Think About It

So here’s the question of the day:  Many of the riots have been organized or led by the thugs of Antifa. President Trump declared Antifa a terrorist organization this morning. That gives government all sorts of powers to squash this group and its core supporters   Meanwhile Joe Biden and his staff are contributing to a bail fund for the rioters/terrorists. How can that be?  How can Biden support looters and arsonists who are destroying the lives of random people for no apparent reason?

If DOJ gets to work it can confiscate the assets of Antifa and its core group. Will Biden favor $1200 per month pensions for these criminals?

Oh What A Lovely Day For Looting

In an amazing display of lax and failed governance, mayors and governors around the country are standing back while rioters loot and destroy cities. The supposed reason for the unrest is the death of a man in police custody in Minneapolis. I say supposed because the policeman involved has already been arrested. What more do people want?

Minneapolis is a very liberal city in a blue state. The mayor won’t blame the rioters and looters. Instead he blames white supremacists and organized crime. Huh?  There’s not even a hint of that but that’s his story.

In super liberal Philadelphia there’s some demonstrations but looters are stripping downtown stores closed due to the virus. The looting is televised live but there are no police attempt to stop it. After all the looters are victims according to the mayor. Meanwhile people who own these stores are wiped out. This is not a group with a grievance. It’s just a batch of thieves of all races and religions who see the city government for the morons they are

A Break

I have to stop posting for a few days. I’ll be back soon. Maybe even intermittent stuff

Huh? HCQ Style

Hydroxychloroquine was just the subject of the WHO and the Indian Council of Medical Research. The WHO said HCQ is not a good treatment for the virus. The Indians said HCQ works as a treatment and a preventative. You figure it out. They can’t both be right (I think). 

A New, Even Lower Low!

Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-MN) just hit a new low.  She announced that she believes that Joe Biden sexually assaulted Tara Reade who was on his senate staff, but she also announced that despite that, she was still going to vote and campaign for Biden.

For those who don't recall, Omar is a member of the Squad.  She's also alleged to have married her brother in order to secure his immigration status.  Not only was that an illegal and fraudulent marriage, but Omar was already married to the father of her children, so it was also bigamy.  In the last year, Omar (who had gone back to her original husband)  cheated on him with one of her campaign staff.  She denied the affair but she shoveled hundreds of thousands of dollars in salaries and fees to this guy which she illegally charged to her campaign. Then when her husband filed for divorce because of the affair, Omar ended her marriage and married the campaign staffer.  So much for her denials of the affair.  In other words, Omar is not exactly the most moral of people.

On top of her lack of morality, Omar is also a bigot, an anti-Semite and a major purveyor of racial hatred.  And, by the way, she is also stridently anti-American.

Omar, however, is a big voice on the left of the Democrat party.  She's like the Moslem version of AOC.

So when Omar announces that she believes Tara Reade who alleges that Biden raped her, that should be big news.  Omar is a big name Democrat admitting that Biden likely committed rape.  And when Omar announces that even though Biden committed rape, she is still going to vote for him, it makes clear that the MeToo movement has died.

Someone Explain This

California has about 13% of the population of the USA.  It has about 3% of the deaths from the corona virus.  Although it was thought early on that California was going to be a hot spot, that never came to pass.  The navy sent a hospital ship to Los Angeles, but it wasn't actually used.  Fortunately, it just never got that bad in CA.  Despite that, California has some of the strictest shutdown rules in the country.  It's bizarre.  Here are some examples:

1.  Even though it is over three months until the start of the fall semester, the California state university system has already announced that it will only hold "remote" classes next fall.  That's right.  Students who will pay tens of thousands of dollars to get a college education will get tele-courses instead.  Have you ever done a chemistry lab over a TV?  Ever had a music class or a foreign language class on zoom?  Why is this state already closing its schools for the fall.

2.  Just today, the governor of CA announced that small retail stores will be able to reopen so long as they follow certain guidelines regarding the maximum number of customers in the store, the wearing of masks and social distancing.  That makes sense, but consider this.  The rules the governor is putting in place NOW for smaller stores are exactly the ones that have been in place all through the pandemic for Walmart and Target.  Why did Walmart and Target get to stay open under these rules while small businesses were ordered closed?  As far as is known today, there is no reason to believe that the corona virus avoids Walmart or Target.  Can anyone explain why the governor of CA favored the big stores over their competition?

Time To Retire This Phrase

If there's a motto for the pandemic, there are only a few choices:

We have first, the media choise:  "We need more testing!"

We also have the choice of Joe Biden:  "It's clearly Trump's fault that we haven't done better ..uh, uh.. fighting the ...uh, uh..you know, the thing."

Third, we have the choice of "experts":  "Our models show........"

But the overall choice of the motto for the pandemic has to be "we're all in this together."

That's right:  WE'RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER!!!

That motto is on at least half of the ads on TV.  It is repeated by a whole host of smarmy local politicians.  No matter what the congressmen or senators are pushing for, they always end with this slogan.  In short, the slogan is just something that no longer has any meaning.

It's time to retire this motto.  Maybe we can hold a mock burial for it and admit that many of our fellow countrymen are not in this with us.  Think of Michigan governor Whitmer who told residents who wanted to go out on the lakes in their boats (where they would be far from any sources of infection) that such a move was prohibited because we're all in this together.  Withing a few days, Whitmer's husband got caught calling a marina in the hope of getting his (and the governor's) boat back into the water so that they could sit out on a lake.  (They're not in it with others, I guess.)

The truth is that America is not now (nor will it ever be) in this together.  We all must deal with the virus, but each state, indeed each American faces unique hurdles to clear.  The rancher out in the middle of nowhere in Colorado has a very different set of issues than someone living in a second story walk up in the Bronx or even in an apartment in central Denver.  Nursing home residents in Florida where Governor DeSantis locked down the homes at the start of the pandemic and barred re-entry to sick patients wanting to return from the hospital while still testing positive for the virus face very different issues than residents in New York nursing homes where Governor Cuomo issued an order that the homes couldn't use the fact that a patient tested positive for the virus as a reason not to readmit the patient.  Of course, many thousands of residents of those NY nursing homes died as a result of that order.  The NY nursing home residents who survived the carnage that followed Cuomo's order are not "in this" with the Florida nursing home residents who were protected.

The truth is that the slogan is just another way of saying "I'm in trouble and the rest of you have to protect me."  It's a variant of the liberal theology of victimism, i.e., if one is a "victim" than he or she can do no wrong and must be protected by others.  The essence of American democracy, however, is quite different.  Democracy teaches that we each have our own interests and the course chosen by and for the nation must be the one that satisfies the largest number of people subject to certain overarching limitations set forth in the Constitution.

So, as the sun sets in the western sky, let's bid a fond farewell to the slogan "We're all in this together".  And let's hope we never see its like again.

What A Difference A Day Makes

It has only been three days since Old Joe Biden told African Americans that if they have trouble deciding whether to vote for him or for President Trump, then "you ain't black."  There was one day of some strong reactions and Biden even apologized (although it was unclear if he remembered exactly what had led to the apology.)  If President Trump had said something, anything that was as blatantly patronizing and racist as what Biden said, we would have at least a two week feeding frenzy from the media.  They would be talking about impeachment by this point.  So I went to google to see what the media coverage looked like today with regard to the "you ain't black" statement from Biden.

Nearly the entire media has dropped the story.  There is a long report at Vox explaining why Biden's statement, although unfortunate, won't matter in the long run.  Amazingly, the report says that Biden telling blacks that he knows better than they what "being black" entails is somehow the equivalent of Trump in 2016 saying to blacks, "what do you have to lose" if they vote for him.  Biden patronizes blacks and directs them what to do, while Trump appealed to reason and asked blacks to make their own decisions.  It's not even close to the same thing.

Otherwise, the story has disappeared.  What a difference a day makes.

Moving The Goal Posts

Things change.  That's the truth.  But in politics, what often happens is that while things remain the same, one group or another changes the goal so that something that is successful no longer appears so.  That is what the media/Dems are trying to do with the corona virus and specifically with testing.

Remember when the pandemic started?  There were too few tests.  The test kits that the US had in stock from prior to the virus's appearance in this country were unreliable; many gave false positives or negatives.  All testing was done by the CDC.  We had a system designed for a tiny problem that was suddenly supposed to handle a major outbreak.

So what happened?  The President and his task force realized immediately that the best way to proceed was to bring in private industry to deal with the testing issue.  In all the testing mess, that was the key move.  In the space of two weeks, testing go shifted mostly to private labs like Labcorp and Quest that had the capacity to conduct huge numbers of tests each day.  At the same time, new and truly reliable tests were developed by private companies which the FDC and other federal agencies reviewed and approved extremely quickly.  Suddenly, the US was testing tens of thousands each day.  It didn't matter.  Trump got no credit for this.  Instead, the media and the Dems just screamed "It's not enough.  We need more testing."

Of course, the federal push for testing didn't end at that point.  The types of tests were expanded.  Abbott came up with a quick test that used the installed base of their testing machines.  These tests took 15 minutes or so to get results.  The numbers of tests grew and grew.  The response from the media and the Dems:  "It's not enough.  We need more testing."

The Corona Virus Task Force studied the problem for a few more days and realized that the states were not using all the labs available for conducting tests.  Some of the governors who complained turned out to be failing at the basic task of getting the labs in their state to handle tests.  There was a quick effort to correct the failures of the states and the number of tests soared again.  The response from the media and the Dems, however, was the same.  "We need more testing."

At that point, attention shifted to reopening the country.  How many tests would we need to reopen safely?  The "experts" announced that we would need to be able to conduct 4 million tests each month in order to reopen.  Then they added 25% as a safety margin and announced that the goal would have to be 5 million tests per month.  The President and the Task force said that was something that would be achieved.  The media scoffed.  They kept talking about the need for testing and more testing.  I guess they thought they finally had the President cornered with this impossible task.

But then reopening started and the country is now testing around 400,000 people per day.  That's over 12 million per month.  Pretty much anyone who wants a test can now get one.  The goal set by the "experts" has been doubled.  And what's the response from the media and the Dems?  You guessed it.  "It's not enough.  We need more testing."  Some, like senator Schumer send out daily tweets that read "Today is May __ and President Trump still has no national strategy for testing."  That tweet is so wrong that it is offensive to anyone who understands the truth.  It makes Schumer look like a fool.  We have plenty of testing.

But where is the media going now?  Today, Politico has a long story on testing.  Here's a line from the story: 

"The United States is now running about 400,000 tests a day, roughly double the number from three weeks ago, according to the COVID Tracking Project. But that’s still far short of the 30 million per week that some experts say is needed to quickly detect new hot spots and contain disease spread."

So some unnamed "experts" now want thirty million tests per week.  Keep in mind that since the start of the corona virus pandemic, there have not been thirty million tests conducted worldwide, but supposedly some "experts" want that done each week in the USA alone.  These supposed "experts" want about forty percent of the US population tested each month.  Now, I understand that there are no actual experts who are realistically calling for that level of testing.  It's not something that even makes sense.  The point, however, is that the media is now trying to set the bar so high that no one could possibly achieve that goal.  Indeed, no sane government would want to try for that level of testing.

I do wonder how many people read about unnamed experts who clearly were made up by the reporters and realize that this is a lie.  I'd like to think that it's more than it would have been years back before the prevalence of Fake News became well known.

Let's Twist Again -- A Media Favorite

There's a story making waves in the mainstream media this morning.  It seems that there was a swim party in Arkansas last week at which the high school students at the party passed the corona virus to each other.  It created a new "hot spot" in Arkansas.  The media also is quick to point out that unlike most other states Arkansas did not (gasp!) ever have a stay at home order issued by the governor who, of course, is a Republican.

When you hear that news, what does it make you think? 

Now consider the actual facts.  In the last week, the number of new cases in Arkansas averaged in the 150 -160 per day range.  The previous week the average was in the 110-120 per day range.  Overall, the total number of cases since the start of the pandemic in Arkansas has been about 5500.  In Connecticut, by comparison, the average number of cases in the past week has been about 500.  That's down from the norm a few weeks back of more than 1000 new cases per day.  Overall, there have been over 40,000 cases in the state.  I mention Connecticut because it has a population just slightly larger than Arkansas.  Oh, and by the way, Connecticut had a very stringent stay at home order which remains in effect.

Comparing Connecticut and Arkansas, one finds that the virus was a much bigger problem in CT.  CT had eight times as many cases.  CT had about 35 times more deaths than Arkansas. So does that mean that stay at home orders resulted in more disease and many more deaths?  If you were a member of the media, that is what you would conclude.  After all, the tiny increase in cases in Arkansas is point out at proof that the state needed a stay at home order.

Why must the media twist stories to fit their narrative?  

Biden Really Hit A Nerve

Yesterday, Old Joe Biden told a radio audience that if they had questions about whether or not to vote for Trump, then "you ain't black".  There was Biden telling black Americans that they couldn't think for themselves; no, they had to just vote as the plantation masters from the Democrat party told them.  It was an appalling display of how Biden really thinks.  It showed his underlying disdain for African Americans as individuals.  Simply put, it was racism, pure and simple.

I expected that the media reaction would be to ignore Biden's remark.  If the media buried the story, then they could expect few to find out about it.  I was wrong.  The resulting firestorm of criticism from all sorts of African Americans and others was huge.

Biden tried to cover himself.  First he claimed that he had just been joking.  That didn't work.  within two more hours, the whole "joke" claim disappeared and Biden was backtracking furiously. 

Today, I heard a story about Biden's racist rhetoric featured on NPR.  Let's be clear, if a Dem like Biden it the subject of a story on NPR accusing him of racist rhetoric, then it is a major catastrophe for Biden.  Yet, that is exactly what I heard about an hour ago.

It's going to be interesting to see if this story has legs.  If President Trump said something even 10% as appalling as what Biden said, we would hear about it non-stop for at least ten days.  If Biden gets hit with even a quarter of the outrage that Trump would get, it will be devastation to Biden's support among minorities.

Opening the Doors To Churches

The President said today that if governors of the various states continue to require places of worship to remain closed, he would open them up.  This is as it should be.

Consider this:

1.  When social distancing and shutdown rules were at their most stringent, churches, synagogues and mosques around the country shut down.  In some communities, ministers held church drive in services where the faithful sat in their own cars and were isolated from each other.  In a few states, the police tried to shut these socially distanced church services down.

2.  In the meantime, while it was too dangerous to go to church, the states said it was not too dangerous to go to Walmart or Target.  Okay, that was for food, so it is understandable.  But many who went to Walmart or other stores didn't just buy food.  Nearly every state provided that liquor stores or marijuana dispensaries (where legal) were essential and could remain open.  For many governors, getting high was essential but worshiping was forbidden.

3.  The Constitution specifically bars the government from establishing a religion.  That has long been understood to ban interference by the government from nearly all religious activities.  The governors do NOT get to decide that whiskey, beer and pot come ahead of religious observance even if the states get tax revenue from the sale of liquor, etc.  The government can, in certain circumstances, temporarily stop church attendance, but it can never determine that places like a dry cleaner or an outdoor restaurant or a pot dispensary or a golf course can be open but churches must remain closed.

What the President said today is both correct under our Constitution and also a great political move.  The governors can't oppose this position without becoming the enemy of religious people.  Will governor Northam in VA or Whitmer in MI actually try to keep churches in their states closed in the face of the President's demand to allow them to open?  Literally millions of people of faith will remember such an attack on religion for years to come should the governors actually attempt it.  They will also remember that it was President Trump who stood up for them.

All this being said, there can be requests that the churches conduct services in ways that will limit the exposure of the faithful to infection by the virus.  People can wear masks.  People can spread out so as maintain distances between those present.  Singing can be limited to prevent the spread of the virus.  But keeping the churches closed is just NOT going to happen anymore.

How Bad Is Joe Biden?

Joe Biden never fails to outdo himself.  Just when you think he can't get worse, he does.

In the last 24 hours, Biden managed to blow it twice.

The first time he was asked in an interview how he will do in November.  He answered "I am going to beat Joe Biden".  I'm not making this up.  The guy forgot his name and against whom he is running.  Okay, so maybe it is just another of those well known Biden slips.  I don't think so, and I especially don't think so for a president, but the media will surely give him the benefit of the doubt.

But that takes us to the second statement from Old Joe.  This time he didn't screw up what he meant to say.  Instead, he met the old Washington definition of a "gaffe".  That definition is "a gaffe is when you say what you really think."  In other words, when a politician actually tells the truth and it reveals his or her basic nature and views, that's areal problem.  Biden was interviewed this morning by a black host of a morning show.  The guy came on quite strongly.  He demanded to know why Biden was vetting Amy Klobuchar who is white for VP.  After all, the interviewer continued, Biden better remember that it was the black people of South Carolina who saved his candidacy and handed him the nomination.  After Biden hemmed and hawed a bit, the interviewer said that if Biden didn't pick a black VP, then blacks might not vote for him.  That led Biden to say "You ain't black, if you vote for Trump." 

Think about that.  Biden, the old white guy, was telling blacks what they must do to actually be black.  The massah was tellin all them slaves on the plantation what they had to do.  It was a revelation of how Biden actually thinks of African Americans.  To Biden, blacks are the possession of the white leaders of the Democrat party.  The blacks have to do as they are told; they don't get to pick as responsible adults.  It was an incredibly racist remark.

There's a reason why Biden's first decade in the Senate was marked by Biden's battle waged arm in arm with the Southern Democrat segregationists to try to stop school busing designed to integrate public schools across the nation.  Biden, at heart, is a racist.  Oh maybe Biden has learned enough not to speak as if he were Bull Connors, Lester Maddox or George Wallace (three prominent Democrats of the 1960s and 1970s).  But back when Biden announced that in Delaware one cannot go to a 7-11 or a Dunkin Donuts unless you have an Indian accent, Biden's underlying racism came through.  That was during the 2008 campaign.  Today, Biden's racism came to the surface again.

Most likely, the mainstream media will try to hide Biden's remarks today.  After all, the media can't have the Democrat nominee showing that he is actually a racist.  That ruins the narrative.

Nevertheless, this is the sort of thing that will leak out.  It's also the kind of thing that is going to cost Biden support in the black community just as a similar remark would cost support in almost any community across America.

The March Away From Facts

The never-ending push for the politicization of everything continues along with the change from facts to narratives being what matters.  This trend began in earnest early in the Obama years.  It wasn't that there was no one pushing for elevating in importance what got said over what actually happened before that, but it blossomed when Obama took office.  Just think back to these great hits:

1.  Once Obama took office, no matter what one said in disagreement with the president or how one expressed it, all opposition and all opponents were "racist".  Claims of racism multiplied and then grew exponentially.  Then it got to the point where so much was "racist" that literally nothing was racist anymore. 

2.  When Obama pushed Obamacare, he knew that it would force millions of Americans off their health insurance policies and into the one-size-fits-all world of Obamacare.  The president also knew that those policy changes were going to rob millions of people of their favorite doctors.  And he also knew that Obamacare would inevitably raise the cost of medical care for a majority of Americans.  Those were facts.  Obama's narrative, however, was the famous "if you like your doctor you can keep your doctor" and "if you like your plan you can keep your plan, period."  He threw in claims that the average family would save $2500 per year on insurance/medical care.  The facts didn't matter.

3.  When Trump won in 2016, the process went into overdrive.  Almost immediately after election day, the media and the Democrats went into overdrive to explain that Trump didn't really win; rather, the Russians stole the election for him.  For years we heard little else.  Then after three years of nonsense, we got Mueller who reported that there was no evidence of collusion between Trump and the Russians.  NONE.  Even these facts didn't stop the lies.  People like Adam Schiff or the talking heads on MSNBC just went right on with the Russia story.  Remember, Schiff told America over and over again that he had absolutely irrefutable proof of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.  Now, we know that he was lying.  Indeed, we have now seen proof that Schiff knew there was no collusion as of the start of Trump's term in 2017.  Mueller also knew that there was no collusion when he came in as special prosecutor in 2017.  Nevertheless, they put the country through years of lies and nonsense because they wanted to politicize the issue.  Facts didn't matter.

4.  And it wasn't just Trump.  Think of poor Nicholas Sandmann.  He's the high school student who went with his classmates to the March for Life in DC.  He wore a MAGA hat and got accosted by an elderly Native American who was beating a drum and who marched up to Sandmann and stood in his face.  Sandmann did nothing but just stay still and smile.  But that was it.  CNN started playing and edited video while claiming that Sandmann had racially harassed the poor old Native American.  Other media picked up the same story and Sandmann was suddenly on TV screens across America labelled as some sore of racist, white supremacist in a MAGA hat.  Of course, he was just a high school student from Kentucky in DC.  In this case, the facts won out.  Most Americans now understand what actually happened was nothing more than the media pushing their narrative rather than reporting facts.  Oh, and Sandmann sued many media outlets for libel.  He's already settled with CNN for what is reportedly more than ten million dollars.

5.  Then came the virus.  Think of things that have been politicized.

     a.  Hydroxychloroquine is a drug that has been used for nearly 70 years to treat malaria and lupus.  It has been take by many millions with no adverse effects.  But Donald Trump said it could be a game changer in the fight against the virus based upon some studies done in France and South Korea.  Trump said this should be studied.  That was it.  The media went into full attack mode on the drug.  People were told not to take the drug because it could kill you.  It became more important to the media to have Trump be wrong than to have sick people get treatment.

     b.  Testing was needed to get the virus under control.  At the start of the pandemic, the US testing system couldn't process more than a few thousand tests per week.  The media and Dems like Chuck Schumer started a non-stop spate of criticism about the inability of the federal government led by Trump to get the tests taken.  Almost immediately, the feds actually got testing ramped up.  By the time reopening was considered, even experts like Fauci were saying that we needed to do 4 million tests per month to support dealing with the virus during reopening.  The media and the Dems thought we could never get there, so they kept up the drum beat of inadequate testing.  No matter what happened, the USA had no adequate testing and this would doom us all.  Well, today America is testing people at the rate of more than 12 million per month.  That's three times the number set by the experts as needed for reopening.  It's a great success, but it doesn't matter to the media or the Dems.  They are still screaming about testing.  For example, every day Schumer issues a statement complaining about the lack of any strategy for testing.  The facts don't matter, just the politics.

     c.  The lying and cover up by China at the start of the pandemic allowed the virus to spread around the world rather than being contained in Wuhan.  Trump has denounced this conduct by China.  As a result, the media and the Dems have taken the position of the Communist Party of the People's Republic of China.  Millions got sick and hundreds of thousands died, but that doesn't matter.  For political reasons, the Dems are siding with China because Trump has taken the other position.

This non-stop politicization of life has to stop.  There has to be a common purpose a common goal for America.  We should all want to get the economy back again.  Millions of lives hang in the balance.  We can't have governors for whom it is more important to fight Trump than it is to bring a better life to their constituents.  We need to get back to truth and actual facts.

So The Media and the Democrats will Now Attack The CDC

We've just gone for nearly a month as the left wing media and the Democrats in DC have attacked any state that reopened or even considered it.  And, of course, they attacked president Trump for supporting that reopening.  Georgia was going to resemble hell on earth for opening on April 24th; by today, four weeks later, the virus infections in Georgia were going to have at least gone up by a factor of 5.  Instead of multiplying the number of cases by 5, however, the actual number turned out to have gone down, DOWN, in a major way.  In Florida, we were going to witness death and disease on a massive scale because governor DeSantis reopened much of the state.  That too turned out not only wrong but extremely wrong.  Cases declined significantly; they did NOT increase.  Still, the masked brigade in the media and among the Dems pushed the panic line:  we just cannot reopen.  Science says we have to stay closed!

Now, even the science gurus have come out against the panic posse and its push to prevent the reopening.  The head of the CDC has made clear that the country is ready for a full reopening done carefully.  Here's an excerpt from an article today reporting on what the director of the CDC had to say:

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Dr. Robert Redfield said Wednesday that he supports reopening the country and that he believes states are “ready” to return to more normal operations, albeit with some key changes, including social distancing and contact tracing.

The Reopening Story in Florida

If you pay attention to the mainstream media, you will have heard over the last three plus weeks that Florida is courting disaster by reopening too soon.  Governor DeSantis opened beaches in the state except for the Miami - Palm Beach corridor more than three weeks ago.  Restaurants reopened.  Golf courses reopened.  All kinds of businesses reopened.  The crazies on MSNBC told us repeatedly that this was dangerous, insane, thoughtless, and a recipe for a terrible rebound of the virus.

I want to share with all those people just some of the figures from yesterday's testing in Florida.

A total of 55,493 people were tested across the state of Florida
There were 537 people who tested positive for the virus.  That's less than 1% of those tested who were positive.  It's a remarkably low figure.
By way of comparison, back at the start of May, Florida was testing about 16,000 people each day.  The average number of new cases (people testing positive) was 742 or just under 5% of those tested.

What all this means is that with the "reckless" and "dangerous" reopening in Florida, the infection rate shown by testing has dropped dramatically.  The MSNBC stable of "experts" and pundits were totally wrong.  TOTALLY WRONG!!

The Actual Numbers Aren't As Bad

Since today is Thursday, it's time once again for the announcement of new unemployment claims filed last week.  The number came in at 2.4 million new claims.  That's bad, but we just don't know how bad.  One thing we do know is that it isn't as bad as the media keeps saying.  Pay attention and listen to how many times today you hear that this brings the number of unemployed to 38 million people.  That's the total of all the unemployment claims filed since the start of the virus and its impact.  It's a staggering number and an indicator of a great deal of human suffering.  It's also completely misleading.  Here's why:

1.  A minority of the news reports will mention that there were also 25 million continuing unemployment claims.  That's the number of people who stayed on unemployment from the previous week.  To get the approximate total of those unemployed, one has to add the 25 million continuing unemployed to the 2.4 who filed new claims.  That's 27.4 million people.  That's more than ten million people fewer than the 38 million people that the media keeps pushing.  You see, many of those who filed a claim went back to work.

2.  It's also important to remember that prior to the start of the virus era, there were about 4 million people who were on continuing unemployment.  Those people didn't find work, but they are not new claims due to the virus.  That brings the 27.4 million figure down to roughly 23.4 million total unemployed due to the virus.  Now we're almost 15 million fewer than the figure in the media.

3.  Then there's the timing question.  Because of the incompetence of the state unemployment systems, we can't tell how many of the claims of the past week were actually new and how many are claims filed for previous weeks for which the state was finally able to process.  There are people all over the country who still haven't received payments for their unemployment claims.  In many states, there were long delays while the state system was modified to allow people like gig workers to file claims.  While this problem is being remedied, we still have to wonder how many of the recent claims were actually for a period starting weeks ago and how many were truly new claims.  Estimates that I've seen say that there are at least two million people who still can't even file claims because of the chaos in the state systems.

There's no question that the problem with unemployment is huge.  That's still no excuse for the media to report numbers that overstates the number of unemployed by something in the area of 17 million people.  It's not that hard to analyze this problem.  Surely, somebody in the media ought to be able to do it.  But they just don't.

The Nonsense Concerning Israeli Annexation of So Called Settlements

There's a city called Maale Adumim near Jerusalem in Israel.  It has about 40,000 residents and it is part of the Jerusalem metro area.  That makes Maale Adumim the third largest Jewish city in the area that was under Jordanian control prior to the Six Day War in 1967.  A tram ride from Maale Adumim to the old city of Jerusalem takes all of 2 minutes to complete.  If you take a slow moving bus that stops on every corner, the ride still takes less than 10 minutes.  I mention all these facts because the UN and many countries in the EU are now claiming that were Israel to formally annex this city, it would be a terrible blow to the "peace process".

Think about that.  No one believes that any peace is possible between Israel and the palestinians that would result in Israel not keeping Maale Adumim.  The Israelis will never accept any outcome under which they must give up a city of 40,000 Jews who live about 2 miles from the Israeli national Parliament.  Even the Palestinians would agree that such an outcome is inevitable.

It's also important to note that Maale Adumim is surrounded on all sides by the Judean desert.  No Palestinian villages or even farms had to be moved for the city to be constructed over the last 45 years.  No one is clamoring to get back to their old hometown that was lost on this site.  There's no reason for Israeli control of Maale Adumim to provide any reason for peace to be put off.

So why is it that there is such uproar about Israel's plan to annex certain of the so called "settlements"?  The simple answer is that once again, there are too many people who think it is more important to consider what is being said rather than the actual facts.  Long ago, the Palestinians started saying that not a single Israeli could remain in the Palestinian state.  Just like the Nazis in the 1930s and 1940s, the Palestinians want a state that is free of Jews.  And the much of the world has bought into this racist idiocy.

Then there's the fact that Obama was against any Israeli settlements of any sort.  When Trump became President, he elevated reality over silly fictions that went nowhere.  Jerusalem is the actual capital of Israel; Trump recognized that reality.  Israel controls the Golan Heights that Syria lost when it attacked Israel almost 50 years ago.  Israel annexed the Golan Heights as it was allowed to do under international law.  Trump recognized that reality.  The Palestinians were all outraged at these moves by President Trump, but they could do nothing about it.  They are being forced to deal with the actual facts and not some fantasy agenda that will never move anyone towards peace.  Because Obama took one position and Trump reversed it, however, the anti-Trump forces in the media and elsewhere have an impetus to cling to the silly idea that just by giving lip service to a fantasy, the region can move towards peace.

We're not likely to see peace between Israel and the Palestinians any time soon.  Still, the best thing the world can do is to recognize the realities in the region, the actual facts on the ground.  The hysteria over annexation of a place like Maale Adumim is counterproductive and ought to be dropped.

The Essence Of Ugliness

I'm sometimes amazed by the levels to which the lowlifes on Twitter will descend.  Today, President Trump tweeted congratulations to his daughter Tiffany on the occasion of her graduation from Georgetown Law School.  Tiffany is almost never in the spotlight and has essentially no public persona unlike her older siblings Don, Jr., Eric and Ivanka.  Nevertheless, the avalanche of nasty comments was astounding.  Some of the comments were about the President; some were about Tiffany's brothers and sister; but a whole host of them were just nasty comments directed at Tiffany.  She has done nothing to deserve the criticism and certainly nothing to deserve hateful remarks.

I get it that people say nasty things about political opponents.  I also get that some people even criticize the spouse of their political opponent (although I think that's going too far unless the spouse has done something political too.)  But criticizing the children of a politician just because of who their parents happen to be is something that ought to be way out of bounds.

If you think I'm overreacting, think how you would feel you read some nasty and false things on Twitter about Sasha or Malia Obama. 

This kind of behavior really has to stop.  

The Mayor Who Never (or Always) Disappoints

New York Mayor Bill DeBlasio is a self-important fool who doesn't seem to think about what he says.  That characteristic was one of the main reasons why the mayor's short lived presidential campaign failed miserably.  DeBlasio couldn't even make it the first primary before having to throw in the towel.  He couldn't get above 1% in the polls in order to get in the debates (seems so long ago, doesn't it), so DeBlasio dropped out.  DeBlasio is the guy who always knows where his feet are--they're in his mouth.  But unlike Joe Biden, DeBlasio can blame creeping senility for that problem.  No, DeBlasio has always been like this.

I mention this because DeBlasio has done it again.  This time, the subject is access to beaches in and near New York.  The mayor announced the other day that all beaches in New York City will be closed and totally off limits for the foreseeable future.  Anyone venturing onto the sand will be immediately "taken off" by the police.  DeBlasio claims this is needed to maintain social distancing.  Two days later, though, DeBlasio heard about some beaches on Long Island that were going to be open but which were also going to be restricted to residents of the towns where the beaches are located.  Local officials know that social distancing will require fewer beachgoers, so they put the limit in place.  DeBlasio expressed outrage that NY City residents would be barred from these beaches due to the corona virus restrictions.  Huh?

The mayor may sound idiotic, but this is par for the course.  Remember, this is the same guy who ordered all gyms to be closed and then got special access to his own gym and continued to use it.  When confronted with his flouting of his own rules, the mayor just said that as mayor he needed to exercise.

This guy is a total zero.

Unusual Stories That Get NO Coverage

As I write this, social media is buzzing because the ever disgusting Nancy Pelosi called the President morbidly obese.  Who cares?  Trump is heavy; there's no doubt about that.  But imagine Pelosi's response if President Trump were asked about Stacey Abrams and he said she's probably too fat to be Biden's VP pick.  We would have a week of cries of "racism" and "fat shaming". 

Another big story today is that the Georgia Department of Public Health published an erroneous  graph on its website that showed corona virus cases in the state declining.  Since the media had been in total hysteria mode when Georgia opened up three weeks ago with screams about how there would be a huge new wave of infections in Georgia as a result, they are now going to town about this "cover up".  Of course, they ignore the fact that the same Georgia Department of Public Health publishes the day by day figures for new cases on its website.  Anyone actually looking at the numbers can see the correct data.  And guess what?  There is no increase in new cases since the state reopened; there is actually a decline in new cases.  The graph was wrong, but the actual data still shows a decline.

But here's an important story that is getting essentially NO coverage. 

With the installation of a new government in Israel, the outgoing minister of defense gave his last speech in office yesterday.  In the speech he said that Iranian forces are leaving Syria.  Not all Iranian forces have gone, but there has been a significant draw down in troop levels.  This is big news.  For years, one of the biggest potential flash points in the Middle East has been the confrontation between Iran and Israel through Syria.  The Iranians have tried to build military infrastructure in Syria and the Israelis have been destroying it.  Now, with Iran under siege by both the virus and US sanctions, and with the collapse of oil prices that fund Iranian adventurism, the Iranians are reducing their presence in Syria.  It may be a move towards a more stable region.

The CNN Narrative

If you wonder what narrative CNN is pushing at the moment, here's a rather good summary of it from an article CNN published today.

"Instead of an imagined "tradeoff" between reviving the economy and safeguarding health, President Donald Trump's policies are delivering both a great depression and tens of thousands of deaths at the same time. That's because a tradeoff between economy and health doesn't exist, except in Trump's fantasy. Unless people are confident about their safety in the midst of the pandemic, they will not resume normal life. By allowing a premature reopening, which ensures that the epidemic will rage, Trump most likely has condemned America to economic collapse."

This is the left's story line for the fall election.  It's the chorus in the Greek play put on by the media/Democrat collective.  The problem is that it is not even close to being true.

Let's start with the basic assumption that underlies this narrative:  supposedly, President Trump sees a "tradeoff between economy and health".  Oh really?  The CNN piece doesn't give any example of Trump taking that position (because there aren't any.)  If one actually listened to the President, one would understand that the shutdown was designed to make sure that hospitals would not be overwhelmed by huge numbers of virus cases.  America was going to "flatten the curve".  In other words, cases of the virus would be spread out over time in order to avoid the kinds of avalanche of hospitalizations seen in Italy and Spain.  That would also be done to make sure that America had time to get sufficient numbers of ventilators and other supplies to handle those in need.  Spreading out the cases would also give the USA more time to seek out treatments that help with the virus and hopefully a vaccine.  At no time was the idea presented by the President or his people that there was a trade off between the economy and death.  So the very heart of the CNN narrative is just plain wrong.

Let's move on to the concept of a "premature reopening" which will "ensure that the epidemic will rage."  CNN just treats the reopening as if it is premature.  It offers no proof.  And why is there this lack of proof?  The answer is simple:  thus far, the states that have partially reopened have seen no spikes in the level of infection.  In many states, the numbers of cases have continued to fall after reopening.  And this drop in infection levels has happened even while the total number of tests has risen by 50-100%.   A huge spike in testing has yielded fewer people testing positive for the virus in about half of the states with the remainder basically staying constant.  So far, not only is the reopening NOT causing the epidemic to "rage", instead, the epidemic seems to be petering out.

CNN, nevertheless, is doing what it can to try to promote ongoing fear of the virus returning strongly due to the reopening because that will slow any economic recovery.  The facts don't support there being any resurgence of the virus, but CNN is reporting it anyway.

How many times in the last few years have we all been told by CNN and the other members of the media/Democrat collective that only they believe in science.  Everyone else is a Neanderthal, a moron, a conspiracy theorist or -- if that fails -- a racist and a white supremacist.  Now, the clear science shows no rise in cases following the initial reopening -- indeed a fall in the number of cases.  CNN and others of its ilk choose just to ignore the science, ignore the data, and report what can only be described as lies.

It's a frequent thing for President Trump to call CNN Fake News or the enemy of the people.  There's a good reason for this which is ably illustrated by the CNN narrative on the virus.  CNN is indeed Fake News.  CNN is indeed the enemy of the American people.

Nothing Like Getting Priorities Straight

I'm not sure if the media/Democrat collective understands that there's a pandemic, but some of the news being covered today would raise a question about that.

Here's a big story:  Secretary of State Mike Pompeo allegedly had a person on his staff pick up his dry cleaning.  So far, at least three congressional Democrats have called for an investigation.  Seriously, Pompeo supposedly had someone on his staff go to the dry cleaner to pick up something for him.  That's what they're focused on.

It's worth noting that there's another story today that also involves using government employees for personal purposes.  This story is about married Nevada congressman Steven Horsford (D-NV) who had an 11 year affair with a senate staffer.  During that time, Horsford had his staff provide help to his mistress including things like filming a video for the woman's child to put on a youtube show that he ran.  After the affair ended, the mistress went public and now Horsford admits the whole thing.  He says that it's a "private" matter, and the media and his fellow Democrats are not discussing it at all.  Funny how that works, isn't it? 

A Major Positive In Dealing With the Virus

Today is the first day since the start of the epidemic in the USA that fewer than 5% of the tests taken came back positive.  Some of that is due to the huge number of tests (well over 420,000) in just one day.  Some is due to the low level of new cases found (around 21,000).  With all the states that have reopened around May 1, the fact that the number of new cases has declined even as the number of tests has soared is a very good indicator that reopening has NOT led to a surge in new infections.

This trend has to continue for a while longer before we can be sure that there won't be a surge, but it sure looks like it right now.

This is great news.

Helping Small Business Get Back

Millions of people across America are collecting $600 per week over an above their unemployment compensation.  Now, as businesses start to reopen, some of these people are only too happy to continue to get unemployment at a rate of about $40,000 per year.  The extra $600 per week is approved until the end of July.  That's another two and a half months.  The latest bill from the House Democrats extends that until the end of the year.  The House Democrat bill has already been pronounced dead on arrival in the Senate, but there's a real question as to whether or not the unemployment benefits will be extended.

There's a major problem with extending the extra $600 per week.  If the economy is truly reopened by June, there will be a need for millions of workers to return to their jobs.  If these workers decide to stay home and just collect their government checks, we may well see a worker shortage.  There is, however, a way to restructure the program so that the incentives not to work will be replaced with an incentive to go back to work.  At the same time, there can be more help for small businesses.

Here's my proposal:

1.  For unemployed workers who return to work, there will be an extra $200 per week added to their wages which will be paid by the federal government.

2.  In addition to the first item, each small business that recalls workers to full time work will receive $100 per week per employee from the federal government.

3.  These benefits will last for 8 weeks after being hired, but will only be available for those hired by July 31.

4.  The $600 extra in unemployment benefits will stop as scheduled at the end of July.

5.   For any business that got a loan under the PPP, there will be no $100 benefit during the time when the PPP money is being used to pay wages.

This plan will accomplish a few things.

A.  It will provide an incentive to workers to go back to work.  An employee who waits until the $600 per week expires before returning to work will not get the benefit of $1600 that comes from the extra $200 per week.  Employees who return to work will also get the added benefit of making more in base wages than they get in regular state unemployment.  They may also get benefits as well. 

B.  Small businesses will find it less expensive to hire workers.  This will encourage more hiring and more jobs. 

C.  The extra money pumped into the hands of employees will provide another boost to the economy to get things going again.

D.  The cost to the government will be less than 25% of the cost of extending the $600 until the end of the year.  It would also provide a boost towards getting the economy moving again instead of resulting in another roadblock to economic growth which extending the $600 would do.  It would incentivize work rather than staying at home.

Obviously, this is conceptual.  There are many details that would need to be worked out, but the basic plan should work.

Honesty and Media -- Two Words That Should Not Be Used In The Same Sentence

Yesterday, I was on the phone with a good friend who asked me what I thought about the rise in corona virus cases in the states that had relaxed restrictions.  When I asked him what he meant, he told me of three states about which he had just heard reports of rising cases after shutdown restrictions were relaxed.  I suggested that we check the actual figures.  I opened the data at the COVID Tracking Project, a site that four times daily updates the reports from the state public health offices regarding numbers of tests, positive and negative results, hospitalizations (for some states) and deaths, among other things.  We checked all three states looking at the number of new cases for each of the last three weeks.  We used weeks rather than days since the number of tests reported can vary from day to day (more on weekdays than weekends, for example) but by using the week, that smooths out the numbers.  What we found was that there was no rise in new cases in any of the states for which my friend had heard reports of rises.  We also found that the number of tests being performed in each of the three states was substantially increasing week by week.  Higher numbers of tests should show a rising number of new cases even if the level of infection was staying constant, but the actual number of new cases was not rising.

So how can the media report rising cases due to relaxation of restrictions in particular states when the state health department figures -- the most accurate source available regarding the virus in that state -- are showing the opposite?  It makes one wonder if the reporters realize that they are publishing misinformation or if they are so slipshod in their efforts that they just report what they expect to be true in accordance with their accepted narratives.  In either case, it does make clear that there's no honesty in the media.

The US media seems to be coming to resemble the dishonest media of the old Soviet Union.  There was a saying during Soviet days about the two main newspapers Izvestia (which means News) and Pravda (which means Truth) that "in Pravda (Truth), there is no news, and in Izvestia (News) there is no truth."

Getting Back Towards Normal

The insanity of the post shutdown rules seems to just keep growing.  Here are a few examples:

In CT, governor Lamont announced that restaurants can partially reopen starting next Wednesday if they follow certain guidelines.  One such rule requires everyone in the restaurant to wear masks.  There is an exception for customers seated at outside tables who need not wear masks.  I wonder what genius will figure out how to eat at an inside table while wearing a mask.

In MA, the government of Swampscott has decided that sidewalks in the center of town are going to be made one way in order to help with social distancing.  The police are painting arrows on the sidewalk to indicate the correct direction.  Failure to follow the rules will result in a ticket and fine.  Imagine going from one store to another located next door.  You would have to go the correct direct to the corner, cross the street, walk the full block to the next corner, cross the street again and then walk down the block to get to your destination.  Even in MA, this is an incredible imposition by the government on personal freedom.

In a town in Michigan, people who want to visit a grave in a cemetery must now make an appointment.  The cemetery office can only schedule one visit per hour to each block of twelve graves.  And this is the relaxed rule.

Is There A Need For Voting By Mail?

One of the big items that the Democrats are pushing in their new corona virus bill is to provide federal support for states to have voting by mail next November.  This gets billed by the Democrats as making it possible for people to vote from home rather than risking their lives by going to the polls.  But is that really true?

First of all, November is still six months from now.  By then, there could be no virus cases at all or there could be an avalanche of recurrent viral infections.  Given the trend in the country, though, the most likely status is for a huge reduction in cases by that time.

We do have one test of this issue that is worth reviewing.  During the first week in April, Wisconsin held its primary.  Well over one million people voted and many of them had to wait in line for over an hour at crowded polling places.  This was at the height of the pandemic.  What effect did it have on the number of cases in Wisconsin.  If one listens to the Democrats, there should have been a huge uptick in the level of infection across Wisconsin starting no later than two weeks after the primary.  By now, Wisconsin ought to be approaching New York style levels of sickness.  But what really happened?  Wisconsin has tripled the number of tests take on average each day since the date of the primary.  That alone ought to have uncovered many more cases each day now than back on primary day.  Instead, Wisconsin averaged between 100 and 200 cases each day in early April and it is still averaging about the same number now.  In the interim, there have been some days that were much higher and some that were much lower.  The trend has been pretty level, however.

Given that mail ballots provide a major opportunity for election fraud, there really needs to be a good reason to switch to such a system.  In Wisconsin, at least, the in person voting by more than a million people didn't cause any surge in the virus.  The Democrats are just wrong when they speak of the urgent need for mail in ballots.

So Tell Us Joe........

In the last few days, the involvement of Joe Biden in the plan to attack the incoming Trump administration by bringing down General Flynn has been revealed.  Indeed, maybe we should say his involvement has been unmasked.  Let's just look at what Joe and his people have been saying in the last few days.

1.  When Old Joe was asked if he knew about efforts to spy illegally on General Flynn, he told ABC News that he knew nothing of it and then he tried to change the subject.

2.  Within two minutes, when the ABC correspondent came back to the subject, Biden changed his story.  He said he had misunderstood the question and had thought he had been asked if he had been involved with indictment of Flynn.  He admitted then that he had been briefed about how there was going to be an investigation of Flynn.  Let's stop her for a moment.  Biden knows that Flynn's indictment only came months later at the hands of the Robert Mueller who was appointed special prosecutor.  That was after Joe was out of office.  He knew that the question wasn't about indicting Flynn.  It was clear.  Even Biden isn't that confused.

3.  Yesterday, we learned that Biden himself had requested that Flynn be unmasked.  That's a very drastic step which penetrates the rights of American citizens in only special situations.  That's an active roll in an investigation (or a political vendetta in this case).  That's a hell of a lot more than just being briefed that there was going to be an investigation.  It's more like running the investigation.

So what was Biden's response to this news?  First, he didn't deny that he had requested that Flynn be unmasked.  That's key.  Biden himself has said nothing so far.  His spokesman, however, responded to the question by denouncing the entire subject as an attempt by Republicans to change the subject from the President's failure to deal with the virus.  In other words, team Biden has no answer.

We need to understand why Biden, as vice president, felt he had to unmask Flynn less than two weeks before Flynn took over as Trump's national security advisor.  It's worth noting that at the same time that Biden made his request, various news organizations started publishing leaked stories about how Flynn had spoken to the Russian ambassador.  Remember, as incoming national security adviser, it was part of Flynn's job to speak to the ambassadors.  The media stories centered around how Flynn may have violated the Logan Act (a 200 plus year old law that has never been used).  That's important because we now also know from documents released in the last week that at a White House meeting the day or two before Biden asked that Flynn be unmasked, the subject of using the Logan Act was discussed by Obama, Biden, the acting AG, the head of the FBI and a few other top Obama intelligence appointees.  One has to wonder if Biden himself illegally leaked the news of the calls to the media.

Biden rarely gets questions that confront him.  It's time, now, however, for that to happen.  Joe Biden has to tell America what he was doing when he unmasked Flynn.  He also needs to explain his involvement in leaking this information to the media.

DOA CRAP or the Democrats' Omnibus Act for Corona Relief And Partisanship

The Democrats in the House are going to propose and new virus relief package with a total cost of 3 trillion dollars.  They should call it the Democrats' Omnibus Act for Corona Relief And Partisanship, or DOA CRAP for short.

Having failed in their earlier attempts to push through unrelated political items in the relief bills, the Dems are back at it again.  As a result, this latest bill contains provisions that would end border enforcement, require affirmative action in corporate boardrooms, and mandate voting by mail to the extent possible.  None of these have anything to do with the virus, but they are big items on the left wing to do list.  These are going nowhere.

The Dems also want to sabotage the economic recovery so that it will help their chances in November.  They couch this, for example, in a plan to extend until January the $600 per week of additional unemployment benefits that was included in the CARES Act until July.  The result is that many people who were furloughed are now getting unemployment benefits at the rate of $40,000 per year.  As a result, there are huge numbers of people who would rather sit home and wait for the government check than go back to work.  As the economy continues to reopen, this will make it impossible for many business to operate due to a lack of workers. 

The Dems also want a massive bailout for the states.  There's no question that the states will need to have some level of federal aid to help with the huge cost of dealing with the virus and the corresponding loss of tax revenues caused by the economic shutdown.  The Dem's however, also want states with underfunded pension programs to have funding of those programs taken over by the federal government.  Those pension problems have nothing to do with the virus.  It's a problem that predates the virus by many years.  The states with the underfunded pension plans, however, are almost all big Democrat states like CT, IL, and NY.  There's no reason why states that properly handled their finances should have to bail out the ones that acted irresponsibly.

There's a lot of other problems with the DOA CRAP.  It truly is DOA and it truly is CRAP.

The Left Is Losing It And It's Obvious

Two events happened this week that merit mention because of how much they indicate that the media/Democrat left wing alliance is just losing it.  It's not that these two events are unique or even surprising; it's just that they are so extreme as to be obviously bizarre to anyone who pays even a small amount of attention to them.  Here they are:

1.  Greta Thunberg is a Swedish high school student who made headlines by sailing across the Atlantic to New York to denounce climate change at the UN.  Her catch phrase is "how dare you", and she applied it to essentially everything that supposedly contributes to global warming.  She became and instant celebrity and then an instant "expert" on climate change.  Of course, she's still just a high school student with no education or experience dealing with the subject.  In this upside down  age of celebrity topping experience and words being more important than deeds, the transformation of Greta into a climate change hero'expert is unsurprising.

This week, however, CNN announced a town hall with a panel of corona virus experts.  The panel has four members and Greta Thunberg is one of them.  So the high school student who protested global warming is now an expert on the virus, at least according to the morons at CNN.  Seriously, when I first saw mention of the town hall on CNN, I thought it was a parody.  No one would proclaim a high school student with literally no experience or education regarding the corona virus to be an "expert" on the virus, but CNN has done just that.  What will come next?  Will CNN hold a town hall on international disarmament with a panel of three including Stormy Daniels, Tara Reade and Gloria Allred?  No, of course not, CNN would never allow Tara Reade or her name to be mentioned on its airwaves.  But a panel of international disarmament experts of Daniels, Allred and Michael Avenatti is a distinct possibility.

The truth is that CNN doesn't really need President Trump to make it a laughing stock; the network does a great job of that itself.

2.  DC federal judge Sullivan was presented with a perfunctory request that he approve the decision of the DOJ to drop charges with prejudice against Michael Flynn.  Sullivan responded not by approving the request (which is the only possible outcome.)  Instead, the judge asked for briefs from non-parties to comment on the request and he also appointed a retired judge who had already denounced the DOJ decision to argue against the request.  This is not just inappropriate; it is bizarrely inappropriate.  So far in the Flynn case, the judge denied 28 requests by non-parties to submit their views on issues in the case.  He correctly told the outside parties that amicus briefs (as these comments by outsiders are called) are not appropriate in federal criminal trials.  Suddenly, the judge is not only asking for such inappropriate briefs, he's also appointing someone to submit one.  Judge Sullivan even gave his appointee suggestions as to possible remedies he could suggest to get jail time for Flynn despite the DOJ decision to drop the charges.

This conduct by the judge is bizarre.  In a sane world, Judge Sullivan would be removed.  Instead, he is turning his courtroom into a political theater to attack the DOJ.  It's a very dangerous precedent.  Indeed, it is so far outside the accepted norm of judicial behavior that it is hard to believe.

A Truly Disappointing Lie

The corona virus crisis has been used non-stop by the media to bash President Trump.  The facts don't matter.  The latest attack is best illustrated by a new article from lefty Ezra Klein on Vox which has as it's topic sentence this lie:

60 days into the coronavirus crisis, the White House does not have a plan, a framework, a philosophy, or a goal.

It's laughable to see Klein and the rest of the media and congressional Democrats trying to push such obvious garbage.

Let's consider it.

What's the plan?  We had the guidelines to flatten the curve, in other words, to keep the hospitals from getting overwhelmed.  It worked.  Then we had the plan developed by the White House Task Force regarding how states should reopen so as to keep the virus from surging back.  That's under way now.  Then we had the plan from the White House to get sufficient testing in place.  That's been achieved; we are now able to test about 11-12  million people per month even though the goal was just to get to 5 million per month.  (That's a plan and a goal.)  There was also the plan to get adequate PPE for the medical workers; that too has been achieved.  Then there was the plan put in place to make sure no one who needed a ventilator would be denied one.  Another plan brought to fruition successfully.  There's also the plan to get treatments for the virus in place.  That too is well underway with all manner of studies being conducted.  And there's also the plan to get the vaccine ready for use by the end of the year.  That plan is well underway and moving forward successfully.

Simply put, there have been a great many plans from the White House.  Klein and his baseless charge looks absolutely silly to anyone who has followed what has transpired.

So what's the framework, then?  Is Klein correct on that?  Again the answer is a resounding NO.  Early in the crisis, the President set up the Corona Virus Task Force headed by the vice president.  This group has been the framework upon which all plans have been developed.  The task force has performed both tirelessly and extremely well.  Just look at all the plans achieved.

But Klein says there is no White House philosophy about the virus.  That's a really funny charge.  The philosophy has been clear.  Originally, based upon the projection from the scientists that there could be 2.2 million dead from the virus if nothing was done, Trump set the philosophy as being that America would shut down the most successful economy in the world and have people stay home in order to bring down the total number of dead.  Once that was accomplished, the philosophy was shifted towards opening the country in a responsible fashion so as to keep deaths and the virus from roaring back but also so as to restore America to prosperity again.  Minimizing deaths and maximizing economic restoration is also the clear goal. 

Look, Klein and the other members of the leftwing media and the congressional Democrats may not like the methods employed by the President.  They wanted a national response directed by Washington while President Trump chose an "all America" response that brought in states, cities and private companies to each do what they could based upon local conditions and individual expertise.  That's why we have 11 different groups successfully making ventilators rather than having a national plan directed inefficiently from Washington.  That's also why we were able to ramp up so quickly to doing testing at the rate of 12 million per month via private labs and many testing methodologies rather than having a one-size-fits-all approach directed by DC bureaucrats.  We've seen how health issues respond to DC bureaucrats.  Remember the Obamacare website that cost a billion dollars but didn't work?  Even today, that website still doesn't do all that it was supposed to do.  In the context of the virus, an approach like the one pushed by the media/Democrat left wing complex might have meant many hundreds of thousands more deaths while Washington bureaucrats dawdled and engaged in turf battles.  After all, remember the flu epidemic in Obama's early years.  The Obama/Biden administration did nothing for six months as people across the country died.  By the time DC was finally ready to act, the virus was already on the way out naturally.

It's rather disgusting that these left wing media types like Ezra Klein think it acceptable to just push lies and attacks and more lies.  Lives are at stake here, not just the political power that motivates these groups.  It seems that they care more to push their political agendas and very little about the effect that their lives have on the average American.

The Very Basis For Trump/Russia Collusion Was False And Mueller and Schiff KNEW All Along

In the spring of 2016, the Russians hacked the DNC and released emails through Wikileaks that showed the DNC had rigged the primaries to favor Clinton over Sanders.  As a result, the DNC Chair, Debbie Wasserman Schultz resigned in disgrace and did not even attend the 2016 Democrat convention.  Later, the emails of John Podesta who headed the Clinton campaign were released by Wikileaks during the campaign.  The Democrats say this was Russian interference in our election designed to help Donald Trump win.  There also were supposedly about $150,000 in ads on Facebook that the Russians took out to favor Trump, but no one seriously thought that these made any difference.  Just think of the more than one billion dollars Mike Bloomberg spent in a few months during the primaries only to lose in disastrous fashion.  Nope, the entire basis for the claims of collusion between the Russians and the Trump campaign was the hack by the Russians of the DNC computers in 2016.  But here's the big news of the day:  according to secret testimony to Congress that is only now being disclosed, there is NO EVIDENCE THAT RUSSIA HACKED THE DNC.  The head of the Crowdstrike, the company that examined the DNC computers, found no evidence that the Russians had taken the emails.

Let me make that extremely clear.  THE ENTIRE BASIS OF FOR CLAIMS OF TRUMP/RUSSIA COLLUSION WAS UNTRUE, FALSE, PHONY, A LIE!

It has always been mysterious (at best) and highly suspicious (at worst) that the FBI never got to examine the computer systems of the DNC to look for evidence of the Russian hackers.  Instead, the FBI under Comey "accepted" the findings of the DNC's computer experts, a company called Crowdstrike, that the Russians had hacked the computers.  The criminal investigators just took the word of someone else.  It's the rough equivalent of the FBI investigating a murder and being told by the victim's family that they had an "expert" on their payroll examine the murder weapon and conclude that it indicated that the killer was some particular person (who they also happened, coincidentally, not to like very much.)  This was always a major weakness in the case but it got very little coverage.  If you remember the mantra in 2017, whenever anyone questioned if it had been the Russians who hacked the DNC, the media and the Democrats rushed in to tell us that "17 intelligence agencies have all concluded that it was the Russians who had hacked the DNC."  Now, that claim was not even close to being true, but it was made over and over again. 

The Russians hacked the DNC remained at the core of the whole Trump/Russia collusion narrative.  It has resurfaced with a vengeance many times.  Robert Mueller's report which found no evidence of Trump/Russia collusion still repeated the conclusion of Crowdstrike that it was the Russians who hacked the DNC.  Of course, Mueller did not explain why the FBI just accepted the word of Crowdstrike rather than doing its own review.  Then again last year, when President Trump asked the help of the new president of Ukraine to investigate whether there was any involvement by Ukrainians in the hacking of the DNC in 2016 in his famous phone call (that led to impeachment), the media and the Democrats discounted that as a real reason for Trumps request because, as we all know, 17 intelligence agencies (none of whom had ever seen the computer or the evidence) concluded that the Russians had hacked the DNC. 

Well now the secret testimony given by Shawn Henry, the president of Crowdstrike to Congress in 2017 has been released.  Henry says, under oath, that "we just don’t have the evidence that says it [the emails] actually left."  He went on to say that at best "there is circumstantial evidence that that data was exfiltrated off the network".  

Put another way, what Henry is saying is that they found that someone had set up to data so that it could be taken off the network.  There's no proof, however, that Russians or anyone else took it.  Of course, Wikileaks ended up with the emails and released them, so someone took them.  But Crowdstrike has no evidence that the Russians took them.

Think about that.  Data (emails) from the DNC gets taken and released through Wikileaks to the public.  That data shows that the DNC was improperly pushing the nomination towards Hillary Clinton and away from Bernie Sanders.  The FBI gets denied access to the computers by the DNC and neither the head of the FBI (Comey) nor the Attorney General (Lynch) nor the president (Obama) asks a court for a warrant ordering the DNC to make the computers available to FBI experts.  That's strange enough, but the DNC then brings in its own "expert" Crowdstrike who conveniently concludes that the DNC was hacked by the Russians even though there's no evidence that anyone, including the Russians, actually hacked the DNC system.  The head of Crowdstrike confirms this in a secret testimony but Mueller, the media and the whole Democrat establishment continue to scream about the Russians and their supposed collusion with the Trump campaign for years after that.

This is the single most amazing bit of testimony I can ever remember hearing.

The Politics Of Dead Bodies - or - Moving the Ghoul Posts

It's possible that the arguments about reopening the country have reached maximum ghoulishness, but I seriously doubt it.  As I write this, it has now become common practice to charge that anyone who wants to reopen the economy is in favor of death.  And it's not just death that these people favor; it's death for the poor and infirm and, of course, for minorities and women.  Instead of there being a rational discussion about what makes the most sense for our country moving forward, those who want to stay closed just charge their opponents with being heartless monsters.  The media, of course, then amplifies these charges no matter what the truth is.

I came to write this post because earlier this afternoon, the head of public health in Los Angeles County, CA, said that the lockdown there will last at least another three months.  To do otherwise, the public was told, would lead to huge numbers of dead.  This is not just another Democrat crazy throwing silly charges at President Trump (like those who say he only wants to reopen the country because his hotels are losing money.)  This is a supposedly responsible local health official who, without knowing what the next three months will bring, is already determining that the economy has to stay shut or massive death will follow.  With all due respect to this official (and it doesn't seem much respect is due), there's no reliable evidence on which to base that conclusion.

Much of the dispute about reopening is just political jousting.  Some in the media and on the left want to keep the country shut down so that the resulting depression will force President Trump from office.  It may seem hard to believe that American would want to inflict an unnecessary depression on the country just to hurt President Trump, but there is really no other possible conclusion that one can draw.  In fact, when you see the different reactions from Democrat governors (who will be held responsible for their actions) and Democrats in the House and Senate (who hope to skate by shifting all blame to Trump), you can see the politics in action.  The governors are much more favorable towards reopening than the congressional Democrats.

But let's treat this dispute as if politics were not involved.  Some folks argue that if we reopen "too soon", there will be a resurgence of the virus with resulting huge numbers of dead.  If you ask these same people what constitutes opening "too soon", most of them say only that we are not there yet.  They don't offer a goal which, if reached, justifies reopening.

The problem here is that all these people have to go on are models.  And remember that models are nothing more than a computer taking the assumptions that get fed into them and applying them to populations.  There's an old computer adage that's particularly appropriate here:  garbage in, garbage out.  In other words, if one inputs bad data or bad programming into a computer, the results that the machine spits out will be meaningless.  So we have to look at the assumptions that the modelers are putting into their computer models.  The most important assumption is that if the level of human contact increases, there will be a major upsurge in transmission of the virus.  But is that true?  After all, it's just someone's assumption.

Thus far, there has been no surge in cases as the country has begun to reopen.  Of course, if you watch CNN or MSNBC, you don't know that.  On those networks, the pandemic is always getting worse.  Even if it gets better, they report it getting worse.  More than half of the states have taken initial steps towards reopening.  In many states, restaurants are open, albeit with reduced seating.  Some states have reopened service firms like barber shops and hair salons.  Each state has its own rules.  For the most part, these reopenings have been under way since about the first of May.  In some places, like Georgia, they began almost a week earlier.  If these steps towards reopening were causing increased transmission of the virus, the number of new cases would already be rising.  This is particularly true since the number of daily tests for the virus has nearly doubled in just the last two weeks.  More tests mean more new cases even if the level of infection is not rising.

So what has happened?  There has been NO INCREASE in new cases across the USA despite the big rise in testing.  In fact, there has been a decrease.  The day before yesterday saw the smallest number of newly diagnosed cases in about six weeks.  Then, yesterday the number of new cases went down futher.  If the reopening of the various states was really causing a rush of new transmissions of the virus, then instead of going down, the figures should be rising in dramatic fashion by now.  They're not, and that should tell us that reopening is not the calamity that some claim it to be.

Obviously, we are still early in the reopening process.  Things could change and we could see some rise in new cases.  That would require an adjustment to the reopening process.  One thing is certain, though.  Reopening is not thus far causing any indication that there will be increased numbers of deaths.

Joe Biden Admits He Was Briefed in advance About the Flynn "investigation"

The lack of clarity put forth by Joe Biden never fails to amaze.  George Stephanopoulos asked Biden in an interview Sunday what he knew about the FBI questioning of general Flynn that led to Flynn's indictment.  Biden said that he knew "nothing" about it and then launched into a long diatribe against the President for diverting attention from the virus.  Stephanopoulos then went back and asked Biden if he had been at the January 5, 2017 meeting in the White House where the upcoming questioning of Flynn was discussed.  Biden admitted that he was (which flies in the face of his knowing nothing about the subject), and then Biden tried to claim he misunderstood the first question.  Biden claimed he thought the question was whether he knew in advance about the indictment. 

It was an obvious lie from Biden or an admission that he cannot understand simple questions.  Biden managed in thirty seconds to claim he knew nothing and then admit that he actually had been brief on the subject in advance.

Most important, though, is that Biden admitted that he was part of the group that set up general Flynn in a perjury trap.  Biden and Obama both were involved.  That puts Biden in the middle of setting a trap to get the incoming National Security Advisor either indicted or fired just at the start of the Trump Administration.  And this is the guy who wants to be president.  What a crook.

The Polling Conundrum -- or -- The Seven Percent Solution

There's a rather strange bit of information running through the polls for this years elections.  Let's start by stating that the polls at this stage of the contest, especially in the middle of the pandemic, don't mean all that much.  Still, the average of recent polls kept by RealClearPolitics shows Biden leading Trump by 4.4%.  One needs, however, to look further.  The election is won by just the national popular vote; just ask Hillary Clinton if you don't believe me.  November is a choice in each of 50 states and the District of Columbia.  That's where things get somewhat strange.

There have been some recent polls in states that are heavily Democrat.  These include California, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Connecticut.  These are states that favor Democrats by so much that were Trump to win any of them in November, it would mean a defeat of historic proportions nationwide for Biden.  Still, the key is that the polling taken in the last ten days in these five states show an average lead for Biden of 30%.  These same five states also contain about 24% of the national population.  The huge lead for the Democrat in these states translates into a national bulge of 7%.  In other words, the lead is so large for the Democrats in these five states that it means Trump is ahead by about 4% in the rest of the states.  And there are no big states where Trump has the kind of huge lead that Biden has in the five states noted above.  In Texas, the latest poll puts Trump up by 6%.  In Ohio, Trump is up by 3 or 4%.  Florida, Pennsylvania, Georgia and North Carolina are also close.  So is Michigan.  The only remaining large state, Illinois, has a large Biden lead, although not as big as NY or CA.

What Has Happened in Georgia?

Once again this morning, I was asked why the figures on new cases of the virus have been so bad in Georgia after that state reopened.  That conclusion, after all, has been repeatedly stated on media like MSNBC or CNN.  Usually, the statement about how terrible things are in Georgia is followed by some comment how the governor there or president Trump is just concerned with business profits instead of the lives of people.  The problem, of course, is that THIS IS NOT TRUE.  The media and the pundits and experts have either not bothered to look at the actual numbers or they are not telling the truth.

Georgia governor Kemp reopened much of his state including hair salons, tattoo parlors, restaurants, gyms and the like.  Kemp took this action so that the state reopened as of April 24th.  We are getting close to three weeks since the opening occurred.  Because Kemp went beyond the guidelines put forth by the White House and because the pundits and the "experts" and the media were so opposed to the Georgia governor's action, the media has been hoping to see that things go really poorly in Georgia.

If you look at the statistic for numbers of tests taken, number of new cases reported and deaths each day, you find that the cases have continued to fall even after the reopening.  Remember, given the incubation phase of the disease, new cases don't get diagnosed from symptoms and testing until at least a week, on average, after exposure.  That means that for those exposed on the first day of the reopened Georgia on April 24, there really wouldn't be much effect on the number of new cases diagnosed until 7 days had passed (May 2).  The figures from the state department of public health show that there were on average a little more than 100 fewer cases each day since May 2 than there were for the two weeks prior to that.

Because deaths from the virus on average occur only 14 days after the first symptoms appear, it has not yet been long enough for there to be much, if any, effect on the statistics from Georgia.

Here are the actual numbers from the Georgia Department of Public Health.  Figures in bold are those which are unaffected by the reopening due to insufficient passage of time.

Georgia Statistics – Source Georgia Department of Public Health

Date	Tests Reported	New Cases	Deaths
April 20	4395	646	46
21	3812	934	66
22	5932	851	37
23	6990	772	36
24 – state reopens	8114	479	20
25	11828	548	12
26	4209	706	8
27	3946	512	59
28	12851	702	55
29	3919	957	71
30	5105	583	27
May 1	19323	1115	34
2	6433	836	20
3	296	296	3
4	8229	766	45
5	17558	343	66
6	3154	985	23
7	13156	743	25
8	10264	677	41
9	7757	426	23
10	8223	909	5