Is Venezuela’s President-in-Waiting a True Friend of the U.S.? Leftist DNA runs deep in Venezuela’s political culture. David Paulin

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/04/venezuelas-beleaguered-president-waiting-david-paulin/

The Trump administration has implicitly acknowledged that its Venezuela policy has a major problem: Juan Guaidó. Venezuela’s beleaguered president-in-waiting, a leftist at heart, has gotten considerable support from the Trump administration to achieve a major U.S. policy goal: ease out Venezuela’s socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro, a stooge of Cuba and Russia. Guaidó would then serve as interim president in a democratic Venezuela.

The 36-year-old Guaidó, a professional politician backed by Venezuela’s democratically elected National Assembly, has nevertheless let down the Trump administration, and he may even be playing the president for a chump if recent comments by his ad hoc adviser are anything to go by. Maduro, meanwhile, has doubled down on the late President Hugo Chávez’s socialist policies, ensuring that oil-rich yet impoverished Venezuela remains an economic basket case and authoritarian hell-hole.

Political allies, of course, are expected to behave in a certain way: friendship is a two-way street. Trump, for his part, has bent over backwards to support Guaidó, a self-declared political independent who previously was a member of Popular Will, a left-wing political party with socialist ties. Guaidó’s fruitless quest to assume Venezuela’s presidency also has gotten steadfast support from some 60 countries. But Maduro hasn’t budged.

Now that the Trump administration has wised up to Guaidó, it has asked him to renounce his claim to Venezuela’s presidency while nevertheless continuing to support him. Under this plan, Maduro and Guaidó would establish an interim government and agree to elections in six to 12 months. In exchange, Washington would ease up on sanctions against Maduro’s regime. Guaidó is seen as a shoo-in over Maduro in a general election. Not surprisingly, Maduro has rejected the plan, for now, while using the cornonavirus pandemic as an excuse to crack down on political opponents.

India’s ‘Covid-19 Super-Spreader’ Tablighi Jamaat The harmless egalitarian organization that isn’t. Radhika Singh

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/04/indias-covid-19-super-spreader-tablighi-jamaat-radhika-singh/

Tablighi Jamaat has been making headlines after becoming known as the super-spreaders of the novel coronavirus across South Asian countries, India in particular, where they held a gigantic religious congregation, despite the government-sanctioned lockdown. If mingling with thousands of Indians and transmitting the virus in a country of 1.4 billion people was not enough, Jamaat members and their accomplices have resorted to pelting with stones the police officials who came to quarantine them and the medical officials who tried to treat them. They also harassed female medical staff by marching naked in front of them in hospitals. Despite these actions, their apologists race to defend them, because the Muslims can never be wrong.

However, this is not the first time India is reeling under the threat of the Islamic radicals of Tablighi Jamaat. In February 2002, the Muslim extremists who torched the Sabarmati Express in Godhra, burning 57 Hindu devotees to death, are also suspected to have been members of this Jamaat.

Though little known, the Tablighi Jamaat is far from being an  innocuous socio-cultural organisation, as liberal media would like you to believe. It is an India-based radical Islamist hydra with multiple heads, and has its tentacles spread worldwide, with corroborated connections to violence, vandalism, terrorists and terror activities across the globe. The movement, which operates out of 150 countries, boasts between 50 million and 150 million adherents. An offshoot of the fundamentalist Deobandi movement, the Jamaat believes Islam must have hegemony over all other faiths, and is out to establish the rule of Islam globally, albeit stealthily.

Targeting Tony Fauci The press baits Trump to fire his most visible coronavirus adviser.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/targeting-tony-fauci-11586819293?mod=opinion_lead_pos3

The U.S. may be fighting through a public health and economic emergency, but for the media resistance the most important story is always Donald Trump. Monday was again dominated by breathless reports about Mr. Trump’s relationship with Anthony Fauci after the President retweeted something that included a #FireFauci hashtag. While Mr. Trump’s antagonists feign protectiveness of Dr. Fauci and horror that Mr. Trump might question expert judgment, the truth is they are eager for a public brawl that will hurt the President politically.

Monday’s dust-up was prompted by an interview Dr. Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, gave Sunday on CNN. Host Jake Tapper, fishing for criticism of the Trump Administration, compared the U.S. to South Korea and pressed Dr. Fauci on whether “lives could have been saved” if the U.S. started shutting down in February.

Dr. Fauci was reluctant to take the bait, saying it was “little bit unfair” to compare the U.S. to South Korea but said that of course earlier shutdowns could have made a difference. CNN ran with the headline “Fauci admits earlier Covid-19 mitigation efforts would have saved more American lives.”

Fauci strongly rebuts media efforts to paint him as a Trump hostage By Andrea Widburg

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

Monday’s COVID-19 press conference will be memorable because President Trump used it to slap back at the media’s attempt to rewrite his timely and aggressive response to COVID-19, even as media types were on the airwaves saying it was nothing more than a flu. What shouldn’t get lost about that same press conference is how Dr. Fauci responded to a reporter who tried to get him, not just to blame Trump, but to act as a hostage to or puppet of the administration.

The press conference that ended up shooting off so many fireworks began innocuously enough. Trump walked out and offered “condolences and best wishes” to those in the South who had experienced severe and deadly weather. Then, he stated that the number of new infections is flat and that hospitalizations are slowing in hot spots, something that is especially good in light of the apocalyptic nature of the expert predictions.

Trump next invited Dr. Fauci to step to the podium. Fauci cheerfully said that, while last week was bad, it seems as if this week we may be on the other side of the bell curve. He was also enthusiastic about his discussion with the Congressional Black  Caucus, and ways to help minority communities.

A CBS reporter screeches at Trump – but she’s wrong about her facts By Andrea Widburg

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

“Anti-Trumpers, of course, didn’t care about the facts nor about respect for the office. They simply liked seeing a shrieking leftist shrew hurling lies at the Republican President of the United States.”

CBS’s Paula Reid was on fire during Monday’s Presidential task force press conference about COVID-19. She started by demeaning Dr. Fauci by asking him a question that implied he’s either hostage to or a puppet of President Trump. That was just a warm-up. Later in the press conference, she started shrieking at President Trump that a video he had shown earlier in the press conference misrepresented his affirmative response to COVID-19 because it implied that he was on top of things in February.

A visibly irritated Trump answered that, in fact, he had taken many steps during February to respond to COVID-19, but CBS’s disrespectful little harridan wouldn’t let up. Aside from being a disgraceful way to talk to the leader of the most powerful nation on earth (if you don’t respect the man, at least respect the office), Reid was completely wrong in her assertion. In other words, she wasn’t a powerful woman taking on a tyrant, she was a shrill Karen being disrespectful to a President of the United States who’s been working hard to protect the American people:

Nancy Pelosi and her Democrats’ unending shame By Patricia McCarthy

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

There are some truly terrible people in Congress; there always have been some throughout American history.  But as the country navigates the course of this mis-modeled and over-hyped COVID-19 pandemic, Nancy Pelosi stands out as a genuine enemy of America.  She loathes the president so much she has relinquished any semblance of ethics and her own personal character.  Every word she utters is a lie.  

She knows damn well that the president was on top of this virus crisis while she and her fellow anti-Americans were gleefully and despicably embroiled in their attempt to remove the president from office.  Not one of the principals in this fiasco – Pelosi, Adam Schiff,  Jerry Nadler, or the rest of them gave a single thought to the potential threat of the disease emanating from China.  There is no record of any of them even mentioning it until the economic shutdown brought it to their attention.  But for calling Trump ‘xenophobic’ when he banned flights from China, none of them registered the virus as dangerous to the U.S.  Once it became clear it was a serious threat, they all got on board to blame it on the president, to spread the lie that he was late to recognize it and is thus to blame, as Barbra Streisand put it, for 20k deaths.  What abhorrent nonsense. Pelosi is the de facto leader of a liars’ club.  And just as when the same bunch went after then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, there is not one bit of truth to their accusations and they all know it.  This is how malevolent Pelosi and her disciples are.  No plot to destroy this president is too wicked to employ. 

Liberal-Backed Candidate Beats Trump-Endorsed Incumbent for Wisconsin Supreme Court Seat

https://www.theepochtimes.com/liberal-backed-candidate-beats-trump-endorsed-incumbent-for-wisconsin-supreme-court-seat_3310873.html

Liberal-backed challenger Jill Karofsky won a hotly contested race for the Wisconsin Supreme Court on Monday, beating a conservative-backed incumbent in state elections.

Karofsky upset Daniel Kelly, who was endorsed by Republican President Donald Trump, for a 10-year court term that could help decide future voting rights and redistricting issues in Wisconsin, a vital general election battleground.

Chinese Factories Shut as Export Orders Dry Up Amid Pandemic By Nicole Hao

https://www.theepochtimes.com/chinese-factories-shutter-as-export-orders-dry-up-amid-pandemic_3310277.html#

A large number of export-oriented Chinese factories were shuttered recently after they didn’t have enough orders to fill.

Some home appliance manufacturers also announced that they laid off employees because of a lack of export and domestic demand due to the pandemic.

As the outbreak of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, commonly known as novel coronavirus, became severe in January, much of China was placed under lockdown and factories halted production for more than a month.

In February, Beijing encouraged companies to resume operations as it grew concerned about an economic slowdown. But Chinese companies were worried that the virus could spread among employees; many factories remained closed.

As some factories reopened in March, they realized they faced a bigger challenge—having no orders to fill. Orders were canceled as the virus spread to other countries, which also adopted social distancing measures and reduced economic activity.

Yes, California Remains Mysterious — Despite the Weaponization of the Debate By Victor Davis Hanson

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/04/coronavirus-pandemic-california-

We’re fighting an epidemic of untruths pushed by unscrupulous reporters.

California is touchy, and yet still remains confused, about incomplete data showing that the 40-million-person state, as of Sunday, April 12, reportedly had 23,777 cases of residents who have tested posted for the COVID-19 illness. The number of infected by the 12th includes 674 deaths, resulting in a fatality rate of about 17 deaths per million of population. That is among the lowest rates of the larger American states (Texas has 10 deaths per million), and lower than almost all major European countries, (about half of Germany’s 36 deaths per million).

No doubt there are lots of questionable data in all such metrics. As a large state California has not been especially impressive in a per capita sense in testing its population (about 200,000 tests so far). Few of course believe that the denominator of cases based on test results represent the real number of those who have been or are infected.

There is the now another old debate over exactly how the U.S. defines death by the virus versus death because of the contributing factors of the virus to existing medical issues. Certainly, the methodology of coronavirus modeling is quite different from that of, say, the flu. The denominator of flu cases is almost always a modeled approximation, not a misleadingly precise number taken from only those who go to their doctors or emergency rooms and test positive for an influenza strain. And the numerator of deaths from the flu may be calibrated somewhat more conservatively than those currently listed as deaths from the coronavirus.

Nonetheless, the state’s population is fairly certain. And for now, the number of deaths by the virus is the least controversial of many of these data, suggesting that deaths per million of population might be a useful comparative number.

The Art of an Oil Deal Trump uses diplomacy to limit the harm to U.S. shale producers.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-art-of-an-oil-deal-11586819335?mod=opinion_lead_pos2

“So credit to Mr. Trump for using U.S. global influence to mitigate the mayhem. Russia and Saudi Arabia have agreed to take on the bulk of the cuts. After Mexico balked at an order to cut its production by 400,000 barrels a day, President Trump volunteered the U.S. to cover 300,000 barrels of its share.”

President Trump has been chasing a diplomatic victory, and he got one this weekend when he brokered a deal between the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and Russia to limit their production that may also limit the bloodbath in the U.S. shale patch.

OPEC and Russia have agreed to curtail their production by 9.7 million barrels a day—about 10% of global output—in May and June amid a steep falloff in demand due to the coronavirus that is expected to exceed 20% of last year’s consumption. After Russia last month refused Riyadh’s calls to cut supply, Saudi Arabia opened up its tap and slashed its crude price.