assist countries with the coronavirus crisis.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif, on Twitter, ordered the IMF to provide Iran with money:

“IMF’s @KGeorgieva has stated that countries affected by #COVID19 will be supported via Rapid Financial Instrument. Our Central Bank requested access to this facility immediately. IMF/IMF Board should adhere to Fund’s mandate, stand on right side of history & act responsibly.”

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China’s Fake News : Its ‘Superior System’ Defeats Coronavirus by Gordon G. Chang

By on April 6th, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15845/china-fake-news-coronavirus

The virus is hitting China in a second wave. The second wave is claiming victims, including the Party’s propaganda narratives. The most dangerous of these narratives is that ruler Xi Jinping, with heaven’s mandate, has an obligation to dominate the international system.

To push America aside and seize global leadership, China got Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the World Health Organization, to say that China’s response to the coronavirus showed the “superiority of the Chinese system and this experience is worthy of emulation by other countries.” Then Beijing set about making a big show of “donating” medical equipment and diagnostic kits, most notably to stricken Europe.

Xi’s initial policies turned a local outbreak into a pandemic, and now they are making even more people sick and forcing China into another pit of disease. China’s inaccurate diagnostic kits and substandard protective gear donated around the world along with the new infections will show the truth: communism is incompetent if not downright malign.

China can lie with statistics, but the virus gets the last word. “Victory” over both COVID-19 and the United States is still far out of sight.

China has “defeated” the coronavirus and declared “victory,” Communist Party media tells us.

A funny thing happened on the way to victory, however. The virus is hitting China in a second wave. The second wave is claiming victims, including the Party’s propaganda narratives. The most dangerous of these narratives is that ruler Xi Jinping, with heaven’s mandate, has an obligation to dominate the international system.

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Crazy Corona Committee TDS-infected Dems work to sabotage president during a national emergency. Deborah Weiss

By on April 6th, 2020

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/04/crazy-corona-committee-deborah-weiss/

In breaking news, Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that the House of Representatives will form a House Select Committee to oversee the Trump Administration’s response to the coronavirus.

The Democrats can’t stand that the president is getting high marks for how he is handling the coronavirus. Therefore, Pelosi decided to create a committee purportedly to weed out “waste, fraud and abuse” and provide “transparency and accountability.” Though it is technically bipartisan, like all committees, make no mistake about it: the purpose of the committee is to criticize the Trump administration for political purposes prior to the upcoming election.

Pelosi and her cohorts didn’t seem the least bit concerned about waste, fraud and abuse or transparency and accountability when holding up the stimulus bill to push for her pet projects including solar energy tax credits, funding for the arts, same-day voter registration, and money for NPR.  Her proposals delayed passage of the bill and prioritized her policy preferences over obtaining ventilators for hospitals and paychecks for those who have lost their jobs.

The notion that the committee will review how the Democrats have responded during this crisis is incredible.  Will the committee examine why Democrats were wasting taxpayer resources trying to impeach the president while Trump was using his time creating a coronavirus taskforce? Will the committee question why Democrats urged the president not to close the borders to China early on, painting him as a “xenophobe” and a “racist”? Will they inquire why the Center for Disease Control under President Obama was focused on gun control instead of combating potential epidemics? How about the way Governor Cuomo failed to purchase more ventilators years ago after the last epidemic, when he knew there was potential for a future pandemic? Is the new committee going to delve into that? Of course not.

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The Andrew Cuomo Show Americans should know his back story — and what kind of president he would be. Lloyd Billingsley

By on April 6th, 2020

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/04/andrew-cuomo-show-lloyd-billingsley/

“Inside Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s daily coronavirus briefings, and how their contrast to Trump’s became must-see TV,” ran the headline on Jake Lahut’s April 2 feature in Business Insider. In similar style, Variety headlined a March 28 column by Cynthia Littleton, “How the Coronavirus Crisis Turned Governor Andrew Cuomo Into a TV Sensation.” Even President Trump took notice.

“I wouldn’t mind running against Andrew,” the president told reporters. “But I’ll be honest, I think he’d be a better candidate than Sleepy Joe.” Cuomo did not challenge Biden in the primaries, but the third-term New York Governor, son of former New York governor Mario Cuomo, has hinted at higher aspirations.

In 2014, Andrew Cuomo authored All Things Possible: Setbacks and Success in Politics and Life, which would probably not have appeared if Cuomo did not aspire to be president of the United States. He was mentioned as a running mate for Al Gore in 2000 and takes a stand with party progressives.

The Democratic Party of early 80s, Cuomo explains, was “trying to juxtapose its progressive vision – a philosophy of opportunity and shared success for all – with the Republican idea of attenuated government and survival of the fittest, embodied by Ronald Reagan.” Further, “blaming Reagan was correct but also was the simple answer.”

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COVID-19 and The Swedish Exception Like its immigration policies, Sweden’s approach to the coronavirus sets it apart from its neighbors. What’s the endgame? Bruce Bawer

By on April 6th, 2020

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/04/covid-19-and-swedish-exception-bruce-bawer/

A few weeks ago, while other countries around the world were locking down in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the UK and Sweden chose to go with business as usual: keep everything running, act as if nothing’s wrong, let people hold parties and meetings and candlelight suppers. In response to a public outcry and a growing sense that the nation was barreling toward disaster, British officials soon backed off from this policy. But Sweden, on the advice of top government epidemiologist Anders Tegnell – described by Reuters as “only months ago a little known civil servant but now rivalling the prime minister for publicity” – stuck to its guns. Hence the denizens of IKEA-land are still going to work, kids are still going to school, and shops and bars and restaurants and gyms and barbershops are still open.

To be sure, this approach has its share of credentialed and outspoken domestic critics. Epidemiologist Joacim Rocklöv has called it “a big and risky experiment with the entire population that could have a catastrophic outcome.” Cecilia Söderberg-Nauclér, a virologist at the Karolinska Institute, used the same word: Sweden’s government, she charged, is “leading us to catastrophe.” Meanwhile, a mathematics professor at the University of Stockholm has warned that thanks to the official hands-off strategy, half of the country’s population could be infected with the virus by the end of April. And at last count, no fewer than 2300 academics, including the head of the Nobel Foundation, have signed a petition calling “for more stringent measures” against the virus.

In neighboring Denmark, which has pursued a lockdown along the line of America’s, the state of affairs in Sweden is causing no small degree of trepidation. “Looking at Sweden is a bit like watching a horror film,” a Danish TV reporter, Lisbeth Davidsen, said the other day. The reaction in next-door Norway has been similar. 

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CCP Virus: US Hospitalizations Way Below Projections By Petr Svab

By on April 6th, 2020

https://www.theepochtimes.com/ccp-virus-us-hospitalizations-way-below-projections_3299284.html

While tens of thousands are hospitalized across the United States due to COVID-19, the numbers are a fraction of what experts predicted just a few days ago.

The main reason appears to be that the projections were already off the day they were released.

The model in question was published by the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME). It was repeatedly referenced by Dr. Deborah Birx, the response coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force, during President Donald Trump’s daily press briefings on the pandemic.

On March 30, the model’s authors released a paper that warned that the country will need about 8,000 to 250,000 extra hospital beds to cope with the pandemic (pdf).

“Even with social distancing measures enacted and sustained, the peak demand for hospital services due to the COVID-19 pandemic is likely going to exceed capacity substantially,” they said. “Alongside the implementation and enforcement of social distancing measures, there is an urgent need to develop and implement plans to reduce non-COVID-19 demand for and temporarily increase capacity of health facilities.”

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New York City is lying about Chinese virus death rates By Matthew Vadum

By on April 6th, 2020

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/04/new_york_city_is_lying_about_chinese_virus_death_rates.html

The mass hysteria over COVID-19 in the U.S. is driven in large measure by misleading statistics and bad math about the disease’s body count.

Now that New York has become the epicenter of the pandemic in the United States, we are now regularly inundated on cable TV news with the latest pandemic statistics from the city.  The statistics grow gloomier by the hour.

These figures have frightened people into submission as state and local governments across America enact repressive measures they say are necessary to contain the virus or slow its proliferation. 

After doing everything in their power to oust President Donald Trump, journalists and others are now calling him a weakling for supposedly not doing enough, while they demand an unprecedented nationwide crackdown.

The problem starts with the fact that the highly influential statistics from the Big Apple paint a false picture of what is actually happening.

In New York City, the death of anyone who dies who tests positive for COVID-19 is counted as a coronavirus death.  This is the case even if the coronavirus failed to play a significant role in the person’s passing or illness. 

This calculus violates established scientific standards.

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Careful, dispassionate analysis is totally lacking in coronavirus panic By Jared Peterson

By on April 6th, 2020

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/04/careful_dispassionate_analysis_is_totally_lacking_in_coronavirus_panic.html

“Fauci is an infectious disease man, not a total picture man.  It’s his job to tell Trump what’s needed to stop this disease or to render its outcome more bearable.  It’s not his job to weigh the costs of the measure he recommends against the massive other harms those measures cause.  That task is the task of informed political authorities.”

When it comes to the coronavirus panic, what is needed now is a careful, dispassionate daily evaluation of the data.  It is indisputable that we are in the midst of a worldwide panic of unprecedented proportions.  When all is said and done, and understood, all the measures taken may indeed be seen as having been justified.  But I think that unlikely.

It’s critically important that if data emerge — about lethality and extent of probable population penetration — that suggest that the socially, economically, and medically crushing measures taken so far are excessive and unnecessary, we allow that data to propel changes in those measures.  We are going to be in deep trouble soon because of these measures, even if we stop or slow the virus. 

The panic is being fueled by irresponsible, uninformed, stupid, and sensationalized media coverage, along with politically motivated scare commentary.  I read somewhere, for example, that now New York has had more deaths from the Wuhan virus than from the 9/11 attacks.  So what?  New York may also have had more deaths during the same period than from 9/11 anyway, as a result of annual flu or from heart attacks and strokes.

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A Solution to COVID-19 Is in Sight! By Howard Richman and Jesse Richman

By on April 6th, 2020

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/04/a_solution_to_covid19_is_in_sight.html

A solution to the COVID-19 epidemic is in sight.  It is the combo used by South Korea, where people are back at work, to successfully stem its COVID-19 outbreak.  It has three parts: (1) greatly expanded testing of those who could be infected and (2) effective treatment of the virus with a hydroxychloroquine-zinc cocktail, combined with (3) the product of American ingenuity: rapid development of vaccines. 

While these solutions might be thwarted by bureaucracy, progress is happening rapidly, and there are reasons why our collective Groundhog Day of staying at home every day while the economy falters and body counts grow could soon be over. 

Greatly Expanded Testing

Testing is one key.  South Korea did its testing for COVID-19 by setting up drive-through testing stations around the country.  Sufficient tests are now available in the United States to make testing widespread, but it isn’t happening.  During President Trump’s Coronavirus Task Force press conference on Tuesday, Vice President Mike Pence and Task Force coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx discussed the problem:

THE VICE PRESIDENT: On the subject of testing, we have now completed more than 1.1 million tests around the country. We’re working very closely with governors around America to — to assist them in drive-through and community testing centers[.] …

Abbott Laboratories is actually going to be producing 50,000 tests a day and distributing those around America.  There’s already the machines in some 18,000 different locations around the country, and they’ve told us they have several thousand on the shelf now[.] …

We’re testing about 100,000 Americans a day.  That’ll continue to grow.  It’ll continue to accelerate[.] …

DR. BIRX: It is disappointing to me right now that we have about 500,000 capacity of Abbott tests that are not being utilized.  So they are out.  They’re in the states.  They’re not being run and not utilized.

Why aren’t the tests being utilized?  The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are standing in the way.  On its website, the CDC has extremely restrictive criteria regarding who should be tested.  The only ones with high priority are:

Hospitalized patients.
Those who are in long-term care facilities with symptoms.
Those who are 65 years of age or older with symptoms.
Those with underlying conditions with symptoms.
First responders with symptoms.

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Steve Bryen’s New Book on Technology, Security and Strategy Is Must Reading By David P. Goldman

By on April 6th, 2020

https://pjmedia.com/spengler/steve-bryens-new-book-on-technology-security-and-strategy-is-must-reading/

Book Review: Essays in Technology, Security and Strategy, Vol. III, by Stephen D. Bryen with Shoshana Bryen. 537 pages. $19.95 paperback/$9.95 Kindle.

Steve Bryen is a brilliant and high-qualified defense analyst who cuts through the baloney and tells you exactly what is going on. His lead article today in Asia Times on coronavirus problem on the USS Theodore Roosevelt argues that the carrier never should have been sent to Vietnam, where the crew mingled with locals in the middle of an epidemic. The State Department had already advised U.S. citizens not to travel overseas, yet the Navy put the crew at risk by exposing them to the locals in what boiled down to a public relations exercise. As so many times in the past, Bryen writes about key issues that no-one else talks about.

His latest volume of essays, many published originally in Asia Times, is required reading for anyone who wants to understand how technology shapes national security. His range of expertise is as broad as his background. He was an engineer, fighter pilot, senior staff director of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the executive director of a grassroots political organization, the head of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Trade Security Policy, and the founder and first director of the Defense Technology Security Administration during the Reagan years. His brilliant wife Shoshana Bryen is senior director of the Jewish Policy Center.

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