Brazil Is Starting to Fear the Reaper

Friends, Brazil, the world headquarters for partying and debauchery, isn't feeling the carnival vibe right now.  That's because the coronavirus appears to be raising death rates all over South America's largest country.  Testing is limited, so it's hard to tell how many Brazilians have the virus (even harder to tell than it is here!), but, if death rates soar, well, you can add two and two together to make four, can't you?  Now, we aren't hearing about the effect of the coronavirus in much of the developing world.  The number of confirmed cases in most Third world countries is tiny...but that doesn't mean many cases aren't going undetected.  Then again, poor countries are used to death, so it might not phase them nearly as much as it does us.  At the end of the day, we need to look at mortality figures when this pandemic has run its course.  We might learn some interesting things.  We might learn that just as many people died from increases in poverty and deferred medical care as they did from the virus.  We might learn that the overall death rate didn't shift that much, because the virus mainly felled people who were likely to die soon regardless.  We might learn that the virus will impact developing countries far more than it impacts us (imagine that!), because of their inability to organize effective countermeasures.  Or...we might learn none of these things, because any of them could turn out to be untrue.  We shall see!

https://www.foxnews.com/world/brazil-spike-coronavirus-cases-hospitals-overloaded

In other world news, Trump is taking on the Swedes, defending America's lockdowns as the right approach to fighting COVID-19.  Well, on this one I have to take issue with our glorious leader.  He's right that the Swedes are seeing higher death rates than neighboring Nordic countries, but he fails to point out that their approach has distinct advantages, and it still hasn't produced death rates as high as Italy, Spain, or Belgium...  It may also soon achieve herd immunity, which could lead to LOWER death rates, when all is said and done.  I can see where Trump is coming from -- he doesn't want to admit that our strategy here in the U.S. could have been wrong -- but frankly it may have been, and we should be adult enough to acknowledge that possibility.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-swedens-lockdown-who-praise

Here's another article on COVID-19 in the prison system, full of crocodile tears for our poor incarcerated maniacs.  The real story ought to be, however, that huge numbers of prisoners have been infected but remarkably few have died!

https://www.foxnews.com/us/los-angeles-prison-coronavirus-outbreak-70-percent-federal-prisoners-test-positive

While most of the country seems to be moving in the direction of freeing the American people from punitive lockdowns, California is taking a step backwards, closing all beaches and state parks.  The reason?  Gov. Newsom doesn't like to see evidence of people having fun, when he's specifically instructed them not to...

https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/04/30/848151290/calif-governor-expected-to-order-closure-of-all-beaches-and-state-parks?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=nprblogscoronavirusliveupdates

And, lastly, you've got to love good, old fashioned lefty hypocrisy.  Check out this clip from Tucker Carlson about President Obama's "essential" golf outing:

https://video.foxnews.com/v/6153119056001#sp=show-clips

Obama's not alone.  Pretty much every liberal is congratulating him or herself for social distancing and mask-wearing these days, and they're usually oblivious to all the ways in which they're NOT complying with the overriding message that we should hunker down and leave our homes only when absolutely necessary.

The Holocaust, Then and Now

Friends, you can't miss this week's Newsmaker Show.  Me and Brian talk over all the pressing issues of the day, including Trump's alleged advice to Americans to drink bleach (as if!), Mitch McConnell and the question of aid to the states, and when and how to restart the economy and normal life.

In addition, historically, Brian and I cover Nixon's odd decision to install a taping system in the Oval Office, the liberation of the concentration camps in 1945 and their legacy as (largely post mortem) justifications for World War II, the death of Mussolini and Hitler's marriage, the dangers of media conglomerations, and the tragic fate of Joan of Arc.  Man, oh man!  Is there any topic we didn't cover?

Tune in today!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1O6jhZZ9bBQ&feature=youtu.be

Be Like Florida, Dummy!

Friends, I highly recommend this article to you.  It's a comparison of the relative success of New York and Florida, and Gov. Cuomo and Gov. DeSantis, in meeting the challenge of the coronavirus.  Oddly enough, the state with the worst record in terms of mortality is held up by the media as the gold standard!  It defies belief.

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/coronavirus-response-florida-new-york-results-compare-william-bennett-seth-leibsohn

The New (Ab)Normal?

Friends, quite a few liberals seem to be psyching themselves up for a permanent virus-related lockdown.  The state of siege, they say, must persist, because, even if cases and deaths decline, well, they could go up again later!  Only when the disease has ceased to exist can we venture out into the wide, wide world. 

Here's an analysis that suggests that the time has come to get back to something resembling normal life.  It's also an analysis that underlines the steep price we are paying -- not just financially, but in lives lost -- because we remain in lockdown and paralyzed by fear.

Take it for what it's worth, but I'm inclined to agree with Dr. Atlas and to think that we would have been better off from the start if we had locked down the most vulnerable and otherwise gotten on with our lives.

https://nypost.com/2020/04/26/science-says-its-time-to-start-easing-the-coronavirus-lockdowns/

A Cure Is Found!

Friends, as you know, I've been recommending the medicinal qualities of a crime spree for months now.  Well, it turns out I was right!  According to a recent study, COVID-19 ripped through an Ohio prison, infecting the vast majority of inmates, but, of those infected, fully 95% had no symptoms!  That's right: no symptoms at all.  What does this prove?  Either that the disease is a whole lot less dangerous and deadly than we've been led to believe -- but CNN and MSNBC assure us that can't be true -- or it proves that becoming a bloodthirsty desperado makes one virtually invulnerable to the disease's worst effects!  Either way, I can't see any downside to inflicting a little mayhem on your inveterate enemies...  It's very cathartic, or so I'm told, AND you'll be sent straight to prison, where apparently the coronavirus can't touch you!  A win-win.  So start polishing that "enemies list" -- you may need it!  Just try not to get shanked in the yard.  Hey, I never said the cure didn't have side effects, did I?

https://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKCN2270RX?

And note the good news coming out of Europe: the return to normalcy is accelerating, even in the hardest hit areas.  But note also that each country is charting its own path to recovery.  The takeaway is that pan-Europeanism/trans-nationalism/globalism really is hanging by a thread these days -- just how we like it!

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/26/italy-spain-coronavirus-lockdown-208260

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52435273

Standing Up To China Could Be The Key To Slapping Down Joe Biden

Friends, the American people seem to be souring on the PRC.  Attitudes to China are almost as bad as attitudes to Putin or the Ayatollah.  For reasons we've discussed in depth, none of this is too surprising.  What might surprise us, though, is the potential for China to be the decisive factor in the 2020 election.  My latest article, soon to appear in American Greatness, is about just that.  Read on, and see if you and I are on the same wavelength:

Could 2020 Be The Year Of The “China Election”?

These days, consumers of the news could easily be forgiven for experiencing “pandemic fatigue”. The body count, the travails of the first responders, the massive disruptions to daily life — these narratives have become not just the lead story, but the only story, both in broadcast and in online media.

The truth, however, much as it may be obscured by our current obsession with all things corona, is that, one day relatively soon, public attention will begin to shift away from the pandemic and towards other important themes. One of these will, of course, be the pitched battle between Republicans and Democrats, between President Trump and adult day care escapee Joe Biden. When that battle is joined, however, it's still unclear on what ground the two sides will fight.

While it may be tempting to imagine that President Trump's reelection hinges on the public's assessment of his pandemic leadership, and on the degree to which the country has recovered from the virus-related recession, I would like to propose another critical theme that could tip the scales: China.

Everyone knows that President Trump places much of the blame for the global pandemic on China, and more specifically on its slow response to the initial outbreak and its failure to share information about the disease with the rest of the world. China strove to project a “business as usual” image to the world, to the great cost of the hundreds of thousands of people who will be killed by COVID-19, even in the most optimistic scenarios. Those hundreds of thousands could easily have become millions, had Western leaders, including President Trump, not acted so decisively to cut off travel to and from China back in January and February. China, meanwhile, has deflected blame, even nurturing bizarre conspiracy theories that describe the virus as an American bioweapon.

In the United States, opinion leaders' receptiveness to the China-is-to-blame narrative has largely tracked with their partisan leanings. Republicans and Trump fans have no hesitation in pointing the finger at China and its allies in the World Health Organization, whereas Democrats and Trump haters have often made excuses for China and vilified Trump as the Contaminant-in-Chief.

At the level of public opinion, however, as opposed to elite opinion, a recent Pew Research Center poll reveals that attitudes to China have grown dramatically more negative across the board. Even rank-and-file Democrats see China as a bad actor in the global tragedy of COVID-19. In short,72 percent of Republicans view China negatively, as do fully 62 percent of Democrats. Since skepticism about the Chinese is one of the few issues on which Republicans and Democrats can find any common ground, we might reasonably ask: could Sinophobia become an important theme in the presidential election?

Arguably, given President Trump's bitter trade war with China, the communist superpower was already fated to be a bone of contention between Trump and his eventual Democratic opponent. Since the Democrats and their media allies frequently criticize Trump's anti-Chinese rhetoric and trade policies, and since Vice-President Biden's controversial connections to China through his wayward son Hunter loom as potential vulnerabilities, there was never any question but that China would be front and center in November. China's role as the origin point of the current murderous pandemic merely raises the stakes, ensuring that China will be one of the top issues on voters' minds.

President Trump's forceful condemnation of China's mishandling of the coronavirus, coupled with the Democrats' reputation as proxies for Chinese interests and defenders of Beijing, give Trump and Republicans a key opportunity. Instead of running in November to vindicate Trump's leadership, which for all too many Americans is damaged goods, they can run against China and by arguing that the Democrats are beholden to the Chinese government and incapable of criticizing it. Democrats will counter, naturally, that Trump is a xenophobe. They say so constantly, and Trump's recent decision to suspend all immigration to the United States provides them with ammunition — not that they are above manufacturing their own.

The truth, though, is that nationalism, and nationally-specific solutions to containing and defeating the COVID-19 pandemic, are the order of the day. Borders are being closed, travel is being restricted, and national governments are charting their own independent courses almost everywhere, even in Europe, where pan-European, transnational cooperation, which was always more rhetorical than actual, is looking more threadbare than ever.

In an age when the key decisions are made by national governments, therefore, based on a frank assessment of national, rather than global, interests, one can argue that Trump's philosophy of “America First” is ideally suited to capitalize politically on, and to embody, the new public mood. When one couples this Trumpian nationalism with a clear and consistent message about China and the dangers it poses to the West — dangers to which the Democrats seem oblivious — Trump may have found an ideal formula to broaden his appeal to independents and even to some Democratic voters.

Just as some Bernie-minded Democrats voted for Trump in 2016 because of his strong stance on trade fairness, some non-GOP China skeptics may well vote for him this year, for similar reasons.

Thus, in 2020, the road to victory for Trump may pass right through China, just as it did before.

Dr. Nicholas L. Waddy is an Associate Professor of History at SUNY Alfred and blogs at: www.waddyisright.com. He appears weekly on the Newsmaker Show on WLEA 1480.

And here it is at American Greatness, as promised:

https://amgreatness.com/2020/04/24/could-2020-be-the-year-of-the-china-election/ 

Great News! Thanks to Liberalism, You're One Step Closer to the Harem You've Always Dreamed About!

Friends, you might recall that, back when the Supreme Court invented a constitutional right to gay marriage in 2015, conservatives warned that the legalization of polygamy or incest might be next.  Liberals scoffed!  Well, the movement to normalize and eventually legalize and recognize "polyamory" is well afoot.  If you ask me, lefties should be careful what they wish for, because what they're likely to get from this insane dethronement of the traditional nuclear family is both social instability and a whole lot more polygyny, which is to say: men with multiple partners and/or wives.  Women, by contrast, are biologically and psychologically much less likely to seek out multiple male partners.  So, in short, everything could work out for the best!

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2020/04/22/heres_polyamory_multi-partner_sexual-rights_crusade_on_the_horizon_122979.html

In other news, the mask police are getting pushier and pushier.  In truth, as some of you have already observed, it isn't the police pushing this agenda, by and large, but do-gooder politicians and their media allies.  Missing, still, is clear evidence that typical masks help typical people avoid infection.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/texas-judges-30-day-coronavirus-mask-order-blasted-as-ultimate-government-overreach

Gas Attack!

Friends, that's right: I said "Gas Attack!"  No, your Uncle Earl didn't just eat a whole can of baked beans.  I'm talking about chemical weapons -- or rather, Brian and I discuss the rights and wrongs of chemical warfare in this week's Newsmaker Show.  But that's not all!  Historically speaking, Brian and I also cover Nixon's opening to China circa 1972, the legitimacy (or lack thereof) of the McCarthy hearings and the Red Scare in the 1950s, Hitler's gradual realization that the war was lost in April 1945, and more.

In terms of current events, Brian and I talk about changing attitudes towards China, in light of China's key role in facilitating the global spread of the coronavirus.  We also contemplate the morality and legality of the extreme measures now being undertaken to combat the pandemic, and the potential for any future vaccine to become mandatory.  President Trump's bold decision to suspend all immigration also comes under our penetrating gaze.

All in all, it's a great show, engorged with eloquence and reverberating with relevancy!  Don't miss it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iz7uCbUuTh4&feature=youtu.be

And here's a very compelling analysis of our COVID-19 predicament:

https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/494034-the-data-are-in-stop-the-panic-and-end-the-total-isolation

To Swede, Or Not To Swede?

Friends, as every country plagued with this, well, plague struggles with the question of how to manage it, one of the most pressing issues is whether or not we want to emulate the "Swedish model" of fairly relaxed restrictions versus the Italian model of a total lockdown.  Today I bring you both sides of the debate.  The first article is a criticism of the Swedish approach, which argues that it has created far more deaths than in neighboring Nordic countries.  The second article is a frank conversation with a expert pathologist who suggests that the strict quarantine now being applied to everyone may make no sense.  He cites Britain's much higher death rate when compared with...Sweden!  What's the truth?  You decide.

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/swedish-coronavirus-no-lockdown-model-proves-lethal-by-hans-bergstrom-2020-04?a_la=english&a_d=5e99c982871c5c8d28122838&a_m=&a_a=click&a_s=&a_p=homepage&a_li=swedish-coronavirus-no-lockdown-model-proves-le

https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/04/17/theres-no-direct-evidence-that-the-lockdowns-are-working/

Lastly, building on the article I posted yesterday, here's even more evidence that the spread of COVID-19 may be far wider than previously believed.  In one Massachusetts town, one-third of all residents (randomly selected) tested positive for antibodies!

https://www.foxnews.com/science/third-blood-samples-massachusetts-study-coronavirus

Could COVID-19 Be...Everywhere?

Friends, new research out of California indicates that the percentage of the population that's been exposed to the coronavirus may be much higher than previously thought.  That's both good news and bad news.  It's good news, because it means that the virus is far less deadly, in terms of its death rate, than has been reported to date.  It's bad news, because it means a much higher percentage of virus-carriers must be asymptomatic, and thus telling who has it and who doesn't, and containing it by sequestering those who do, is nearly impossible.

https://www.yahoo.com/gma/antibody-research-indicates-coronavirus-may-far-more-widespread-155200568.html

What does all this mean?  Possibly, it means that President Trump's recent comment -- that we need to shift to a strategy of protecting the most vulnerable, rather than incarcerating everyone in their homes indefinitely -- may be correct.  At least, it might be the most realistic way to fight the pandemic in the next few months.

What's your view?