Mike Huckabee

Some major points: The US has now completed 4.18 million virus tests, more than France, the UK, South Korea, Japan, Singapore, Austria, Australia, India, Sweden and Canada combined, and testing is expanding rapidly. Saturday’s briefing included some charts showing the rise and fall of cases in different metro areas (and no, media claims aside, we do not lead the world in coronavirus deaths.)

Trump also referred to an article in the Wall Street Journal by Christopher DeMuth called “Trump Rewrites the Book on Emergencies.” It argues that while all other Presidents have dealt with emergencies by expanding federal power and control, Trump has gone the opposite way by letting state and local authorities deal with the disease on their levels while he sticks to things that are federal duties, like allocating resources to the states and restricting foreign travel. For this, his critics have alternately attacked him for not doing enough, then turned on a dime and accused him of being a dictator when they thought he was doing too much. The article is behind a paywall, but Instapundit has a lengthy excerpt:

Trump said in his Sunday briefing that a deal was close with Democrats to stop holding up a bill to provide more funding for loans to struggling small businesses. Late Sunday, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said he hoped the bill would be voted on in the Senate today and pass the House on Tuesday (a personal note to Nancy Pelosi: your two refrigerators will preserve all your $13-a-pint artisanal ice cream just fine until you get back from doing your job; that’s why they cost $12,000 apiece.)

Here is a list of all 50 states and the latest plans for reopening businesses in each state.

On that subject, I’m getting awfully tired of hearing leftists mock and attack people who are demanding easing of restrictions so they can go back to work. Their frustration is perfectly understandable. First, some of the restrictions imposed, especially in blue states and cities, are ridiculous, unconstitutional, and have no impact at all on reducing the spread of the virus. For instance, refusing to let people buy needed items that are available in stores that are open because the Governor doesn’t deem them “essential.” Or shutting down safe drive-in church services while allowing drive-through liquor sales. Or cancelling all “elective” surgeries, including cancer biopsies, while allowing abortion clinics to continue operating. That’s not public health and safety, it’s tyranny and idiocy.

Second, aren’t the leftists always claiming that many Americans are “just one paycheck away from disaster”? Yet when Americans get desperate after losing three paychecks, or even their jobs, the same leftists mock and belittle them.

They can’t comprehend, or else simply don’t want to, just how devastating to people’s lives this business shutdown is, or how angry people get at having government arbitrarily trample their Constitutional rights. Scott Morefield at Townhall.com makes the argument that the left actually wants to keep the lockdown in place indefinitely (keeping everyone else from working advances their work of destroying the American system), and he lists the reasons why.

One other point worth noting: most of the liberal talking heads live in deep blue cities with dense populations (no offense intended), and are notorious for being bubble dwellers who neither know nor care about how people live outside of their own social circles. Maybe this will help give them a little perspective on Americans who don’t understand why they’re expected to endure the same draconian quarantine measures as, say, New Yorkers.

Matt Margolis at PJ Media, who understands that people in Wyoming or Arkansas live very different lifestyles than New Yorkers, decided to see what the coronavirus statistics would look like if you separated out downstate New York (just eight counties: Kings, Queens, New York, Suffolk, Bronx, Nassau, Westchester and Richmond) and treated that small, densely-populated (about 12 million people) and hard-hit area as a separate nation from the US. The results were stunning.

If those eight counties in downstate New York were a separate nation, it would lead the world in confirmed coronavirus cases (16,230.65 per million people.) Meanwhile, without Downstate New York, the US would drop out of the top 10 entirely, from 7th place all the way to 13th. Also, despite the fake news about the US leading the world in coronavirus deaths, as I already mentioned, we actually rank 8th in deaths per million in population (less than a fourth of first-place Belgium.) But if Downstate New York were a separate nation, it would rank #1 in deaths per million, and the rest of the US would drop to #11.

If you’d like an easy illustration of how much New York is skewing the infection and death figures, click the link above to PJ Media to see a chart comparing the growth of cases in the top 25 metro areas in the US. That red line that looks like a jet taking off over the heads of all the others is New York City/Newark.

Of course, none of this means that Americans anywhere should stop taking sensible precautions to avoid catching or spreading this disease. But it’s time we recognized that someone in Arizona or Alabama who drives his pickup alone from his ranch house to work at Home Depot is not as likely to contract the disease as New Yorkers who pour out of apartment buildings to cram shoulder-to-shoulder with strangers in a subway car on their way to work in crowded Times Square restaurants or the New York Stock Exchange. That’s the problem with “one-size-fits-all” solutions: they don’t fit most people.

Finally, here’s “A Tale of Two States, Coronavirus Edition”.

Mike Huckabee

From Judith:

Mike, I am one of your biggest fans; however, I find the references to the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) above to be tone deaf to what the true small business owner is experiencing.

Supposedly the PPP was a first-come, first-served program to protect small companies and their employees. The way it is being administered is egregious if it is anything like what my 29-year-old son experienced.

He and a college roommate own a metal fabrication and welding business that they started in 2015. They had five employees.

He applied to Pittsburgh National Corporation PNC, his banker, on the day that the program opened. Four days later, the banker at PNC contacted him to say that my son had not initialed the application in two places. He did so within three hours.

When he did not hear back from PNC on the status of his application, he contacted the banker repeatedly. No response at all until last Thursday, April 16, 2020, when the banker contacted him and said that she had submitted his application that day at 12:30 pm. The money had run out.

He had to furlough all of his employees. Now he is frantic to keep his business afloat.

He submitted a complaint to PNC and the banker called and offered him a loan at 7%. He has avoided debt like the plague. He and his partner have paid themselves paupers’ wages, believing that investing in equipment and good employees now would pay off in the future.

If he had not acted in a timely manner, he would not be upset. BUT when he did everything in time to get a loan and the "big guys" get funding and you didn't, it feels like crony capitalism at its worst.

Whom does he blame? Trump and Marco Rubio. Somebody had to write and approve the bill. He believes that they left loopholes for the banks and the connected.

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From the Gov:

Thank you so much for writing, Judith. I certainly don’t mean to be tone deaf about the real-world problems faced by small business owners; that’s why I’m highlighting your letter. As I said, this is the sort of bureaucratic nightmare that is common to virtually ALL government programs. It angers me to hear this story and think that loopholes might have been deliberately left in the bill to benefit the connected and savvy over independent small business owners such as your son who don’t have high-priced attorneys to make sure every “i” is dotted and every “t” crossed (and every blank initialed) on every page of the voluminous paperwork.

It’s hard to know exactly what happened here; did the banker deliberately set aside your son’s application in deference to more “important” applicants, or did his paperwork get lost in the shuffle of a deluge of applications. Either way, it’s unacceptable.

But the fact that all the money was gone so quickly underlies the need to end the political bickering and bargaining and replenish those funds NOW. I’ve been hearing economists say that even this infusion of $$$ is not going to be nearly enough, and they are worried. (It should worry us all.) As for your son’s bank, they should be apologizing profusely for delaying his application. They have the completed paperwork now, so as soon as more money is available, he needs to be AT THE HEAD OF THE LINE. If that doesn’t happen, I have two words for him after the crisis is over: “new bank.”

On the other hand, just a few moments ago (this is Monday afternoon), my researcher heard a report of a major, MAJOR financial institution being “out of money” for small businesses who were similarly right there with their applications on the very first day. Had it all been earmarked for big-deal clients? We’ll be looking into this. And when Congress (finally) approves more funding for the program, they might also want to take a look at how the program is already being abused and quickly close those loopholes. Emphasis on the word "quickly."

Thanks again, Judith, for your perspective. I hope your son gets the money in time to keep his business together and that he and his employees are able to get back to work soon. I’m not sure how shutting down a metal fabrication/welding plant with five employees (or any number, really, as long as they’re taking basic precautions) is going to affect the spread of coronavirus one way or the other.

Mike Huckabee

Last week I made the case for why the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) from January 2017, which concluded that Russia was trying to damage Hillary and help Trump win, was 180 degrees WRONG. It’s no longer just a wild right-wing conspiracy theory, but, I believe, the only logical conclusion, to say that Russia was actually trying to hurt Trump and stay on what they assumed was the winning side, Hillary’s.

Let’s start making sense: if certain “dossier” stories were Russian disinformation designed to help Trump, as recently-declassified footnotes in the IG report suggest the FBI suspected, then they wouldn’t have been anti-Trump falsehoods like Michael Cohen’s imaginary trip to Prague or Trump’s fictional romp in a Moscow hotel with a couple of full-grown Betsy-Wetsy dolls. Heck, the Russians would have been working on a “dossier” of their own, full of terrible Hillary stories (as if we didn’t have enough of those).

It certainly makes sense to think they’d assume Hillary was going to win. (And surely they would not want the scenario of Hillary winning and then finding out they’d been working for her opponent!) Hillary was a known quantity, she headed an unfathomably-huge international political power machine, they’d supported the Clinton Global Initiative and they’d paid her husband a fortune just to give a couple of speeches. Surely they were expecting some big things in return. One of these things they’d already received, when she signed off on an agreement that led to Russia owning 20 percent of America’s uranium reserves. Do they think President Donald Trump in their wildest dreams would have gone for THAT?

But as John Solomon wrote over the weekend, “As the Obama administration was headed out the door in January 2017, its intelligence leaders concluded with moderate to high confidence that Russia’s meddling in 2016, including the hack of emails from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta and the Democratic Party, was designed to help Trump defeat Clinton.” And that was their narrative (with cooperation from the media) going into Trump’s administration –- not just Russian "meddling," but that Trump's campaign had actively conspired with the Russians. They claimed this with no evidence at all, as the special counsel would determine much later.

You know, we still don’t even have hard evidence that the Russians were the ones who got those emails in the first place. The DNC never did turn over the information on their servers to the FBI, only the report from CrowdStrike. Yet for some baffling reason the FBI were okay with that and went along with the DNC’s self-serving conclusion. Others have come up with some very different possible scenarios for the hacking or leaking of that information, but these are dismissed as wild conspiracy theories.

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Daniel Hoffman, the CIA’s former Moscow station chief and one of our top experts in Russian spycraft, said he believed all along that the Obama administration’s assessment was wrong and sees the newly-declassified footnotes as confirmation. In other words, the Russians were NOT trying to help Trump get elected. On the other hand, he thinks the whole issue of whether the Russians were helping Trump or Clinton is “superfluous.” If I understand correctly what he’s quoted as saying, I disagree strongly with that because of the anything-but-superfluous political consequences of the "helping Trump" narrative chosen by Obama’s outgoing administration.

So, considering there was no evidence that Trump was “colluding” with Russians, where did the FBI get that idea? According to Solomon, Republican investigators such as Rep. Devin Nunes of California, ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, are focusing on what John Brennan’s CIA was telling the FBI in 2016.

Hoffman said he’s always maintained that the Kremlin was tracking Christopher Steele’s information-gathering efforts. “Putin would have recognized the opportunity to infiltrate Steele’s work and plant misinformation, which would not immediately be spotted because Steele was supposed to be a reliable, retired MI-6 officer with a strong background on Russia,” he said. (I would add that if Putin thought that about Steele, he was wrong, as the FBI had been doubting him as a reliable source since 2015.)

I still say Putin was doing this to help Hillary, to gain additional favor with her, as he must have assumed she would find out after she was President about his efforts to help her win. No telling what he might get in return --- plus it occurs to me that it might be an interesting blackmail opportunity for him as well. Nobody thought Trump was going to be President (well, except for me and a few other independent thinkers.) “The Steele dossier was used as fodder in our partisan, political meat grinder,” according to Hoffman. “Putin’s goal is to exacerbate the already high level of animosity between Democrats and Republicans, with an eye towards degrading our democracy.”

Well, his effort to help Hillary with anti-Trump "disinformation" failed, but he certainly degraded our democracy, with plenty of help from Democrats.

Mike Huckabee

Reader Carol wrote in to ask about a story in the U.K. DAILY MAIL that criticized a tax provision in the “CARES” Act as a giveaway to the rich. Specifically, it said that 80 percent of the benefit would go directly to millionaires and billionaires, including Jared Kushner and others in the “Trump circle.”

Not surprisingly, a review of the DAILY MAIL report showed it had no balance, no commentary from anyone on the other side of this issue. And predictably, the story was picked up by other left-leaning sites that presented the same simplistic take-away; namely, that the Republicans had added this provision to further enrich their “rich friends.” It took some looking, but we found an analysis in a more conservative news outlet, THE FEDERALIST, from Kyle Sammin, that took exception to this conclusion.

The headline and subhead sum it up: “No, Boosting Small Business Isn’t Rich People ‘Looting’ Taxpayers: Far from a handout to rich guys, a small change under the coronavirus stimulus package reduces taxes on business owners so they can retain employees on payroll.” It cites Jeff Stein at the WASHINGTON POST for using the tired media narrative that Republicans care only about rich people while failing to explore the reasons Democrats went along with this (they voted for it, you know). “As usual,” Sammin writes, “there is more to the story than the class warfare angle.”

The way Sammin explains it, this is “far from a naked handout to rich guys.” The tax incentive was added because of a change that had been made in the tax law in 2017 regarding the way small business tax losses are treated. The reason taxes on business owners (those “millionaires and billionaires”) have been reduced is to make it easier to retain workers on payroll while they’re shut down. It does not apply to personal income taxes.

It also doesn’t apply to huge, publicly-traded corporations, he says, but to smaller businesses that are organized for tax purposes as “tax-throughs.” We’re talking about proprietorships, partnerships, LLCs, and subchapter S corporations, whose profits are taxed at the individual level, not the corporate level. According to Sammin, about 95 percent of all businesses in America are organized this way.

This is your locally-owned neighborhood hair salon, family-owned restaurant or clothing boutique that has been hard-hit by the quarantine. In parts of the country with a mid-to-higher cost of living, especially, these business owners are going to be in the “millionaire” category, and these are the people –- along with their employees –- who are holding on for dear life.

The tax change in 2017 meant that, starting in 2018, small businesses couldn’t write off more of a loss than $250,000, or $500,000 if it was owned by a married couple. At that time, people who lost that kind of money tended to be disproportionately wealthy. But now, many more small businesses will show a loss like this, which means they have to cut pay or lay off employees altogether. This provision in the CARES Act was intended to lighten the load on these small businesses. “Like most tax incentives,” Sammins writes, it is not perfect, but it should be marginally effective in helping all workers, not just the rich.”

Yes, some of these small businesses are owned by quite wealthy people. Democrat Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, who did vote for the bill, complained, “It’s a scandal for Republicans to loot American taxpayers in the midst of an economic and human tragedy.” He’s hoping you don’t think too deeply about this and realize that it’s not “looting” to let small businesses write off their actual losses, especially at a time when they are faced with the very real possibility of losing it all.

As long as we’re looking at the CARES Act, here’s a less shall-we-say “charitable” look at the possible unintended consequences. It explains how the program is vulnerable to waste, fraud and abuse. (To that I would say, well, yes...isn’t every government program?) As Gary Meltz writes in the WASHINGTON EXAMINER, “These are honest and legal ways the PPP allows business owners who are not struggling due to the pandemic to make massive profits. Now think about the unethical and illegal methods that probably also exist.” To give the complete picture, I’ve included that take here:

The law has loopholes that allow larger businesses such as large restaurant chains to take advantage. For example, as Dominick Mastrangelo reports in the WASHINGTON EXAMINER, an exemption in the CARES Act allows food industry businesses to obtain loans as long as no more than 500 employees work at a single location. (I could argue, though, that it might be just as challenging, perhaps in different ways. to keep a big chain of restaurants afloat as it is to sustain a single restaurant or small regional chain.) Also, the law does not specifically prohibit aid from going to publicly listed firms.

Keep in mind that while we’re talking about this, Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi are holding off their approval of a bill to replenish by $250 billion the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) for small business loans, which in just two weeks was drained of its original $350 billion. This lack of money could affect hundreds of thousands of businesses. Again, this bill is another effort to help businesses keep people employed while they are unable to make payroll. Democrats are trying to inflate the bill to $500 billion –- for hospitals, food assistance and first responders –- and are delaying its passage.

They should go forward with this NOW and take up other funding in a separate bill. Stop bickering and playing politics; Congress has the “power of the purse” and could introduce additional legislation and debate the details of that funding separately rather than hold this bill hostage.

I would add that OF COURSE any funding bill designed to help desperate small businesses could end up benefiting some people who are wealthy –- including some who are disliked for partisan reasons. Just speaking broadly, if a bill that’s going to provide critical relief to small businesses happens to have some benefit for, say, Jared Kushner, does that mean we’re going to go on the assumption that it was DESIGNED to help build Jared Kushner’s portfolio and summarily reject it, leaving small businesses to twist in the wind? Or, are we perhaps going to do some sort of carve-out so that the program benefits everyone EXCEPT Jared Kushner (and anyone else who might be in Trump’s “circle,” or even every rich Republican)? Leftists would love to do that, but there’s a word for it: unconstitutional.

By the way, Pelosi, in a Sunday interview with Chris Wallace in which she repeatedly noted how “nonpartisan” her colleagues are being on the issue of help for small business (!), still managed to finger-point at Trump and would give no Democrats any responsibility for the delay in funding. “He’s a poor leader,” she said of the President. “He’s always trying to avoid responsibility and assign blame.” Um, Nancy, isn’t that exactly what YOU are doing in this very interview?

Mike Huckabee

If you’re like me, you get an initial impression of a story but then, after thinking about it for another day or so, you sometimes realize there are even more far-reaching implications than anyone is talking about. Such was the case for me and my research staff after reading about the newly declassified footnotes from the IG report on the FBI’s FISA warrant applications.

Yes, we know that Russia might have been running a disinformation campaign on Christopher Steele. (This could be true even though we have reason to believe that a lot of it actually came from Glenn Simpson with Steele’s name attached.)  We know the Russians had information by summer of 2016 that he was working for Fusion GPS to help Hillary.

Yes, we know that the FBI knew about this possible Russian involvement --- BEFORE the FISA warrant application was renewed to spy on Carter Page and before the Mueller special counsel had been appointed. (I believe they were duty-bound to alert the FISA Court of any problem with information in their original application, but they ignored that and blithely went on to renew it three more times.)

But there’s something MORE we know: that, contrary to what the FBI said and the Intelligence Community concluded in their January 2017 report, Russia was NOT doing this to help Trump. They weren’t even doing it just to “create chaos,” although that was a plus.

So what was their actual goal? Well, class, if they were doing it to help Trump, if they were “colluding” with Trump to win the election, wouldn't they have been spreading damaging stories about HILLARY?  Why would they be spreading phony stories like the one about Trump attorney Michael Cohen going on a suspicious trip to Prague (he never went), or the one about Trump frolicking with incontinent hookers in a Moscow hotel (it didn’t happen)? These are two examples of stories, as revealed in the IG footnotes, that the FBI thought might have come from a Russian disinformation campaign. Who does that kind of story help? I’ll give you a hint: not Trump.

And why would Christopher Steele’s sub-source be a vocal supporter of Hillary Clinton, as is revealed in the footnotes? Who would his information be intended to help? Hint: Not Trump.

Why would Steele himself, an ardent Clinton supporter who was hired by Hillary and the DNC, who was “desperate” to make sure Trump didn’t win and who had a deadline of Election Day to get his anti-Trump “dossier” out, be doing this project in the first place? Who was he trying to help? Not Trump.

So where does anyone get the idea that the Russians were trying to hurt Hillary and help Trump?

That was the FBI’s narrative in the summer of 2016 and onward, and it led to years of ridiculous investigation, but the truth was actually just the opposite. Everyone connected with this scheme --- Steele, his sources and sub-sources, Glenn Simpson and Fusion GPS, the Democratic National Committee, Hillary’s lawyers, the top echelon of the FBI, the director of the CIA, the special counsel team, Democrats on the House Intelligence and Judiciary Committees, allies at the DOJ and State Department, and, obviously, RUSSIA --- was aligned with Hillary. They were all trying to hurt Donald Trump and help Hillary Clinton, whom they surely believed would be the next U.S. President. This isn’t a wild conspiracy theory; with all we know now, any other conclusion defies logic.

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I would add that with a group of this size, power and scope aligned with Hillary, the then-President of the United States was aware of their activities. Hard to prove, but, again, it defies reason to think he wasn't informed about a lot of it. As Lisa Page texted to Peter Strzok in September 2016: “POTUS wants to know everything we’re doing.”

Here’s a concise report on what the footnotes, just released by acting Director of National intelligence Richard Grenell, reveal:

It was so important for the FBI and whoever else was working with them to “get” Trump that they violated the rights of innocent Americans such as Carter Page and George Papadopoulos, who were literally caught in the “Crossfire.” Papadopoulos even got jail time. 

And speaking of George Papadopoulos, Lindsay Graham, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has just declassified and released documents and transcripts relating to him and the FBI’s targeting of him. The material he released falls into three categories:

1) Declassified information related to “Crossfire Hurricane.”

2) Timeline of correspondence sent and received by the Committee regarding FISA abuse investigation.

3) Corrective action taken by the DOJ and FISA Court as a result of FISA abuse investigation.

We learn from the correspondence that the DOJ has produced the following documents:

–- Transcript of conversation between Papadopoulos and the FBI confidential human source (CHS, or “SPY”).

–- Another transcript of conversation between Papadopoulos and the aforementioned SPY.

--- The original FISA warrant application to spy on Carter Page.

--- Renewals one, two and three of the original Carter Page application (written AFTER the FBI knew of the problems with the “dossier” used therein).

--- A July 2018 letter from the DOJ to the FISA Court alerting them to some of the errors and omissions in the Carter Page application.

You can read the transcript of the conversation between George Papadopoulos and the SPY here, at the link.

When Papadopoulos was informed that this material had been declassified, he had an interesting reaction. A big question, of course, is who sent Hillary supporter and Australian diplomat Alexander Downer to London to meet with Papadopoulos in the spring of 2016? Recall that the FBI said their conversation, in which Papadopoulos reportedly said the Russians had damaging information about Hillary (which appears to have been fed to him by another CHS), is what sparked the opening of “Crossfire Hurricane.” Here’s what Papadopoulos tweeted on Thursday evening:

"Senator Graham in his letter to Australia made it clear that Alexander Downer was instructed to meet with me. Mueller’s team acknowledged he was recording me after I reported him to them (the irony). The key question is, who put the Clinton errand boy up to it? DURHAM KNOWS.” (Emphasis mine.

Papadopoulos Reacts to Declassification of Spygate Transcripts: "Durham Knows" Who Sent Clinton Errand Boy to Meet with Me in London

So we can add Alexander Downer --- and whoever sent him to London --- to the massive column of Spygate characters who were out to HELP HILLARY WIN. And, yes, we can add Russia, too.  Much more to come, because Durham knows.

Mike Huckabee

A WASHINGTON POST “Fact-Checker” column (quotation marks deliberate), not by Glenn Kessler but by Elyse Samuels and Meg Kelly, gives “Four Pinocchios,” the worst rating for lying, to President Trump for allegedly promoting hydroxychloroquine as a “cure” for the COVID-19 (Chinese –- that's a fact) coronavirus.

Where to begin? Aside from the headline, which makes sure to include the words “false hope” (they don’t know that), I suppose we could start right up front, with the quotes in which Trump allegedly tells his overwhelming LIES about it being a cure. Huge whoppers such as, “I don’t know, it’s looking like it’s having some good results. That would be a phenomenal thing.” And “It’s this powerful drug on malaria. And there are signs that it works on this. Some very strong signs.” And of course, “What do you have to lose?” Well, there’s a hardcore sales pitch!

Likewise, the writers’ case for dismissing hydroxychloroquine (which is being used in combination with other drugs, not alone) is that there aren't yet any clinical trials proving efficacy. But here's a FACT: those take time, and people who might die in the next 24 hours don’t want to wait for results to come in months from now., especially with the many “anecdotal” accounts of the drug’s success. That’s why Trump said, “What do you have to lose?”

There have been some small-scale trials showing promise, such as those by French doctor Didier Raoult. But the authors wave his work off as “discredited.” But how? I followed the link in the story to the journal that allegedly “discredited” the study. Here is the entirety of what it said on that subject:

“The ISAC (International Society of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy) Board believes the article does not meet the Society’s expected standard, especially relating to the lack of better explanations of the inclusion criteria and the triage of patients to ensure patient safety.”

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Speaking of nasty bugs, how are things with the FBI?

Does that mean the drug wasn’t shown to be effective? The WaPo writers certainly imply as much. We’ve talked about this very small study here, right after the news broke that a hydroxychloroquine “cocktail” of drugs had helped some patients in France. The news was encouraging, but very preliminary; I said at the time that it appeared to have been rushed out and that the French-to-English could have been smoother. My staff and I were as skeptical as anyone should be of the results of a preliminary study announced on Skype. But after that, there was another, larger study that supported the first, and French President Macron went to the institute where it had been conducted and reportedly received a three-hour presentation on the promising results. In light of this, it is not overselling the treatment for Trump to say there are “some very strong signs” that it works.

And there are other studies currently underway, including in South Dakota, the first state to launch one. None of this would be happening without a lot of encouraging “anecdotal” evidence.

The writers reference these studies and quote spokespeople as saying that’s it’s too early to know for sure.

But what about that growing mountain of “anecdotes” from the many people who report they believed they were about to die but quickly began recovering after receiving this treatment? One was the 96-year-old (!) father of Dr. Marc Siegel; he was quite ill before receiving the treatment but recovered in just a few days. Even a Democrat politician has credited Trump’s publicizing of the drug with saving her life. Well, ignore them all. The WaPo writers say that to a layperson, anecdotal evidence “may not sound bad, but it’s actually an insult in the scientific community,” akin to “a Yelp review.”

That assertion, in itself, is a distortion of fact. If someone cited only anecdotal evidence as “proof” of a “cure,” then, yes, that would be pseudoscience, but President Trump hasn’t claimed this. Personally, if my life were in the balance, there were no proven cure, and a few thousand Yelp reviews said “this medicine saved my life,” I would at least give it a try. And you know what? I’ll bet the authors of this hit piece masquerading as a “fact-check” would, too.

In FACT, according to a new survey by the healthcare staffing firm Jackson & Coker, 65 percent of physicians would prescribe the drug to a family member with COVID-19, and 67 percent would take it themselves. Only 11 percent said they would not use it. In other words, a vast majority of doctors are encouraged –- not insulted –- by the anecdotal evidence.

Another point they use to discredit the drug is that there can be serious side effects if not used under a doctor’s supervision. Isn’t that true of virtually all prescription drugs, which is why you need a prescription? Numerous doctors, even some cardiac specialists, have said this is one of the safest drugs on the market. (Read the list of possible side effects in the paperwork that comes with most prescriptions, and you’ll think twice before taking ANY drug.) This article even cites the very suspicious story about the man dying after deliberately swallowing fish tank cleaner containing a very different ingredient with a similar name. (Talk about relying on “anecdotal evidence” to prove your case!) Sorry, but I can’t find any example of Trump telling people to take this drug without seeing a doctor, or to ingest fish tank cleaner.

They also bring up the concern about lupus and rheumatoid arthritis patients facing shortages of this drug because of the demand. I would say that if there is a demand, it’s because a lot of doctors –- repeat, doctors –- see the value in prescribing it for their COVID-19 patients. (See survey, above.) Ironically, the problem of supply vs. demand might actually be exacerbated by the tendency of politicians to “play doctor” and try to limit the use of the drug. A solution might be to go the opposite way: green-light mass production and distribution. A supply should, of course, be reserved for those patients already depending on it for maintaining their health.

The article also warns that a focus on this drug might cause researchers to “put all their eggs in one basket” and miss finding more promising treatments. On the contrary, those studies are going on as well.

Here are a few FACTS for those in the “fact-check” business who have trouble recognizing one. Trump has never called this a “cure.” He’s said he’s heard good things (so have I, so I know that’s true). He’s said what have you got to lose (if there is no other treatment, and the alternative is dying on a ventilator, that sounds pretty accurate as well.) It’s impossible to have perfect, long-term clinical trials at this stage; this is a never-before-seen virus and a treatment that’s only recently been tried. Many doctors, when faced with no alternative for a possibly terminal patient and no available clinical trials, make recommendations based on anecdotal evidence, particularly when there is a vast and growing library of it.

The authors surely know that slapping a "Four-Pinocchio" rating on Trump's comments implies to the public that they've made an ironclad case for deliberate, malicious LYING. Yet the last paragraph in particular reads more like an overly dramatic editorial than a dispassionate assessment of facts. And it is inaccurate (a LIE!!) for them to say that politicians and the media have turned this “unknown drug” into a “100 percent coronavirus cure.”

After reading through this article, I have to award Samuels and Kelly Four Pinocchios for their claim to be objective “fact-checkers.”

Mike Huckabee

There are much bigger issues to deal with than the wounded pride of a gaggle of juvenile Democratic operatives with by-lines (to use Instapundit’s popular description of today’s “journalists.”) Chief of among them is how and when to reopen the economy so that we avoid both a spike in infections and a prolonged depression.

President Trump has said that choosing when to reopen the economy is the biggest decision he’s ever faced. He noted that if it were up to the doctors, they’d shut down the whole world indefinitely, but we can’t let the treatment become more destructive than the problem.

Another fake controversy was set off by the media when Trump said he has “total” authority over when to reopen the economy. Reporters who only recently emerged from their worship of Obama and rediscovered limits on Presidential power went ballistic over that, but it seemed obvious to me that he wasn’t saying he has “total authority” over the US economy, but over the decision he has to make – in other words, he is listening to the doctors, but the decision is up to him, not them or anyone other advisers. That would be the rational interpretation, which, again, is why most of the news outlets seemed to miss it.

As if to prove that Trump knows he doesn’t have total authority over the entire economy, the governors of several states announced their plans to start reopening for business, and I notice that Trump didn't have them arrested for insurrection.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said he thinks most states can reopen sooner than May 1.

With the projected infection rates and death tolls dropping sharply, it appears that the American people, through responsible actions like self-isolating, social distancing, wearing masks and gloves, and washing and disinfecting their hands frequently have made a big impact on the spread of the virus. With regular reminders to stay vigilant, there’s no reason why most businesses can’t start reopening.

For instance, if it’s safe for people who wear masks and stand six feet apart to go to Walmart or CVS for food and drugs (stores that have remained open), then why wouldn’t it be just as safe to go to any other business under the same safety and hygiene standards? Then again, you’d have to explain that logic to at least one Governor, who seems to think it’s safe to go to Walmart to buy bread, but if you also pick up a package of tomato seeds or a pair of shorts, WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!!

This is a problem that can only be remedied by putting on your masks and gloves and standing six feet apart in long lines to vote out any authoritarians who would use a health crisis to abuse power and shred the Constitution.

Mike Huckabee

There are a lot of words you could use to describe the daily White House briefings on the COVID-19 (Chinese) coronavirus and the havoc it’s wrought, but I wouldn’t call them “exhilarating” or “entertaining”…until yesterday. Finally fed up with a rabidly biased news media that seems more interested in attacking and blaming President Trump and accusing him of not taking the pandemic seriously than in relaying accurate, necessary information to the public, Trump introduced a video. It included a timeline, showing the steps Trump has taken to combat the virus going all the way back to January, when he banned travel from China and the people who now accuse him of waiting too long called him “racist” and “xenophobic.” (Fun Fact: Trump mentioned the coronavirus in his State of the Union Address, the one that Nancy Pelosi – who now claims he was “fiddling while Rome burns” – infamously ripped up behind him.)

The video went on to show the media, political opponents and so-called “health experts” on cable TV news channels dismissing the dangers, and Democratic Governors praising the White House response.

Here’s the full briefing, and the video starts around the 15-minute mark:

Predictably, the media reacted like a pack of dogs who were forced to watch a screening of “Cats.” Not since Dr. Smith on “Lost in Space” have feigned outrage, wounded dignity and cries of “Oh, the pain! The pain!” been so hilarious. They could not believe that Trump had the temerity to show the public what they’d actually said two or three months ago. The reporters in the room accused him of showing a “campaign video,” while both CNN and MSNBC cut away from the briefing to keep their viewers from seeing anything that might actually open their eyes to the truth.

Incredibly, what I assume must be a petulant 14-year-old at CNN actually imposed titles on the press conference feed, reading, "Angry Trump turns briefing into propaganda session," "Trump uses task force briefing to try and rewrite history on coronavirus response," and "Trump melts down in angry response to reports he ignored virus warnings."

Funny, he seemed pretty calm to me. And I thought that “propaganda” referred to fake news, not showing the public video of direct quotes with accurate dates attached. My term for that would be “journalism.” Of course, it’s understandable that CNN wouldn’t recognize “journalism,” since it’s been so long since they’ve practiced it. MSNBC also explained their cutaway by saying there is no reason for them to broadcast propaganda. I agree, and yet they keep doing it 24/7.

Another laughable response came on Twitter from someone who said reporters would never have just sat there respectfully and let Obama praise himself at length. News flash: that’s pretty much all they did for eight years.

But the funniest response had to come from former Obama Administration mouthpieces like Joe Lockhart (now on CNN) and Ben Rhodes (now on MSNBC), who huffed that they NEVER would have stood at the podium and dispensed such one-sided, campaign style propaganda (“If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor!”) Reminder: Ben Rhodes once bragged about how he sold Obama’s Iran nuclear deal by setting up an “echo chamber” to feed talking points to the young political reporters “who literally know nothing” so they would regurgitate them back to their readers and viewers.

You know the difference between what Obama told us about the Iran nuclear deal and the video that Trump showed on Monday? Everything in Trump’s video was true.

A post-script: New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman is heard in her own voice in the video, admitting that Trump was called a racist and a xenophobe for his early cut-off of travel from China to the US, but it did slow the spread of the disease. She tweeted that “their use of the audio is misleading - I went on to say I said he treated that travel limitation as a Mission Accomplished moment.”

Yes, I read the transcript, and she did go on to criticize Trump (what a surprise.) But that’s irrelevant. Her personal interpretation of his attitude in no way altered what she said about his actions in January or the reactions to them. And nobody is under any obligation to quote her entire interview to provide “context.” Real journalists use excerpts and editing all the time, but the excerpt must convey the actual meaning. An example of “misleading” editing would be cutting up and splicing a Trump comment to make it appear that there were fine people among a group of white supremacists when he was actually talking about people who want to preserve Confederate monuments.

Again, this is Journalism 101 stuff, so I’m not surprised that a New York Times reporter isn’t familiar with it.

Laura Ainsworth, Staff Writer

Even with 24/7 virus coverage, I’ll bet you haven’t heard much about what it’s like here in Dallas, Texas. We’re not making much national news, which surprises me a little, as we’ve definitely got some issues going on that relate to the larger discussion: control of the virus vs. control of Americans. As someone who lives in a suburb inside Dallas County –- only in the most technical sense am I not a Native Texan –- it seemed like a good idea to bring them up.

First, it should be said that I agree with the theory expressed in the Gov's earlier commentary that some of the resistance to the hydroxychloroquine/azithromycin treatment is not out of concern that it won’t work, but that it WILL. Absolutely, there are those who want to use this pandemic to introduce all sorts of societal controls; I’ll get to that in a bit. First, let’s look at the front page of Sunday's DALLAS MORNING NEWS, specifically the unenthusiastic headline: “D-FW hospitals sent unproven drug.” I realize writer Allie Morris of the DSM’s Austin Bureau probably didn’t come up with that headline, but it certainly shows the mindset of whoever did.

RELATED READING: Doesn't everybody want a quick end to the pandemic?

The good news is, North Texas hospitals are getting at least some HCQ; Medical City locations reportedly received a total of 5,000 tablets, but one gets the impression they’re being held onto very tightly. A spokesperson said they’re being used only for “certain” COVID-19 patients “with appropriate informed consent." The approach throughout the article is extremely cautious; you won’t see any accounts of miraculous cures or enthusiastic endorsements like the one linked to in our earlier commentary –- only the message that 1) the drug is not FDA-approved for this use (actually, that’s misleading; it’s approved for “emergency” use, and off-label use is up to the doctor), 2) there are worrisome side effects (many doctors would say these are overblown and that the drug is one of the safest), and 3) that it might make some patients feel better but they don’t know until they have more data.

Contrast this dismissiveness with the slant of the adjacent article (if you’re looking at the actual printed edition): “Managing crisis with experience,” a softball piece about Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins. It's not widely known that a county judge in Texas has sweeping powers during an emergency; he can pretty much take over and run the show, and that’s what Jenkins has done, to the point where the county commissioners stepped in to limit his power. Jenkins has clamped down hard on the local economy, harder than Gov. Greg Abbott.

As the piece says, “He has knowingly sacrificed a booming economy in the state’s second-most populous county to save people’s lives. Each urgent step he has taken –- often ahead of the rest of the state –- has been informed by his faith, science and experience gleaned from a decade of managing complex public health crises such as West Nile and Ebola, say those who know him. Jenkins, a Democrat first elected to the role in 2010, has emerged as a decisive leader whose restrictions –- including a stay-in-place order –- have led the regional response to the pandemic.”

I swear, this piece could have been written by a public relations firm. Jenkins has been “championed” by health care experts and hospital CEOs for “his proactive response to the pandemic.” The praise goes on and on, saying that “speculation has swirled about Jenkins’ political future...his growing fan base on social media regularly encourages him to run for governor.”

Full disclosure: I strongly disagreed with Judge Jenkins a few years ago when the issue of unaccompanied children at the Mexican border affected our own community; Jenkins was determined to wave them on into Dallas County and house them in a vacant middle school building smack in the middle of a residential area near my own neighborhood. (He certainly didn’t seem concerned about contagion then.) He was quoted in THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS as saying there was no neighborhood opposition, which I know was not the case because I was vocally opposed to it myself, along with many others. It looked as though this was just going to happen, but then for some reason I’ll never know, it didn’t. Maybe since we weren’t in an emergency then, he didn’t get to use dictatorial powers.

Anyway, the juxtaposition of these two articles communicates very clearly the mindset of the left: A promising drug therapy that Trump advocates in the hope it will save lives: “unproven.” The economy-destroying lock-down of an entire county that a local official imposes in the hope it will save lives: “proactive.”

Speaking of dictatorial powers, Daniel Horowitz at CONSERVATIVE REVIEW has a great piece on the growing police state surrounding this contagion. “As the Supreme Court has said many times,” he writes, “there are times when life, liberty and property can be infringed upon, but it must be narrowly tailored to the least invasive means needed to achieve the compelling state interest. What is happening now is anything but narrow.”

He goes on to list numerous examples of ridiculous law-enforcement overreach, some of which we’ve covered here, involving such horrible sins as going for a drive alone, paddleboarding alone in the ocean, sitting alone in a car at the beach, violating a 10 p.m. curfew (the virus spreads much faster after dark, you know), and more. He mentions the research Google is doing to develop the means to track people. And he credits Florida Gov. Ron deSantis as being that rare governor who says “we can’t start ripping up the Constitution.”

We all know there are people who can’t wait to rip up the Constitution, and who have even put some little tears into the edges of the paper so they can rip it more dramatically, the way Nancy Pelosi did with Trump’s State Of The Union speech.

I’m not saying your average “progressive” voter literally wants thousands more people to die so we can have the all-controlling police state leftists dream of (with them in charge). But a crisis is a terrible thing to waste, and the longer this virus sticks around, the more “emergency” controls officials can put in place forever. If some cheap, widely-used little pills have the power to interfere with that, they're fine with dismissing them as “unproven.”

Mike Huckabee

Mike Huckabee

There’s a meme going around that reads, “How are you enjoying your 30-day free trial of socialism?” But I never thought that would be true in a place like Greenville, Mississippi.

Mississippi’s Governor encouraged churches not to hold services in person to combat the coronavirus, but he refused to ban them from doing so, saying, “Mississippi is not China, and never will be.” But someone needs to get that message to Greenville’s Democrat Mayor Errick Simmons, who not only ordered churches closed, he even banned drive-in services.

Last Sunday, members of Temple Baptist Church gathered in about 25 cars in the church parking lot to listen to pastor Arthur Scott preaching over the radio. Police came and handed $500 tickets to each driver, even though they were all inside separate closed cars. The only time they violated “social distancing” was when they had to roll down their windows to take the tickets from the cops.

Scott said police told him he might go to jail, and he said if that’s what it takes to keep preaching, he’ll gladly go to jail, and he will see them at the church next Sunday.

The religious freedom law firm First Liberty sent a letter to Simmons demanding that the ban be lifted, and stating that “religious liberty is not suspended during a pandemic” and Americans should not “tolerate churchgoers being ticketed by the police for following CDC guidelines at church.”

Once again, it’s very instructive to see how quickly tolerant, compassionate liberals turn into ironfisted authoritarians when given just a little power. It’s yet another reason why you should never believe the claim that socialism would work great, it’s just that the “right people” have never been in charge of it. If you even want to be in charge of a socialist government, then you’re the wrong people to be in charge of the government.

Mike Huckabee

The lying I spoke of in yesterday’s installment was just the tip of the iceberg. It’s hard enough to assess the danger of this pandemic without people deliberately lying. Here are just a few more examples, not from China but from right here in the U.S.A.

The health care workers risking their own health to fight this virus deserve nothing but praise. But in New York, a nurse who claimed in an apparently phony video that she had quit her job after being made to work in a coronavirus ICU without a face mask fooled CBS News into posting it, complete with background music and captions added to highlight the supposed danger.

In the video, this Instagram “influencer” gets emotional and says, “America is not prepared, and nurses are not being protected.” But on Facebook, she had admitted she left her job at the hospital over a year ago and wasn’t sure she was ready to return to work, as she has anxiety and bi-polar depression and was “triggered” by the growing volume of information on COVID-19.

Note the irony in what she posted: “The information overload can be hard for me to sift through as far as what is credible and what is not, it triggers me.” This, when her own words blur the line between truth and fiction.

Not only CBS, but now-former-presidential candidate Bernie Sanders was misled by the video. He retweeted the fraudulent CBS NEWS story, adding, “It is insane that our nurses are being forced to care for the sick without masks and respirators. The Department of Labor must immediately issue emergency workplace standards to protect our health workers, their families, and their patients.”

https://thefederalist.com/2020/04/06/cbs-news-posts-fraudulent-video-icu-nurse-crying-over-poor-working-conditions/

Finding out how New York hospitals are currently doing regarding PPE (personal protective equipment) is challenging. We went back to CBS NEWS to see what they’re saying right now. For one thing, they’re still maintaining the fiction that Trump “dissolved” the White House pandemic response office in 2018; my understanding is that Trump did not get rid of it but consolidated it with other offices. Beth Cameron, who ran it under Obama (and then under Trump until he reorganized), is quoted at length about what keeps her up at night right now –- mostly competition between states for supplies. She says that “without a unified federal plan, states don’t have any choice but to be prepared for their constituents.” She’d like to see a federal-level “logistics czar.”

Recall that just this week, I complimented President Trump on his ability to delegate, to give governors the very responsibility Cameron is worried about them having. When I was governor of Arkansas and dealing with emergencies, I saw that being closer to my constituents made me better able to determine my state’s unique needs, as opposed to having to depend on a “one-size-fits-all” federal bureaucracy. As she is one of those bureaucrats herself, she might not get that.

Yes, we've had challenges getting supplies to hospitals, notably because so many of them have been made in China for years. The CBS story does acknowledge this problem, with Prashant Yardav, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development and “an expert on supply chain management,” saying that of all the N95 respirators we might use, half or more come from China. The same goes for protective gear such as masks, gloves and gowns. So, given the startling number of cases predicted, the Department of Health and Human Services warned there wouldn't be enough.

But the CBS story never says that medical professionals caring for coronavirus patients in New York hospitals are going without respirators. I have read elsewhere that in their uncertainty about the supply chain, they have been re-using them, but that’s very different.

The problem as I see it, whether supplies are allocated at the federal level or not, is that most of this stuff is coming from China. That has to change NOW, and Trump has been coordinating with private companies to make it happen. Still, it doesn’t help us determine the severity of the problem when CBS NEWS, Bernie Sanders and others post a fake video by someone who doesn’t even work at a hospital.

https://news.yahoo.com/why-links-ppe-supply-chain-153800387.html

Much of the anxiety about demand is based on computer models that turned out to be wildly wrong, dramatically inflating the numbers of people who would require hospitalization. In other words, computer models can “lie,” too, at least in the sense that the predictions they’ve given us to work with are false. Though Tuesday was, nationwide, the deadliest day we’ve had, “the curve” of new cases seems to be flattening in places where infection has been worst, such as New York, New Jersey and the Seattle area, and the need for beds and ventilators is not nearly what was anticipated, thank God. Projections are being revised downward.

https://q13fox.com/2020/04/08/army-field-hospital-at-centurylink-field-event-center-moving-to-another-state/

Of course, some of the most damaging lies are those told “by omission.” For example, we had the story a couple of days ago about Michigan state Rep. Karen Whitsett and her swift recovery after literally begging the medical bureaucracy to let her have a prescription for hydroxychloroquine. (Recall that Michigan is the state in which Gov. Gretchen Whitmer temporarily called for doctors in her state not to prescribe the drug for coronavirus.) Over just a few hours, Whitsett's condition had deteriorated greatly, with shortness of breath and fluid-filled lungs, and she was terrified. But later that night after taking the medication, she was already on the mend. And even though she’s a Democrat politician, she credited President Trump’s publicizing of the drug with her treatment and amazing recovery.

On Tuesday night, she and her doctor appeared on Tucker Carlson’s FOX NEWS show. Carlson has been an outspoken critic of Democrat politicians, fanatical anti-Trump media people and some government bureaucrats who are trying to get between patients and their doctors by discouraging the use of this therapy, in most cases only because President Trump has been touting it as a possible remedy. You’d think that to offer their audience hope for a treatment in the coming weeks, some other media outlets might pick up Rep. Whitsett’s story, right?

Wrong. No other major media outlet has picked it up. Nothing about Rep. Whitsett’s recovery was seen on CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, PBS or NPR. The DETROIT FREE PRESS had the story on Tuesday, but even though USA TODAY is under ownership of the same publisher, Gannett, the story did not “go national."  Except for the people who watch FOX NEWS –- and perhaps listen to Hannity and other conservative radio hosts –- the story was effectively buried. This is a textbook example of “lying by omission.”

That’s why, when a witness is sworn in to testify, the person is required to tell not just the truth, but the WHOLE truth. With anything concerning President Trump, the mainstream media can never be trusted to get it right.

https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/tim-graham/2020/04/08/spiked-only-fox-talks-democrat-saying-she-was-saved-trump-and-his

As I've said before, in the news business it used to be, "If if bleeds it leads," but now, it's "If it makes Trump bleed, it leads."  Here’s how ridiculous the lying about Trump and hydroxychloroquine has gotten.

https://dailycaller.com/2020/04/08/snopes-new-york-times-hydroxychloroquine-trump-finances-stake-investment/

If you doubt what I’m saying, I’ll let Attorney General William Barr have the last word.

William Barr: Media on ‘jihad’ to discredit hydroxychloroquine

Mike Huckabee

From Robin:

I speak a little Arabic (Iraqi), and my Iraqi friend has a funny way of speaking his thoughts on the Chinese government. (I hope this isn't too offensive.)

"May the fleas from a thousand camels infest their armpits."

On that thought, have a good evening!

From the Gov:

Thanks, Robin! Is your friend by any chance named Carnac the Magnificent? That sounds like something Johnny Carson would have used in the act, and I mean that in the most complimentary way. Though flea-infested armpits might be too good for the ChiComms, I will respond with an appropriate limerick, courtesy of Huckabee staff writer/researcher Laura Ainsworth:

There once were some Commie Chinese

Who spread a pandemic disease

They lied while it spread

Now thousands are dead

So, YES, may their armpits have fleas!

Mike Huckabee

I said a few days ago that China’s attempt to swoop in and save the day for other countries infected with the Wuhan virus is like an arsonist who runs into the building he set on fire to make himself look like the hero. It seems that this analogy may be even more descriptive than I thought.

Obviously, we can’t trust numbers coming out of China. On April 7, NBC NEWS tweeted that in a 24-hour period, the U.S. reported 1,264 deaths from coronavirus while China reported “not a single new coronavirus death.” Technically, that’s correct: China REPORTED not a single new death. But why is NBC willingly serving as China’s propaganda microphone? That’s not to pick on NBC; they’re not the only ones doing this.

Steven W. Mosher, author of the extremely timely book “BULLY OF ASIA: Why China’s Dream Is The New Threat To World Order,” appeared Tuesday on Laura Ingraham’s show to talk about this. He opened by saying what we already know: that from the beginning, China has lied outrageously. “They don’t just fudge the numbers,” he said; “they make them up out of whole cloth.”

Mosher thinks at least 50,000 have died in Wuhan since the beginning of the outbreak. To get that number, he noted that the Wuhan crematoria that were going full-on for 60 days, and they process about 1,000 bodies per day. After that, they began handing out funeral urns to grieving relatives, 500 of them a day, from 7 crematoria, times 14 days. Do the math.

He reminds us that this is the same Communist Party that told us no one died in Tienanmen Square when we later found out that around 10,000 lost their lives. It’s the same Communist Party that said no one died after The Great Leap Forward famine, when it turned out that 42.5 million perished. I’d say their numbers were a little off.

"So, I don’t know why anyone would take numbers out of China seriously,” he said. “I mean, why would anyone try to make China look good in this way –- it couldn’t just be just to make America look bad.”

Or...could it?

According to a March 26 story in PROPUBLICA, China has been using thousands of fake Twitter accounts to coordinate a disinformation campaign “about the coronavirus outbreak, the Hong Kong protests and other topics of state interest.” While Democrats were crying “Russia Russia Russia,” it appears China was gearing up for some serious “meddling” of its own. They’ve spent $10 billion on their campaign; this is much more massive than anything the Russians, with their few Twitter accounts, did. Most media ignored this story.

When you have time, take a look at it –- pretty scary.

And if you saw Monday’s press briefing with President Trump, you saw a young woman representing Phoenix TV of Hong Kong, which Trump called out as being owned by the Chinese (good for you, Mr. President!). Obviously, the Chinese media are here, putting together their own narratives for their own propaganda pieces. The Chinese embassies and media outlets are touting their success in controlling the virus, when they did nothing of the sort. Thousands of Chinese died, and the virus spread around the world.

The latest thing China is lying about is the reliability of coronavirus tests they’ve sent around the world. If anything needs to be accurate, it’s a test for this virus, but according to Mosher, the tests are “junk” that will “kill people.” The Department of Health had said that coronavirus test kits sent by China were only 40 percent accurate, but apparently Beijing bullied them into recanting that statement. On April 1, Mosher said that China is providing Europe with defective tests, masks that leak and protective gear that doesn’t protect. Some of the supplies have actually been sent back. (It occurs to me that if the workers in the Wuhan biolab weren’t protected by their gear, that alone doesn’t say much for the label “Made In China.”)

Mosher calls the World Health Organization “the Chinese Health Organization” and rightly criticizes them for not holding up Taiwan as an example for how to handle the pandemic. Taiwan was the first country to close its borders to Wuhan and as a result of this quick action had very few infections and deaths. But Taiwan isn’t even recognized as a country by China, so W.H.O. was intimidated into not recognizing their efforts. President Trump said Tuesday that he’s going to be looking into the World Health Organization, noting that the U.S. is their major source of funds. I have a feeling their funding from America may be drying up soon.

The article at the link includes more details as well as a Mosher’s historical perspective on China’s totalitarianism. Highly recommended…

As for our own media lying about coronavirus, what makes me the maddest right now is their insistence that Trump is wrong about the hydroxychloroquine/azithromycin/zinc drug therapy, when all signs point to a success here.

Even Dr. Anthony Fauci raises my blood pressure (an especially bad thing right now) when he says we may not ever get back to normal. For him, a vaccine is the Holy Grail, and until we find that, there are no long-term studies to give him confidence in any treatment. Never mind that an approved vaccine is likely 12-18 months away. I’m not accusing Dr. Fauci of bad intentions, just of thinking like a single-minded researcher and perhaps not seeing the big picture.

Zeke Emanuel, brother of Rahm “NEVER LET A SERIOUS CRISIS GO TO WASTE” Emanuel, said on MSNBC Monday night that America will probably be shut down for at least 18 months. Amplifying Dr. Fauci, he said, “We will not be able to return to normalcy...I know that’s dreadful news to hear...Conferences, concerts, sporting events, religious services, dinner at a restaurant, none of that will resume until we find a vaccine, a treatment or a cure.” What a lovely “serious crisis” this would create for leftists.

The vaccine won't come till later, but we may be on the verge of a treatment or cure, possibly a preventative, plus the very important antibody test. New studies are encouraging, but the mainstream media aren’t about to let Trump have a win on this, even if it means the end of the American economy as we know it, and that’s just plain evil. They seem to be actively rooting for him to be wrong. Trump’s optimism about hydroxychloroquine has been called “false hope,” “lies,” and “fake science.” Some have even speculated that Trump is touting this drug because he has a financial interest in it.

Mainstream media have definitely noticed the conservative critics of naysayers such as Dr. Fauci. Here’s what THE GUARDIAN had to say about us. Not super-slanted until the last several paragraphs…

This issue needs to be about health, not politics. I’ll leave you with a powerful “anecdote” about the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine from Dr. Marc Siegel. Anecdotal evidence has its place. And so does any treatment that’s known to be safe and that might very well do some good.

Mike Huckabee

Yesterday, I said that one way for China to be held accountable for the WUHAN virus from WUHAN, CHINA, was for us to tally up the astronomical financial hit we’re taking and simply subtract it from the amount of U.S. debt held by the Chinese. I see I am not the only one to be thinking along these lines.

South Carolina Sen. Lindsay Graham, appearing on Monday’s SEAN HANNITY show, said, “If it were up to me, the whole world should send China a bill for the pandemic.” He went on to say that this is the third pandemic to come out of China, that they come out of “these wet markets” that sell bats, monkeys and many more species of exotic animals “intermingled with the food supply.”

Of course, in this case, it’s not just the food supply we have to worry about –- it’s very likely the “Level 4” biolab and another infectious disease lab near the market, both of which study coronaviruses. (I use quotation marks because the actual level of containment in these labs seems to be much lower.)

"Yeah, I’d make China pay, big-time,” Sen. Graham said. Then, he asked the big question: Who would you rather have taking on China next year, President Trump or Joe Biden? “I don’t think that would be a hard decision for most people,” he said.

I think that, deep down, in all his confusion, even Joe Biden might agree with us.

It’s not just that China deceived the world about the virus, most notably about its human-to-human spread, but that it very likely came from their own laboratories. Surely President Trump is thinking about financial resolutions such as this to the economic devastation being caused by the virus. This is far from over, and there's going to be a very big price tag.

I have every confidence in President Trump to handle this situation well. As I said to Hannity later in the same show, he’s doing what a good executive does: he’s delegating, surrounding himself with smart people, and turning decisions over to those at the state and local levels who are closer to those directly being affected. Democrats always want to cram everyone into a one-size-fits-all solution whether it works for them or not, and Trump is trying to avoid doing that, in favor of giving governors the resources they need and let them determine how best to use them.

One thing I really appreciate is that Trump hasn’t tried to second-guess every decision the governors make. (I would also think that maybe he’s sensitive to that because every decision HE makes, as President, is constantly second-guessed.) As I’ve been in the governor’s role myself, I know how much Trump's approach would help me do the job of managing my state. (In fact, some states, such as Washington and Oregon, are reportedly taking the initiative to send their surplus supplies, including ventilators, to locations that are being hit harder now, such as New York.) Even Democrat governors such as Gavin Newsom of Los Angeles and Andrew Cuomo of New York have publicly complimented President Trump on his leadership style, even though they’re not exactly political allies.

Anyway, if anyone can deal with China in the aftermath of this almost unimaginable disruption, it’s Trump. And that includes financially. I’m glad I’m not the only one to be suggesting this solution.

Mike Huckabee

In George Orwell’s ever-timelier masterpiece “1984,” what’s true today has ALWAYS been true. Oceania is at peace with Eurasia and at war with East Asia; it has always been so. It would be “thoughtcrime” to believe otherwise, even if way back in the recesses of one’s memory, one can dimly recall a time when Oceania was at war with Eurasia and at peace with East Asia.

So it is with many things in America in 2020, particularly critiques of President Trump’s response to the Wuhan virus. Oops, it’s also thoughtcrime to think of it as the Wuhan virus, or Chinese virus, even though it’s from Wuhan, China. And it has been thoughtcrime to believe the virus might have originated not in the wet market but in one of two biolabs in Wuhan studying infectious disease. One of these is a mere 900 feet from the wet market. We are supposed to believe that it first “jumped” into a human at the market. Better yet, accept the newer Chinese line that U.S. soldiers brought the virus to China.

As time goes on, mainstream media coverage is getting worse; the narrative has done a full-180 when it comes to who did what, when. It increasingly mischaracterizes conservative media’s response to the virus, insisting that Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh minimized the threat. Questioning untested computer models or thinking twice about shutting down the entire American economy does NOT make one a pollyanna about an unknown virus.

But it’s only now, the narrative goes, with thousands infected, that Trump and conservative media can see the true impact of the virus. Trump’s effort is too little, too late, and he’s responsible for people dying, according to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

This is the same Nancy Pelosi who on February 24 said “Come to Chinatown...come join us.”

Uh-oh, that’s thoughtcrime. Watch out for the Thought Police. Even worse, I just wrote it for you to read, and linked to the video so you could see it for yourself, instead of dropping it down the memory hole like a good Winston Smith.

Remember when President Trump first introduced the idea of closing the United States to air traffic from mainland China? He boldly called for that at the end of January, saving untold Americans from infection and possible death. Remember the reaction at the time? Why, Trump was xenophobic (the word of the year); he was a racist. This virus was just an excuse to shut down the borders, they said, just as he’s always wanted to do; the threat was mild. We’ve all seen the montages created by Sean Hannity and others of Democrats underplaying the danger of social contact. Democrats did this not because it was true but because Trump was articulating the danger, and he couldn’t be allowed to be right.

Then there’s Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton, who was smeared by the media in mid-February for daring to to ask questions about the Level 4 biolab and another nearby facility and their coronavirus studies. The nerve –- pointing out the lack of transparency from the Chinese. Democrats and the media (I repeat myself) called him a right-wing conspiracy theorist.

But he never did accuse the biolabs –- he just raised the question and wanted answers. As we’ve said here, and as reported by A. G. Hamilton in NATIONAL REVIEW, “Cotton specifically said that ‘we don’t have evidence that the disease originated there, but because of China’s duplicity and dishonesty from the beginning, we need to at least ask the question to see what the evidence says.”

There’s nothing conspiratorial or paranoid or false or even political about this statement, so the media had to twist his words, just as they deliberately twist and/or misinterpret much of what the President says. Once they’ve twisted it to say something different, it’s easy to debunk. In this case, they debunked the claim that there was evidence China was making bioweapons, which Cotton never said. Hamilton points out that they repeatedly quoted one of the leading biosecurity experts in the world, Richard Ebright from Rutgers University, to debunk that fake claim, even though he is known to AGREE with Cotton’s ACTUAL claim that COVID-19 could possibly have spread from the Wuhan lab. The media didn’t quote him on that part!

This story is evolving as we obtain more evidence that a Wuhan biolab might have been responsible. So the media have to play tricks to avoid retracting their earlier false accusastions. They’ll ease into the new story, as the WASHINGTON POST did when it finally said that “scientists don’t rule out that an accident at a research laboratory in Wuhan might have spread a deadly bat virus that had been collected for scientific study.” That statement is consistent with what Cotton was saying and continues to say. But to my knowledge, no one has retracted any misquotations attributed to him, let alone apologized to him.

We talk about not being able to trust the narrative from China, but it sure would be nice to have reason to trust the one being spun by our own media. Sadly, when it comes to the truth, many in American media have little more in common with it than the ChiComms do. They’d parrot a line straight from President Xi if it meant another chance to slam the leader they REALLY hate, President Trump.

By the way, the World Health Organization has made it easy for the ChiComms to lie. Highly recommended reading...

Mike Huckabee

Welcome to our 3rd Coronavirus Edition of the Huckabee Show, where we practice safe social distancing by keeping our theater empty and our minimal crew and team safely separated. I’m operating from my remote studio 460 miles from our theater. Like you, we are all ready to be back to normal, if there will ever be such a thing, but we also take the virus seriously and you should too. I’ve had friends and acquaintances who have been infected, and know personally a few people who have died from it. Those who scoff at the seriousness need to think about this-do you really think the NBA, Major League Baseball, NASCAR, the NCAA, the Masters and all other sports would shut down and lose billions of dollars if not for a real pandemic threat? Would entire nations impose absolute quarantines? Would major corporations close their doors? And would the President urge a virtual shutdown of our nation’s economy during an election year if this weren’t deadly serious?

I know there are some conspiracy theorists who say the scope of the danger is overblown, but few who say such things are public health experts. Perhaps we will find that there was an over-abundance of caution and some things could have been tempered, but in major cities, like NY, Chicago, LA, Detroit, New Orleans, Miami, and yes, Nashville, the cases have multiplied from both a densely populated area with lots of tourists coming in/out, but also because many people just didn’t take it seriously. Most churches in the nation have closed their on-campus services to conduct services online. A few kept open, but took extraordinary measures to try and protect the attenders.

One such church is The River at Tampa Bay Church. It required attendees to separate 6-10 feet from others, supplied hand sanitizer at every door for every attendee, spent $100,000 for a hospital quality air-flow system, and had every staff member wearing gloves. This week, Sheriff Chad Chronister of Hillsborough County, FL actually arrested Pastor Rodney Howard-Browne for having conducted church services. Think about that. A pastor was arrested for having a church service. He didn’t sneeze or cough on people. He didn’t deny the virus was real and in fact, took great precautions to maintain social distancing. But he was arrested and taken to jail for opening his church. No one was forced to attend. The attendees arrived on their own and one wonders why those who attended weren’t arrested? This case will set up a colossal legal battle as to whether the government at any level can tell a church, synagogue or mosque it cannot provide religious services to its members.

My own church is doing services online and not on any of its 5 campuses. Personally, I think that’s the prudent choice. If my church did have services at any of the locations, I’d opt to still be involved online just to protect myself and more importantly my family who is quarantined with me. But should the government actually arrest a pastor for having church? And if government can shut down a church now, when will some government decide that a church is dangerous because it believes what the government deems wrong. If a church who believes the Biblical pattern of marriage of one man/one woman is considered discriminatory, will the pastor be arrested? If a church believes that men and women should have separate restrooms and dressing rooms and gender-separate dorms and showers at youth camp, will the pastor be arrested and jailed for not following what the government deems right?

Mat Staver and our friends at Liberty Counsel are representing Pastor Browne and we will follow the case closely. But while I believe the risks to public safety and life are real from the coronavirus, I also believe that we cannot and must not sacrifice our 1st amendment guarantees of freedom of religion, free speech, and freedom to assemble. I urge you to protect your family during these times, but be equally vigilant that government doesn’t become a deadly virus to kill our liberties and turn us into a police state.

Mike Huckabee

Here is the link to Friday’s daily press briefing on the coronavirus by President Trump and the Task Force.

Just FYI: If you want to avoid blood pressure spikes, you can safely skip over the part when Jim Acosta of CNN tries to act like a bullying sexist jerk.

Speaking of Jim Acosta, an argument could be made that Trump Derangement Syndrome is nearly as dangerous to the public health as the COVID-19 coronavirus.

Because much of the media hate the fact that Donald Trump is President with the raging heat of a thousand suns, they have decided that their job is not to report what he says accurately or objectively, but to take every word and examine it like a bug under a microscope, trying to find any way to declare it wrong, false, racist, etc.

But now, when we’re facing a national health emergency and the public needs the latest and best information from the White House to protect themselves and their families, the anti-Trump press just cannot rein in their rageaholism and admit that maybe the President of the United States knows more about what’s going on than they do. And that stubborn refusal to put the good of the nation before their personal political grudges may be increasing infection rates and deaths.

Think that’s an unfair accusation? When Trump shut down travel from China back in January, he was called a racist and xenophobe. Where would America be now if the kneejerk Trump haters had prevailed and thousands of people from China had been allowed to keep coming into the US? For the answer, look at Italy, where many people from Wuhan work in the fashion industry and kept coming and going for weeks.

Another example: when President Trump said there had been encouraging results treating the virus with the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine, the media reflexively launched into attack mode. The Bad Orange Man was pushing “false hope.” No, worse, he was peddling “unsubstantiated hope in dark times.” He was even to blame somehow when a man died after eating fish tank cleaner with an ingredient that sounded like the drug Trump mentioned.

So after doing everything in their power to convince the public that the drug Trump mentioned was useless, dangerous quackery, the media are now having to backtrack amid all the reports of doctors having success with it.

Of course, it reportedly works best early on in the disease, so I hope you didn’t refuse treatment early on because you actually listened to reporters who got a bigger thrill out of attacking Trump than out of looking into the possibility of a cure for the pandemic.

Just wondering: if it had been Trump who discouraged people from trying a drug that it later turned out might have cured them of a potentially deadly disease, what are the chances these same reporters would savage him and say he has “blood on his hands”? I put them at 100%.

Mike Huckabee

1. U.S. # CONFIRMED CASES (As of 6:30 AM): 245,573   DEATHS: 6,058  RECOVERIES: 9,228

TESTS GIVEN:  1,288,013

2.  CDC RECOMMENDATIONS: How to protect yourself  |  What to do if you are sick

3.  CORONAVIRUS DEATHS:  They are mounting everywhere, these are a few names you might recognize. 

4.  WHAT DO YOU THINK: Share your thoughts on President Trump's handling of this crisis

5.  DATA:  We see data emerging NOW, and it may be a "game-changer"

6. A CURE?: Some potential good news on a possible cure for COVID-19.

Mike Huckabee

Yesterday, I wrote about the pressing need for data --- not the long-term data some medical researchers insist on seeing before they advise us to start returning to some semblance of normal, but what we can learn NOW to help us know how to respond. Today, we have more of that.

Of course, we have this piece of data to consider: 6.6 million unemployment claims. In a flash, we’ve gone from virtually full employment in the last year of Trump’s first term to this staggering statistic.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, coming from the point of view of a researcher, has said the fight will continue until there is absolutely no new case of COVID-19; of course, he’s looking ahead to a vaccine. Well, a vaccine will be just super, but a proven-safe and effective vaccine for the population at large could be 12 to 18 months away –- though one trial with mice at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine is already looking promising –- and we cannot shut America down that long. We can’t shut America down for 12 to 18 more WEEKS. So let’s look at what we can reasonably do in the meantime.

Alex Berenson, a former NEW YORK TIMES reporter who has been looking hard at available numbers, said as a guest on Tucker Carlson’s show Thursday that the computer models predicting apocalyptic effects of this virus in terms of serious illness and death are turning out to be wildly wrong. “In some cases,” Berenson said, “these epidemiological models are extremely new. They’ve gone extremely ‘south’ in a matter of days." He’s daring to ask if there might be some other strategy that would do just as well and might be less damaging to the economy. “We’ve done it [put millions out of work] on the basis of models that don’t seem to line up with reality in real time.”

He cited the University of Washington model, “which was created and released only a week ago.” In other words, its accuracy has never been tested. It predicted that as of now, about 50,000 people in the state of New York would be hospitalized with COVID-19. The real number is about 12-13,000. It’s as I said yesterday, these models really have no predictive value. Garbage in, garbage out.

Berenson contrasted this with the prediction of another model, from the Oregon state government, that was revised on Monday to show that “if Oregon did nothing, ended the lockdown...there would be 90 people in ICU beds at the beginning of May...If the lockdown continued, there would be 30 people.” And so the question becomes, are we going to lock the state of Oregon down, with all the societal disruption that will cause? He’s concerned about other serious problems such as escalating domestic abuse and other deaths, by suicide.

"Do these massive lockdowns make sense,” he asks, “when we can’t even necessarily figure out how they’re working?”

For a case study in how a less-strict approach to containing the virus would work, we can look at Sweden. (Surprising, isn’t it, that a safety-net country like Sweden would decide to take their chances?) People are being trusted to take basic precautions –- keep a distance, wash hands, etc. –- and use their own judgment on the rest. They didn’t take what they consider drastic measures such as closing all schools (they did close high schools and universities) and restaurants. Gatherings of up to 50 people are allowed, but many are choosing to avoid crowds and work from home if they can. Only people over age 70 are specifically being asked to stay isolated.

Sweden’s death rate from coronavirus has been compared to that caused by “a bad winter flu.” Out of a population of 10 million, 308 have died according to Johns Hopkins University. Of course, Swedish society has some differences that might contribute to the relatively low number; for example, many more people in Sweden live alone, so it’s easier to isolate. Still, this gives us something to think about as we contemplate months of a shut-down economy.

It seems to me that the only way a “lockdown” is even feasible for more than a few more weeks is if there could just be a “pause” button everyone could hit. No one pays anyone. Your business doesn’t pay the rent, say, and the mortgage-holder on the building doesn’t pay the bank, either. It would be like a “holiday” for everyone up and down the line. (This might leave the huge financial institutions holding the bag, but considering how they cleaned up during the bailouts of 2008-2009, it’s hard to cry too much.) Of course, this sort of cooperative effort has never happened; Melissa Francis of FOX BUSINESS NEWS actually brought up the possibility of doing it but noted that it would take “the best financial minds” to figure out exactly how it could be achieved.

Barring something like that, it’s hard to imagine how we can keep so much activity shut down. And some of the rules are getting downright crazy. As I reported yesterday, the state of Vermont has put in place new rules that “non-essential” items can’t be bought in big-box stories, even by people who are already there to buy essentials. This is reportedly happening in some other states as well, such as Massachusetts. (If social media reports are correct, even vegetable seeds can’t be sold --- at a time when people are trying to stay home and be more self-sufficient --- because the garden section is considered “non-essential.”)

The idea is to discourage “wandering” in the store. This is idiocy. It’s definitely the leftist mindset at work: the reflexive micromanaging of every aspect of life.

Some other bureaucratic restrictions absolutely defy common sense. For example, in New York, at least at this writing, a patient can’t be prescribed hydroxychloroquine without being admitted to a hospital. Again, insanity. I understand that the intention is to make sure patients with lupus and rheumatoid arthritis can still get their medication. But New York hospitals are reportedly overwhelmed; if a coronavirus patient can be helped without going to one, it needs to happen. (Plus, it's better to get the treatment before becoming that sick.) Doctors around the world are increasingly using the hydroxychloroquine/azithromycin combination drug therapy with good results.

It’s downright criminal that people might be denied such a promising treatment, for whatever reason. One reason, of course, is shameless politics, with some like the WASHINGTON POST accusing the President of offering “false hope” and peddling “snake oil.” But the President has been right. Some in the anti-Trump media have finally, reluctantly, had to admit that there’s something to it.

If we’re going to survive this mess and get back on track, it won’t be through months of government-imposed quarantine but through identifying those who have immunity --- the definitive antibody test is reportedly 1-2 weeks away --- and the quick, effective treatment of those who contract the virus. This drug therapy, if given early enough, seems to be doing a very effective job of keeping people off ventilators (and only about half of patients, once they’re put on a ventilator, will recover). As has been said, you go to war with the army you have. So praise the Lord and pass the hydroxychloroquine.

Mike Huckabee

From Bonnie:

Just thought you might enjoy a little history - I remember my great aunt, Amelia Johnson, who was a head nurse at Cincinnati General Hospital during the 1918 flu pandemic, telling me about the 18-hour shifts, the patients lined out in the hallways and the fact that they could only make them comfortable, NOT do anything to really help them. She contracted the virus herself and nearly died. Her fever went up to 107 degrees and she lost all her hair. Both she and I found it incredible that she survived that.

She said she was one of the "lucky ones" because she lived, even though she was basically bald for the rest of her life. I was 16-18 when I knew her, and some of the girls at our college made fun of the fact that she wore a hairpiece. I would never have asked her about it, but one day when I was staying with her, she volunteered the information about how she lost her hair. I was incredulous!

The 1918 pandemic has never been just another story for me since then. I was a history and English major, and firsthand stories make it so much more than just an event. When I see the pictures of the crowded wards, I can picture her working there and paying a terrible price for her dedication. Her attitude was one of blessing though, as one of the "lucky ones."

When we are just asked to stay home a while, it's not so much by comparison. One of my sons works in an ER and I pray for him and them every day. God bless our healthcare workers and keep them safe.

From the Gov:

Thank you so much, Bonnie, for offering this perspective. Your great aunt truly was great, courageously offering comfort at a time when she knew little could be done to help her if she herself became ill. How wonderful that she chose to share her story with you...and ultimately with us.

Mike Huckabee

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Mike Huckabee

I wrote yesterday about the frustration of hearing scientists in charge of the COVID-19 response call incessantly for DATA, no matter how long it takes to get it. Well, Americans sitting at home with no work for the foreseeable future want data, too –- but a lot sooner.

For example, we want to know the real infection rates, recovery rates and “negative outcome” rates. (Everybody knows what doctors mean when they employ the euphemism “negative outcome.”) We need these to assess how necessary it is for us to grind the U.S. economy to a halt for months and possibly create global economic collapse, with all the disaster and hopelessness that would bring.

For many, the seriousness of this –- the full impact –- is just now really starting to hit. We hear it in President Trump’s voice, now that he’s had to extend the stay-at-home guidelines. The kids want to go outside and visit friends. People worry if they’ll have jobs to go back to. The rent was due on the 1st. Speaking of that, one way we know it’s bad is because April Fool’s Day came and went with precious few April Fool’s jokes.

Anyway, right now it’s impossible to know what the reality is, because we have no idea how many have been infected. That means “experts” are flying blind, too. An undetermined number of those who pick up the virus are either asymptomatic or have mild symptoms that mimic some little respiratory thing and they don’t even get tested. That’s why estimates and predictions have been all over the map. Fancy charts and graphs mean NOTHING. You know how it is with computer models (including those for predicting “climate change”): garbage in, garbage out. Any infection rate we plug into these models is guesswork. Garbage.

The way to get more people back to living their lives is to let them have the blood test for COVID-19 antibodies. That’s especially true, of course, for healthcare workers, who could benefit incredibly from knowing they have immunity. As of last week, an antibody test considered reliable by researchers has become available. But, as Laura Ingraham pointed out on her Wednesday FOX NEWS show, Dr. Anthony Fauci has said that antibodies testing is not a priority right now. It will be important, “ultimately,” to “get a feel” for how far the virus penetrated society, to have an idea of “the herd immunity,” but that this is not their “immediate problem.”

Say what? I’m sorry, but that makes no sense. We need data on this NOW. Dr. Birx gets the importance of this test, at least for health care workers. She’s calling on universities to help and says they’ll be ready by this Friday. She says the test is fast and easy --- fantastic news for health care workers and all those on the front lines, but we also need this done on a larger scale to get the true picture of what this virus does. If the infection rate turns out to be a lot higher than we thought, then the “bad outcome” rate is far smaller than current guesses suggest.

On a positive note, six pharmaceutical companies, including Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer, are working on a vaccine. The company Moderna has already started human testing. Even big tobacco has joined the effort, with Lucky Strike saying they can quickly grow tobacco containing antigens to the virus. That is incredible. Still, the vaccine is a long-term answer; even an optimistic estimate for this to be ready is 12-18 months.

The President wants us all to be able SOON to go back to work and get back to normal. The old normal, the good normal. But be warned: there are many who aren’t focused so much on that. Researchers want their data. Doctors want a high percentage of “good outcomes.” China wants us weak. And leftist politicians in our own country want a “new normal” of limitless spending and control over our lives, forever and ever amen. If we’re not vigilant, the threat of contagion could easily become a permanent excuse for tracking us all with GPS, monitoring social activities and confiscating guns. Fun times.

Oh, and now Adam Schiff wants to investigate President Trump’s response to the pandemic.

But let's get back to talking about the legitimate, worthwhile pursuit of data. Here’s the biggest one of all: We sitting at home desperately want to see data on the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine, both as a protective measure and, in combination with azithromycin and zinc, as a treatment for respiratory symptoms. I don’t mean the large controlled studies that take months or years, because we don’t have that kind of time, but smaller studies that reinforce the “anecdotal” reports we’ve been getting. Some doctors now are routinely treating coronavirus patients with the combination hydroxychloroquine therapy, though they have to monitor closely for possible adverse cardiological effects. (Note: this is why I advised against using “pop-up tents” outside hospitals to hand out mass quantities of the drugs.) In fact, eminent infectious disease specialist Dr. Stephen Smith reports that of all his patients, no one receiving at least five days of the drug therapy has had to go on a ventilator. This supports the results of that early French study that some “experts” were dismissing. The odds of these results happening by chance are, in effect, zero.

He called this “a game-changer.” In fact, he told Laura Ingraham, “I think this is the beginning of the end. Of the pandemic. I’m very serious.”

Here’s another preliminary report of a different treatment that also looks very promising.

If that weren’t enough, here’s another piece of useful data: The more patients they treat, the more doctors are seeing that the ones far more likely to experience “negative outcomes” are those who are overweight or obese and/or diabetic or pre-diabetic. Sure, the gyms are closed for now, but I can’t think of a better reason to start some kind of diet and fitness program at home. Step it up when the gyms re-open. And toss away the cigarettes for good! Save the tobacco for antigen-growing.

Finally, again, we want data from China. And China is actually giving us some, in spite of its leaders’ efforts to keep the lid on. I’ve been commenting this week on the possibility that the COVID-19 virus originated not in the Wuhan live animal market but inside a nearby biotech lab. That’s not just speculation: scientists from the South China University of Technology have put together a compelling case that one of two labs in Wuhan Province researching coronavirus in the “intermediate Horseshoe Bat” is the likely source of the contagion.

Their paper has been online for two months but our media have virtually ignored it. (That Australian 60 MINUTES report I linked to yesterday talks about it.) Tucker Carlson and a few others have reported on it. But the director of the National Institutes of Health has, inadvertently or not, run interference for the Chinese government by dismissing the idea as “outrageous.” No, it isn’t.

Maria Bartiromo brought up the subject, with Ted Cruz.

And Jim Treacher at PJ Media has an excellent commentary on this.

Mike Huckabee

It’s frustrating to listen to the “official” scientists when it comes to treating COVID-19 with promising drugs. Researchers want data –- YES, WE KNOW –- and they typically answer any question on the need for new treatments with the same spiel about controlled, double-blind, long-term studies.

Those studies take time. (Aside: in the meantime, we simply must go ahead and treat with medications that are safe and show promise.) And much of the data we need will have to come from far-flung places around the world. A few controlled studies are already going on, but we must wait for the results. Of course, in an ideal world, we would be getting solid data from China, everything they have, which would be especially useful because Wuhan Province is Ground Zero for this infection. But this is not an ideal world, and that is NOT happening and will never happen.

Over the past couple of days, I’ve written about the lack of truthful information from Chinese leaders. It’s worse than that: they’ve created a bogus narrative about their effective handling of the spread of the disease that many in the American media love to perpetuate because it makes President Trump look bad by comparison. They hate him so much that I’m not sure it matters to them that the story out of China is a big lie.

One big eye-opener is a recent report from the Australian version of 60 MINUTES. Australia, being much closer geographically to China and the Asian Pacific, takes a warier approach than the American media do to anything China does or says, and this report is no exception. When the Chinese government claimed that only about 2500 people died, Australians weren’t buying it, in part because of the huge increase in the number of cremations. That’s right; it seems that if you want to “earn” money in China right now, you should definitely go into the urn business. There was also a corresponding decrease in the number of cell phones

According to “emerging diseases” expert Laurie Garrett, who has witnessed outbreaks of Ebola and SARS, the virus “festered” in the live animal market in Wuhan for at least a month and a half before the world was told. At least at the time of this interview, she believed the virus “jumped” from some animal species, such as a bat, to human as has happened with other viruses (Note: as we’ve discussed, at least one study has suggested the market was not the original source of infection, and a Level 4 biolab is suspiciously close by; so is the Wuhan Institute of Virology.)

Garrett takes us through the timeline that started in mid-November, when cases of “a strange new flu” began to surface. In early December, they determined that it wasn’t SARS or anything like it, and that it had been spread from that market. Anyone who suggested otherwise was “suppressed,” she says. An official announcement didn’t come until New Year’s Eve; they said they had closed the market and stopped the spread, and also that there was no human-to-human transmission. She says this was a deliberate lie, that by then they were seeing cases they knew had no connection with the market.

Garrett goes on to talk about the physician who tried to warn the world and has since died of the virus. He was among a group of eight doctors who were called in and forced to sign statements declaring themselves liars. Isn’t totalitarianism great?

The report also features an interview with Texas Rep. Michael McCaul, ranking Republican on the Foreign Affairs Committee. He has been outspoken in accusing China of a criminal act, “the worst cover-up in human history.” From reports out of Beijing, we know that a lab had sequenced the new coronavirus by December 27 but was ordered to hand over or destroy its samples.

McCaul says that if the Chinese had done the right thing and notified the World Health Organization, an estimated 95 percent of the worldwide contagion could have been stopped. I would add that it’s ironic, in light of this, how much the World Health Organization is going along with China’s narrative now. Tucker Carlson had a good segment on WHO Tuesday night; he also references the Australian 60 MINUTES report.

The report goes on with the shocking timeline, contrasting China’s official statements with what they really knew about the virus. The culmination was the Chinese president’s decision to allow 5 million people, with no health screening, to leave Wuhan for points unknown around the world. Since then, another doctor, the head of emergency at Wuhan Central Hospital, who tried to expose the deception has “disappeared.”

I’m linking to this piece with one caveat: the interviewee (a New Yorker) interjects politics and engages in some extremely undeserved Trump-bashing towards the end. Unbelievably, she blames both President Xi AND President Trump, “the two most powerful men on earth,” for the pandemic. She wrongly accuses Trump of “downplaying the significance” of COVID-19, never mentioning his early efforts to contain it by stopping travel from China. She notes instead his tweets praising China, not understanding the “big picture” and the diplomatic and practical reasons why he might do so. Anyway, if that part sickens you as it did me, you can skip over to the rest of the interview with McCaul, whose defense of the President –- believe it or not –- actually made it in.

Whistleblowers silenced by China could have stopped global coronavirus spread | 60 Minutes Australia

According to Nigel Farage, leader of the Brexit Party in the UK, Radio Free Asia says the number of deaths in China from COVID-19 is more like 40,000. “But the one thing I do know,” he told Martha MacCallum on Monday evening, “absolutely for certain, is we cannot believe a word that Communist China says.”

He said that from the beginning, they hid the truth. “The doctor that exposed what was really happening was written off as a mad conspiracy theorist...and now we see China using its influence, using its money; we particularly see Huawei, the telecoms company, donating face masks, hand gel, donations in some cases, and even the state offering to sell ventilators to countries like Italy that are having serious problems. The country that caused this problem is now trying to present itself to much of the Western world as being its savior, and is trying to make a massive, massive power grab.”

Reminds me of the arsonist who plays “hero” and rushes in to save the family.

Farage says it’s time the Chinese government “owned up” and took some responsibility. Fat chance. I’d say it’s time our own media got a reality check and realized this is a totalitarian state, one that keeps people in line with prison camps and executions and will use the pandemic they caused to hurt us in any way possible, short-term and long-term, so they can eventually replace us as the leading world power. THAT is what President Trump has to deal with. Is there anything to convince our partisan media that the Chinese state is America’s enemy, and the one person they spend all their energy hating and abusing, President Trump, is really America’s dearest friend?

Farage, for one, understands Trump having to pay lip service to the Chinese president right now. “The truth of it is, we’ve become much too dependent on China for much of our supply chains in manufacturing...this needs a radical rethink. It is globalization that has caused this crisis.”

Mike Huckabee

At his Monday press briefing, President Trump introduced another leading business person who is joining the government in the coronavirus response. Mike Lindell, founder of the phenomenally successful American company My Pillow, praised Trump’s actions and encouraged Americans to use their enforced home stays to spend time with their families, pray, read the Bible and reconnect with God.

Lindell has refocused 75% of his pillow factory output for the time being on making much-needed N95 surgical face masks for health care workers, with plans to produce 50,000 masks a day. You can see video and read more here:

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/mypillow-founder-mike-lindell-at-white-house-coronavirus-briefing-tells-people-to-pray-during-crisis

I’m not at all surprised to see Mike Lindell putting public service over profit, and speaking out about his religious faith in a place where that’s often mocked and scorned. Indeed, some snarkers on the Internet tried it, but I sense that we have entered a more serious new era, and Americans are fresh out of patience for juvenile partisan sniping from people who would rather criticize and attack than pitch in and help.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/bethbaumann/2020/03/30/lefties-are-triggered-because-american-businesses-are-taking-part-in-the-coronavirus-briefings-n2566013

Here’s a specific example of an attempt at adolescent eye-rolling at Trump and Lindell that brought a perfect response. It suggests that these leftists’ 15 minutes as the self-proclaimed “cool kids” of social media (that stretched into three annoying years) are at long last over:

https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/363220/

Mike Lindell is one of the great American success stories, and so popular with Americans that when he appeared on my TBN show in 2018, the studio audience was more excited about seeing him live and getting his autograph than any other celebrity or politician on the show (certainly more than about seeing me!) And that success is well-deserved. If you don’t know the story of how his life was nearly destroyed by drugs and alcohol, and how his faith in God not only saved him but led him to undreamed-of success that he now uses to help countless others in similar peril, then you need to see my interview with him. Trust me, you will be inspired:

https://youtu.be/rwB3EPgDZZU

Let’s also throw a grateful thank-you to the suit maker Brooks Brothers, which is stepping up to start making 150,000 face masks a day. Brooks Brothers is one of the last remaining companies that still makes clothes in the USA instead of in foreign cheap labor markets. Wow, whoever imagined that there might someday be a reason America would want to encourage manufacturers to keep those jobs in America?

https://www.gq.com/story/brooks-brothers-medical-masks

Mike Huckabee

Fake News Tuesday, COVID-19 Edition, Part 2

As part of the media’s tireless (and ever-more-tiresome) attempts to gin up as much divisive rage and fear over President Trump as possible, on Monday, “CBS This Morning” aired footage of an overcrowded hospital room in coronavirus-raged Italy and claimed it was a hospital in New York City.

https://www.westernjournal.com/cbs-used-fake-covid-video-ny-hospital-footage-italys-hardest-hit-city/

When called on it, CBS News removed the video from all its shows and web platforms, and blamed it on an “editing mistake.”

It’s nice to know that with so many things we take for granted uprooted due to the CHINESE coronavirus pandemic, there are still some reliable touchstones that remain as solid and unchanging as Mount Rushmore:

1. Never believe anything you hear on Rachel Maddow’s show.

2. When Trump makes a mistake, he’s a LYING LIAR WHO LIES, but when the media lie, it’s always just a mistake.

Mike Huckabee

One day, we’re going to know not just how the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) came to be a pandemic but how it came to "be" in the first place. Right now, though, it’s tough to find reliable information. Politics, not science, informs (infects?) most media commentary, and that applies not just to what’s being said but what is not said. (Aside: This is especially true with the promise of hydroxychloroquine/zithromycin/zinc therapy that we've been staying on top of.)

It’s amazing how, with 24/7 coronavirus coverage, so much information can be ignored in favor of the same fake stories over and over. CNN, MSNBC and other outlets are so loaded with misinformation --- which we often debunk here --- that one might as well be listening to Nancy Pelosi. Or the Chinese Communist Party.

We see that when public officials contradict President Trump or say things that otherwise further the anti-Trump narrative, they get love and kisses from the media. But as soon as they find reason to temper their comments or even (yikes!) agree with him, the media turn on them and try to shut them down, sometimes not bothering to air their reports.

"Dr. Birx and Dr. Fauci are not political people,” former Utah congressman Jason Chaffetz said Sunday evening on Steve Hilton’s show. “They worked in the administration when it was the Obama administration. These are serious scientists who have the lead; there’s a reason why the President, time after time, brings them out...and for the American people not to see these...health care professionals giving advice, telling them what needs to be done, advising the President, does a total disservice to the American public. But I think the American public, fortunately, figures that out.”

I would add that just as these researchers aren’t politicians, neither is President Trump, really. It’s refreshing to have someone in office who doesn’t just talk in focus-grouped politi-speak and is candid with us. On the rare occasions when something he says doesn’t ring true --- such as a positive word he might say about Chinese leadership --- we know he has solid diplomatic reasons for putting it out there.

Anyway, certain scientists and elected representatives have been trying for months to uncover the real source of the virus and what China did in the early weeks of their epidemic that allowed it to become a raging pandemic that has killed over 2,000 Americans. The Chinese Communist regime has been very cloak-and-dagger about it by hiding evidence, refusing to admit American scientists from the Centers of Disease Control, “disappearing” doctors and researchers, and expelling American journalists who might sneak the truth out to the rest of the world.

Arkansas Rep. Tom Cotton, appearing on SUNDAY MORNING FUTURES with Maria Bartiromo, referred to a study published in THE LANCET that concluded the virus did not originally come from the “wet market” in Wuhan. Cotton was really the first elected official to express serious concern about the emerging virus; he nailed it back on January 30, when he called it “the biggest and most important story in the world” and asserted that China was lying about it. He could see it didn’t make sense that China was downplaying the virus while “locking 75 million people into their homes and apartment buildings,” he told Maria.

And they’re still lying. “You see it again today,” Cotton said. China announced they had no new cases, no more deaths, but they've just re-closed the movie theaters nationwide after having them open for a few days. Certainly they wouldn’t do that unless what they’re telling us about the end of the contagion is false. Cotton also noted that a single mortuary in Wuhan has just ordered more than 5,000 urns. The Chinese Communist Party lies because it’s the Chinese Communist Party, just as a scorpion stings because it’s a scorpion. They’re behaving exactly as one would expect the Chi-Coms to behave when trying to cover up the biggest story in the world.

You can bet that when Trump says something gracious about the president of China, he’s well aware of that deception. There are many elements at play, such as the reality that much of our basic productive capacity for making medicines was outsourced to China long ago. As Cotton said, “I think most Americans have been shocked to learn that we depend upon China for things like penicillin, antibiotics, ibuprofen, acetaminophen, to say nothing of dozens of basic pharmaceutical ingredients.” That will have to change, but it can’t happen overnight. Cotton is sponsoring legislation to use tax incentives and the government’s purchasing power to bring this manufacturing back to the U.S. and eventually halt the importation of all Chinese drugs.

A month ago, Cotton was saying we didn’t know where the virus originated but that we had to get to the bottom of it. He pointed out that just a few miles from the wild-animal “food” market where they’d said the virus broke out is China’s one-and-only biosafety Level 4 superlaboratory that researches human infectious diseases. “Now, we don’t have evidence that this disease originated there,” he said at the time, “[but] because of China’s duplicity and dishonesty from the beginning, we need to at least ask the question, to see what the evidence says, and China right now is not giving any evidence on that question at all.”

We don’t know much more than we did a month ago, Cotton said on Sunday, and that is very little. But we now KNOW the virus did not originate in the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market as China claimed. That’s right: It didn’t “jump” from one of the live delicacies they sell there such as badgers and koala bears (kid you not) to a human host, and even the Chi-Coms can’t continue to claim that it did. They had to ‘fess up in February. But as early as December, this was known; THE LANCET published a study showing that of the first 40 cases of coronavirus, 14 of them had no contact with that infamous market.

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2020/02/22/beijing-admits-coronavirus-didnt-start-in-wuhan-food-market-senator-cotton-tweets-vindication/

So, the virus had to have been brought by someone into that market, which became an “accelerant” for its spread. The market is crowded and dirty, with animals crammed into filthy cages to await their fate. Customers reportedly prefer to watch their future meal being slaughtered. Isn’t multiculturalism great?

https://www.breitbart.com/asia/2020/02/24/study-china-lied-wuhan-virus-did-not-originate-in-meat-market/

Rep. Cotton said we still don’t know what they do in this lab. It sure would be interesting to know if even one of those first 14 cases not having any connection to the market did have a connection to the LAB. Is it possible that any of these infections can somehow be traced back there? Inquiring minds want to know.

It should be said that the study of this particular virus wasn’t necessarily sinister. It’s their failure to contain the outbreak and then lying about it that led to many thousands dying around the world –- THAT’S sinister. This Level 4 biolab has apparently researched coronaviruses before, and there are legitimate reasons for doing so. I would strongly suggest, however, that in the future they might want to think about doing it at Level 5.

……………….

A postcript: China has taken the “highly unusual move” of exonerating 33-year-old Dr. Li Wenliang, whom they “reprimanded” for spreading the word about the outbreak and who later died of the disease himself. In other words, he was exonerated posthumously. Wasn’t that nice of them?

https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/china-outbreak-doctor-vindicated/2020/03/19/id/959141/

Mike Huckabee

Welcome to a very special edition of the Huckabee Show here on TBN. Special because we are now in our 2nd week of the Coronavirus version, without our studio audience, our guests coming to us mostly from their homes via Skype, and your host actually in government-imposed exile, some 461 miles from our theater and coming by way of a fiber-fed transmission line from a virus-free studio.

The Coronavirus and the resulting shut-down of our nation is proving to be a genuine hardship for all Americans, especially those in the service sector whose jobs virtually disappeared overnight, and for many, may not return. The travel and tourism industry is decimated. The stock market imploded, and of all things, toilet paper became a more precious commodity (or should I say commode-ity) than dollar bills. If you are from the rural south and grew up several decades ago, you weren’t worried about the toilet paper shortage—you knew just to eat more corn on the cob…and save the cobs. When I mentioned that on Twitter, I was excoriated for my lack of sophistication. But I ask my snobby critics, so what is YOUR solution when there’s no Charmin to squeeze? I don’t think I even want to know.

Are there any positive things to come from this pandemic and the economic and social disaster it’s caused? You bet. For one, maybe we’ve finally learned that globalism isn’t all it’s cracked up to be and we ought be thinking more about America being strong, self-sufficient, and independent of countries like China, whose communist government kept hidden the blunt force of the virus until they finally slammed their fist on the population of Wuhan, China and turned it into a gulag. But by then, it was too late, and the virus had already started to spread throughout the world. President Trump immediately put a halt to travel from China and of course was promptly labeled a racist by Nancy Pelosi, other Democrats, and their co-conspirators in the media. Interestingly, even publications like the Washington ComPost and the NY Slimes themselves demanded a travel ban in the early days on what even they then called the Chinese virus. Now the use of that term is of course racist, which means all those years we’ve dealt with the Spanish Flu, German measles, MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome), and I never knew we were ALL racists for calling it a disease from its point of origin.

We’ve learned to appreciate some real heroes we take for granted. Like truck drivers. As bad as this has been, it’s the truckers who have kept this country moving and stocked with food and supplies. When you see a trucker on the highway, say a prayer of thanks for him or her. They’ve been your lifeline. We should be more grateful for health care workers, and not just the doctors who get the attention, but the nurses, front office staff, nursing home workers, technicians, and even the people who clean the buildings where all those folks work. They have been exposed to more germs in a week than most of us will be in a lifetime. And our policemen, fire-fighters, and 1st responders. They don’t get to stay home and wait it out. They are on call 24-7, to clean up the messes humans make. And be grateful for those who deliver mail and packages—whether Post Office, UPS, Fedex, or whoever. I’m getting stuff shipped to my house to keep from venturing out. And those folks in the warehouses, shipping platforms and the drivers getting it to my neighborhood are real heroes to help the rest of us practice social distancing. And grocery clerks and stockers, and pharmacy workers also deserve our deep thanks.

Finally, we are shaken to our roots to realize that with March Madness, the NBA, Major League Baseball, and every sporting event canceled, athletes can’t save us. With the theaters closed, and movie sets shut down, Hollywood and actors can’t save us. And with the financial meltdown, money can’t save us. And with the Congressional bungling of a rescue bill and Pelosi trying to add money for non-virus nonsense like funding abortions and NPR and the Green New Deal, politicians sure can’t save us—in fact, they may end up killing us! But when human institutions fail, God never does. His comfort, His healing, His promises bring us peace when nothing or no one else does or even can. And that’s something we’ve learned from all this.

Mike Huckabee

Today could be a high drama day in the House, as Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky is reportedly threatening to “go rogue” and hold up passage of the $2 trillion coronavirus stimulus bill. He and some other conservatives are angry that the Democrats managed to stuff so much irrelevant leftwing pork and government expansion into what is supposed to be a rescue bill for idled American workers and businesses. There are worries on both sides that Massie will prevent a quick voice vote and demand a full vote that would require members who are absent to travel back to Washington to form a quorum and cast votes.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/extreme-precautions-ordered-in-house-ahead-of-historic-vote-on-largest-stimulus-package-in-us-history

Democrats are furious over the tactics and many Republicans are upset that their golden issue of Pelosi holding up the bill for a week while Americans suffered will now be overshadowed by one lone Republican holding it up. Look, I agree that there are many things in this bill that shouldn’t be there. Democrats tried to stuff it as full of leftist goodies as a piñata. Here’s just one example of the kind of irrelevant issues it lavishes money on that we’ll be discovering for months:

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/coronavirus-relief-package-contains-over-11-billion-international-development

It’s precisely the type of bill that makes you lament that the President doesn’t have a line-item veto. But if there were ever an example of letting the perfect become the enemy of the good, the rumored Massie stall may be it. It’s time for Washington to end the political games and help the rest of the country, which is already acting heroically without their help under incredibly difficult conditions.

Speaking of that, check out this lengthy Facebook comment by Bart Hall, reeling off all the ways that Americans are stepping up to deal with the crisis, help each other and create innovative solutions to problems in record time, either without Washington’s help or in direct defiance of pointless federal regulations. He also speculates on the possible positive effects of so many people learning just how useless, and even obstructive of progress and innovation, all those nanny state regulations are. Warning: a bit of profanity, forgivable under the circumstances.

https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/362781

And as always, the Christian conservative site The Babylon Bee nailed the useless grandstanding of Washington politicians perfectly with this headline: “Government Accidentally Shuts Itself Down With Ban On Non-Essential Businesses.”

https://babylonbee.com/news/government-accidentally-shuts-itself-down-with-ban-on-non-essential-businesses

While you’re at that site, you should read some more stories for great laughs to help ease your homebound boredom and anxiety. This may be my recent favorite: “Quarantined Journalist Really Starting To Annoy Family By Calling Them Racists All Day.”

https://babylonbee.com/news/quarantined-journalist-reduced-to-only-calling-their-household-members-racist