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One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics
is that you end up being governed by your inferiors. -- Plato
(429-347 BC)
Friday, March 27, 2020
Every Crisis Is an Open Door
by Tony Perkins: It was almost dusk when they pulled into the hospital parking lot, flashers on. For Midland, it had been a sobering few days. Like other parts of Texas, the first wave of virus patients hit this week -- leaving doctors and nurses alone to face the grim realities.
Knowing their health care workers were probably exhausted and now isolated from their families, the tight-knit community had an idea: a car prayer chain, outside Midland Memorial Hospital.
Local churches had put out the word for people to drive to the parking lot across the road to pray. The sight -- dozens of cars with their lights blinking -- was meant to be a sign for everyone inside that the community of Midland was standing with them, interceding for them. The powerful image was caught on video by a local reporter, who was moved as he panned across cars where families were burning candles on their hoods or just sitting inside with their heads bowed. Across the front of the hospital, one Midlander had stretched a huge banner that said, "Heroes work here!"
For the faces pressed to the glass, looking out across the sunset scene, it was a poignant moment. It's the kind of support, hospital CEO Russell Meyers said, that his team desperately needs. Like medical workers across the country, he knows the kind of risks his employees are taking just by "coming to work and doing their jobs" right now. "Keeping up people's morale and expressing our appreciation to them is a vital part of the effort."
Local restaurants are also pitching in, delivering free meals for staff. "There are a lot of folks out there -- our first responders, teachers, nurses, police officers -- who are working around the clock to prevent us from having a catastrophic situation happen here. [They] may not have time to spend an hour in line at the grocery store for their families or for themselves," he said. We're trying to feed them."
It's a mission Calvary Chapel Chino Hills Pastor Jack Hibbs knows well. His California congregation has been rallying to meet the demands pouring in from the community and local law enforcement. Thursday morning, the area police chief sent in a request for more water and food. By 4:00 p.m. that afternoon, an enormous truck had been loaded with stacks of soda, water, boxes of snacks, and fruit and sent off to the families in need. The police department was completely overwhelmed at how quickly the congregation had responded. "He asked me to personally thank you all," one of the Calvary Chapel staffers posted on Facebook.
These are just some ways that the church is ministering to the enormous need -- without putting their congregations at risk. You can too! Take a page out of Midland and host a drive-in prayer chain. In a lot of places, where hospital visitors aren't allowed, there are probably extra parking spaces nearby or across the street. For more urban areas, even a caravan of cars driving around the block with their flashers on would be an encouragement. Think about ways that you, as a church family, can show your appreciation and support for health care workers. From my conversations with those working in our hospitals I know this is a very difficult time, they need our support.
In places like New York, where hospitals are overrun, nurses talk about not being able to sleep when the chance comes because their minds are so filled with the horrors they've seen. "I cried in the bathroom on my break," one said haltingly. "I cried the whole way home." She sees their faces of fear when she closes her eyes. "I cry for the ones who passed away. I cry for my coworkers because we know it will get worse, and we are already at our breaking point. I cry for the parents, children, siblings, spouses, who cannot be with their loved ones who may be dying."
There is so much hurt and suffering grabbing hold of our country. At the very least, pray. But then think about the ways you can reach out, as a church, and touch that pain with hope. Every crisis is an open door. Walk through it and love the people around you. For ideas, check out our special website, FRC.org/church.
----------------------- Tony Perkins (@tperkins) is President of the Family Research Council . Article on Tony Perkins' Washington Update and written with the aid of FRC senior writers. Tags:Tony Perkins, Family Research Center, FRC, Family Research Council, Every Crisis, Is an Open DoorTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
Bernie Sanders Calls for Expansion of Abortion During COVID-19 Pandemic
by Live Action News: Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is calling for the expansion of access to abortion during the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic. Though abortion is never medically necessary, Sanders believes abortion businesses should be able to commit abortions via telemedicine, a move that would leave women at risk for major complications. Former abortionist Dr. Anthony Levatino explains the process and the risks in the video below:
“It is outrageous that right-wing politicians in states like Texas and Ohio are using this crisis to risk women’s health and safety by denying their right to abortion and other reproductive health care,” Sanders tweeted. “Instead, we should be expanding access with things like telemedicine.”
It is outrageous that right-wing politicians in states like Texas and Ohio are using this crisis to risk women's health and safety by denying their right to abortion and other reproductive health care. Instead, we should be expanding access with things like telemedicine.
Currently, government officials have called for personal protective equipment to be reserved for assisting with the COVID-19 crisis. Hospitals are overwhelmed, and dealing with complications from a wholly unnecessary procedure like abortion — including the abortion pill, which can cause hemorrhaging, sepsis, and even death (and of course, death for countless preborn children) — will only put further strain on an already taxed health care system and take resources that might otherwise be used to treat patients with the coronavirus.
Expanding abortion access through telemedicine is a dangerous idea. Without an ultrasound to properly date a pregnancy and check for conditions such as ectopic pregnancy, women’s lives will be put directly at risk. The abortion pill is for use only during the first 10 weeks of pregnancy; as pregnancy progresses, so do failure rates and the potential complications for women. Taking the abortion pill during an ectopic pregnancy can result in death for the mother. Allowing for telemedicine abortion could lead to complications that send women to the emergency room during a pandemic.
About half of all U.S. states do not report abortion complications, so there is no way to know how many women have suffered the devastating effects of the abortion pill already.
--------------------- Live Action News Tags:Live Action News, Bernie Sanders, Calls for, Expansion of Abortion, During COVID-19 PandemicTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
by Patrick Buchanan: Trump should go further, turn the tables, and seize this crisis to do what he was elected to do — impose a new foreign policy.
To fight the coronavirus at home, France is removing all military forces from Iraq.
When NATO scaled back its war games in Europe because of the pandemic, Russia reciprocated. Moscow announced it would cancel its war games along NATO’s border.
Nations seem to be recognizing and responding to the grim new geostrategic reality of March 2020: The pandemic is the real enemy of us all, and while we fight it, each in his own national corner, we are in this together.
Never allow a serious crisis to go to waste, said Barack Obama’s chief of staff Rahm Emanuel during the financial crisis.
Emanuel was echoed this month by House Majority Whip Rep. James Clyburn, who called the coronavirus crisis “a tremendous opportunity to restructure things to fit our vision.”
What Clyburn had in mind is what Democrats advanced as their alternative to the $2.2 trillion emergency bill. It was designed to force President Trump either to swallow it whole or to take responsibility for vetoing a critical transfusion of federal funds to keep the economy alive.
Among the items stuffed in the Democrats’ proposal:
A $15-an-hour minimum wage imposed on companies receiving funds. Blanket loan forgiveness of $10,000 for students. New tax credits for solar and wind energy. Full funding of Planned Parenthood. Federal dollars for fetal tissue research.
$300 million for PBS, which has been promoting the LBGT agenda to school kids. Mandating “diversity” on corporate boards as a condition of companies receiving funds. Election “reforms” to increase Democratic turnout. Insistence that airlines, to get a bailout, offset carbon emissions from jet engines. $35 million for the Kennedy Center.
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and congressional Republicans ash-canned almost the leftist wish list.
But Trump should go further, turn the tables, and seize this crisis to do what he was elected to do — impose a new foreign policy.
Isolate America, not from the world, but from the world’s wars.
The New York Times and Washington Post editorialized Thursday for an easing of the economic sanctions we have imposed on Iran.
This would be a humanitarian gesture when Iran is suffering more than any country in the Middle East from the virus. More than that, it would be a statement that America is not at war with the Iranian people.
This unilateral gesture by Trump, asking nothing in return except negotiations, would put the onus for Iran’s isolation squarely with the ayatollah and his regime.
As for Vladimir Putin’s cancellation of war games in response to NATO’s cancellation, Trump could seize upon this as an opening to engage Russia as candidate Trump promised to do.
Does anyone believe Putin wants a war with NATO?
Should he do so, does anyone think Italy and Spain, two of the largest NATO allies, but both suffering greatly in the coronavirus crisis, would invoke Article V and declare war on Russia?
When Hitler was our foe, America created a wartime alliance with Stalin in the common cause of crushing the Axis powers. Liberals and leftists yet defend the Popular Front between the democracies and Stalin. If we could unite with Bolsheviks to defeat Nazis, surely we can join with Iran’s rulers to cope with and crush the coronavirus.
When, if ever, will there be a better time to make good on Trump’s campaign pledge to extricate America from the wars in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan?
Consider also the Korean Peninsula.
Kim Jong Un has been testing rockets again over the Sea of Japan.
Transfixed by the coronavirus crisis, however, the world is paying him no attention. We should make a final offer to Kim Jong Un to pull our U.S. forces from South Korea and lift sanctions for verifiable reductions and restraints on his nuclear arsenal.
We are ready for a deal. But If Pyongyang refuses to talk, we should tell him we are going home and are allowing South Korea and Japan to develop their own nuclear weapons. And let Kim deal with them.
The coronavirus pandemic is the greatest crisis since the Cuban missile confrontation of 1962. After that crisis, John F. Kennedy sought to use the world’s brush with Armageddon to establish a detente with the Soviet Union of the Communist dictator who had put the missiles in Cuba.
Following our Cold War victory, we have not done that. Instead, we plunged into wars that were none of our business to deal with imagined threats and advance utopian causes like establishing Jeffersonian democracy in lands where tribalism and dogmatism are rooted in the very soil.
The coronavirus is the enemy Saddam Hussein never was. And the ayatollahs never had tens of millions of Americans “sheltering in place.”
What the coronavirus crisis tells us is not that we should turn our backs on the world but that, in engaging with the world, we should put our own interests first, as every nation in the world is doing now.
-------------------- Patrick Buchanan (@PatrickBuchanan) is currently a blogger, conservative columnist, political analyst, chairman of The American Cause foundation and an editor of The American Conservative. He has been a senior adviser to three Presidents, a two-time candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, and was the presidential nominee of the Reform Party in 2000. Tags:Patrick Buchanan, conservative, commentary, Can This Pandemic, Usher in a New Era?To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
NRA: Coronavirus Lockdowns Show Danger of Waiting Periods on Gun Purchases
by AmmoLand.com: The National Rifle Association (NRA) notes that coronavirus shutdowns resulting in the closure of gun stores in various states demonstrate that gun controls the left once pushed as “reasonable” have become anything but.
The Democrats’ pet gun controls — waiting periods, universal background checks, etc. — are pushed again and again as common sense, “reasonable” solutions to keep guns out of the wrong hands. When the NRA and other gun rights groups push back, citing the opportunity for tyranny, they are shamed with accusations of being pawns of the gun industry.
But coronavirus shutdowns at the state level have cast a light on just how unreasonable waiting periods and universal background checks can be.
For example, on March 19, 2020, Breitbart News reported on the lines that stretched from inside to outside of certain California gun stores, lines of customers wanting to buy a gun for self-defense. The line was so long that some customers abandoned the effort. But for those who stuck it out, they made it all the way to the counter to learn that they could buy a gun but could not take possession of it until a ten-day waiting period had passed, per California law.
On March 24, 2020, Breitbart News reported that New Jersey State Police followed Gov. Phil Murphy’s (D) shutdown order by announcing that that state’s firearm background check system would be shut down. In a state with universal background checks, shutting down the background check system means zero gun sales, period.
In other words, if you do not have a gun for self-defense prior to the shutdown you will not have a gun for self-defense afterward (unless you are one of the few people who got their name in the system prior to the shutdown).
Ironically, all the “reasonable” gun controls now contribute to a scenario where law-abiding citizens cannot acquire firearms for self-defense.
It was with great foresight that the Founding Fathers included the phrase, “Shall not be infringed.”
----------------------- AmmoLand.com Tags:NRA, Coronavirus, Lockdowns, Show Danger, of Waiting Periods, Gun Purchases, Ammo LandTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
by David Limbaugh: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s attempted partisan sabotage of the coronavirus relief bill might mark a new low for her. That the bill finally passed the Senate doesn’t excuse her reckless gamesmanship.
Republican and Democratic Senate leaders were close to an agreement when Pelosi parked her partisan broomstick and poured poison into the congressional punchbowl.
“Talking to some Senate GOP sources,” Townhall political editor Guy Benson tweeted. “They seem stunned and angry. I’m told there was lots of bipartisan input into the legislative outline & emerging specifics — including an agreement in principle on broad strokes. Then Pelosi showed up and threw a partisan grenade.” Sources said the Democratic leadership moved to exploit the crisis by attaching its socialist wish list to the bill.
Manhattan Institute senior fellow Brian Riedl, a conservative known more for his scholarship than partisanship, had strong words. “The Senate Democrats just engaged in one of the most cynical displays of partisanship I have ever seen in the U.S. Senate,” said Riedl. “They let Pelosi blow up a bipartisan agreement.”
Keep in mind that Republicans and Democrats had already hammered out an imperfect deal before Pelosi’s last-minute shenanigans. Republicans had already reluctantly agreed to certain repulsive provisions to ensure prompt relief for suffering people and the free-falling economy.
Conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt also expressed uncharacteristic disgust. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell “jammed his own caucus to pass @SpeakerPelosi bill because he knows we are in a catastrophe and action needed,” Hewitt tweeted. “If businesses founder, they cannot be resurrected from ashes. Vote by @SenateDems most outrageous obstructionism I’ve ever seen and @senatemajldr anger is righteous.”
Following Pelosi’s and Sen. Chuck Schumer’s lead, congressional Democrats degenerated to class warfare to justify their obstruction, calling the bill a corporate bailout and slush fund that would not protect workers. But that was just cover for loading the bill with partisan perks that wouldn’t alleviate problems caused by the virus.
Democrats added provisions to increase federal control over elections including federal mandates on how and when we vote, and who collects absentee ballots. Conservatives have long believed these progressive proposals — mandatory early voting, mail-in ballots (which would allow ballots to be marked behind closed doors), same-day registration and legalized ballot harvesting — are aimed at manipulating election outcomes and facilitating voter fraud. These measures have consistently failed, but Pelosi and company figured that with a gun to Republicans’ heads, they would cave to avoid being perceived as uncompassionate. Congressman Adam Schiff insulted Americans’ intelligence even more than he usually does, by depicting these provisions as necessary to strengthen “the health of our democracy.”
Other Democratic add-ons included aid for Planned Parenthood, millions for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and an increase in the minimum wage to $15 per hour for all businesses receiving stimulus funds.
Perhaps worst of all was their ploy to require airlines receiving assistance to fully offset carbon emissions by 2025. “There is a whole concern in our country that if we’re giving tens of billions of dollars to the airlines, that we could at least have a shared value about what happens to the environment,” Pelosi tweeted.
To understand just how disgraceful this little trick was, consider the reaction of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s former chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti, the principal architect of AOC’s notorious Green New Deal and a progressive’s progressive. “I helped write the #GreenNewDeal and I think this is ridiculous,” Chakrabarti tweeted. “The tiny little emissions standard increase doesn’t even do anything meaningful to stave off climate change and gives the @GOP leverage to get rid of real help for working people. Solve the problem at hand.”
How can Democrats still get by with their professions of compassion when they can’t tie their shoes without injecting politics into their shoelaces? How dare they hold this relief bill hostage for items that have nothing to do with the crisis or assisting those suffering from it while otherwise claiming to support it?
This stunt showcases the level of extremism choking the reason out of the Democratic Party. Likely Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s shameless support of these Green New Deal provisions puts the lie to the notion that he is a moderate alternative to some of the more extreme leftist Democratic candidates.
One can hope for more bipartisanship in tackling this pandemic and its surrounding economic devastation, but that can only happen if we decouple from relief bills the less urgent problems unrelated to the crisis. So far, congressional Democrats have resisted that, which, in a sane world, would come back to bite them in November.
--------------------- David Limbaugh is a writer, author and attorney. His latest book is "Jesus is Risen: Paul and the Early Church." Follow him on Twitter& @davidlimbaugh and his website at davidlimbaugh.com. Tags:David Limbaugh, The Worst Time, Congressional PartisanshipTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
The question was asked on Facebook, by one friend, and answered this way by another:
“Government: South Korea; People: Japan.”
My response?
“Combo of people and government: Taiwan.”
There is a lot in the Taiwanese response to explore.
“The first cause of Taiwan’s success,” write Javier Caramés Sanchez and William Hongsong Wang on Mises Wire, “is the transparency of information, which stopped the rapid growth of infection.” While on Mainland China the corrupt government was no more transparent than the very murky Yellow River, in the Republic of China (commonly called Taiwan, and once listed on the globe as “Formosa”) the Ministry of Health and Welfare began informing the public as early as December 31.
The second reason? “The type of quarantines established by the Taiwanese government are mostly self-quarantines. The Taiwanese government acknowledges that it is crucial to rely on people’s voluntary actions to resist the pandemic.” In Japan the people regularly don masks when sick. That kind of compliance is cultural there. In Taiwan, there has been a lot of spontaneous and “all you need to ask” compliance with social distancing and the like.
“The key is that the Taiwanese government and the Taiwanese people understand that the individual’s own responsibility and actions are essential to suppressing the coronavirus pandemic, not a mandatory massive shutdown,” the authors conclude. “This is what the world needs to learn.”
Responsibility is what a free people practice. And learn to master.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
----------------- Paul Jacob (@Common_Sense_PJ) is author of Common Sense which provides daily commentary about the issues impacting America and about the citizens who are doing something about them. He is also President of the Liberty Initiative Fund (LIFe) as well as Citizens in Charge Foundation. Jacob is a contributing author on the ARRA News Service. Tags:Paul Jacob, Common Sense, People Power, Republic of China, TaiwanTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
by Bill Donohue: It is not unusual for authors of a new book to seize opportunities to plug their work. But the March 27 op-ed in the New York Times by Katherine Stewart breaks new ground. After inventing a bogey man—”Christian Nationalists”—she then blames them for the coronavirus. Here is some background information.
When George W. Bush won reelection in 2004, no issue brought voters to side with him more than “values.” These “values voters” sent a shock wave through the ranks of the secular elite in the Democratic Party, and they responded by founding rogue lay Catholic groups such as Catholics United and Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good. They also discovered the virtue of “God talk” and an expressed interest in government faith-based social programs (absent the faith element, of course).
Those phony tactics were buttressed by an onslaught of bigoted attacks that branded conservative Christians “theocrats.” It didn’t get them one vote. Now the same crowd is back arguing that “Christian Nationalists” are a threat to the country.
In July 2019, those who hate religious conservatives released a document, “Christians Against Christian Nationalism.” They said this new enemy “demands that Christianity be privileged by the State and implies that to be a good American, one must be Christian.” One wonders why these nefarious Christians settled for implying that everyone be a Christian—why didn’t they demand it?
Stewart is one of the proponents of this crazed idea. In her op-ed she drops a few anecdotes citing some wild-eyed remarks made by a few pastors, and then unloads by blaming Trump for listening to these people, resulting in an allegedly poor response to the coronavirus.
This is a cheap game. It would be like conservatives blaming left-wing cable television channels for the coronavirus. How so? By suggesting, and in some cases stating, that Trump is a bigot for putting a ban on travel from China. He did that on January 31, ten days after the first case of the virus hit the U.S. This led the Chinese-Communist friendly head of the World Health Organization to label Trump a “racist,” and Joe Biden responded by saying he was fomenting “xenophobia” and “fear-mongering.”
The medical community acknowledges that Trump saved an untold number of lives by making this decision. Would it now be fair to blame his left-wing critics for the coronavirus? No, only a Christian conservative who thinks the way Stewart does would blame them.
Finally, to show how much Stewart hates religious conservatives, consider that she is upset with Trump for saying he hopes we are “just raring to go by Easter.” What’s wrong with that? “He could have said, ‘by mid-April.'” Yup, this is proof that Christian Nationalists are running the country.
This is the level of intellectual scholarship that the New York Times fancies these days. The newspaper of record is now mainstreaming paranoia.
Contact James Bennet, the editorial page editor: james.bennet@nytimes.com
----------------------- Bill Donohue (@CatholicLeague) is a sociologist and president of the Catholic League. Tags:Bill Donohue, Catholic League, Blaming Christians, For The Virus, ParanoidTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
Hope vs. Despair, Return To Normal, More Viral Threats
Gary Bauer
by Gary Bauer, Contributing Author: Hope vs. Despair
Along with the left/right divide in America and around the world, another split is becoming evident. It's between those who choose hope and optimism and those, particularly in the media and on the left, who seem to have a vested interest in despair, panic and pessimism.
That split has been evident in the last 24 hours as some emerging good news was generally ignored by the major media.
For example, researchers at the Imperial College in Great Britain initially predicted that the coronavirus would kill 500,000 people in the UK and more than 2 million in the United States. It was big news at the time.
But as more information comes out, it became obvious that the model was wrong. An update released yesterday had dramatically different results. The predicted death toll is now exponentially lower.
Referring to these new results yesterday, Dr. Deborah Birx, a key member of the president's Coronavirus Task Force, said this:
"The predictions of the model don't match the reality on the ground in China, South Korea or Italy. . . Models are models. There is enough data of the real experience with the coronavirus on the ground to really make these predictions much more sound."
Dr. Birx noted that in the major nations dealing the outbreak, the infection rate has never hit 1 in 1,000 people. It could, but that hasn't happened yet, and in some nations, it has peaked and infections are going down.
She also rejected something else that has been hyped by the media lately -- the notion that universal do-not-resuscitate orders are becoming necessary. "There is no situation in the United States right now that warrants that kind of discussion," Dr. Birx said.
This is still a fluid situation. Many early assumptions were based on a large number of infections. But Dr. Birx reiterated that there is no scenario in which "60% to 70% of Americans are going to get infected in the next six to eight weeks."
The Army Corps of Engineers is creating thousands of potential hospital beds by converting empty facilities such as hotels, stadiums and convention centers.
Dozens of drugs are being tested to combat the coronavirus, including those that the media mocked President Trump for suggesting might hold some promise. He may well be proven right, but I'm not holding my breath that the media will report it.
Executives of major corporations like Delta, Marriott and Texas Roadhouse have announced that they are giving up their salaries to ensure their workers are paid. I know many small business owners are making similar sacrifices.
Dr. Anthony Fauci said it was likely that Covid-19 would behave like a regular virus, meaning it will wane over the summer and likely return in the fall. But he added that we will be ready for it with drugs that we know work and many more testing kits; we will also be well on our way to a vaccine.
Speaking Of Positive. . .
Over recent weeks, we've heard many announcements of Hollywood celebrities, sports figures and political leaders who have tested positive for the coronavirus. The announcements are always breathless. Earlier this week it was Prince Charles. Today it's British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
But what you don't hear are the announcements of their recoveries. That should be big news. And that brings me back to the most relevant statistic that the media should be telling us every day. How many people have recovered after testing positive for Covid-19?
Here are the latest global statistics from John Hopkins University: 553,244 confirmed cases, 25,035 confirmed deaths and 127,567 confirmed recoveries.
The ratio of recoveries to deaths is 5:1. And the outcome in America will be much better compared to the rest of the world due to our advanced healthcare system.
Return To Normal
President Trump continues to express his desire to get America back to work as soon and as safely as possible. As you recall, he had expressed the hope that we might be able to do that by Easter weekend.
It seems clear that New York City won't be ready to return to normal by then, and other large cities might not be ready either. But there are many areas of the country that don't have a serious problem now and won't by Easter either.
So the president suggested yesterday that the administration was looking at a county-by-county approach. Dr. Birx noted that 40% of states have just 200 confirmed coronavirus cases or fewer.
President Trump reiterated that this country was not built to be shut down, but we can do this responsibly. He told reporters yesterday:
"This is the United States of America. [Our people] don't want to sit around and wait. . . And, by the way, a lot of people misinterpret when I say 'go back.' They're going to be practicing, as much as you can, social distancing and washing your hands and not shaking hands."
The Big New Show
As millions of Americans are stuck at home, they are watching a lot more TV. One new show in particular has record ratings. It's the Trump Coronavirus Briefing. Monday's briefing drew more than 12 million viewers, comparable to Monday Night Football.
When the virus first started spreading, the left immediately insisted that Trump stop his huge rallies. Well, now they want to shut down his daily press briefings. Some networks have even started cutting them short.
Until Monday Night Football comes back, Trump's press briefings are a good substitute. They are certainly a contact sport! You have a renowned quarterback going to the briefing room while reporters are hitting him as hard they can, doing their best to sack him. So far, I'd say the score is Trump 20, Fake News 0.
More Viral Threats
Sadly, Covid-19 isn't the only virulent virus spreading throughout the world right now. Some are so infected with hate that they are blinded by anti-Semitism. They are spreading conspiracy theories about the virus and even attempting to spread the virus to Jewish communities.
For example, President Trump offered medical assistance to Iran, which is among the worst hit nations in the world. The regime admits that nearly 2,000 people have died, and international experts believe the real figure may be five times the official death toll.
But Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, rejected our help, claiming America genetically engineered the virus to kill Iranians.
And as crazy as that may be, one New York imam is blaming the virus on infidel women who expose their ankles.
I am confident that our medical experts will eventually be able to find a vaccine for the coronavirus. And while there's no vaccine for the virulent virus of anti-Semitism, the best medicine to combat it remains the truth.
------------------- Gary Bauer (@GaryLBauer) is a conservative family values advocate and serves as president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for Working Families Tags:Gary Bauer, Campaign for Working Families, Hope vs. Despair, Return To Normal, More Viral ThreatsTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
. . . The CV19 "fear pandemic" modeling promoted by the media for the last eight weeks is wrong.
by Mark Alexander: As I noted this week in “The ‘War on Virus’ — What’s Our Exit Strategy?” formulating and implementing a way out of the current nationwide partial economic shutdown will be the most challenging policy decision of any presidential administration in decades.
One very significant question for the White House Coronavirus Task Force when evaluating an exit plan is the validity of the academic modeling, which leads to this question: When did the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus variant causing COVID-19 disease enter the U.S.? Of this I am certain — it was not with the man who was diagnosed 21 January in Seattle after his trip to Wuhan, China. He most assuredly was not “patient zero,” despite being the first patient identified once we were alerted to CV19.
But if not him, then who?
Let me be clear: I believe nothing the communist Chinese regime is reporting about its handling of CV19. China claims it identified the first case on 17 November, but one can fairly assume there were many cases prior to that date that were either not identified or not disclosed. There is abundant evidence that the ChiComs attempted to conceal evidence of CV19 for much of November and December, until it notified the World Health Organization on 31 December.
How many Chinese traveled to the U.S. in November, December, and early January, before Donald Trump wisely banned such travel? Specifically, how many came from or had contact with people in Wuhan? According to immigration records, about 3.4 million Chinese enter the U.S. annually, which means that from the time the first China Virus cases were disclosed until the president’s travel ban, approximately 600,000 Chinese nationals entered our country. And this number doesn’t include the many Americans who traveled between China and the U.S. during that time, including the aforementioned Washington state patient diagnosed on 21 January.
In the months prior to that U.S. diagnosis, the number of people in transit between the U.S. and China who were exposed to and could have been carriers of SARS-CoV-2, including many Chinese students, may be as high as 5,000-15,000. Undoubtedly, the disease was here before the first official CV19 case in January, which is to say that many illnesses and deaths in the prior months that were attributed to influenza could have been due to CV19 disease. As I’ve noted previously, the current spike in cases and deaths is primarily a reflection of the large number of tests now being performed, not only an indication of the spread of CV19.
Why is pinpointing the arrival of SARS-CoV-2 into the U.S. so important? Because the Task Force must make decisions based on sound modeling. To avoid deep and prolonged economic harm, we should return to business as usual (excluding those at high risk) in the coming month. And if SARS-CoV-2 actually arrived here between mid-November and mid-January, then the modeling trajectory of its spread and fatality rate is significantly different than what has been projected and reported.
To that point, yesterday Task Force response coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx made a remarkable disclosure. She condemned the “Viral Fear Pandemic” fomented by the mainstream media and, though she did not name them, the Democrat leaders who have disgracefully politicized that fear.
Regarding the breathless pandemic modeling that has been promoted by the media, Brix declared: “Models are models. When people start talking about 20% of a population getting infected, it’s very scary, but we don’t have data that matches that based on our experience.” She said the media should not assert “that when people need a hospital bed it’s not going to be there, or a ventilator it’s not going to be there [because] we don’t have evidence of that.” She added, “It’s our job collectively to assure the American people. There is no model right now [and] no reality on the ground where we can see that 60% to 70% of Americans are going to get infected in the next eight to 12 weeks. I want to be clear about that.”
She referenced the “recent report out of the UK … that said there would be 500,000 deaths in the UK and 2.2 million deaths in the United States.” She noted, “They’ve adjusted that number in the UK to 20,000. Half a million to 20,000. We are looking at that in great detail to understand that adjustment. … The predictions of the model don’t match the reality.” That original UK report was widely promoted by the mainstream media.
(Visit our comprehensive China Virus Pandemic response and recovery page, and see our related pages.
-------------------- Mark Alexander is Executive Editor and Publisher of The Patriot Post. Tags:Mark Alexander, The Patriot Post, Question, When Did SARS-CoV-2, Really Arrive HereTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
President Trump Should Issue The Buy American Executive Order To End China’s Control Of Our Medicines
by Bill Wilson: With all we are facing today, with all the fear and outright transformation of our entire society, it might seem odd that a group of medical organizations would sign a letter opposing American independence in the production of medicines and medical equipment. You would think that in the crisis these groups would want to see America move toward a strong, independent position. But you would be wrong.
The Association for Accessible Medicines (AAM), a trade association for large pharmaceutical manufacturers is pushing a letter opposing an executive order proposed by President Donald Trump that would reduce or eliminate regulations that have raised the cost of manufacturing medical compounds and equipment in the United States. His goal is to end American dependence on China for the medicines we need.
The big international corporations, of course, say the order will make it difficult for them to supply antibiotics and equipment needed now to fight the Chinese coronavirus. Their stated reason for opposing the President is that they want to “do their part” in fighting the scourge. But there is likely a far more sinister reason for this action.
The Chinese Communists will do just about anything to keep their stranglehold on the supply of medicines, the components to make medicines and medical equipment, This is about power — the power of the Chinese Communists to dictate terms to America and Europe. And they are delivering this message through the serpentine voices of major corporations.
So far, the letter being circulated by the pharmaceutical giants has 40 signatures, mostly from associations funded by the pharmaceutical firms themselves In all fairness, most of these groups need the funding from the corporations so it is no surprise that they are doing as they are told. And, as would be expected, there are a handful of so-called “conservative” groups reciting their “free trade” mantra. They, sadly, are so blinded by their failed religion of globalism that they cannot see the threat to America their position holds.
In this small example at a time of national crisis, we can see two facts of life that we all must recognize and address. First, Lenin was right, the capitalist will sell the rope with which they will be hung. China barks and the largest drug companies in the world back down and crawl in their service. The lust for profits even at the price of severe damage to the United States and the American people is the hallmark of major international corporations.
Secondly, the orthodoxy of open borders, open trade and global supply chains has shown itself to be toxic. Millions of working families knew this and have suffered from the actions of both political parties for decades. Tens of thousands of small communities and towns have known the lethal impact of this globalist religion for a long time, as their communities wither and die. But now everyone can see the impact. 95 percent of the components of the most widely used antibiotics are made in China. Medical equipment is now made in China. And, when we need them, we have to depend on the good will of a society that kills its own people, operates slave labor camps and practices genocide on a world class level.
The move by President Trump to begin to bring the production of medicine and medical equipment back to the United States is the only honorable and right thing that could be done. For those corporations now under the golden thumb of China to oppose this basic movement toward American sovereignty is tantamount to a renunciation of their U.S. citizenship. They now side with the rulers of a foreign, hostile regime over that of the people of the United States. Going forward, they should be treated as foreign agents, because that is what they are.
And for the groups who call themselves conservative and toe the globalist line, the sad truth is that none of them have had any impact for a very long time. They are the epitome of Conservative, Inc., existing merely to exist, not to achieve any goal that might conserve the best of America.
What we are viewing is a continuation of a war inside the Republican Party that is now 125 years old. In the election of 1896, William McKinley ran on the platform that had rebuilt America after the Civil War and turned the nation into the industrial powerhouse it was to be up to this day. The platform was simple: Sound Money and Protection.
The formula is exactly what we need today, protection of American industry, jobs and communities. Protection that is not the overblown caricature of the globalists but rather a protection that seeks to have the full costs to outsourcing realized and taken into account. As for sound money, that is long overdue. The fiat regime of the central bank zealots is coming to a crushing end. There is no amount of printing that can save us from the wrath of true economics.
We can expect more pushback to efforts by President Trump and the growing legion of elected officials that see the damage done by the globalist agenda. But understanding that these pathetic attacks are simply the end result of dictates from Beijing renders them inert. They have no meaning or bearing. The march to restore America, to return basic industries to our shores, to rebuild tens of thousands of communities will continue. The tide of history cannot be ordered to not come in.
------------------- Bill Wilson is the President of the Market Research Foundation and a former board member and former President of Americans for Limited Government. Tags:Bill Wilson, Americans for Limited Government, President Trump, Buy America Act, end China control, medicinesTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
by Bill Donohue: In Michigan, New York, and Ohio, churches are exempt from bans on large gatherings at this time due to the coronavirus. Indiana, Louisiana, and Virginia have decided to extend the ban to churches. This is definitely a state issue: the Trump administration has wisely stayed out of it.
At the state level, this is a difficult issue. Our first impulse is to defend religious liberty, but like any freedom, it is not absolute. For example, in New York, it was reasonably decided, after much discussion, not to exempt religious bodies from mandated vaccinations.
Whenever religious liberty collides with public health, the government is obliged to put the least restrictive measures on religion. If that is done, and the motive is purely to protect the public, then in a crisis situation, temporary bans may be legitimate.
Motive counts. Why? Because we must always consider the source of an objection to religious exemptions. If the source is the medical community, and reasonable temporary restrictions are called for in a crisis situation, that is one thing; if the source is a hostile force, that is another. Unfortunately, there are plenty of examples of the latter.
Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and the Center for Inquiry have all issued statements against allowing religious exemptions for bans on large gatherings at this time. Their motives are not benign.
For example, FFRF opposes the decision by the West Virginia Governor to designate a “day for prayer” at this time of crisis. Americans United opposes a similar measure in Pennsylvania. The Center for Inquiry, an atheist organization, has not weighed in on this issue, but it is so extreme that it forced its founder, Paul Kurtz, off its board of directors because he was deemed too moderate.
We also have the likes of the religion haters at American Atheists blasting Senator Marco Rubio for seeking to allow financial assistance to churches so they can meet payroll and rent bills. But why not? If the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is considered worthy of stimulus funds, why should monies be denied churches to pay their bills (the funds are not for proselytizing campaigns)? American Atheists surely had no problem supporting efforts to provide funding to Planned Parenthood.
The best way to proceed with this issue is for religious leaders to work with state officials in coming up with a compromise during these difficult times. What we don’t need is the advice of those who are anything but religion-friendly.
----------------------- Bill Donohue (@CatholicLeague) is a sociologist and president of the Catholic League. Tags:Bill Donohue, Catholic League, Are Bans, On Church Gatherings, Kosher?To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
Tags:AF Branco, editorial cartoon, Cabin Fever, Adam Schiff, could possibly be doing, while he works from home, during the coronavirus outbreakTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
by Caroline Glick: In the face of the steeply rising number of coronavirus patients and the breakneck speed of political changes in Israel, few people have stopped to notice that the world we have grown accustomed to living in for the past generation is falling apart. The global village is collapsing under the weight of the pandemic.
How Israel deals with this dramatic turn of events today, and in the coming weeks, months and years will determine both how we emerge from the present crisis and how we manage in the new world now taking form.
Israel’s food supply system is a perfect example of the global changes to being wrought by the virus. In Israel, five basic foodstuffs are produced locally: fruits, vegetables, eggs, poultry and milk. Most grains, sugar, rice, salt, meat and other foodstuffs are imported.
Out of a total agricultural workforce of 70,000, 25,000 are migrant workers from Thailand and another 25,000 are from the Palestinian Authority. According to Agriculture Minister Tzachi Hanegbi, concerns over the coronavirus prevented 1,500 workers from Thailand scheduled to arrive at the beginning of the month from entering the country. The Palestinian workforce is down to 18,000 and dropping due to the quarantine the PA has placed on its population.
The labor shortages couldn’t come at a worse time. Currently there are a half billion shekels worth of fruit and vegetables ready for harvest. If they aren’t picked in the next three weeks, they will rot on the trees and in the fields.
Three weeks ago, the HaShomer HaHadash organization began getting flooded with calls from farmers for help. HaShomer HaHadash is a volunteer agricultural support organization founded in 2007 to protect Israeli farmers from Arab and Bedouin criminal gangs who extort farmers and ranchers and carry out agricultural theft and sabotage on a massive level.
“These calls were different,” explains HaShomer HaHadash’s leader Yoel Zilberman. “We are used to receiving calls about sabotage, and extortion and sending our volunteers to guard and herd. These calls were about the harvest, the national food supply.”
Zilberman and his colleagues realized the implications of the loss of a harvest for Israel’s food supply and began drawing up a plan to help the distressed farmers. Two weeks ago, Zilberman approached Hanegbi and offered to organize a corps of volunteers to save the harvest. Comprised of the organization’s roster of volunteers, cadets at pre-military leadership academies, youth movement alumni and from twelfth graders, Zilberman’s volunteers would work in shifts in the fields. With government finance, Hashomer Hahadash would provide for all their needs. Hanegbi agreed.
Last week, the government approved an emergency order to organize the corps of volunteers. The first hundred young people arrived in the fields on Tuesday. Operating in compliance with Health Ministry guidelines, HaShomer HaHadash launched a smartphone application called “Sundo” where prospective volunteers can join the operation. Zilberman plans to expand his roll of volunteers to include foreign students stranded in Israel with nothing to do after the coronavirus caused their programs to be cancelled. He assesses there are up to twenty thousand foreign youth in Israel who could potentially join in the effort.
To be sure, this initiative, which will hopefully enable Israel to surmount the coronavirus-induced international labor shortage, is intended to be a short-term fix. All parties to the initiative assume that once the crisis abates, labor flows will return to their pre-coronavirus levels. But there is no way to know whether this assessment is correct. The coronavirus-induced shortage in migrant, agricultural laborers points to a much wider phenomenon that is unlikely to disappear when the quarantines are over.
The coronavirus pandemic won’t destroy global markets. But it will change them radically and reduce their size and scope. In the case of agriculture, the coronavirus has exposed large-scale vulnerabilities in both agricultural import models and domestic production. At the outset of the crisis, cargo ships laden with foodstuffs from China and Italy were laid up in the ports for weeks until port workers and the Health Ministry could develop protocols for safely offloading them. Dozens of shipments were diverted to Cyprus, at great cost to importers.
Who is to say that food supplies in China or other countries won’t be compromised again in the future? And what happens in the event of war? Naval warfare can easily endanger food imports to Israel over a prolonged period. The model of dependence on foreign suppliers needs to be adapted in the face of what we are learning.
As to domestic production, according to Hanegbi, over the past decade, the number of Israelis engaged in agriculture has decreased by 60 percent as the children of farmers are choosing other professions. Obviously, this is a major vulnerability. Israel needs food security and food security means expanding our domestic agricultural capacity. The incoming government needs to develop a national plan to support domestic agriculture and inspire young people to choose agriculture as a profession and way of life. In Israel, the next crisis is always just around the corner. And the next war or pandemic may make our current endangered harvest look like child’s play.
What is true in relation to agriculture is doubly true in relation to manufacturing. As we are finding in our race to purchase more respirators, it is ill-advised in the extreme to depend on foreign suppliers for food, medical equipment and medicines in times of crisis. Until January 2020, it seemed perfectly rational to outsource manufacturing to China. Now, as we face global shortages in respirators and other medial equipment, it is obvious that China is not a trustworthy supplier.
This week Jim Geraghty published a timeline of China’s deception of the world regarding the nature of the coronavirus in National Review. Geraghty showed that Chinese authorities in Wuhan realized the virus was spread between humans in the first week of December. But it wasn’t until January 20 that the Chinese admitted that this was the case.
In the intervening six weeks, the Chinese lied repeatedly about the infectiousness of the virus and jailed doctors and citizen journalists who tried to warn the Chinese people and the world of the danger. Also during those six weeks, five million people left Wuhan. Scores of thousands of them got on airplanes and flew to Europe and the U.S. bringing the virus with them.
Still today, the Chinese are apparently hiding critical information about the virus from the world. While the Western media heralds the Chinese success in bringing the infection rate down to zero inside China, Japan’s Kyodo News Agency reported this week that the Chinese data are phony. Physicians in Wuhan told the agency’s reporters that the reason the rate of infection has dropped to zero is because Chinese authorities have banned testing.
The coronavirus exposed a truth that global village fans have spent the past generation denying: Borders are important.
From 1997 until the coronavirus, Europe’s internal national borders were all open. Over the past few weeks, 15 EU member states have shut their doors and thrown away the key. Germany – birthplace of the vision of the European common market and nation – initially banned the export of protective medical equipment to its European “brethren.”
When the Italians begged for help, no EU member state sent in medical teams to save their fellow Europeans.
If just last month, the heads of the European Commission had the last word in all discussions among EU member states, today no one cares what they have to say. As Professor Thomas Jaeger from the University of Cologne told the Los Angeles Times, “We’re seeing an enormous delegitimation of the authority of the EU government in this crisis. The longer the crisis lasts, the more nationalism will return.”
In many ways, regardless of how long it lasts, the pandemic has already taken a permanent toll on the EU. EU members have taken one another’s measure and realized that when push comes to shove, they have only their own peoples and governments to rely on. The Italians and Spaniards aren’t likely to care what the feckless bureaucrats in Brussels, or the selfish Germans have to say about their national policies after this is over.
The same goes for the UN and other major international governing institutions.
UN Ambassador Danny Danon wrote Wednesday in Israel Hayom that this is the UN’s finest hour. In his words, “UN institutions, particularly the World Health Organization, are proving that the organization remains the main body that the world needs in its struggle with Corona.”
Danon is mistaken, however. The WHO has played an unhelpful, indeed destructive role in this crisis. As Geraghty and others have shown, the WHO was a full partner in China’s dissimulation efforts. The WHO waited until January 21, after the first coronavirus patient was diagnosed in the U.S., to admit that it is transferred between people despite the fact that WHO officials knew that humans infected one another in early January. This week an Oxford-based research group announced it will no longer base its coronavirus assessments on WHO data, which it considers not credible.
This week Walter Russell Mead noted in the Wall Street Journal that international organizations like the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Word Trade Organization are playing no significant role in the global fight against the coronavirus. National leaders and agencies, who are directly responsible for protecting their people are calling the shots irrespective of WHO rules and IMF spending guidelines.
The coronavirus pandemic has exposed the critical failings of the global village model for international integration. International labor markets, global trade and international governing institutions have proven vulnerable to shocks, unreliable and of limited use. It has also reminded us of foundational truths that have been shunted aside since the end of the Cold War. National borders protect nations. National authorities, and fellow citizens are far more reliable and helpful in times of crisis than transnational, and international organizations.
To survive and protect themselves from global shocks, nations must have autarkic agricultural and manufacturing capabilities. China is not a reliable industrial base.
Israel’s ability to protect itself today, and adapt its economy to the new post-global village reality will in large part determine how it survives and prospers in the post-global village world now taking shape.
-------------------------- Caroline Glick is the Senior Contributing Editor of Israel Hayom and the Director of the David Horowitz Freedom Center's Israel Security Project. For more information on Ms. Glick's work, visit carolineglick.com. Tags:Caroline Glick, Israel Hayom, Israel, Demise of the Global VillageTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
3 Big Media Misses During the Coronavirus Pandemic
by Jarrett Stepman: The coronavirus pandemic has become a health crisis that’s almost unprecedented in our lifetimes.
As our country and the world race to contain the spread of COVID-19, it’s important that we all stay informed on how to protect ourselves and our families and neighbors.
This is a time for journalists in a free country to demonstrate how they can bring vital and accurate information to the public when it’s needed most.
Many journalists have been doing just that, and at great risk.
Unfortunately, the media has made some serious missteps in recent months and acted unseriously in this serious time.
Here are three big media misses during the coronavirus pandemic.
1. Attacking Travel Bans
While there is certainly more that Americans and the Trump administration could have done in preparation for the tidal wave that has been the coronavirus outbreak, one early decision likely made a big difference in controlling its scope.
On Jan. 31, the Trump administration instituted a travel ban to stop the flow of infected people from China to the United States.
“The travel ban with China made a difference,” Dr. Tom Frieden, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and current head of the global health initiative Resolve to Save Lives, told USA Today.
“It resulted in a significant delay in the number of people coming in with infection and because of that, that bought time in the U.S. to better prepare,” Frieden said. “And yet, that time wasn’t optimally used.”
However, critics of the Trump administration roundly attacked the China travel ban as ineffectual, anti-science, and xenophobic.
My colleague, Lyndsey Fifield, had an excellent breakdown on Twitter of the media’s coverage of the travel ban.
Took a break to read back and see how the media covered Trump's 1/31 announcement barring entry into the U.S. from China and HOO BOY...
Many in the scientific community beclowned themselves because their hatred for Trump blinded them—and does to this day. pic.twitter.com/QjF8zfkCB0
At the time, the World Health Organization recommended against travel bans because it was relying on China’s disinformation and failure to report person-to-person transmission of COVID-19.
Good on the administration not to rely on information that had gone through the filter of the Chinese communist government, which clearly has been dishonest about the outbreak since the beginning.
But media outlets didn’t stop with attacks on the administration’s China travel ban. They also widely condemned the more recent restriction on travel from Europe—some calling this move a product of xenophobia as well.
The fact is, contrary to the idea that viruses don’t recognize borders, borders are an important method to limit contact with people infected in a global pandemic. It’s the transmission between individuals that causes COVID-19 to spread quickly, one of the reasons why our whole country is practicing various forms of social distancing and in some places is in near total lockdown.
The idea that the federal government took precautions and shut down borders to prevent the spread of COVID-19 is anathema in a media environment in which the concept of borderless societies is taken as a given.
But if this moment demonstrates anything, it’s that border enforcement matters. It matters not just because of issues such as crime, culture, terrorism, and economics, but also in the realm of public health.
2. ‘China Virus’ Language Policing
Working alongside the attacks on travel restrictions is the media’s ridiculous and unserious condemnation of those who call the new coronavirus the “Chinese virus,” “China virus,” “Wuhan virus,” or any other name that links the pandemic to its country of origin.
This flip-flop followed a wave of Chinese propaganda aimed at attacking the term “China virus” as racist and linking the outbreak to the United States.
It was a jarring reminder of the unserious nature of “woke” culture that at a press conference the day after Trump used the phrase “Chinese virus” on Twitter, he received four questions about it.
Clearly, when the nation is shut down due to the most threatening pandemic since the Spanish flu and Americans are facing mass unemployment and possibly a deep recession, our esteemed press is doing the all important work of language policing.
3. Trump Derangement and Fish Bowl Fluid
Unfortunately, this big media miss may make it more difficult to get the word out on COVID-19 treatments.
Trump and others—including New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat—have touted the possibility that a drug long used to treat malaria may be effective in treating COVID-19.
This would of course be a huge breakthrough in stemming the pandemic if it proves to be effective. One of the malaria treatments contains the prescription drug hydroxychloroquine.
This story soon broke, with similar headlines in countless media outlets and countless journalists spreading it far and wide.
An Arizona man has died and his wife is in critical condition after ingesting an anti-malaria drug in an attempt to treat the novel coronavirus https://t.co/Yqb6Xm7mOF
An Arizona man has died and his wife is in critical condition after ingesting an anti-malaria drug in an attempt to treat the novel coronavirus https://t.co/Yqb6Xm7mOF
A man died after taking chloroquine phosphate, the drug Trump's touted as a potential COVID-19 treatment, via a fish tank additive. His wife is in critical, but stable condition, Banner Health said, imploring people not to self medicatehttps://t.co/MgtUen5xoo
President Trump has been publicly touting the prescription form of chloroquine in the fight against novel coronavirus despite repeated warnings from health officials that any suggestion that it works is purely anecdotal. https://t.co/KyUgF7XF4C
This stemmed from an NBC News report in which the dead man’s wife, who also ingested the substance, said they took it because of Trump’s suggestion that it might be a cure. She would not reveal her name.
👉Her husband is dead & she's in the ICU after ingesting chloroquine:
"We saw Trump on TV -- every channel -- & all of his buddies and that this was safe," she said.
"Trump kept saying it was basically pretty much a cure."
“We saw Trump on TV—every channel—& all of his buddies and that this was safe,” the woman said, according to NBC News. “Trump kept saying it was basically pretty much a cure.”
What the couple reportedly ingested, though, actually was a fish bowl cleaner containing chloroquine phosphate, a different substance used to get rid of parasites.
For the sake of comparison, if it needs one: Bleach is a pretty effective chemical to clean with, but if you drink it, you’ll end up in a hospital. This couple certainly did not take a medication prescribed by a doctor.
It’s highly deceptive to connect Trump’s comments to this couple’s reported attempt to treat themselves with an industrial chemical.
Some news outlets were good enough to correct their headlines and stories.
Axios has deleted its tweet and made a correction.
We have deleted this tweet and corrected our story because it did not reflect the full nature of the self-medication done with an additive commonly used to clean fish tanks. https://t.co/0zucqRaIkIpic.twitter.com/3YY86rju2w
Good for Axios and the other outlets that made corrections. Hopefully this deceptive story won’t stop the spread of medications that may prove vital in the future.
Also, let’s hope that the prolonged and serious pandemic that the country faces will spur the media to focus on the crisis at hand and less on the vapid virtue signaling and sensationalized digs at the president that have been their hallmark for years now.
---------------------- Jarrett Stepman is a contributor to The Daily Signal and co-host of The Right Side of History podcast. Tags:Jarrett Stepman, The Daily Signal, 3 Big Media Misses, During the Coronavirus PandemicTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
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