Mike Huckabee

A big Huck’s Hero salute to New Jersey newspaper deliveryman Greg Daily. When an elderly customer asked if he could throw the paper closer to the garage, it made him think that if she couldn’t walk that 20 feet, how could she go out for groceries during the lockdown?

So he put a note inside every newspaper, offering his services to shop for and deliver groceries free of charge to his elderly customers. He’s now busy helping nearly 100 people, some of them not even on his paper route. One grateful 85-year-old widow called him “one of the finest people in the world.” Daily said the seniors appreciate the help so much, he’s decided to keep doing it even after the lockdown ends. He said, “There’s something about being able to do something really nice for people.”

There sure is! Our thanks to Greg Daily for reminding us all that “social distancing” doesn’t mean you can’t reach out to the people around you who really need your help.

And on that subject, here’s another story that could have gone a very different way, if it weren’t for the kindness and compassion of a grocery store owner in Ontario.

Mike Huckabee

Some great letters arrived in response to “Steele ‘wiped’ his documentation, and not with a cloth.” Here are just a few...

From Jim:

Governor, you always seem to get to the core of a story. As an ex-journalist I appreciate your search for the facts and verification.

The Democrats have been using these less-than-honest tactics for years. Each year they seem to get bolder and bolder at just outright lying to the American people.

Back in 1996...[description of dirty tricks played against him when he ran for office in Iowa, including going through divorce records from another state and altering critical dates on documents they found]... This is one of nicer things the Democrats did to us.

Another of their tactics is running negative ads against you accusing you of doing something you didn’t do and would never consider doing. Nine times out of ten what they are accusing you of is exactly what they are doing!

The list goes on and on. Not enough time to list them all tonight.

Governor, keep up your good work of ripping the masks off of these bad actors. Politics is rough and tumble, but it doesn’t need all the shenanigans that have become the order of the day. Highly paid political consultants are also a part of this mix.

From the Gov:

I’ve always said, don’t run for office unless you don’t mind the sight of your own blood. Historically, there have been dirty tricks played on both sides of the aisle, but now it seems there is NOTHING the left (and all “anti-Trumpers”) won’t do to gain power. I mean, no principles at all. You are absolutely right about this, and we are doing our best to rip those masks off, though it’s challenging when most “journalists” simply ignore stories that don’t fit their narrative. It’s also difficult when some in government think that rescuing the tarnished image of their bureaucracy is more important than uncovering the truth. What apparently is true of coronavirus is definitely true of political corruption: Sunshine is the best disinfectant.

From Stephen:

These questions may have been addressed previously and I just missed them: Why has Mr. Steele not been forced to testify at any hearings? Why has he not been charged for submitting fraudulent information that has cost taxpayers millions of dollars in investigations? Can the President sue him for defamation?

From the Gov:

Steele has been back and forth on whether or not to cooperate with Durham. On June 5 of last year, it was reported that Joe diGenova had said Steele did agree to be interviewed by Durham. A story in British media had said he was willing to talk, but only about “his relationship with the FBI,” and he wanted to get “permission from the U.K. government first.” DiGenova said he couldn’t believe Durham would agree to those conditions.

Sure enough, the story kept changing. In a WASHINGTON EXAMINER story from March 7, Steele is said to have declined again. He’s concerned about “politicization and not being treated fairly.” He said he and Orbis, his company, have already “said everything we have to say on the matter.” They’ve “done their duty.” Well, isn’t that special.

He was interviewed by Mueller’s special counsel team but later said he was surprised at how little of what he had discussed was in the final report. He reportedly said he’d also cooperated with IG Horowitz for “four or five months” and remarked that some U.S. officials were acting in bad faith.

Durham is reportedly working on indictments. (I would hope so.) But I’m not a lawyer and don’t even play one on TV; I don’t know, since Steele is a British citizen living in the U.K., that Durham can compel him to testify. Importantly, if anyone in the British government was helping Steele, it’s obvious that they’ll NEVER force him to cooperate with Durham, because they know Durham would ask all about that. The information we’ve recently been getting about Steele’s activities has come from testimony in a civil lawsuit brought against him in the U.K. by the owners of Alfa Bank.

So, should Trump sue? Trump is about THE MOST public of public figures, so he has some tough slogging when suing anyone for defamation. Besides, if he sued everyone who lied about him, he’s have to spend the rest of his life in court, and even then he wouldn’t get to them all.

From Robin:

I do " data recovery " for family and friends and have recovered data off computers for a few not-for-profits. So far I've been 100 percent successful.

Anything deleted from a computer can be recovered. Even if the computer is " lost or stolen," data can still be recovered from internet provider, mainframe computer [and] disks, and can be recovered from another computer via emails, downloads, internet provider on the receiver’s end and whomever they forwarded emails to. And the "cloud, " too; the cloud is quite the tattletale.

Bottom line, anything on the internet may as well be posted on billboards on I-95 from Maine to Florida.

And by the way, the Feds can go even deeper into a hard drive and the internet than I can. The FBI could easily have recovered Hillary's emails and Steele's as well.

Bet you guys haven't heard the FBI or NSC (the place in Maryland with all those big dish thingy things on their lawn) saying any of this!

From the Gov:

If someone who refers to satellite dishes as “those dish thingy things” can do it, I’ll bet lots of people can. We might be amazed to discover where Hillary’s emails turned up. (I wouldn’t be surprised if every major world leader had them and was ready to blackmail her the moment she --- shudder --- became President.) And, yes, Steele’s are almost surely somewhere, too. Also, SOMEBODY knows who really obtained those emails from the DNC; we still don’t have proof of the Democrats’ narrative that it was a Russia hack, as a report from CrowdStrike doesn’t cut it. Maybe you could find out! Thanks for writing.

Mike Huckabee

STUPID QUESTION

Here is video of President Trump’s full COVID-19 (Chinese) coronavirus task force press briefing from Monday…

Trump took a couple of days’ off from his briefings because he was fed up with dealing with hostile, accusatory and downright stupid questions from the media. But I’m glad to see the media didn’t let that time go to waste. New York Magazine’s Oliva Nuzzi obviously spent it working extra hard, trying to craft a question even stupider and more accusatory than last week's "injecting Lysol" idiocy:

"If an American President loses more Americans over the course of 6 weeks than died in the entirety of the Vietnam War, does he deserve to be re-elected?"

Trump kept his cool and gave a much better answer than the question deserved. David Marcus at the Federalist examined why it was such a ridiculous question, and how Trump might have answered it or how she might have expected him to answer it.

Personally, I might have pointed out that each year, over 38,000 Americans die in car accidents, which means that over Obama’s eight-year term, over 5 times as many Americans were slaughtered on the highways as died in Vietnam, and he did nothing to prevent it. I look forward to Ms Nuzzi’s article in New York Magazine calling for Obama to be brought up on war crimes charges because over 300,000 people died violently while he was in office.

(NOTE: The original version of this piece had an incorrect number of highway deaths because our source mistakenly quoted the global death number, not the US number. We corrected it and own up to the mistake because we’re not CNN.)

DEMOCRATS: CONTINUE TO DENY REALITY

There are times when I almost feel sorry for loyal Democrats. Over the past few years, in order to keep from being slandered and hounded by Twitter mobs, they’ve had to force themselves to live in a constant state of denial. And I don’t just mean pretending not to notice how badly their cherished leftist policies failed during the Obama Administration and everywhere else they've been tried.

Starting in 2016, to remain a Democrat in good standing, you had to deny that Donald Trump was really the President (or “my President”), that his negotiating tactics really had resulted in better trade deals for the US, that the tax cut benefited people other than the “super rich,” that the economy really was creating record numbers of jobs, and that pay for lower and middle class workers really was rising. It took a pandemic to derail that booming economy.

Just since January, Democrats have had to deny that Trump was right to block travel from China and Europe, that the pandemic was caused by China’s carelessness and lies, that it’s worth studying promising treatments like hydroxychoroquine and UV light even if Trump did say good things about them, and that globalism and open borders have proven to be disastrous ideas, even more dangerous than densely-populated urban living, mass transit and reusable grocery bags.

But the denial of reality shifted into hyperdrive this week. Democrats across the nation are refusing to listen to Americans as they demand to reopen their businesses, even when some of those on the verge of open revolt are other Democratic politicians…

They accuse Republicans of being “science deniers,” yet they refuse to listen to doctors and researchers who say the data indicate that the coronavirus is far more widespread and less lethal than we originally thought, and that keeping society shut down is doing more harm than good. It’s even doing irreparable harm to the health care system (laying off doctors and shutting down hospitals) and causing deaths by preventing people from getting necessary medical care (here’s just one example…)

…all in the name of keeping hospitals free for the projected crush of COVID-19 patients that never materialized.

When two urgent care doctors in California discovered that the virus was far more widespread in their counties than previously believed, and that the real odds of dying from it were only 0.03%, they were denounced for no solid reasons and YouTube (a subsidiary of ultra-liberal Google) removed their video because it didn’t jibe with the World Health Organization – the same group that’s repeated patently bogus Chinese propaganda since the beginning.

And those aren’t the only doctors who are speaking up against the “shut down the world or we’ll all die” Democratic party line:

Some Democrats are even denying their own previous statements…

And speaking of denying your own alleged principles, whatever happened to “Believe all women?” Two more women have come forward to verify that former Joe Biden staffer Tara Reade told them of her sexual assault allegation against Biden in the 1990s, and both women are Democrats.

Speaking of denial, one of the women who spoke up for Reade said, "I personally am a Democrat, a very strong Democrat. And I'm for Biden, regardless. But still I have to come out and say this." Remember the outrage from Democrats when Trump facetiously said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and his supporters wouldn’t abandon him? Well, here’s someone corroborating an allegation of sexual assault of a friend against the presumptive Democratic nominee and adding, “I’m for Biden, regardless.” And she's actually serious.

Yet the Party and its PR flacks in the media are sticking their fingers in their ears and “la-la-la’ing” all the way to the election. The Washington Post even seems to think the only newsworthy part of this story is that “Trump allies” are “amplifying” Reade’s story by paying attention to her. Well, somebody should, don’t you think?

Move over, Cleopatra! We have millions of new contenders for the title “Queen of Denial.”

FAKE NEWS TUESDAY

Fake News Tuesday: No, it was not President Trump’s idea to put his name on the coronavirus relief checks that are being mailed to Americans who don't have direct deposit. That was Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin’s idea. And he says that despite rumors, it did not cause any delay in sending the checks.

REAL NEWS

However, here’s some real news: Chuck Schumer is pushing a bill to try to keep Trump’s name off the checks, and that actually would delay them being delivered to Americans who desperately need them. But I’m sure those people will appreciate that it’s much more important that they not see Trump’s name on a check for the ten seconds it will take them to endorse and deposit it than it is for them to get the money quickly so they can squander it on rent and food.

TOO FAR

A judge in Illinois has ruled that Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker's stay-at-home order exceeds his emergency powers and infringes on citizens’ Constitutional rights. Pritzker railed that the questioning of his authority on this is “insulting,” “dangerous” and will put people’s health at risk, and he vowed to appeal the ruling.

The irony is that the other major controversy Pritzker is facing is anger over his releasing prison inmates who might be at risk of contracting the coronavirus. So if you’re a convicted criminal, you have to be released to keep you healthy. But if you’re a law-abiding citizen, you have to be locked up to keep you healthy. Understand? If so, please explain it to me.

FYI: Gov. Pritzker probably won’t want to appeal his case to Attorney General Bill Barr, who just told federal prosecutors to report any excessively restrictive shutdown orders that violate Americans' civil rights…

SUPPLY CHAIN WOES

I don’t want to give you even more to worry about, but here’s another reason to end the lockdown and let Americans get back to work: because we’d all like to be able to eat in the future.

GONE

Latest on North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un: It’s still unclear whether he’s dead or just locked down due to the coronavirus, like everybody else.

RIP TROY SNEED

I am saddened to report that the coronavirus has taken another talented musician from us. Grammy-nominated gospel singer Troy Sneed died Monday in Jacksonville, Florida, of complications from the virus. He was only 52.

Sneed started his career with the Georgia Mass Choir, which appeared in the film “The Preacher’s Wife” with Whitney Houston. He then formed Youth For Christ before launching a gospel record label with his wife Emily and releasing seven solo albums. His hits include “Work It Out” and “My Heart Says Yes.” Our deepest condolences and prayers for his wife and family. Here are some samples of the inspiring musical legacy he left us.

C-H-I-N-A

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates was asked about attempts to hold China accountable for causing the worldwide deadly coronavirus pandemic, and he brushed that off as “a distraction.” He’s right: holding China to account might distract from all the medical care, quarantines and funerals we have to arrange all over the world BECAUSE OF CHINA!

THANKS AGAIN COLIN K.

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said the football league plans to reopen in a “safe and responsible” manner, but he declined to say whether that means playing games with no fans in the stands. If so, then I guess they owe Colin Kaepernick thanks for getting people used to empty stadiums before we even knew there was going to be a virus to avoid.

HUCK'S HERO

A big Huck’s Hero salute to New Jersey newspaper deliveryman Greg Daily. When an elderly customer asked if he could throw the paper closer to the garage, it made him think that if she couldn’t walk that 20 feet, how could she go out for groceries during the lockdown?

So he put a note inside every newspaper, offering his services to shop for and deliver groceries free of charge to his elderly customers. He’s now busy helping nearly 100 people, some of them not even on his paper route. One grateful 85-year-old widow called him “one of the finest people in the world.” Daily said the seniors appreciate the help so much, he’s decided to keep doing it even after the lockdown ends. He said, “There’s something about being able to do something really nice for people.”

There sure is! Our thanks to Greg Daily for reminding us all that “social distancing” doesn’t mean you can’t reach out to the people around you who really need your help.

And on that subject, here’s another story that could have gone a very different way, if it weren’t for the kindness and compassion of a grocery store owner in Ontario.

Mike Huckabee

"Imagine that --- being framed by our own government and by political operatives who don’t like you. And I think that’s what we’re gonna find out.” That was Devin Nunes, speaking with Maria Bartiromo on this week’s SUNDAY MORNING FUTURES, on the case of former national security adviser Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn.

It’s highly doubtful that Nunes, ranking member and former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, would be saying something like this unless he already possessed knowledge that it was true. Recall that he was pilloried for his memo debunking the Russia hoax in 2018, though his conclusions were later verified. (It was Adam Schiff’s memo that was discredited.) Just watch --- Nunes will be right about this, too.

If you’ve read Lee Smith’s excellent book, THE PLOT AGAINST THE PRESIDENT, you know that Flynn was indeed targeted by operatives who didn’t like him, as far back as 2014-15. The Obama Department of Justice (“Justice”) didn’t like him because he wanted to lessen the military’s reliance on the CIA bureaucracy, which only slowed them down when minutes counted on the battlefield. He was calling for financial audits of the Pentagon/Defense Department (uh-oh), and he was a vocal opponent of one of President Obama’s most cherished, administration-defining plans: the Iran Deal. They wanted him compromised long before President-elect Trump announced that he would be coming to the White House to work at his side.

By the way, Nunes also told Bartiromo that, judging by information in the IG report that has recently been declassified, the person who needs to be questioned about the bogus “Russian” narrative is Sergei Millian, one of three Russian-Americans who were apparently involved to some extent. He was asked to come before the House Intel Committee, but according to Nunes, “he is hiding somewhere around the globe.” Nunes is still calling for him to come forward, because “either he was, you know, working for Fusion GPS and the Clinton campaign and dirtying-up Trump people, or it’s quite possible he may have been framed.” If he’s afraid to come back to America, Nunes says, “we can guarantee his safety.”

If you are as far “into the weeds” as we are on the origin story of the dossier, we’ve found a detailed article that supports Nunes’ theory that Millian was indeed framed as the source for information that really came from Fusion GPS. One of my researchers just stumbled across this website and plans to check out the archives, as the information there looks really solid.

In the Bartiromo interview, Nunes says of this individual, “He is the source,” but then backs away from that just a bit, saying he’s “one of” the major sources for Steele and Glenn Simpson/Fusion GPS. Millian is identified as “Person 1” in the IG report. Steele told the FBI that "Person 1" was a “boaster” and “egotist” but still used information credited to him in the “dossier.” He said that Millian was the source for his “Russian prostitutes” story and also for the claim that there was a “well-developed conspiracy of cooperation” between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. Millian, on the other hand, does indeed say he was framed by Steele and Fusion GPS and was not a source for the “dossier.” I think it’s likely we’re going to find that the main “dossier” stories came from Glenn Simpson at Fusion GPS and that this Hillary-paid team just put it out with other people’s names on it.

Incredibly, Robert Mueller’s team never interviewed Millian.

As for Flynn, it’s logical to strongly suspect if not conclude from what we know that he was framed. If he was, then it’s also logical to expect the Obama DOJ to have hidden exculpatory evidence that would have put an end to his legal travails. But Christian Datoc at THE DAILY CALLER NEWS FOUNDATION is reporting that President Trump’s FBI Director Christopher Wray also kept that evidence under wraps. We’ve long expressed doubt of Wray’s effectiveness as FBI director; if this is true, it takes his role into a whole new realm. (In an update, FBI Assistant Director of Public Affairs Brian Hale has issued a statement to the DAILY CALLER absolutely, positively denying this.) Whether Wray was directly involved or not, Flynn’s attorney Sidney Powell has long maintained that the FBI and Justice Department were continuing to hide exculpatory evidence, or what’s known as “Brady material.”

But in breaking news, court documents have been filed (finally!) that contain important evidence Powell was seeking, and there might be more to come. This is happening after Attorney General Bill Barr assigned the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri to conduct a review of the Flynn investigation. The review “involved the analysis of reports related to the investigation along with communications and notes by [FBI] personnel associated with the investigation,” according to the cover letter sent to Powell and another attorney.

It had been reported by THE FEDERALIST that FBI general counsel Dana Boente was the one who blocked release of the Brady material, but Datoc’s source says Boente was acting “in coordination with Wray.” (Again, this has been strongly denied by Wray’s office, but it certainly would explain a lot.) This order to put a hold on Brady material should NEVER have been given, by anyone; the Justice Department has previously ruled that the government has no right to withhold exculpatory material. According to DOJ code, “government disclosure of material exculpatory and impeachment evidence [relevant information both helpful and hurtful] is part of the constitutional guarantee to a fair trial.”

This is just one of the reasons Flynn was treated shamefully. He deserves to have his guilty plea thrown out, all charges dropped (or a Presidential pardon), and restitution for the damages this travesty has caused to his reputation, career, financial condition and peace of mind.

More to come soon –- including, I think, some indictments.

Addendum

Finally, here's an excellent lawyerly take from Andrew C. McCarthy, who has said all along that Flynn should never have been prosecuted. He sheds some light on what was going on with Flynn's original attorneys. This is another must-read for anyone who wants to understand what was done to Michael Flynn, which was a criminal abuse of power.

Mike Huckabee

I would normally start off with a link to President Trump’s daily briefing on the COVID-19 (Chinese) coronavirus, but for the first time in weeks, he didn’t hold one over the weekend. He implied that he might end them because of the hostile/idiotic media response, tweeting:

“What is the purpose of having White House News Conferences when the Lamestream Media asks nothing but hostile questions, & then refuses to report the truth or facts accurately. They get record ratings, & the American people get nothing but Fake News. Not worth the time & effort!”

I can’t say I blame him, since I had the same reaction to last week’s off-the-rails hysteria accusing Trump of suggesting that people inject themselves with Lysol (incidentally, where would they get all this Lysol? I can’t even find it in stores.) That and “Labradoodle-gate” were so jaw-droppingly stupid, childish and willfully obtuse that I didn’t even want to waste my time commenting on them, and that's my job. At least take the effort to make up fake news that sounds half-way plausible.

Trump has spent day after day, sometimes for over an hour at a stretch, dispensing information, trying to keep up people’s hopes and dispel their fears, and answering questions from the media. And in return, every syllable out of his mouth has been parsed, twisted, disputed, refuted, mocked and scorned. Reporters have wasted their precious opportunity to ask the President about a matter of monumental importance to every American, instead lobbing gotcha questions and childish accusations. Even after putting up with it every day for weeks, when he finally got fed up and took a weekend off from their incessant barking, CNN ran this accusatory headline: “Trump goes into hiding.”

So what did CNN call it when Obama went for months without a press conference, averaging fewer than two a month through his entire term? I can’t imagine they accused him of “going into hiding.”

I prefer to think of it as Trump setting a good hygiene example for all Americans by washing his hands of this nasty media virus.

Mike Huckabee

Friday, much of the media outdid themselves in their hair-on-fire anti-Trump hysterics, giving us a double dose of Trump Derangement Syndrome idiocy. First, by claiming that President Trump told people to inject Lysol to kill the virus. No, he did not.

They went so bat-poop crazy over that one that some of them were even calling it “Lysolgate.” Here's a great primer in how not to write a headline.

But wait: what about “Labradoodle-gate?” I assume that’s the name they’ll give to the non-scandal arising from Thursday another false claim that Brian Harrison, whom Trump appointed as chief of staff at the Department of Health and Human Services, is heading up HHS’s coronavirus response and he's just a “labradoodle breeder” from Dallas. No, he’s not handling HHS' virus response. Dog breeding is his family business, but as the Dallas Morning News, hardly a Trump-supporting paper, reports, he’s a serious public servant who’s “served three Administrations in high level posts at HHS, the White House and the Pentagon.”

The media’s idiotic overreactions to everything Trump says and does, and their apparent inability to do even the most basic research before reporting a story, have become so wearying that they’re no longer even worth correcting, scolding or even talking about. Adults are dealing with real problems now. Were it in my power, I would send the entire lot of these hyperactive brats to their rooms without supper until they learned how to behave themselves.

In the meantime, I got to thinking what the history books might be like if we’d had this same type of media with the same level of frenzied partisan hatred and immature stupidity covering previous Presidents…

FDR: “We have nothing to fear but fear itself!”

MSNBC: “FDR now claims that we should actually fear ‘fear’ itself! Is he attempting to gin up fear purely for political advantage? Or has he become so disconnected from reality, he believes that an abstract concept is personally threatening him? We’ll have a panel of psychiatrists who’ve never met him but hate him nonetheless explain why we might have to invoke the 25th Amendment and remove him from office over his latest insane comment.”

Teddy Roosevelt: “Speak softly and carry a big stick.”

CNN: “Roosevelt has just openly endorsed clubbing other world leaders with a big stick! We’ll have a panel of experts explain why this demonstrates that he is a childish, unhinged, crazy, war-like authoritarian who needs to be removed from office immediately.”

Abraham Lincoln: “Four-score and seven years ago…”

Harrisburg Patriot & Union newspaper: “We pass over the silly remarks of the President. For the credit of the nation, we are willing that the veil of oblivion shall be dropped over them and that they shall be no more repeated or thought of.”

Actually, that last quote was what a reporter actually wrote about Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, now considered one of the greatest speeches in US history. In his time, Lincoln was also called dishonest, an “unshapely man,” a yahoo, a barbarian, a gorilla and an idiot.

At least the Harrisburg newspaper finally retracted its pan of the Gettysburg Address on its 150th anniversary. Wonder how long it will take the media to admit that, in fact, Trump was not an idiot, but quite a few of the people covering him were.

Mike Huckabee

Here is Friday’s White House press briefing on the COVID-19 (Chinese) coronavirus.

It was a short, but very news-packed briefing. The major points: we have now topped 5 million tests, numbers of new infections and deaths are trending downward, states are getting ready to reopen for business, President Trump signed the bill adding new funding to aid small businesses, and the FDA has approved an at-home test for the virus that lets people swab themselves and send it to a lab for testing. Also, Trump didn’t take questions because the media absolutely beclowned themselves after the previous briefing. More on that later. I can’t consider their hysterical antics to be “news” anymore.

Also, in case you missed it, Friday night, I filled in for Sean Hannity hosting his Fox News TV show, to take a look at the coronavirus and how both the disease and the reactions to it are damaging America. You can watch the full episode here:

We talked about the way that Democrats are trying to extort Republicans into paying for the bad policies of blue state governments as part of the emergency relief bills. They’ve long dreamed of sticking American taxpayers with the cost of covering their unsustainable public worker pensions, entitlement programs and green energy schemes, and now they’re claiming that if we tell them to declare bankruptcy instead of bailing them out, it’s tantamount to wanting the people of those states to die. Take a look at the New York Congress member at around the 3:30 mark, accusing Mitch McConnell of telling first responders to “drop dead,” and tell me he doesn’t remind you of this.

If you watched the sitcom “Friends,” you’ll recognize the Democrats' "bail out blue states" tactic. Remember when Ross’s dad offered to help pay for his wedding, and his fiancee’s dad tried to stick him with the bill for everything from landscaping his lawn to building a new wine cellar? Well, that guy is the Democrats’ and Ross’s dad is all of us taxpayers.

As liberal Rep. James Clyburn openly admitted, the Democrats see this crisis as an historic opportunity to impose their agenda of transforming America. They seem to think that to fight a virus, we need to bail out blue states, raise the minimum wage, pass the Green New Deal, institute voting by mail with no ID, bar people from going to church and declare abortions to be an essential medical procedure. As they often say at the Instapundit site, It’s amazing how the answer to every crisis is to do everything they’ve always wanted to do.

Back in Reality Land, here’s what is actually in the bill that Trump signed.

Mike Huckabee

From Lawrence:

Regarding the second-guessing about whether we should have shut down the whole country that will come (already has in some cases), I learned in Vietnam, and again in Iraq, second-guessing is second nature to some folks. In both wars, we would provide intelligence to commanders that an attack was planned for a certain base and a certain time period. The commanders would then undertake very visible upgrades to their defense, readily observed by the enemy, and if an attack did not come, they would deride the intelligence unit instead of saying that they had deterred the attack by their defensive upgrade efforts. I guarantee, at some point Democrats will say the shut-down was unnecessary, and Trump did it for his own self-gain, and the damage to the economy was Trump's fault.

From the Gov:

Anything they can twist to make the President's choices seem at fault, you know they will. They would never have given him credit for the fabulous economy we had pre-virus, but they’ll hang this on him for sure. It won't even have to make sense. Thanks, Lawrence, for being such an astute observer of human nature and writing in.

Mike Huckabee

One relative upside of the pandemic shutdown is that it has made a lot of people who like to wrap themselves in the mantle of “compassionate liberals” show their true colors. For instance, we’ve seen some truly wretched comments, ranging from anonymous Twitter trolls wishing death on the President and his supporters to clueless, bubble-dwelling celebrities and politicians mocking people who are desperate to get back to work so they don’t lose their homes and businesses and so they can pay their bills and feed their families.

We’ve also seen in stark terms the ugly selfishness of the left's “never let a good crisis go to waste” mentality, as Nancy Pelosi held up desperately-needed aid to small businesses to try to extort her “progressive” wish list into the bill. She’s now boasting that if we need another bill to keep the economy alive, she will force a national vote-by-mail law into it, creating a tsunami of vote fraud that will keep Democrats in power forever.

Another way that opportunistic leftists have tried to use this crisis to impose their agenda on America was by making it more lucrative to stay unemployed than to go back to work. They insisted that this wouldn’t incentivize unemployment. But it already is…

Some analysts say the lucrative unemployment benefits are a stealth way of forcing small businesses to raise wages without having to pass a new national minimum wage law. If so, then it’s a stealth way to put small businesses out of business nationwide, just as they have in cities and states that raised the minimum wage above market rates. Small businesses are drowning, and the Democrats want to throw them an anvil.

To sum up, Americans have gotten a good, hard look at what life under “Democratic socialism” and the Green New Deal would look like, as some prominent leftist politicians have celebrated the blows to the fossil fuel industry, all the lost jobs in industries they don’t like, and the expansion of dependence and government power, with people being ordered to stay inside, not drive, live off handouts, etc. If you like the current despair, impoverishment, lack of freedom and official disregard for constitutional rights, elect more AOCs and they’ll make it permanent.

Mike Huckabee

In Harris County, Texas (Houston), Democrat Judge Lina Hidalgo ordered the county’s 4.7 million residents to wear face masks in public at all times with very limited exceptions, or face a fine of up to $1,000, a ruling that Houston’s Democratic mayor agreed with. But Republicans, many residents and the Houston Police Officers Union definitely did not agree. Critics say that encouraging and urging mask use is fine, threatening to arrest and fine people for not doing it crosses the line into unconstitutional tyranny.

In fact, the police union flatly refused to enforce it, saying that while they believe everyone should be wearing a mask in public, “we draw the line at the draconian measures Hidalgo has decided to engage in. Our officers work every single day to bridge the gap with our community and earn their trust, we will not stand idly by and allow Hidalgo to tear that bridge down, with her horrific leadership and echo chamber decision making.”

As the story above details, other police and sheriff’s departments around the country are also refusing to enforce draconian, contradictory (landscapers are allowed to work outside, building contractors aren’t, etc.) and most of all, unconstitutional edicts by judges. You know you’ve overreached your powers when even the cops are telling you to put your legal threats where the sun doesn’t shine.

To show how seriously locals are taking Judge Hidalgo’s commands, a hilarious typo in a graphic from KPRC-TV went viral nationally. It read that the Judge ordered everyone over the age of 10 to cover their faces with either masks, scarfs or “bananas.

As a public service, and since so many judges are now issuing rulings that are so bananas they sound like a Monty Python sketch, here’s what to do if you are attacked by a masked person with a banana.

Mike Huckabee

Here are a couple of stories from this week that should make readers question the conventional wisdom that we hear every day from the media.

First, I don’t usually link to Slate.com because it’s slanted so much to the left, so you know it must be an exceptional piece if I do. Henry Grabar took a close look at the coronavirus stats for New York City and found that all the reasons we’ve heard for why it was so bad there don’t hold up to scrutiny. For instance, population density and levels of subway ridership had no correlation to neighborhood infection rates. San Francisco has more restaurants per capita and far fewer virus cases. Other cities are just as crowded and rely just as much on mass transit but weren’t hit as hard, while some smaller, less crowded towns were hit just as hard. His conclusion: New York’s leaders simply waited too long to impose social distancing guidelines. Two weeks earlier might have reduced the death rate by 80 percent.

And as we listen to the arguments over when to reopen the economy, with some people chomping at the bit to get back to work and others arguing that we must all stay behind closed doors for at least 18 months, here’s a bucket of cold reality.

It’s a Twitter thread reminding us that the shutdown and social distancing were never meant to prevent us all from ever getting sick. It was to flatten the curve of infections, so the medical system wouldn’t be overwhelmed with cases before we were prepared for them. No matter when we emerge from our cocoons, and no matter who is President, there is no way to prevent a virus from spreading. The common cold is a virus, and we’ve been trying to get rid of it for centuries with no success.

The fact is that no matter when we restart the economy or how careful we are, the virus is going to spread. Some people will get it and never get sick, some will have milder cases, some will get very sick and (hopefully) we’ll be better prepared to help them, and tragically, some will die. All this self-quarantining was never going to reduce the number of cases in the long run, it was just meant to slow down the spread to make it easier to deal with. And it was also never meant to be an excuse for certain politicians to impose their crazy agendas or trample people’s Constitutional rights.

Nor was it meant to be an excuse for social media giants like Facebook to start acting like the Russian secret police and declaring people who protest the government to be “spreading misinformation” and silencing them.

This canard is based on a rationale similar to the slander of the Tea Party movement, that it wasn’t an “organic” public uprising, but just some astroturfed theater created by rightwing manipulators. I saw the Tea Party movement up close, and even wrote a book (“God, Guns, Grits and Gravy”) about the growing anger and frustration in “flyover country” at out-of-touch political and media elites. That was quite genuine, as the election of Donald Trump proved. And the fury over politicians who are trying to use the current health crisis to impose irrational and draconian restrictions on people’s rights is also quite genuine. (Here's the latest, and brace yourself for this one).

Note to Mark Zuckerberg: “Misinformation” doesn’t mean “states an opinion leftists don’t want to hear.” As a reminder, there are other social media outlets aside from the big names that do not censor political speech. My Twitter tweets are echoed on one, Parler.com. You should check it out, you might be needing it soon.

The New York Post tried to link a protest of the lockdown to a surge in coronavirus deaths, when the surge was reported on the same day the protest took place. That’s one fast virus!

A number of media outlets ran photos allegedly showing crowds on a newly-reopened beach in Jacksonville, Florida, violating social distancing guidelines. But it turned out that the photos looked like crowds from some angles, but from others, you could tell they were actually small groups, likely families who quarantine together, staying at least six feet away from other people. It’s called “perspective,” which a lot of people obviously don’t have.

Finally, New York Times writer Ginia Bellafante tried to blame the death of a New York man on Fox News because he allegedly contracted the virus on a cruise he took after watching Sean Hannity downplay the seriousness of the disease. Problem: the Hannity quote she cites was from March 9th, long after the man left on the cruise. However, before he left on the cruise, back on February 27th, he might have seen this tweet from another media figure: “I fundamentally don’t understand the panic. Virus is not deadly in vast majority of cases.” That was a quote from…take a wild guess?...New York Times reporter Ginia Bellafante.

Mike Huckabee

The “Party of Tolerance” is giving African-Americans a good look at how savagely intolerant they really are toward anyone who expresses a non-approved thought. If the Republican Party ever treated its black members with such harsh disrespect, the charges of racism would be headline news. And there are two glaring examples that have arrived simultaneously.

First came the story of Democratic Michigan State Rep. Karen Whitsett, who thought she was going to die of COVID-19 until she received the treatment mentioned by President Trump. She quickly recovered and publicly thanked him, saying the drug saved her life. For that, a group called the 13th Congressional District Democratic Party Organization announced that it will meet tomorrow to consider censuring Whitsett.

Now, think for just a moment of all the outrageous things various Democrats (cough-Adam Schiff!-cough!) have done for which they were never censured – but they want to censure her for saying something positive about Trump for recommending a drug that she believed saved her life.

Trump drew attention to that “disgraceful” move and offered a great suggestion to Whitsett: “Should join the Republican Party!”

Meanwhile, Georgia State Rep. Vernon Jones has had a change of heart. The black Democrat set off a firestorm by saying he endorsed Trump’s reelection because of his record on job creation and supporting black colleges and prison sentence reform. He and his family were hit with so many hateful, threatening messages that he announced he would step down. But he now says that after receiving a wave of support, he’s changed his mind and will remain in office. Having already compared the Party to a plantation, Jones declared, “I will not allow the Democrats to bully me into submission. I will not let them win. I will NOT resign.”

Good for him! That’s the “punch back twice as hard” philosophy that Obama originated, but that Democrats never imagined would be used against them until Trump came along.

Mike Huckabee

The most important MUST-READ article of the day is by Dr. Scott W. Atlas, former chief of neuroradiology at Stanford University Medical Center. It’s titled, “The Data is In; Stop the Panic and End the Total Isolation.”

Dr. Atlas lists five facts that all point to the need to end the economic lockdown while continuing to proceed with reasonable caution. These facts, which he explains in much more detail, are:

The overwhelming majority of people have little risk of dying from COVID-19 (those over 75 are at greatest risk; the current death rate for those 18 and under is zero)…Protecting older, high-risk people eliminates hospital overcrowding…Our total isolation policy is prolonging the problem by preventing the development of “herd immunity”…People are dying because hypothetical projections of the need for care for COVID-19 patients caused states to cancel other medical procedures, from cancer screenings and biopsies to chemotherapy and brain surgeries…We now have a clearly-defined at-risk population that can be protected with targeted measures, so we don’t have to shut down the entire country.

This isn’t to say that we can immediately go back to life as it was two months ago. We’ll still need to follow reasonable precautions. Even if you’re not at greatest risk, why take unnecessary chances? But we now know a lot more about how dangerous the disease is, and about how damaging the response has been. We now have to consider whether the cure is on the verge of becoming worse than the disease.

Mike Huckabee

LATEST COVID-19 NEWS

Here is our link to the most recent, complete White House press briefing on the COVID-19 (Chinese) coronavirus. On Wednesday, President Trump was joined by CDC Director Robert Redfield…

Trump asked Redfield to speak and correct what he called “fake news,” headlines suggesting that Redfield said there could be an explosion of new cases in the fall. Redfield said that he just meant it would be more complicated to deal with a second wave in the fall because it would hit simultaneously with flu season, so there would be two viruses circulating at the same time. He said that doesn’t mean COVID-19 would be worse or impossible to handle, just difficult. But he’s confident that our mitigation strategies can keep it in containment mode and it will not overwhelm the medical system.

Trump also announced “Operation America Strong,” which he said was suggested by military officials. The Thunderbirds and Blue Angels will do flyover air shows in major cities, as tributes to the heroism of frontline health care workers who, like soldiers, have run toward the danger.

GO AHEAD, MAKE MY DAY

Fresh off of deleting her tweet about how great it is to have all those people unemployed and forced into their homes while the economy languishes and the fossil fuel industry craters (“How are you enjoying your 30-day free trial of socialism?”), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez once again inadvertently told us what “Democratic socialists” really believe. She said that even after the virus lockdown ends, people should “just say no” to going back to work. She wants Americans to say, “We’re not going back to working 70-hour weeks just so that we could put food on the table and not even feel any sort of semblance of security in our lives.”

Get the impression that she doesn’t grasp the importance of “putting food on the table”? Or that not everyone has a job that pays over $170,000 a year for doing nothing? But to be fair, if she wants to stage a boycott and not return to Congress, she has my blessing.

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IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:  Evening Edition - April 22

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TRUMP DISAGREES WITH GEORGIA GOVERNOR

In one surprising twist, Trump undercut the claim that he’s pushing too hard to reopen America by saying he disagrees strongly with Republican Gov. Brian Kemp’s plan to reopen some Georgia businesses. Trump said the time isn’t right yet under the guidelines, but that “at the same time, he must do what is right.” Boy, he really doesn’t have this “Hitler-like authoritarian dictator” thing down very well, does he?

In addition to Georgia, Oklahoma, Texas, Tennessee, South Carolina and Colorado have announced plans to begin reopening. More details about each state’s plans are here.

PROBLEMS WITH THE MEDIA'S FAVORITE STUDY

Yesterday, I wrote about a study of coronavirus patients at VA hospitals that found that the drug hydroxchloroquine did not help and was even associated with a higher death rate. As I expected, the mainstream media gave massive play to this study, since it gave them a chance to make President Trump look wrong (and even responsible for MORE DEATHS!!) for suggesting patients try it.

I saw none of these breathless accounts point out what I did: that the footnotes to the study made it clear that the drug was given to severely ill patients who were more likely to die anyway. Since then, other problems with the study have come up that will probably be ignored, since they don’t advance the “Trump is a dumb liar who wants people to DIE!” narrative.

Laura Ingraham has more…

…As does Matt Margolis at PJ Media, who lists five serious problems with the study…

These are the same people who demand rigorous standards of proof from any study that shows the benefits of hydroxychoroquine. Is it too much to expect them to demand the same standards from studies that purport to refute those benefits?

Again, I’m not a doctor and I’m not qualified to recommend any particular treatment. But I am capable of recognizing media malpractice when I see it. Discouraging sick people from trying a promising treatment just because if it works, it might make your political opponent look better, is journalistic quackery at its worst.

MOVING FAST

A potential COVID-19 vaccine is already entering the first phase of human trials. Developing a vaccine can take years to decades, but there are ways to speed testing and invoke emergency use authorizations to get it to high-risk areas faster. There’s much more info at this link.

"SARS 2"

Here’s yet another way in which the World Health Organization ran defense for China: It turns out that in the early days of the coronavirus, it was being referred to as “Sars 2.” That was the devastating disease that came out of China in 2003 and has escaped from a Beijing biolab four times since. The WHO decided that, “From a risk communications perspective, using the name SARS can have unintended consequences in terms of creating unnecessary fear for some populations…” In other words, bad PR for China. So they called it COVID-19 instead.

I can certainly see their point. We wouldn’t want to frighten and confuse anyone by calling it Sars 2. So I’ll continue calling it by a clear and accurate name: either the “COVID-19 (Chinese) virus,” or, most clear and accurate of all, “the Wuhan virus.”

TRUE COLORS

During an Arbor Day/Earth Day tree-planting ceremony at the White House Wednesday, President Trump announced that over the next few weeks, national parks will begin reopening. Maybe this will help discourage the harassment and arrests of people who dare to walk through public parks. Some local officials seem to believe that the coronavirus can be spread over a hundred yards of open territory, or maybe that it came from Smokey the Bear, not Chinese bats.

Meanwhile, as Trump was planting a tree, renowned eco-warrior Al Gore and Joe Biden provided the fertilizer. In a dual video appearance for Earth Day, Gore endorsed Biden for President and Joe responded with some organic word salad that must’ve had Al immediately regretting his endorsement.

I’m sure Gore would have preferred to take a private jet and a fleet of SUVs to some big gathering of fellow environmentalists at a five-star resort to tell the rest of us to live in caves, which is how celebrity environmentalists normally mark Earth Day. But this year, he was forced to use Skype, something I’ve been suggesting to them for years with no response.

Meanwhile, CBS and other media outlets showed their true colors on Earth Day by celebrating how wonderful it is that the air is cleaner, what with all those people being locked in their homes, forced to be wards of the government and having their freedom to travel taken away. They showed their love of the Earth by celebrating how great it would be if there were no people on it.

This isn’t the first time I’ve heard someone in the media declare, “I love mankind, it’s people I can’t stand!” But that used to just be Linus in the “Peanuts” comic strip, not the environmental reporters.

NEW KURT SCHLICHTER 

As always, Kurt Schlichter dares to say what the mainstream media never will...but we’re all thinking it.

BRING BACK DRIVE-IN MOVIES

John Nolte serves up a nostalgic tribute to drive-in movies, and urges Hollywood to counter the coronavirus by bringing back drive-ins, good movies and hot dogs heated on engine blocks.

DAILY BIBLE VERSE

O Lord, thou art my God;

I will exalt thee, I will praise thy name;

for thou hast done wonderful things;

thy counsels of old

are faithfulness and truth.

Isaiah 25:1

Mike Huckabee

Rubio Warns of Subpoenas for Companies Abusing PPP

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE: Just stop with the class warfare rhetoric on "CARES" Act and PPP

Laura Ainsworth, Staff Writer

Every now and then, when new developments pointed to Michelle Obama being on the ticket for 2020, I’ve written to sound the alarm once more. The last time was March 6, which seems like a thousand years ago. At that time, I said that she would be installed, “either as a last-minute substitute for him [Biden] or as #2 on the ticket, as he quietly fades away.” Since then, we’ve entered a whole new era, with a pandemic that has devoured all our attention, caused us to do the unthinkable and shut down the entire economy, and also completely changed the process of running for President (and all elective offices) this time around.

RELATED READING:  Ainsworth: Michelle O follow-up; answers to readers

At least a couple of years ago, I was sure Michelle Obama would somehow end up on the Democrat ticket --- for President. It was in February of 2019 that I felt it was necessary to start putting out the warning that she would be the nominee, that this was a foregone conclusion no matter what kind of make-believe show the Democrats put on. I won’t go back over the myriad reasons this seemed inevitable, but I will tell you why it seems like even more of a given today.

First with the obvious: In the past few months, even though the 77-year-old Biden stumbled his way to the top spot on the ticket, his mental decline has been even more marked. True, the coronavirus has made it easier for the Democrat Party to keep this confused, rambling, apparently senile man under wraps, as there will be no personal appearances, no town halls, apparently not even a convention. I doubt most Democrats seriously think that if he wins, decisions of any consequence will actually be made by him. But they’ll vote for him anyway, because 1) they hate Trump with the fire of a thousand suns, and 2) he’ll be bringing back the Democrat power structure, which is this time even farther to the left.

The real attention now is going to be on the choice for VP, who one way or another will have the real power if they win.

In January, an Iowa man asked Biden if he might consider former President Obama for the Supreme Court. “Yeah, I would, but I don’t think he’d do it,” Biden answered. “He’d be a great Supreme Court justice.” The man then asked, “The question is, which Obama?” The room predictably exploded with applause and various other warm expressions of approval.

"Well, I sure would like Michelle to be the Vice President,” Biden said with a laugh. “They’re both incredibly qualified people, I mean, and they’re such decent, honorable people.”

The buzz started immediately, with the INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS TIMES writing that “Michelle Obama recently sparked rumors that she could become the next Vice President of the United States.”

Just a week ago, a report in the WASHINGTON EXAMINER said, “Former first lady Michelle Obama is back in play big-time as a favorite to be Joe Biden’s running mate.” It went on to say that according to OddsChecker.com, gambling markets have seen a surge for Obama.

"Michelle Obama has been the most backed person in the market, accounting for almost 32 percent of all bets,” the firm reports. (On the other hand, I don’t know how much weight should be given to that, as another name “surging” a bit recently has been the extremely frightening and power-mad Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.)

On March 8, John Fund at NATIONAL REVIEW broke down the reasons she might or might not do it. “Stranger things have happened in politics,” he said, “and in the age of Trump, they often do.” He pointed out some of the inducements: She wouldn’t have to endure the marathon campaign for President (and since he wrote that, it’s become clear there won’t be much campaigning at all). She reportedly doesn’t like mingling, but there will be no hand-shaking now; she could just “appear” at events before the adoring crowds. (I would add it looks now as if there will be no events and no crowds.) She wouldn’t have to do fundraising. Malia and Sasha are college-age now, and the media would continue to treat them with deference.

RELATED READING: Ainsworth: With Biden winning, watch what Michelle O does now

There’s also the inducement of Biden appointing Barack Obama to the U.S. Supreme Court. Yes, we have precedent for this: William Howard Taft in the 1920s.

Cut to yesterday (Tuesday), when CNN.com reported that in an interview with Pittsburgh’s Jon Delano, Biden said of Michelle, “I’d take her in a heartbeat. She’s brilliant. She knows the way around. She is a really fine woman. The Obamas are great friends.”

The article goes on to say there’s no one who could help Biden’s ticket more than Michelle O. “Period.” But it expresses major doubt as to whether she would agree, citing what she has said previously about running for office, which I will say means exactly nothing. As the article muses, “...it’s impossible to totally rule out the possibility of Michelle Obama agreeing to be the Vice Presidential nominee. Why? Because if Biden asked her and told her that if she said ‘yes’ they would have a greatly increased chance of ending Trump’s time as President, it is theoretically possible that she might be swayed by that argument.”

CNN also cites her criticism of Trump in a 2019 interview with Gayle King: “...what saddens me is what it’s doing to the country as a whole. What we have to be really conscientious of is what kind of country we’ve leaving for our children and grandchildren.” That, of course, would be the media-reinforced theme of her candidacy:  bringing the nation together after this time of great conflict (which, of course, is all because of Trump, not the irrational hatred the left has for him).

Here’s another story from yesterday, at Yahoo News, in which we learn from Obama “family adviser” Valerie Jarrett that Michelle “really kind of transcends politics. “Obviously, she supports Vice President Biden bur doesn’t see herself as a political figure.” That’s what Jarrett told POLITICO, but don’t be fooled. It is not a denial.

The POLITICO article is what sparked me to write on this topic again.

About the only other real possibility was New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, but my Magic 8 Ball says IT IS NOT TO BE. Cuomo did a radio interview with Sean Hannity a few days ago in which Sean really put him on the spot about running. The way that conversation went, I actually believed Cuomo (yes, seriously) when he said he is absolutely not leaving New York. Besides, Biden has committed to picking a woman, preferably a black woman, and I’ll bet Cuomo already knows Michelle is it. While we’ve been talking about infection rates and “flattening the curve,” they’ve been moving the chess pieces around.

Democrats know that putting Michelle on the ticket and winning with that is the one way to keep the Obama legacy from being entirely dismantled during a second Trump term. She could end up sliding neatly into the Oval Office without even having to campaign. If anything poses more long-term danger to America than the damn coronavirus does, this just might be it.

Mike Huckabee

Cheers to the editor-in-chief of BILD, Germany’s largest newspaper, who wrote this in an open letter to Chinese President Xi:

"In your country, people are whispering about you. Your power is crumbling. You have created an inscrutable, non-transparent China. Before Corona, China was known as a surveillance state. Now, China is known as a surveillance state that infected the world with a deadly disease. That is your political legacy.”

This comes as China is doubling down on its original fairytale that COVID-19 came from the local “wet market” and NOT from the biolab in Wuhan. The head of that lab has even called out Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, saying his accusations are “based on speculation,” though I will “speculate” that he is being forced by Dear Leader to say this to those reporters in State media who are allowed to talk to him. With what we have learned, there is no one with the intelligence of a Chinese horseshoe bat who buys the official story. But when Communists lie, they don’t care if what they say is even feasible; they just expect you to choke it down.

The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation has put together a remarkable paper explaining what was done, by whom, and when, to enable the spread of this virus. It is so spectacular, it needs little elaboration. After the article, there’s a painstakingly assembled timeline, starting in MID-NOVEMBER OF 2019 (though I think it might possibly turn out the virus was circulating even before then), with three columns showing what 1) the People’s Republic of China/Chinese Communist Party was saying and 2) the World Health Organization was reporting while 3) reality intruded. I cannot tell you how illuminating this is.

To quote: “The denial of information, outright fabrications, and disregard for human life --- both within and outside of China’s borders --- is so shocking and pervasive that the contracting of this virus by millions worldwide and the resultant death toll was not only foreseeable but entirely avoidable.” It calls for the People’s Republic of China to be held accountable “through demands for economic reparations and other and other sanctions pertaining to human rights.”

The condemnation it lays on the World Health Organization is equally great. “The WHO,” it says, “...has served as a ‘useful idiot’ that repeats CCP propaganda without question.” I would add that our own leftist media, blinded by their hatred of President Trump, have had a major role in that as well and deserve to be described the same way.

We now know that the People’s Republic of China had confirmed human-to-human transmission by late December yet ordered the evidence destroyed. Through the middle of January, they were saying the virus was containable, when other actions (such as the effort to stockpile medical supplies from American and Europe) show otherwise. And that was just the beginning of the deception by the PRC and WHO. Most stunningly, the PRC allowed 5 million people to leave the province of Wuhan –- not to go to other parts of China, but to go to other countries. Much of this we have covered, but when you see it all together like this, it’s almost beyond belief. The evil just leaps from the page.

This paper and the timeline that follows are absolute must-reads. But, one word of caution: this information, laid out before you as it is, will raise your blood pressure to the sky, and as we’ve been told by the doctors and epidemiologists, high blood pressure is a risk factor for this virus. So take breaks as appropriate, and walk outside, taking deep breaths.

Be sure also to read about the organization that put this together, the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. I have to give President Bill Clinton credit for signing the bill that created it, passed unanimously by Congress on December 17, 1993. Perhaps they didn’t anticipate how desperately we’d need a group like this less than thirty years later. But we have a few people in Congress NOW who would never vote to create an organization like this if a similar bill came up today. That’s because they themselves are communists who would exercise total government control if they could, and they lie with the ease of the CCP.

"Those witnesses with a living memory of 20th Century communism are passing away,” the Foundation says on their website. “And an entire generation of Americans is open to collectivist ideas because they don’t know the truth...Our mission is to educate this generation and future generations about the ideology, history and legacy of communism.”

Mike Huckabee

Saturday, a federal judge in Kansas blocked Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s executive order restricting church services in the name of stopping the coronavirus. As the state attorney general, who opposed Kelly’s order, put it, the government can tell churches that they shouldn’t hold services during this time, but it doesn’t have the power to ban them. This is the latest of several cases across America where judges have had to remind liberal officials that they don’t have the power to rescind the First Amendment.

While it is certainly prudent for churches to protect their members by holding online services or drive-in services (although even those have been targeted for no good reason), the judge in this case pointed out that the Governor’s ban on large public gatherings includes 26 secular exceptions, including bars, libraries and shopping malls. Her order seems to specifically, and unconstitutionally, target religion. For instance, the judge noted that a large group could meet in an office building to conduct a real estate deal, but not to hold a Bible study.

Gov. Kelly vowed to fight the judge’s order, saying, “This is not about religion. This is about a public health crisis.” I’d say it’s about more than that. It’s about a public health crisis and about how some public officials will use a crisis to advance a political agenda. We all want to stamp out the coronavirus, but let’s make sure that in the process, we don’t succumb to an even worse virus that kills off our Constitutional rights.

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

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).

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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.

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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

I’ve been concerned enough about the Coronavirus that I haven’t left my home in almost 6 weeks and have taken extreme precautions to protect my family and myself. It wasn’t irrational fear about getting sick, but respect for the guidelines so we can get this over with. But there is something that scares me worse than a virus and in fact, scares me more than death itself. I’ve made arrangements both for my physical death and my eternal life once that happens. But I’m genuinely afraid that we are losing our civil liberties and our fundamental freedoms as they are ripped from our lives. Shockingly, many American are actually cheering about it. To quote Jesus, “Father, Forgive them-they know NOT what they do!”

In KY, it took a smart and “rule-of-law” federal judge on Saturday afternoon before Easter Sunday to declare that the government couldn’t forbid a Louisville church from offering a drive-in service to its members. The federal judge noted that there was irony in that people were free to visit a liquor store drive-through couldn’t attend a drive-in church service and that he doubted that consumption of alcohol was somehow considered more “essential” than attending church on Easter Sunday.

In Greenville, MS the mayor sent cops to a church to forbid the people from even sitting in their own cars in the church parking lot for a drive-in service and gave $500 tickets to each person sitting in his or her own car. The only violators of safe social distancing were the cops, who went right up to car windows and barked orders and handed tickets to startled worshippers. Thank God, Attorney General Bill Barr has decided to review clear violations of the 1st Amendment in cases like this.

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In Michigan, the Governor moved from nanny to tyrant by forbidding people to buy seeds to plant gardens, even though the seeds were on shelves in stores that were open! That resulted in hundreds of people driving around the State Capitol, honking their horns in protest. The Governor stubbornly asserted that she was right. So people planting their own gardens and eating produce they grow is somehow more unhealthy than going to a supermarket and handling produce that may have been touched by dozens of strangers?

In addition, a father was arrested and handcuffed for playing catch with his own daughter in a completely deserted public park. People have been threatened with arrest for setting foot in their own backyards. The New Jersey Governor, when asked about what gave him the right to suspend the Bill of Rights, said, “that’s above my pay grade…we weren’t thinking about the Bill of Rights when we did this.” Obviously not! Well we all need to be thinking about it!

I don’t want any of us to get sick or die from a virus that probably came not from bat-soup, but a Chinese bio-lab. But if we freely surrender our basic civil liberties now, don’t think we will ever get all of them back. I don’t trust government. I was in government long enough to know that the only thing between freedom and tyranny is a vigilant citizen who remembers that government works for us—not the other way around.

I fully understand the Biblical mandate to obey civil authorities, but I also understand that when civil authorities demand of me to do something immoral or against the law or Constitution, I have not merely a right, but a responsibility to resist and to willingly suffer the consequences. Thank God for Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and for that matter the entirety of our Founding Fathers who revolted against racism, Nazism, and tyranny but willingly suffered for doing so because they valued liberty and the law more than life itself.

It’s fine to be afraid of the virus. It’s wise to take precautions. But be afraid of a government that can take your life, your liberty, and these days, even your freedom to worship your Lord.

Mike Huckabee

At a time when the news is full of speculation about what will happen when we take the first “baby steps” towards opening the American economy, an intriguing article appeared about a study on infection rates around the world that our epidemiologists might want to take into account.

Professor Yitzhak Ben Israel of Tel Aviv University did a study of new coronavirus infection rates in the US, UK, Sweden, Israel, Italy, Switzerland, France, Germany and Spain. What he found is is very...well, it’s hard to know what to make of it.

When he compared a quarantined nation such as Israel with a business-pretty-much-as-usual nation such as Sweden, the coronavirus peaked and subsided in exactly the same way. And ALL the graphs looked the same.

"His graphs show that all countries experienced seemingly identical coronavirus infection patterns,” reports Marina Medvin in her piece for TOWNHALL, “with the number of infections peaking in the sixth week and rapidly subsiding by the eighth week.” The Wuhan virus follows its own fixed infection pattern, the professor suggested, that is not dependent on freedom or quarantine. In other words, even if people are having contact with each other, there is a natural decline in the number of infections.

"Expansion begins exponentially but fades quickly after about eight weeks,” he said. He doesn’t know why this happens, but speculates that it’s climate-related or is just the life cycle of the virus. (I would add that if it's climate-related, we would likely have a "second wave" in the fall and winter. But maybe by then we'd have a much better idea of how to treat it.)

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The professor even has a possible explanation for Italy’s staggering 12 percent mortality rate: the health care system there. “The health care system in Italy has its own problems,” he said. “It has nothing to do with coronavirus. In 2017 it also collapsed because of the flu.” And Italy does have high flu mortality rates as well, especially compared with a country such as Germany, which has low coronavirus infections and mortality rates and also low flu rates. (I'm no epidemiologist, but I would add that Italy also has a population that skews very old.)

Although he does recommend moderate social distancing, Prof. Ben Israel says his data from the past 50 days do not support the quarantine or the economic shut-down. He calls the reaction in Israel “mass hysteria,” saying, “I have no other way to describe it...4,500 people die each year from the flu in Israel because of complications, so, close a country because of that? No. I don’t see a reason to do that because of a lower-risk epidemic.”

Of course, he has the benefit of hindsight, as well as the data he’s collected over the past 50 days. At the start of this, there was no way to plot the “life cycle” of the virus on a graph. For all we knew, the infection rate would increase exponentially and then just continue...exponentially. The British computer model used by Dr. Fauci was developed by a researcher named Professor Neil Ferguson, who reportedly has a history of wildly overestimating mortality rates. It was his model that predicted we’d have 2.2 million deaths in the United States and 500,000 deaths in the U.K. Both those figures have been revised very dramatically downward.

Certainly we had to err on the side of caution rather than risk millions of deaths. But this professor's research should be weighed now in any decision on when and how to start living our lives.

Here is his original interview with the Israeli news outlet Mako.

Mike Huckabee

Wednesday, Germany observed a national moment of silence in commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp on April 15, 1945. Unfortunately, due to the coronavirus shutdown, the memorial was closed, survivors who had planned to attend were forced to stay home, and events to mark the date had to be postponed to 2021.

Bergen-Belsen was one of the first camps to be liberated by the Allies. It’s estimated that more than 50,000 people died there. British troops found it riddled with disease and more than 13,000 unburied corpses. They freed about 60,000 prisoners who were in shockingly bad condition, sick and starving and in desperate need of medical care. The victims included Anne Frank and her sister Margot, who are now believed to have died of typhus about two months before the Allied troops arrived.

Even though current circumstances have forced the official commemoration to be postponed, you can learn more about this horrific chapter in history online at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum site. Once you read the story of Bergen-Belson, and the other concentration camps, you’ll understand why we must pass it on to future generations so that it is never forgotten and never allowed to happen again.

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!

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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?

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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 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:

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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.

Mike Huckabee

The investigation into the “Crossfire Hurricane” surveillance of the Trump campaign and presidency has continued unabated while the media are focused on COVID-19. Nothing like a pandemic to distract from a hurricane.

Of course, the mainstream media would be doing their best to ignore these findings, anyway, but at least right now they have a convenient excuse. Still, the leading investigative reporters we’ve counted on --- John Solomon, Jeff Carlson, Lee Smith and others --- are on the case, and there’s plenty to report, especially after the document “dump” last Friday that confirmed what they’ve been saying all along. In this instance, it was in the form of newly unredacted footnotes from Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report on the FBI’s handling of its FISA applications to spy on Trump associates.

These revelations absolutely undercut any claim that the FBI had legitimate reason to investigate the Trump team. That investigation, handled by the top echelon of the FBI rather than out of a field office as would have been the usual procedure, was a sham from the beginning, and they had to know that.

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p>We’ve learned from these footnotes that the FBI had in their file, dating from as far back as 2015, a caution that Steele might be a victim of Russian disinformation because of his contacts with certain Putin-connected oligarchs, and also in 2017 that the “dossier” contained false information planted by Russian intelligence. (BE WARNED: the media will use this to defend FBI officials as simply being duped by Russia. Don’t be fooled; that’s not what this means, as I’ll explain.)

The report by Solomon and others that Bruce Ohr warned the FBI in August 2016 of Steele’s worrisome political bias is now confirmed.

The report that Steele told the FBI in August of 2016 that his work was connected to the Hillary Clinton campaign is now confirmed.

The report that in October, 2016, Steele told Kathleen Kavalec at the State Department that he’d leaked to the media and had an Election Day deadline to get his information out is now confirmed. We also know he told her that he believed Russia was funding its hacking operations through their consulate in Miami. Russia doesn’t have a consulate in Miami.

Yes, Steele was indeed fired for violating his confidentiality agreement and leaking to the media. That happened just over a week before the election, on November 1, 2016.

Steele was also found, in October of 2016, to have been peddling a false story (also being spread by a DNC lawyer and a reporter) about Trump and Putin communicating through computer “pings” at a server for Russia’s Alfa bank.

The report that the FBI put together a spreadsheet with all the claims in the Steele “dossier” and found most to be either inaccurate, unsubstantiated or based on publicly available information: confirmed.

The report that Steele’s sub-source was interviewed in January, 2017, and said much of the information attributed to him was inaccurate or was just rumor or exaggeration: confirmed. They should have already known that nothing coming from Steele was of any value.

The report that the FBI possessed exculpatory evidence on Carter Page that undercut their allegations in the FISA applications: confirmed.

The report that the CIA had alerted the FBI that Page had worked as a friendly U.S. asset, NOT for the Russians, and that an FBI official (criminally) altered a document to hide this: confirmed.

The report that the FBI withheld exculpatory evidence on George Papadopoulos, in the form of a recorded conversation in which Mr. P said neither he nor the Trump campaign were involved with Russian hacking and that it would be “illegal”: confirmed. Information regarding Mr. P was supposedly the reason for opening “Crossfire Hurricane” in the first place.

The report that the FBI concluded in January of 2017 that former national security adviser Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn had not been deceptive in his “ambush” interview and had likely just had a faulty memory: confirmed. (Flynn attorney Sidney Powell must be very happy that this footnote finally saw the light of day.)

This is just a partial list. Solomon and others who have dug so hard and cultivated such great sources over the past few years should be extremely gratified now, seeing that the facts they uncovered are confirmed in Horowitz’ own footnotes. This story can’t be dismissed as “conspiracy theory” any longer.

Here’s John Solomon’s new report, which also contains links throughout to his original reports (vindicated!) and to the pdf of the actual footnotes.

With all of this in Horowitz’ report, it’s hard to fathom how he could have concluded that the opening of “Crossfire Hurricane” met the threshold of evidence (which admittedly is quite low). Other questions are raised as well, such as why, with all the FBI knew about Steele and his “dossier,” then-FBI Director Jim Comey and then-CIA Director John Brennan pushed so hard for it to be included in the 2017 report on Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Daniel Chaitin asks these and other questions in the WASHINGTON EXAMINER.

Finally, back to my “warning,” above: how can we say that the FBI weren’t taken in by the Russians? Because if they were taken in by anyone, it appears to have been John Brennan. Here's a taste of what's coming: in a discussion with Rachel Maddow in August of 2018, Brennan may have inadvertently disclosed how “incidental” collection of information on a U.S. citizen by the CIA was used as a way of targeting individuals --- "reverse targeting," a big no-no --- with the raw surveillance data being fed directly to the FBI. When you have time to explore this in detail, Jeff Carlson has a great piece from the archives of THE EPOCH TIMES. (Thanks to Dan Bongino for digging this up. When it comes to the wrongful investigation of the Trump team, Bongino calls John Brennan “the founder of the feast,” with good reason.)

Mike Huckabee

I have a theory about why so many “experts,” politicians, media people and government bureaucrats are trying to discourage the use of hydroxycloroquine, in combination with azithromycin and zinc, to treat COVID-19. It’s not just that they oppose anything President Trump has expressed approval for, although that’s part of it. Here’s a thought: what if it’s not because this therapy won’t work, but because it WILL?

In other words: if we do have an effective treatment and/or preventative, the pandemic might be over too soon to be used as an excuse to make all the societal changes some want to impose.

This really hit me when I heard Dr. Anthony Fauci say that we wouldn’t necessarily be able to have in-person elections by November of this year. How many Democrats would LOVE to see mail-in voting for the entire country? How conveeeeeeenient. And don’t listen when they say mail-in ballots don’t encourage election fraud. That’s a crock, as you’ll see from the story linked to here.

Those who want power –- during this pandemic and ever after –- are full of ideas for controlling the population. Steve Hilton, host of THE NEXT REVOLUTION on FOX NEWS, calls it “technocratic hubris...a technocrat’s dream and America’s nightmare.” As he reported on Sunday, former head of the Food & Drug Administration Scott Gottlieb is pushing a plan for “contract tracing,” which “can be achieved through strengthened public health case investigation augmented by technology and community-level collaborations.” It’s a very complicated program of mass virus testing (not antibody testing) to (quoting Dr. Fauci) “identify, isolate, contact-trace” everyone who gets the virus. This is preposterous, when an unknown number, into the millions, have already been or will be exposed to the virus, and the test won’t identify those. But Apple and Google are ready to step up and be a part of this monstrous program to track what in the end could be virtually everyone.

Here’s one alternative (in addition to drug therapy): a science-based “Re-open America Safely, But Soon” proposal that gives specifics on how to do just that, starting as soon as May 1. You’ll want to watch the segment on Steve Hilton’s show, linked here, but in short, the steps are as follows:

STEP 1. Get accurate infection data. We still don’t know how widespread and deadly this virus even is. Based on a Stanford University study done in the San Francisco Bay area, the actual number of infections could be much, much higher than official testing results have shown. If that is true, it means the virus is VERY highly contagious but much less deadly than has been assumed. (It might turn out that the actual mortality rate is more like 1 in 1,000.) To get the data, we need representative-sample community antibody sampling –- as opposed to government antibody surveillance –- to tell us what fraction of a given community has been exposed. Importantly, this kind of sampling is much less expensive than just relentlessly testing every last person; they think it can reasonably be done in every community in the country. And it won’t take long.

STEP 2. Get accurate risk data. The suppositions we have on risk factors (age, underlying conditions, etc.) are too vague at present. We don’t need so much focus on people who will get the virus but will be fine, and the vast majority will. Rather, we need to know why some people who are young and seemingly healthy are getting sick and dying anyway, but Hilton reports that, believe it or not, hospitals have not been collecting data on their medical history. The White House should mandate the collection of this information, called “co-morbidity data.”

STEP 3. Use the information from Steps 1 and 2 to quarantine and protect the truly vulnerable. If we can do this, we don’t have to re-open the economy bit by bit or wait until a vaccine comes out (in a year-and-a-half?) The whole country doesn’t need to stay shut down if millions have already been exposed but have never gotten sick or have recovered.

On Sunday, Hilton interviewed three of the people who put this plan together, including Stanford University Professor Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, biophysicist Dr. Andrew Bogan, and JetBlue founder David Neeleman. Dr. Bhattacharya added an important point: that most casualties are happening in hospitals that have been overwhelmed, so the “opening up” may be delayed in areas in which those hospitals are located. (I would point out that starting drug therapy sooner might help with that, too.)

Neeleman noted that the reason we’re shut down is that we haven’t figured out who the people are who are at risk of grave illness and how to protect not everyone, but THOSE people. The idea is to save the economy AND those at risk. “I think we can do both if we do it right,” Neeleman said.

Hilton is hoping that those who like the “Safely, But Soon” idea will TELL THE PRESIDENT and/or your governor. You can follow Hilton on Twitter @SteveHiltonx or @NextRevFNC.

Their overview of the plan didn’t even touch on hydroxychloroquine as a promising treatment or even a preventative. But the “anecdotes” just keep coming; here’s the first-hand account in TOWNHALL from coronavirus patient Charles Vavruska, who ended up with double pneumonia and a dreaded trip to the ER at New York Presbyterian Hospital in Queens, New York. (Queens is pretty much the epicenter of the pandemic.) The bright spot in this is that after being admitted to the hospital, he could be put on hydroxychloroquine and zinc. “The Trump Treatment?” he asked the nurse. “Yes, the Trump Treatment,” she replied.

Nineteen hours after his first dose, he was already feeling better. After three days, his fever and aches were gone, and his energy and appetite were back. He was still on oxygen, but at a low level. (Note: that is not the same as being on a ventilator; fortunately, he got the drugs before needing one of those.) He’s home now and credits “the Trump Treatment” for his recovery.

But he notes with great consternation that Gov. Andrew Cuomo has banned this therapy EXCEPT in hospitals. “Why not treat COVID-positive individuals BEFORE they deteriorate sufficiently to require hospitalization?” he asks. This would prevent more serious illness and relieve overburdened hospitals.

He’s right; Cuomo shouldn’t be “playing doctor,” and his arbitrary restriction on this is ridiculous. Drug companies have donated 100 million doses of HCQ to the federal government, and more are coming. Everyone who has come down with respiratory symptoms from COVID-19 should be able to receive this drug. Just think how many more “anecdotes” we would have from which to collect data. But, no, that might be too easy a solution, and we might be able to get back to normal too quickly for some.

Here’s his story in the NEW YORK POST.

HUCKABEE researcher/writer Laura Ainsworth has more to say, personally, on this issue, in a “from the trenches” installment from her home in the Dallas area. You see, it’s not just at the federal level that some people have a desire to control and are resisting a treatment that might possibly end the shut-down. It happens locally, too. But you can bet that if she gets the virus, she will move heaven and earth to get “The Trump Treatment,” BEFORE having to be admitted to a hospital!

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RELATED READING: Ainsworth: In Dallas, how much "emergency" control is too much?

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Mike Huckabee

There’s big breaking news on the hydroxychloroquine front, which I’m sure will please my reader “Reacherfan.” Here’s what he had to say about vaccines, and then I’ll report the results of a promising new study.

From “Reacherfan”:

You are right on about Fauci. I worked with vaccine researchers in a multinational pharmaceutical and biological company, and researchers have profound tunnel vision. Fauci needs to remember that vaccines, especially killed vaccines, only provide immunity in the 70-80 percent range. Live-attenuated usually goes into the 90's, but neither is 100 percent. You end up relying on herd immunity, which needs around 90-94% to actually work. You can have vaccines, but you better have a treatment, too. because not everyone will tolerate the vaccine, not everyone's immune system will build sufficient antibodies, the life of the antibodies will be unknown, and groups of people will refuse the vaccine for medical or religious reasons. Fauci is fixated, and that is a VERY bad attitude.

From the Gov:

Vaccines have virtually eliminated certain tragic diseases, but when it comes to flu –- well, notice that people still get it; we still have about 60,000 deaths each year from seasonal flu. (To put this in perspective, that’s about what the revised computer models are predicting for COVID-19 this year.) Every fall, we’re told to be sure to get the flu vaccine to provide protection going into winter, but typically the vaccine will provide only "iffy" protection.

Of course, with flu, that’s largely because they can’t be sure the strain going around will be the strain they planned for. In the case of this coronavirus, we know the strain (unless it mutates, which they seem to think is unlikely), but even then, it’s not necessarily a sure thing. We won’t know until they complete their trials. Dr. Fauci and many in media have been talking as if the vaccine were the Holy Grail –- a 100 percent solution to the problem of COVID-19 when at last it is perfected, sometime within the next 12 to 18 months.

So why is there such resistance, even from the Centers for Disease Control, to a drug that can be used RIGHT NOW as opposed to the promise of a future vaccine? There is now a tremendous amount of “anecdotal” evidence that hydroxychloroquine combined with azithromycin (or doxycycline for those for whom “zith” is unsafe) is keeping people out of the hospital and helping them recover quickly. On this, we have breaking news that French President Emmanuel Macron has visited the Mediterranean Institute of Infection in Marseille, France, of renowned epidemiologist Professor Didier Raoult, where he received the extremely positive results of a larger follow-up study of 1,061 COVID-19 patients. In 973 patients, healing from the virus took place in 10 days or less; that’s an efficacy rate of 91 percent. No patients had cardiac complications.

Infectious disease expert Dr. Stephen Smith, appearing on Laura Ingraham's Thursday night show, said the head of the CDC, who has been dismissive, is “a Beltway guy” who “hasn’t seen anybody with COVID.” Dr. Smith has treated 115 COVID-19 patients with HCQ/zith and says “this drug works.” He says this is “not a Democrat thing, it’s not a Republican thing.” (If only.) He is convinced it works. They're working now on the optimum dose, he said, because the French have used a much higher dose than American doctors have. American patients have been getting a total dose of 2,400 milligrams, while the French get 6,000 milligrams. “The drug builds up,” he explained, “so it’s the total dose that matters.”

As Dr. Ramin Oskoui, CEO of Foxhall Cardiology, told Ingraham, “I think that any real solution has to be cheap, effective, safe, and scalable. Vaccines are not going to be any of those things.” He pointed out that it would be lucrative for those trying to invent one, but that we’ll be lucky to get it in 18 months. We’ve tried to make vaccines for coronaviruses for years, he said –- I would add that "the common cold" is a coronavirus about 20 percent of the time –- but that the closest we’ve come was a feline vaccine that caused a lethal response. There was never a vaccine developed for SARS or MERS.

There was no vaccine for Sars or Mers. Will there be one this time?

Rather than focusing on a vaccine, he concluded, “we need to think about herd immunity, we need to think about hydroxychloroquine, continue these studies...and I think it’s also important to start this [drug] earlier in therapy,” not when they’re already headed into the ICU. There’s much more of a benefit with mild-to-moderate disease, he said.

I get the impression that in spite of what Dr. Fauci says, there might not ever be a really effective vaccine for COVID-19, meaning that as long as it’s in the population, some will get it. That’s why we need to focus on effective treatments NOW. There's also emerging evidence that hydroxycloroquine might work as a preventative, just as it does with malaria. Someday, if there are more outbreaks, we may all have to take our hydroxychloroquine pills the way we take our daily vitamin, before we go off to work or school or wherever we want to go. Dismissing safe and possibly lifesaving treatments simply because Trump encourages their use is...I’ve said it before...evil.

It’ll be interesting when people start getting tested for immunity, and we can find out 1) how deeply into the population this virus has spread, and 2) how many people can (with some safeguards, just in case) start back to work. We're flying blind right now. The genetic code of this virus was cracked back in January and put online; some other countries have already been doing testing, but the FDA bureaucracy held up approval on a test for the U.S. One was finally approved last Wednesday, but the company making it reportedly has operations in...you guessed it...China. At the risk of sounding like Joe Biden, come on, guys!

Here’s another thought-provoking letter

From Doris:

It has been reported that these so-called "markets," which all [have] the same disgusting uses of animals of all types, are all over China. Yet, all of these epidemics, [such as] SARS and now the coronavirus, are identified with coming from one location –- Wuhan, and none of the others –- and that is where China has a biological warfare lab. It makes me think that the origin of the Corona Virus is NOT from the market but from the lab. Accidental or deliberate? We may never know. However one of the female lab doctors from that lab who wanted to notify the world about this virus has disappeared…

From the Gov:

Thanks, Doris. We’ve been covering this; it is not “conspiracy theory” to look at the evidence and consider the possibility that the first transmission of this virus to a human being happened not in that market but in a lab where they were researching coronaviruses in bats. (In fact, there are two labs in the area that reportedly study coronaviruses). We can’t rule out biowarfare, but there are other, legitimate reasons to be studying these illnesses; the jury is still out. But the ChiComms go to great lengths to keep their secrets, don’t they? I think someday we’ll have a clear idea of how this happened.

What I like is that you bring up something we’re not really hearing about: that this isn’t the first virus to come from THAT AREA though the “wet markets” are an unfortunate cultural phenomenon that occurs in many parts of China. Why does the contagion keep happening there, and not, say, in Beijing? Sharp observation; if you brought that up in China, you’d likely end up in a prison camp.

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.