Trump Responds to Coronavirus Pandemic Ahead of the Curve - Joseph Klein

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by Joseph Klein

How the Left’s government-run health care model fails by comparison.

Democrats and their friends in the media have falsely accused President Trump of grossly mishandling the coronavirus epidemic. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, for example, has regularly pummeled the president. “As the president fiddles, people are dying,” she declared in perhaps her most outrageous comment. The Trump-hating media has given Pelosi a pass as she gorged on her fancy ice cream and delayed critical legislation to save peoples’ livelihoods. Meanwhile, the left continues to exploit the pandemic crisis to push for its socialist Medicare-for-All solution.

How conveniently Trump’s critics distort history and forget their own cavalier attitude towards the coronavirus as it began to take hold in the United States. On February 24th, Pelosi was still encouraging people to visit San Francisco’s Chinatown despite fears of the coronavirus. Unlike Pelosi, President Trump was not advising Americans to go out of their way to risk becoming infected. More than three weeks earlier, he had made the bold, forward-looking decision to impose entry restrictions on travelers from China into the U.S., which likely saved thousands of American lives. The carpers variously condemned the decision as racist, xenophobic, unjust and ineffective.

Some of the same critics who have accused President Trump of downplaying the coronavirus did precisely the same thing themselves. As late as March 4^th, for example, CNN’s Anderson Cooper said that “the flu is far deadlier" than the coronavirus. He recommended that “if you're freaked out at all about coronavirus, you should be more concerned about the flu and actually do something about it, which is get a flu shot." CNN medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta agreed. Neither said anything about social distancing, let alone testing, at the time. Whatever President Trump himself may have initially thought about the dangers of the flu versus the coronavirus, he didn’t rely on Cooper or Dr. Gupta for medical advice. He listened instead to his own medical advisers. They had concluded by March that the coronavirus was too dangerous for business as usual and were beginning to consider social distancing measures. On March 8^th, Dr. Fauci raised some alarm bells when he broached the subject of social distancing and said, “We’re getting a better sense as the days go by. Unfortunately, that better sense is not encouraging, because we’re seeing community spread.” On March 13th, President Trump declared the coronavirus pandemic to be a national emergency. Three days later the president issued the strict social distancing guidelines recommended by his medical advisers, including Dr. Fauci. President Trump said at a news conference on March 16^th, “We’d much rather be ahead of the curve than behind it.” Immediately thereafter, the president invoked the Defense Production Act. He used the federal government’s emergency powers to mobilize public and private industry resources to produce and distribute enormous volumes of personal protective equipment, ventilators and tests for the virus.

Leftists blame not only President Trump personally for the deadly spread of the coronavirus in the United States. They blame America's decentralized, mostly private healthcare system itself, and are using the crisis to push their radical agenda. Writing for the socialist magazine Jacobin, for example, Luke Savage claimed that “the coronavirus is making the case for Medicare for All better than any policy paper ever could.” He added, “Only a universal system, free at point of use and extricated once and for all from the Wild West of employer-based insurance can ever provide the certainty and security people need, inside or outside the ongoing pandemic.”

On December 3, 2019, Democrat-Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) tweeted: “To our friends in the UK: please cherish, protect, & continue investing in your healthcare system!” She added, “Millions of people in the US are fighting to have a system half as good as the NHS.” In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic crisis, AOC said that “Our public health system should be free at the point of service for every single person in this country.” If AOC had her way, “it shouldn’t just be for COVID-19 cases.” It should become the new normal.

The facts, however, demonstrate how well the United States has handled the coronavirus pandemic under President Trump's leadership versus the United Kingdom, which has embraced universal, government-paid health care.

A key study was issued on March 16, 2020, recommending strict social distancing while noting “the enormous social and economic costs” it would entail. “We show that in the UK and US context, suppression will minimally require a combination of social distancing of the entire population, home isolation of cases and household quarantine of their family members. This may need to be supplemented by school and university closures,” the study said. President Trump announced his administration’s strict social distancing guidelines on the same day as this study was issued. By comparison, the United Kingdom waited until March 23rd to introduce its own strict social distancing policies.

The White House has made available its medical experts and scientists to the press for questioning on a regular basis. By contrast, the UK government has been very secretive regarding its advisory body, the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies. “Its list of members is secret, its meetings are closed, its recommendations are private and the minutes of its deliberations are published much later, if at all,” the New York Times reported on April 24^th. “That lack of transparency has become a point of contention, as officials struggle to explain why they waited until late March to shift from a laissez-faire approach to the virus to the stricter measures adopted by other European countries.”

As of April 26^th, the United Kingdom had 305.6 deaths per million people attributed to the coronavirus. The United States had 164.58 deaths per million people attributed to the coronavirus. The number of tests in the United Kingdom as of the same date was 9,016 tests /1 million people. The number of tests in the United States was 15,219 tests /1 million people.

No government in the world was ready to address the most serious pandemic in many generations. Instead of sounding an early warning when the disease could have been effectively contained, the World Health Organization parroted Chinese government propaganda that covered up early evidence of human-to-human transmission. As the pandemic spread in the United Kingdom, its government-run health care system failed its citizens. It was stymied by bureaucratic sluggishness and secrecy, hallmarks of centralized, top down government control. By comparison, the dynamic U.S. healthcare system is rising to the occasion, with President Trump and his administration mobilizing the vast resources of government and industry in support of our heroic health workers on the front line.

Joseph Klein

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/04/trump-responds-coronavirus-pandemic-ahead-curve-joseph-klein/

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Monotheistic Religions and the Coronavirus Crisis - Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld

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by Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld

Spiritual leaders may have squandered an opportunity to reinforce their religions through their responses to the crisis.

Pope Francis, photo via Flickr photostream of 

Catholic Church of England and Wales CC

BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,541, April 27, 2020

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The coronavirus pandemic has had a profound impact on the world of religion. This can be seen in three major areas: attitudes of religious leaders, behavior and rituals of believers, and efforts to give a theological meaning to the pandemic. Spiritual leaders may have squandered an opportunity to reinforce their religions through their responses to the crisis. 

The largest number of coronavirus deaths in Western Europe has been in Italy, Spain, France, the UK, Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands. These are all countries that have seen a great increase in secularization in recent decades.

Is it too bold to suggest that the pandemic created a unique opportunity for religious leaders to call upon their believers to pioneer efforts to assist health workers, organize charities, help those who are alone, and so on? While this may have occurred on a local scale, it has not been an international movement encouraged by religious leaders. Has an opportunity to reinforce the place of religion in society been squandered?

Secularization has been greatly helped by the widespread belief that individuals determine their own futures. Yet the coronavirus has created huge uncertainties. How is the sickness passed from one person to another? Even those who display no symptoms can infect others. Why is there such a difference in the degree of sickness that befalls victims? When will there be a vaccine, and when will the pandemic end?

Secular people are often spiritually alone when confronted with death. In monotheistic religions, to varying degrees, community is important. In periods of uncertainty, religion has, at least theoretically, a new chance to make inroads. The American theology professor Marcellino D’Ambrosio compares the current plague to the one that devastated Rome in the third century, and describes the inspiring way the Christian community of that time was transformed into a battalion of nurses.

Perhaps the reason modern-day Christian leaders are not leaders of society is that it has been a very long time since religious leaders were opinion leaders in Europe. Nowadays, they are the opposite: they are opinion followers. Now that the opportunity for a comeback has presented itself, they find themselves unable to make a fast paradigm shift. They are stuck in the mire of general societal debates like climate change and immigration.

Catholicism is the most hierarchical religion in Europe. In his Easter message, delivered to an empty St. Peter’s Basilica, Pope Francis called for global solidarity to fight the coronavirus, warned that the EU risks collapse, urged debt relief for poor nations, and called for the relaxing of international sanctions. None of these topics touch on religious issues, and his authority in these areas is weak at best.

UN Secretary General António Guterres called for a global ceasefire at the end of March, and the Pope supported this appeal in his weekly blessing. This was a typical example of being an opinion follower rather than a leader. The Pope did take one action: he established an emergency fund at the Pontifical Mission Societies. This fund supports the presence of the Catholic Church in mission territories, which are far from the countries hardest hit by the virus. He also created a special prayer.

The Pope’s statement about the cause of the pandemic was not theological but ecological. Speaking of catastrophes, he said, “I don’t know if these are events of nature, but they are certainly nature’s responses.” He could have stressed that nature is, theologically speaking, a creation of God, but he made no such point.

The UK’s Queen Elizabeth is not a religious leader, though she is the head of the Church of England. This year, she gave her first-ever address to mark the Easter holiday, and it contained a spiritual appeal: she said the “discovery of the risen Christ on the first Easter Day gave his followers new hope and fresh purpose, and we can all take heart from this.”

The tenor Andrea Bocelli sang at Milan’s empty cathedral in an online concert watched by millions around the globe. Jews worldwide were called upon to participate in the writing of a unity Torah scroll.

The White House called on faith-based groups and churches to instruct their worshippers to follow health guidelines. This was an important step, as in some cases the guidelines interfere with the execution of rituals. The world’s leading Sunni cleric, Yusuf Qaradawi, called for mosques around the world to suspend all gatherings of congregations for worship including Friday prayers.

Orthodox American Jewish sociologist Samuel Heilman pointed out that the Jewish religion is deeply wrapped up in communal life. Feeling a physical closeness to the community is critical to feeling a spiritual connection to God. For Orthodox Jews, therefore, quarantine poses a significant religious danger. This is particularly true for the ultra-Orthodox, some of whom are resisting the health guidelines. There is an above average percentage of ultra-Orthodox victims of coronavirus both in Israel and abroad as a result of their customs and beliefs.

A mega-church gathering of evangelicals in France is believed to have been the source of the country’s major outbreak. In Bourtzwiller, a community within the town of Mulhouse, a gathering took place in February of more than 2,000 worshippers from all over France. Germans also participated. These believers carried the virus throughout France and into Germany.

The coronavirus outbreak and subsequent government measures affect believers in very different ways. Muslims and Jews, even if they cannot go to their mosques or synagogues, can say their prayers at home. For a Christian, not being able to go to church on Sunday may be more problematic. Churches that rely to any significant extent on collecting money from those present on Sunday may face financial difficulties.

There are many other problems farther from the public eye. For example, many North African Muslims in France expect, when they die, to be buried in their country of origin. In the absence of flights this has become extremely difficult if not impossible.

It may be too early for theological explanations of the coronavirus crisis to be given by mainstream figures. There has been an upswing, however, in extremists who are eager to explain God’s purpose in sending the pandemic. One Muslim preacher speaking on Palestinian Authority TV said coronavirus is a soldier of Allah being used to punish sinners, who include those who attack his believers. Extremist pastors and rabbis blame the pandemic on homosexuals. The Chief Rabbi of the Israeli town of Safed said coronavirus happened because the world is approaching the days of the Messiah.

Over the course of time, believers will begin to talk to the media about how the virus and the lockdown influenced their spirituality and relationship to God.

View PDF

Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld is a Senior Research Associate at the BESA Center and a former chairman of the Steering Committee of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. He specializes in Israeli–Western European relations, antisemitism, and anti-Zionism, and is the author of The War of a Million Cuts.

Source: https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/coronavirus-monotheistic-religions/

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Does the Sovereignty Movement oppose sovereignty? - Rev. Anthony Abma

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by Rev. Anthony Abma

Bible believing Christians around the world must stand in solidarity with the Jews in Israel who need our support at this important juncture of time as they stand upon their rights.

The clock is running out on being able to capitalize on the goodwill of the most Pro-Israel US Administration in history. But there is another “fly in the ointment” to contend with – the details within the Peace Plan that the President is promoting. 

Two factions on the “Right” side of the political spectrum are facing off in a scrimmage that some feel threatens the entire Plan. 

There are those who want to gamble and accept the Trump plan “as is” – knowing full well – but choosing to ignore the “poison pill” that facilitates a Palestinian Arab State on Israeli territory. This camp crosses their fingers in the hopes that once again - the Palestinian Arab Leadership will reject yet another plan for peace. Their hopes and aspirations are based on the assumption of the “expected” Arab refusal which will grant Israel by default - the projected right to an entire Sovereign State. 

Though not perfect, the reasoning is to accept the Plan as the best offer “at the time”. It’s an approach consistent with century old Jewish culture and reasoning embodied in the parable of the “Lord or dog will die”.

But today is different. Jews are no longer hostages in foreign lands - that have no alternatives. They have not just returned to their homeland, they are now very much in control of their land and destiny.

The question causing the "scrimmage" is the debate on whether this is really the right approach. Does this demonstrate the moral and biblical high ground of Emunah (Hebrew for faith) that respects G-d's promises and commandments in Torah and what was declared through the Prophets? What about the deceit of knowingly accepting a false narrative? Or the basis of negotiating on the premise of the other party’s lack of integrity and moral judgement, combined with the presumed ineptitude of their actually accepting? 

What does this convey about the willing party? A party who would find themselves in a most grievous and embarrassing position of having to renege on the very deal they “lied” about being willing to accept – should the Palestinian Arabs actually accept the Trump Peace Plan granting them their own independent State. 

Isn’t failing to negotiate from a trusted position – worse than simply coming clean and telling the truth? The Jews are no longer refugees on foreign soil. They are the indigenous people who have come home to their ancestral homeland. That fact changes everything in terms of negotiating. It’s time for the Jews to act in faith and with the confidence and knowledge of who they are and what is rightfully theirs. 

I write as a Christian outsider who unequivocally recognizes and supports the Jewish indigenous, biblical and legal rights to their ancestral homeland. I am greatly inspired by the Emunah, resolve and tenacity of those within the Sovereignty Movement who are solidly aligned in Emunah with truth and the moral high ground. It’s a position that I find is incumbent upon the “keepers of the book”. The new generation, that their Prophets and ancestors longed to see and whose forefathers so willingly gave their blood to liberate their land, are now in the drivers' seat.

The Jews in Israel are those with whom Bible believing Christians around the world must stand in solidarity, Jews who are guided by truth and integrity - who need our support at this important juncture of time.

I conclude with another statement of the Sovereignty Movement that testifies to this generation of Jews who both know and recognize their place in history – and the future. 

“We must not forget the loyalty of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel over the course of two thousand years. We must not forget the reason that led us to immigrate from the four corners of the earth to the Land of Israel and not to Uganda. We draw our strength from the Bible and from the faith that the Land of Israel is the land of the Jewish people exclusively. The divine command that ties the Jewish people to its land is etched in iron and blood, as Rav Kook, of blessed memory, stated. In the Land of Israel only one entity and one sovereignty will be established, and that is the Jewish national entity.” 

There is a “light” that is prophesied to be a guiding force and an attraction for the nations. May the light of truth shine forth from the Knesset. President Trump deserves so much appreciation for the good he has done for the people of Israel. He needs to know however, that his plan needs revising. Any plan for peace in Israel can only succeed when it reflects the very truths upon which the nation he leads was founded upon, which promises the Jews their sovereign homeland.


Rev. Anthony Abma is the founder of Return O’ Israel;

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/25606

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On Its 72nd Birthday, Israel Is Home to Nine Million People, Almost Seven Million Jews - Benjamin Kerstein

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by Benjamin Kerstein

Israel's Jewish population is growing

Israel’s population is now more than nine million people, with almost seven million of them Jews, Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics revealed on Sunday.

The CBS’s raft of statistics, which it annually publishes just before Israel’s Independence Day, showed that Israel at 72 is home to 9,190,000 people.

Of these, 6,806,000 are Jews (74%), 1,930,000 (21%) are Arabs and Druze, and the reminder belong to other communities and religions.

Since last Independence Day, Israel’s population has increased by 171,000 (1.9%). 180,000 babies were born and 32,000 people immigrated to the country. 44,000 Israelis died over the past year.

The statistics showed that Israel is home to 45% of the world’s Jews. 78% of Israeli Jews are native-born.

From a historical perspective, Israel’s population has skyrocketed: In 1948, the country was home to 806,000 people. Since then, 3.3 million people have immigrated to the Jewish state – 44% since 1990.

The CBS also issued projections for the future: By 2030, the Israeli population will be 11.1 million and 13.2 million by 2040.

On Israel’s 100th birthday in 2048, there will be 15.2 million people living in the country.


Benjamin Kerstein

Source: https://www.algemeiner.com/2020/04/26/on-its-72nd-birthday-israel-is-home-to-nine-million-people-seven-million-jews-78-of-all-jewish-births/

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Coronavirus Crisis: China Isn't Going to Win - Amir Taheri

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by Amir Taheri

One thing is certain: public opinion in many countries is today more hostile to doing business with China. And that could adversely affect both normal trade and "sweetheart" deals like the one Britain planned to conclude with Huawei.

• Last January, no doubt underestimating the threat to France itself, President Emmanuel Macron made a gift of five million surgical masks to the People's Republic. When it became clear, just three weeks later, that France itself might urgently need the masks, Beijing came out with a barrage of excuses to avoid restitution. And when the French agreed to buy masks at three times the price, China signed the contract but sold a good part of the masks at five times the price to last-minute private buyers from the United States. Beijing has played the same trick on a number of other countries, notably Chile, which last week lodged formal protest.
• One thing is certain: public opinion in many countries is today more hostile to doing business with China. And that could adversely affect both normal trade and "sweetheart" deals like the one Britain planned to conclude with Huawei.
• Campaigns to boycott Chinese goods have already started in more than 40 countries on all continents.

(Image source: iStock)

"Is China Winning?" This was the cover headline that the British weekly The Economist unfurled earlier this month for a lengthy report on how the major powers might emerge out of the current coronavirus crisis.

This is not the first time that a section of Western media, often including The Economist, pronounce the Western democracies, especially the United States, as losers in comparison with rivals and/or enemies.

In the 1980s, the magazine beat the drums for "Japan As Number One", echoing Ezra Vogel's book-length rodomontade for the so-called "faultless economic model." In the 1990s, The Economist, with President Suharto on its cover, predicted the rise of Indonesia as one of the world's top economic powers. And in 2005, the magazine offered another sensational cover with the headline: "Has Iran Won?"

But to return to China "winning", the issue at hand, one might question the very premise of the presumed game in which the People's Republic is supposed to emerge ahead of the pack. As a global catastrophe, rather than a stage for international competition, Covid-19 is unlikely to produce any winners.

Even if "winning" is intended to refer to refer to the extent of the human and economic damage caused by the pandemic, predicting China's triumph may be open to question. At the time of writing, Beijing has admitted to 82,000 cases of Covid-19 and 4,632 deaths, remarkable for a population of over 1.5 billion.

If true, the figures are even more remarkable when compared with figures concerning Western Europe and the United States. However, the key here is the phrase "if true". Should we take at face value the assertion that Covid-19 has claimed six times more victims in Spain than in China with a population 30 times higher?

The assumption that China is "winning" is also based on the clam that Beijing has been in the forefront of rushing aid to nations across the globe to face the Covid-19 challenge, thus enhancing the reputation of the People's Republic as a true international player.

But even that claim is open to scrutiny. While the European Union, acting through the Paris Club, has decreed a moratorium on the repayment of debts by the world's poorest nations, Beijing has refused to offer the slightest relief to more than 70 nations, mostly in Africa, that it has dragged into debt since the 1990s. During the crisis, the People's Republic has also embarked on a number of shenanigans unworthy of a great power.

Last January, no doubt underestimating the threat to France itself, President Emmanuel Macron made a gift of five million surgical masks to the People's Republic. When it became clear, just three weeks later, that France itself might urgently need the masks, Beijing came out with a barrage of excuses to avoid restitution. And when the French agreed to buy masks at three times the price, China signed the contract but sold a good part of the masks at five times the price to last-minute private buyers from the United States. Beijing has played the same trick on a number of other countries, notably Chile, which last week lodged formal protest.

The People's Republic's insidious claims that the pandemic may have been concocted by foreign enemies has done much damage to China's reputation. In several Chinese cities, African students and migrant works were assaulted by mobs or driven out of their jobs and apartments after being fingered out as "virus carriers." The result has been a deterioration of relations with a number of African states, among them Nigeria, Kenya and Uganda.

The Chinese ambassadors to Paris and Tehran did even better by running to intervene in the domestic debate about how to deal with the pandemic. In Paris, Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian summoned Beijing's envoy to Quai d'Orsay and read him the riot act. In Tehran, the Islamic Republic officials lacked the courage to do the same with the Chinese ambassador because Tehran thinks it may one day need Beijing's veto at the United Nations. However, the media, including social media, did what was needed to remind Beijing of its man's diplomatic faux-pas.

The suspicion that Covid-19 may have leaked by mistake through a laboratory in China has affected the People's Republic image in many countries, notably the United States, Italy, France, Germany, South Korea and Japan. We cannot express any definite opinion on the claim because we lack the needed evidence. But one thing is certain: public opinion in many countries is today more hostile to doing business with China. And that could adversely affect both normal trade and "sweetheart" deals like the one Britain planned to conclude with Huawei.

Campaigns to boycott Chinese goods have already started in more than 40 countries on all continents. These may fizzle out as the world returns to normal; but the damage done to China's image should not been underestimated.

Claims that China may have been manipulating some international bodies, including the World Health Organization (WHO), can't be substantiated but open a whole new chapter in probing Beijing's behavior.

What about the economic aspect of the crisis? Could China do better than other major economies? Predictions for most major economies, including the US and the EU, indicate a fall in the gross domestic product of 8 to 10 percent for 2020 with mass unemployment hitting the 30 percent mark. Figures projected for China by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are less dramatic. But the trouble as always with statistics concerning the Peoples' Republic, is whether the official data on which they are based could be trusted.

However, guessing the economic impact of the pandemic depends on how one sees the current crisis. Ben Bernanke, former boss of the US Federal Reserve, sees the crisis as "much closer to a major snowstorm or a natural disaster than a 1930-style depression." In contrast, Bernard Cohen, former economic adviser to the French prime minister, foresees a depression deeper than the one triggered by the classical Wall Street crash.

Well, we don't know what will happen.

But, in this opinion, even if we assume the classical "crash" as a model, democracies from Japan, Taiwan and South Korea to EU and the US and Canada are in a better position to absorb the shock than could be what in 1932 Chesterton called China's "coolie capitalism."

This article was originally published by Asharq al-Awsat

Amir Taheri was the executive editor-in-chief of the daily Kayhan in Iran from 1972 to 1979. He has worked at or written for innumerable publications, published eleven books, and has been a columnist for Asharq Al-Awsat since 1987. He is the Chairman of Gatestone Europe.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15933/china-coronavirus-winning

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Unmasking China’s grand strategy for global control - Dr. Joe Tuzara

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by Dr. Joe Tuzara

The writer believes that Americans need to understand that whether by design or not, China's unleashing of the deadly coronavirus pandemic spreading panic in the U.S. was an act of war.

The COVID-19 pandemic which originated  in Wuhan, China as part of the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) efforts to expand its power abroad, was a functional equivalent of a new Cold War without consequences for decades.

Americans need to understand that by design or effects, China's unleashing of deadly coronavirus pandemic and spreading panic in the U.S. were acts of war.

Resorting to bluster and misinformation, the CCP cover-up isn't working.

The CCP's 'deceitful propaganda and repression of the people telling the truth about the epidemic' was notoriously unprecedented.

This was not the first time an outbreak from China has happened.

Historical evidence of the 1918 Swine Flu or Spanish Flu outbreak that killed 50 million people worldwide, ranking it as one of the deadliest epidemics in history, originated in China. 

Epidemiological assessment of the origin of the pandemic might provide information that could help stop a future pandemic, making the search worthwhile.

A historian who has researched the 1918 spread of the pandemic in the U.S. noted: "I would say that the takeaway message of all of this is to keep your eye on China" as a source of emerging diseases.

He points to concerns about the 2003 avian flu A (H5N1) and the SARS outbreak, arising from China in the last decade.

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) is a viral respiratory illness caused by a coronavirus called SARS-associated coronavirus (SARS-CoV). SARS-CoV-2 is a virus that causes COVID-19.

Fourteen years before China was widely accused of covering up its coronavirus outbreak, secret US diplomatic cables charged China of cover-up during the 2006 deadly H5N1 strain of avian influenza, also known as the bird flu.

The Obama administration's funded Wuhan Institute of Virology, a P4-level bio-safety facility is now the subject of U.S. intelligence investigation. 

And there is another uncomfortable truth that America can't ignore:

It was 2020 Lunar New Year, a time of human migration on a scale unseen in other parts of the world. This has certainly contributed to the spread of COVID-19.

From the very beginning, the world public opinion was misinformed and had to deal with the pathological secrecy of the CCP.  

All those who tried to raise the alarm, including the "signaler" doctors from Wuhan who tried to warn colleagues about the coronavirus, were then persecuted. And, the fact that you can't find some of these doctors is a frightening reality.

Instead of being transparent, China went to scrub research on the virus, ordered the destruction of laboratory samples, detained and silenced researchers, journalists, and citizens who tried to share information about the virus.

China's outbreak may have started in September. China has admitted that the disease was present in Wuhan in December, although it denied that "human-to-human transmission" had already taken place.

Those unfamiliar with the CCP will likely be shocked to discover the regime's motives, "the CCP clearly has no intention of ending the epidemic or curing the virus". You can see that the Beijing-influenced World Health Organization (WHO) was fpr a long while essentially following the CCP's guidelines.

Ergo, WHO has effectively undermined public confidence to a global health agency founded with a mission to gather and spread information on infectious diseases and epidemics around the world.

Even worse, the creeping politicization of coronavirus pandemic represents a dangerous threat to US national security and global public health.

A recent study of the genetic history of SARS-CoV-2_genomes found 3 types of the deadly coronavirus are spreading around the world - and the U.S. is being rocked by the original strain from China.

Travel data shows 3.4 million travelers from countries that would end up hardest-hit by COVID-19 outbreak entered the US as the pandemic was starting.

In a book written by two People's Liberation Army (PLA) colonels about Unrestricted Warfare in the age of globalization their main argument is: "Warfare in the modern world will no longer be primarily a struggle defined by military means —to compel the enemy to submit to one's will."

They wrote of assassinating financial speculators to safeguard a nation's financial security, setting up slush funds to influence opponents' legislatures and governments, and buying controlling shares of stocks to convert an adversary's major television and newspaper outlets into tools of media warfare.

Sound familiar?

They argued "the first rule of unrestricted warfare is that there are no rules, with nothing forbidden." The battlefield had fundamentally changed.

Society itself was now the battlefield. Future wars would inevitably encompass attacks on all elements of society without limits. 

Indeed, wars and pandemics, great destroyers of the status quo, often generate enormous societal change.

Another secret grand plan to take over the world outlines how China could surpass and replace the U.S.as the world's premier superpower by 2049, the centennial of China’s Communist revolution.

The PLA is currently developing high-tech computer viruses, building anti-satellite missiles, and militarizing the world's most important maritime chokepoints.

China's generals are preparing to use the assassin's mace to strike America in its Achilles' heel should Washington ever wake up to China's true intentions.

Given the CCP's focus on establishing "information dominance," they think by relentlessly exploiting the COVID-19 pandemic would generate enormous strategic benefits for China.

No wonder, the countries hit hard by the virus share one thing in common: massive "debts" and close ties to China.

And this is what is exactly happening among vulnerable countries tied to China's massive predatory infrastructure projects, "the Belt and Road Initiative" (BRI). Across the Eurasian continent, Africa, and Latin America, China's presence is becoming indisputable.

Lately, the Philippines has filed two diplomatic protests against China for declaring a Philippine territory as part of Hainan province.

China's "donation diplomacy" is a fraud

 Let us remember that in most cases all countries have to pay for this 'makeshift help' or debt-trap.

This alleged aid, without identifying China as responsible for the worldwide spread of the pandemic and agreeing to the propaganda presenting China not as the source of the crisis, but as a solution to this crisis in other countries of the world, in the future, may translate into economic and political dependence of other countries and is simply a fraud.

Most disturbing to every American, China hid the virus from the world and 'cornered' the personal protective equipment (PPE) market and 'is profiteering' during coronavirus outbreak.

According to the White House, China might have hidden coronavirus data from the U.S. so they can create a vaccine first and they view it as "a business proposition so that they can sell the vaccines to the world."

The "CCP virus" has significantly crippled a thriving US economy under Trump, but it also 'paralyzed business in China'.

A China policy of appeasement, sold under the rubric of "global cooperation." This is what crippled our industries in the first place and made America dependent on China.

COVID-19 linked to Huawei

Most likely, the arrest in Canada and ongoing request for extradition to the U.S., of the daughter of Huawei founder, a military engineer for the PLA, might be a retribution for an ongoing trade war against the US.

The US Justice Department (DOJ) indicted both Huawei and its CFO for racketeering, conspiring to steal American trade secrets and collaborating with countries like North Korea and Iran, and attempting to "conceal the full scope of that involvement."

Huawei is a key player in the CCP "Made in China 2025" strategy to dominate the world on the high-end tech side. In short, Huawei is their "Trojan horse" for the CCP to spy on and infiltrate other nations.

The CCP has sought to exploit the COVID crisis to burnish its reputation in key countries where it can play a role in building 5G networks.

The Trump administration banned US companies from doing any trading with Huawei after it accused the Chinese giant of espionage and IP (intellectual property) theft. The ban centered on any technology related to 5G technology.

China has been implicated in over 80% of all economic espionage charges this year, and is linked to 60% of all trade secret theft cases.

Against this backdrop, the "state sponsor of pandemics" made a "costliest mistake" in undermining America's interests. And "payback" would be a disaster waiting for this "uniquely opportunistic adversary" and serial violator of human rights.

Now, the time for reckoning has come. Worldwide condemnation which we don't see now isn't enough. We can't let China unleash another pandemic most deadlier than COVID-19 without serious consequences.


Dr. Joe Tuzara, a humanitarian advocate, was a clinical research-physician-general surgeon for Saudi Arabian, Philippine and American healthcare systems and is currently an American freelance writer as well as an op-ed contributor.

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/25602

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America: Responses to Tyranny - Lawrence Kadish

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by Lawrence Kadish

[T]he people of the United States are beginning to catch on to the Chinese ploy of using our money to buy their global dominance.

• America has handed China hundreds of billions of dollars every year to buy cheap goods, watched American firms ship their jobs and factories to China, and provided the Chinese with the means to create technology that threatens to eclipse our future. In the meantime, the money we sent there is allowing the Chinese to grow their nuclear arsenal and strengthen their military. In return, China has shipped us Covid-19.
• But the people of the United States are beginning to catch on to the Chinese ploy of using our money to buy their global dominance.
• We need to suspend imports from Civilization Abusers and all enemies of democracy. We need to become and remain self- sufficient – from technology to medical supplies -- so that we are never again dependent on nations that would seek to destroy us.

A national poll finds the vast majority of Americans no longer trust Beijing. Photo of Wuhan, China, where the Covid-19 virus originated. (Photo by HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP via Getty Images)

The United States needs to stop playing the chump.

For generations America has fattened up the very nations that would seek to destroy us.

Prior to Tokyo's attack on Pearl Harbor, Americans bought Japanese goods, helping pay for the bombs and torpedoes that would sink the American fleet at anchor on December 7th, 1941. Japan's sneak attack would be paid back with two nuclear strikes on Japanese cities four years later.

Our addiction to Middle East oil helped fund the terrorists who would hijack airliners, turning them into flying missiles on the morning of September 11th. Our nation's smart use of fracking to access enormous reserves of oil hidden under our own feet finally broke that stranglehold.

Despite these hard won lessons, over the last twenty years America has handed China hundreds of billions of dollars every year to buy cheap goods, watched American firms ship their jobs and factories to China, and provided the Chinese with the means to create technology that threatens to eclipse our future. In the meantime, the money we sent there is allowing the Chinese to grow their nuclear arsenal and strengthen their military. In return, China has shipped us Covid-19.

But the people of the United States are beginning to catch on to the Chinese ploy of using our money to buy their global dominance. A national poll finds the vast majority of Americans no longer trust Beijing. Seventy percent (70%) think the Chinese kept their Coronavirus data a secret from international healthcare professionals. In addition, 6 of 10 voters, or 59%, agree "As a result of the coronavirus pandemic, America should withdraw its manufacturing presence from China". One-third of all voters, 31%, "strongly agree" with this statement. Only 10% "strongly disagree

What this means is that Covid-19 has alerted Americans to the threat that faces our nation and our economic recovery. We need to suspend imports from Civilization Abusers and all enemies of democracy. We need to become and remain self- sufficient – from technology to medical supplies -- so that we are never again dependent on nations that would seek to destroy us.

It is time to stop playing the chump.

Lawrence Kadish is a real estate developer, entrepreneur, and founder and president of the Museum of American Armor.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15932/america-responses-to-tyranny

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Anti-Israelism has mutated to suit the coronavirus - Phyllis Chesler

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by Phyllis Chesler

The newest mutation of antisemitism takes its place among reconstituted older forms, all of them perniciously making their appearances in a host of welcoming milieus.

The Blood Libels against Israel and the Jews never seem to quit. Human Rights Watch, Gisha, IfNotNow, JVP, B’Tselem, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR-I), Amnesty, etc. are all well funded to work full-time creating and spinning just such pernicious propaganda. 

According to NGO Monitor, these NGOs claim that Israel is to blame—not Hamas, never Hamas—for “confining” or “caging” Palestinians in Gaza, denying them medical care, and “decimating Gaza’s health care sector.” Hamas’s choice to use their money to build tunnels, buy rockets, fund suicide killers, and their refusal to use monies to build infra-structure for their people, including hospitals, are never mentioned, nor is the fact that this virus “arrived in Gaza via students returning from Pakistan.” According to NGO Monitor:

“NGO campaigns on COVID-19 are simply a rebranding of the past 20 years of NGO anti-Israel hatred, repackaged to exploit the current global pandemic.”

However, equally pernicious, and perhaps as dispiriting, are the ways in which presumably high-quality scientific and medical journals, such as Lancet, have also published highly politicized non-truths in their pages. For example: That the alleged Israeli “occupation” of “Palestinian lands” has led to an increase in woman-battering on the West Bank and in Gaza.

The truth of Muslim women’s lives is better portrayed in a new film by veteran filmmaker Pierre Rehov. Child marriage, forced veiling, honor killing, and wife-beating are pandemic in Judea and Samaria (a.k.a. "West Bank" and Yehuda veShomron in Hebrew) as well as in Gaza and have absolutely nothing to do with Israel’s policies of self-defense. As of 2019-2020, Palestinian imams and terrorist leaders all support Sharia law for women. This means wife-chastisement for disobedience, and in Allah’s name—child marriage, polygamy, and veiling.

Given this larger picture, there are times I wish to escape to another world, a better one. But I can’t. When I pick up a literary magazines or read the mass (left stream) media I am met with a steady acidic drip-drip-drip of Jew-hatred and anti-Zionism. These days, no avid reader can hide from it.

For example, in an April, 2020 book review for the New York Review of Books—and on another subject entirely (“hipness,” the creation of celebrity, the Andy Warhol 80s), Luc Sante casually burnishes his own credentials by writing this: “Naturally, he (Glenn O’Brien, whose book Sante was reviewing) was a liberal; he despised Trump, the NRA, Israeli apartheid, the sanctioning of Cuba—he also despised burqas, on which he took the French government’s view.”

The absolutely false allegation of Israeli apartheid is right up there with prevailing left and liberal views of Trump and the NRA—those whom we are supposed to hate at all times and in all places.

On March 30, 2020, the New York Times published an obituary of Sol Kerzner, a very successful Jewish businessman and a leading opponent of real apartheid in South Africa—a man who worked with and for Nelson Mandela. Nevertheless, Kerzner is gratuitously described as “sharp elbowed” and as the “South African version of Donald J. Trump.” Supposedly questionable business dealings are trotted out. Kerzner is also described as someone who “profited hugely by circumventing the social and sexual strictures of apartheid.” Talk about no good deed going unpunished! Kerzner’s crime is that of relaxing apartheid rules for his gambling casinos and hotels, and profiting from doing so. (Shades of Jews and filthy lucre!)  The obituary admits: “There, blacks and whites could do what was forbidden in the rest of South Africa: Mingle and frolic freely.”

I have read many NYT’s Obituaries for real estate salesmen and developers that do not sound like this.

For example, only two weeks later, on April 14th, the NYT’s ran an obituary of a real estate “player and philanthropist” named Robby Browne about whom only positive things were written. Like Mr. Kerzner, Browne also mingled with V.I.P.s and Hollywood celebrities but he was not “arrogant about his success.” Unlike the self-made Kerzner, Browne’s father ;attended Phillips Academy and Yale University; his mother “went from waltzing with society swans to selling mansions to them.” Browne was something of a blue-blood and he, too, attended Phillips Academy and both Princeton and Harvard. “He lived according to Gore Vidal’s principle that no one should ever turn down the opportunity to go on television or have sex.”

I doubt that blue-blooded Browne was Jewish.

May both real estate mavens rest in peace and may our cognitive warriors, our truth-tellers go from strength to strength.


Phyllis Chesler is a Ginsburg-Ingerman Fellow at the Middle East Forum, received the 2013 National Jewish Book Award,.authored 18 books, including Women and Madness and The New Anti-Semitism, and 4 studies about honor killing, Her latest books are An American Bride in Kabul, A Family Conspiracy: Honor Killing and A Politically Incorrect Feminist.

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/25593?mc_cid=02d2884de8&mc_eid=b38bea0d50

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Stealing the Election in Plain Sight - Joe Herring

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by Joe Herring

Ballot-harvesting, anyone?

If you were still harboring naïve notions of free and fair elections when Democrats are involved, perhaps this will help disabuse you of those fantasies.

From a Fox News report a few days ago:

A prominent Democratic lawyer who represented Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign [Marc Elias] is threatening to sue the state of Nevada unless it immediately suspends prosecutions for ballot harvesting before the June 9 primary, among a slew of other demands, according to a letter obtained by Fox News on Tuesday.
Writing on April 10 to Nevada Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske, a Republican, Elias first took aim at Nevada Revised Statutes section 293.330(4), which prohibits ballot harvesting and permits only certain individuals, like family members, to return ballots.
Ballot harvesting, or the practice of allowing political operatives and others to collect voters' ballots and turn them in en masse to polling stations, has drawn bipartisan concerns of fraud from election watchers.
"We ask that your office and the office of the Nevada Attorney General immediately announce a suspension of prosecutions under this statute for all elections for which mail-in balloting will be the primary means of voting in the state," Elias said.
At the same time, Elias called for Nevada to stop throwing out ballots when signatures on voters' ballots appear different from those on voters' registrations, saying "lay election officials have never had the necessary expertise" to make an accurate determination.

Ballot-harvesting is a crime, forbidden due to the inherent opportunities for fraud, intimidation, and outright manufacture of votes. The Democrats tried to legalize ballot-harvesting in the last stimulus go-round, but thankfully, they were caught and prevented from doing so.

Worse still, Elias's threats also seek to force Nevada to send a ballot to all registered voters, regardless of whether a voter requested a ballot or not. As you'll see, Nevada is merely the target du jour. The same will be expected of all 50 states before November 3, 2020.

This effort is spearheaded by former Clinton attorney Marc Elias, a partner at Perkins Coie law firm, the same firm that facilitated and helped disseminate the fraudulent Steele dossier, which launched the Russian collusion narrative. Unsurprisingly, Elias was the attorney who engaged Fusion GPS to procure the dossier using funds laundered through Perkins Coie. 

Elias is a prime example of all things wrong with the legal profession these days, a poster child for "whatever it takes" lawyerly maneuvering, regardless of ethics or legality. His involvement also makes it clear that this is no one-off effort concerning Nevada alone. 

This well known Democrat fixer has a long history of fighting voter ID laws in state after state, with his legal challenges bankrolled by none other than George Soros. He is the point of the spear in the left's effort to wrest control of the electoral process from the people of the United States. Having licked his wounds after the 2016 debacle, Elias has emerged again, fighting the same battles, singing the same tunes.

Elias wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post, published on March 16, 2020. In his missive, he outlines the same demands he has threatened against Nevada.

It will not be enough for states to simply allow more citizens to vote by mail. Each state must also provide adequate resources for the printing and distribution of millions of extra ballots and to support with extra funds the officials who are tasked with processing and counting the flood of mailed ballots. It will also require states to revisit their laws to provide free postage and community ballot collection. States then need to address the manner in which ballots are verified to minimize rejections based on issues with voters' signatures.

Citing likely difficulties with processing large numbers of mail-in ballots, Elias says:

[A]ll votes postmarked by Election Day must be treated as timely and counted in full. Unfortunately, many states do not currently count ballots received after Election Day, regardless of when voters mail them.
Replacing Election Day receipt laws with the more intuitive postmarked-by-Election Day standard is essential.

As all Democrats do, Elias ignores the concept of personal responsibility on the part of the voter, who is naturally expected to consider mailing time when returning his ballot. What his proposal does is completely different from what he claims that it will do.

It permits the exploitation of exit polling, enabling operatives to dump vast numbers of fraudulent ballots wherever needed on Election Day, having seen from exit polling which races and precincts are going to their opponents.

This cannot be permitted, as it provides specific real-time data to enable election-tampering with a specificity not seen outside of North Korea.

Ideally, states will act to correct these anti-democratic laws. If not, Congress should step in and amend federal law to make clear that ballots mailed by a voter on or before Election Day must be treated as cast on Election Day.

In his own words, Elias reveals the framework for stealing an election. Create avenues for mischief, then exploit those avenues for all they're worth. Remembering that by threatening endless lawsuits over clearly fraudulent ballots, it's not too difficult to intimidate a county election commissioner into matching voter registration signatures against received ballot signatures with a very broad standard to avoid litigation that could bankrupt post-COVID budgets.

The pattern is clear. Force a mail-in ballot scenario, suspend prohibitions against ballot-harvesting (citing reasons of health and safety, of course), and then find judges in each state to forbid the invalidating of ballots where the signatures do not match the registration.

Apart from simply declaring themselves the winner at the end of a rifle barrel, the Democrats couldn't possibly have devised a more direct path to hijacking an election.

This is the greatest danger we face in 2020 — not the virus, not North Korea, not even the economic effects of the virus, but rather the clear intention of one party to steal an election by any means necessary.

Don't be distracted: this is one issue you must not let lie fallow. They are arranging for the invalidation of your vote, right in front of your eyes. We must prevent these changes, or, like a miraculous resurrection of Lenin, we will see the whole country "turn" blue November 3.

Joe Herring writes from Omaha, Neb. and welcomes visitors to his website at dailyherring.com

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/04/stealing_the_election_in_plain_sight.html

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The Jerusalem Post Deletes Mentions of HIAS Alliance w/Islamists - Daniel Greenfield

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by Daniel Greenfield

[W]e're being treated to a whitewash and a cover-up.

The Jerusalem Post wrote a pretty decent article about the elevation of the HIAS boss, Dianne Lob, to head the Conference of Presidents. And then eliminated most of it to include quotes from the heads of the ADL and the National Council of Jewish Women, a radical lefty group which has made it clear that it would work with anti-Israel group.

What does putting the head of an anti-Israel org in bed with pro-terror Islamists at the head of the Conference of Presidents amount to?

Here's the information that theJerusalem Post deleted from its article.

The ZOA leadership stated that Lob has not previously been active in the COP and worried that Lob's views could be "the same as those of HIAS." The officials warned that it is "reasonable to be skeptical if views Ms. Lob may have expressed to the COP nominating committee differed from HIAS’s positions and actions under her chairpersonship."
The letter called HIAS's work with other groups "inimical" to the COP's mission, pointing to joint projects with Islamic Relief, CAIR and MPAC. Islamic Relief has been banned in Israel for terrorist activities. The UAE also declared the group a terrorist organization.
In 2017, HIAS signed a letter alongside Jewish Voice for Peace, If Not Now, J Street, the New Israel Fund and T'ruah defending anti-Israel activist Linda Sarsour.

These are radical anti-Israel hate groups. The Conference of Presidents is being turned over to one of their allies.

As Caroline Glick notes,

HIAS collaborates with nominally Jewish anti-Israel groups like Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow. Both groups are leading actors in the anti-Semitic BDS campaign against American Jews and Israel.
In June 2017, Hetfield and HIAS Vice President Rabbi Jennie Rosenn joined JVP, IfNotNow and other pro-BDS groups in signing a letter defending Linda Sarsour, the anti-Semitic Democratic political activist who has called for Israel’s destruction. Sarsour has publicly supported Hamas and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, who himself is a vocal supporter of Adolf Hitler.
Does Lob, who was the chairman of the board of HIAS from 2016-2019 support the close cooperation with terror affiliated groups and anti-Semites that HIAS maintained under her leadership?
She says she doesn’t.
According to sources briefed on the details of Lob’s meetings with the Conference’s Nominating Committee, Lob said she was not involved in Hetfield and Rosenn’s decision to sign the letter defending Sarsour.
...
There are two ways to square this circle. It’s possible that Lob is lying and it’s possible that she’s telling the truth.
If Lob lied to the nominating committee and in her letter to the Conference members, and if she secretly shares the extreme pro-anti-Semite and anti-Israel positions of the extremists who control HIAS, then next Tuesday, leadership of the Conference of Presidents will be transferred to a woman who opposes the values shared 95 percent of American Jews.
If Lob told the truth to the nominating committee then she is shockingly incompetent. Because if she is telling the truth that means that for three years, she oversaw an organization that openly collaborated with groups with known ties to terrorist organizations and supported anti-Semites actively involved in the “reprehensible” BDS campaign against American Jews and against Israel. Presumably, Lob will bring the same incompetence with her to the Conference of Presidents when she takes over as chairman on Tuesday.

Either Lob is evil or unqualified.

And we're being treated to a whitewash and a cover-up.

Daniel Greenfield

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/2020/04/jerusalem-post-deletes-mentions-hias-alliance-daniel-greenfield/

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