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TUESDAY, MARCH 24, 2020

1. Democrats Introduce Progressive Pork-filled Stimulus Bill From the story: The bill proposed by Pelosi, D-Calif., additionally seeks to eliminate debt held by the U.S. Postal Service, require same-day voter registration, pay off $10,000 in student debt per person, mandate that airlines reduce their overall carbon emissions by 50 percent by 2050, and force federal agencies to explain to Congress how they are increasing their usage of “minority banks” (Fox News).  More details from another story:  Requires a labor union representative on every airline’s board of directors.  Multiemployer pension bailout lacking needed reforms. Permanently raises the minimum wage to $15 for any business that receives federal aid for COVID-19  (Washington Times). It also includes a gift of “$35 million to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts” (Fox News).  From Ted Cruz: “One of the reasons I think Senate Democrats are so willing to engage in this is that they expect the media to be utterly complicit in their cynical gamesmanship” (Twitter).  From another story: House Majority Whip James Clyburn, South Carolina Democrat, reportedly said last week, “This is a tremendous opportunity to restructure things to fit our vision” (Washington Times).  From the Wall Street Journal editorial board: Do Democrats even care? It isn’t obvious as they pander to their progressive base to make last-minute demands while blocking the rescue cash. The political chronology is instructive—and depressing about the state of Democratic leadership (WSJ).  From Brit Hume: Holding the bill hostage to the unrelated wishlist items Democrats are trying to stuff into it is the most cynical thing I’ve seen since the character assassination of Brett Kavanaugh (Twitter).  From Mark Hemingway: What I don’t understand about what happened with the legislation today it’s going to be used, likely with some success, against congressional Dems in the fall. It seems like an obvious political blunder and they’re oblivious (Twitter).  From Nikki Haley: This is beyond embarrassing and an arrogant abuse of a vulnerable situation. #GodHelpUs (Twitter). From David Harsanyi: One imagines most Americans would rather rescue their jobs from the ravages of coronavirus-induced downturn than lose them and just get a government check. Yet on Sunday, Democrats blocked a procedural vote on a coronavirus relief package in the Senate, arguing that the fiscal rescue package favored corporations over individuals (National Review).   A must-watch passionate teardown of the horrible Democratic bill and the people who put it forth, from U.S. Senator and Dr. John Barrasso (Twitter).

2. U.S. Now Has Third Most Coronavirus Cases As over 43,000 test positive (Johns Hopkins). Asthma inhalers are suddenly in big demand as they can quickly help coronavirus patients who are struggling to breathe (ABC News).  A look at the stay-at-home orders from various states (CNN). National Review compared different states.  Most striking in this is the graph showing New York shooting skyward like none other (National Review).  Dr. Albert Mohler digs into the theology of the moral decisions that face Americans during this time (Briefing).

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3. New Jersey to Release 1000 Inmates Another reason for the Second Amendment (NY Times).  Crime in New York appears to be falling (WSJ).

4. CDC: Coronavirus Survived in Princess Cruise Cabins 17 Days After Passengers Left The story notes that is “far longer on surfaces than previous research has shown.” CNBC

5. 61 Percent of Americans Believe Trump is Taking Strong Enough Measures Against Virus The public is rallying around the president (The Hill).  A Monmouth poll has it a 50 percent (Washington Examiner).  Trump is worried a bad economy can lead to suicides (Washington Examiner).  From GOP spokesperson Elizabeth Harington: Dr. Fauci on working w/President Trump: “He asks a lot of questions. That’s his nature. He’s constantly asking questions. And I never, in the multiple times I’ve done that, where I said, ‘For scientific reasons we really should do this,’ that he hasn’t said, ‘Let’s do it’” (Twitter).

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6. Biden Gets Lost While Criticizing Trump Response to Coronavirus Watch the video.  In the middle of his rant, he appears to be trying to signal the guys running the teleprompter (Breitbart). His actual words: And uh, and, and in addition to that, uh, and in addition to that, we have to, uh, make sure that we, uh, we are in a position that we are, well, lemme, lemme go a second thing.  I’ve spoken enough on that (Twitter).  It was Biden’s first daily briefing to separate himself from Trump in coronavirus response (Washington Examiner).

7. White House Reporter Has Coronavirus Also from the story: A number of news organizations have confirmed that some of their employees contracted the virus. And the WHCA has issued new protocol for White House journalists, cutting the number of available press room seats in half — leaving a half-empty briefing room as President Donald Trump addresses the nation about the pandemic. Politico

8. 2020 Olympics Postponed From the story: “On the basis of the information the IOC has, postponement has been decided,” Pound said in a phone interview. “The parameters going forward have not been determined, but the games are not going to start on July 24, that much I know.” USA Today

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9. Coronavirus Odds and Ends More on the China cover up.  Includes a nifty timeline (National Review).  U.S. Bank is increasing pay for their 30,000 “front line” workers by 20 percent (Star Tribune).  3M is accused of price gouging, raising the price of life-saving masks (Fox News).

10. Little Press on House Democrat Who Unloaded Stock Just Prior to Market Drop From the story: Previously unreported lawmakers who sold assets in the weeks leading up to the market crash include Rep. Susan Davis (D-Calif.), who unloaded thousands of dollars of stock in Alaska Air and Royal Caribbean cruises (Politico).  Guy Benson notes “Strangely, this story about a House Democrat’s fishy stock transactions isn’t trending or generating an avalanche of press opprobrium” (Twitter).

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by Tony Perkins: There’s hardly a busier, more burdened man in America right now than President Trump. And yet on Friday, when he heard that Vice President Mike Pence was about to jump on an FRC conference call with 700 pastors, he asked if he could join. Hearing his voice was a surprise, even to me — but hearing his earnest desire to stand with the faith leaders of America in crisis certainly wasn’t.

“When I told the president I was going to be speaking to all of you,” Mike explained, “[he was] in the midst of an extraordinarily busy day. [But] he looked at me and said, ‘I have to find time. I need to find time.'” To the president, he went on, “the prayers of the people on this call mean [everything] to him…” So despite everything facing America, the two most important leaders of this nation stopped everything to pray with the people on the ground, who are ministering to their communities.

It’s a “wild world,” the president started. The virus, he said, “came upon us so suddenly. And we were doing better than we’ve ever done before as a country in terms of the economy — and then, all of the sudden, we got hit with this. So we had to close it down,” he said wistfully. “We’re actually paying a big price to close it down. Never happened before.” But, President Trump insisted, “I think we’re going to come back stronger than ever before.”

Turning to the pastors — the hundreds on the call and the 15,000 who heard it later on — the president said sincerely, “I want to thank you for praying for our country and for those who are sick. You do such an incredible job. You’re very inspirational people. And I’m with you all the way. You know that you see what we’ve done for right to life and all of the things that we’ve been working so hard together. I’ve been working with many of the people on the call. Many, many of the people. We’ve had tremendous support. But we are going to get over this.”

Before the president left the call, I asked him what he’d most like people to be praying for. “The health of the country,” he replied, “the strength of our country. We were doing something amazing, and then one day, it just ended. So that would be it.” And, he added, that Americans would “make the right choice on November 3rd…” After I finished praying over the president, he said, “You know, you mentioned the word ‘stamina.’ We do need stamina. So thank you very much.”

When the vice president took over, he wanted everyone to know, “The president and I couldn’t be more inspired by the way communities of faith have been stepping up.” He talked about the congregations keeping their food banks going and finding creative ways to work within the CDC guidelines. He mentioned churches offering child care to the health care workers on the front lines, combatting the virus. But most of all, he talked about how grateful he was to be a part of an administration that values its partnership with the congregations of America.

“You know, the president has said many times that we are going to we’re going to bring the full resources of our of our federal government to bear on this. But by all of you being here today, and by the energies and ministries that you have [used to response] to the coronavirus in your communities, you’re really putting hands and feet on your faith. And you are demonstrating what the president today called ‘the greatness of American character’ …And we want to urge you on. We want a full partnership with you in sharing best practices again.”

Continue to pray, Mike urged, for the experts counseling this president from every branch of government. Remember state and local officials, too, and people who are struggling and experiencing loss. We are so fortunate, Secretary Ben Carson echoed on that same call, that this happened during a time of economic growth and blessing. “God is merciful,” Dr. Carson reminded us. “And we will get through this.” Maybe, he said, this is an opportunity for the Lord to show His power in a way that will “help us return to Him.” In the meantime, he assured, “God still has His hand on this nation. And He has His hand on all of us.”

For more ways your church can get involved, bookmark this link: FRC.org/church. We’ll be updating it daily with resources, information, and other ideas for pastors engaged in this crisis!

———————–
Tony Perkins (@tperkins) is President of the Family Research Council . Article on Tony Perkins’ Washington Update and written with the aid of FRC senior writers.

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Tags: Tony Perkins, Family Research Center, FRC, Family Research Council, President to Pastors, Pray for Strength To share or post to your site, click on “Post Link”. Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and “Like” Facebook Page – Thanks!

Real Swamp Creatures

by Tyler O’Neil: On Sunday, Senate Democrats blocked the massive $2 trillion coronavirus stimulus bill intended to inject new life into an economy struggling to survive under the weight of social distancing necessary to combat the global pandemic. Democrats claimed they opposed the bill because it would give Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin the ability to direct billions in a secret “slush fund” — which he would ostensibly use to benefit political allies and President Donald Trump’s companies, but Democrats had other reasons to delay the bill, as well.

Congress has already passed — and the president has already signed — two emergency coronavirus measures earlier this month. The current stimulus bill has been worked out in meetings involving Mnuchin, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).

Yet after these negotiations — which involved a great deal of compromise on both sides — Democrats blocked the bill on Sunday night, The Hill reported. Democrats condemned what they call a secret “slush fund” for corporate America, Politico reported. The stimulus bill includes a $500 billion “Exchange Stabilization Fund” under Mnuchin’s control, designed to help industries struggling from the fallout of the coronavirus. It includes $58 billion for U.S. airlines and air cargo companies.

“We’re gonna give $500 billion in basically a slush fund to help industries controlled by Mnuchin with very little transparency? Is that what we ought to be doing?” Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii.) asked, rhetorically.

“We’re not here to create a slush fund for Donald Trump and his family, or a slush fund for the Treasury Department to be able to hand out to their friends,” railed Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), fresh off a failed presidential campaign. “We’re here to help workers, we’re here to help hospitals. And right now, what the Republicans proposed does neither of those.”

Schumer claimed Democrats opposed the bill because “it includes huge bailouts without protections for people and workers and without accountability, and because it shortchanges our hospitals and healthcare workers who need our help.”

We voted no on the McConnell-GOP bill because among other problems it includes huge bailouts without protections for people and workers and without accountability, and because it shortchanges our hospitals and healthcare workers who need our help.

These changes need to be made.

— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) March 22, 2020

But Democrats had already secured key concessions from Republicans in the process of drafting the bill. Democrats secured $250 billion in additional unemployment insurance payments, along with $75 billion in new funding for hospitals. They also demanded hundreds of billions for a “State Stabilization Fund” to help state and local governments, and Republicans supported a limited bailout for these governments.

Democrats claimed the $500 billion to distressed industries would have less oversight than the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), the 2008 financial services industry bailout. Yet Senate Republicans and the White House claimed the coronavirus fund program had actually built on the lessons of TARP.

“The proposal provides desperately needed resources for affected industries and sectors in order to keep people employed and at work,” Eric Ueland, the White House director of legislative affairs and a former top Senate aide who is closely involved in the negotiations, told Politico. “This carefully drawn language contains significant pro-taxpayer and pro-consumer protections in a way unprecedented since the invention of these vehicles really 12 years ago.”

So what is really going on? Why did Democrats vote to block the bill, leading to a 47-47 split in the Senate?

A Democratic aide dropped an essential clue when discussing the bill with The Hill. The aide complained that the stimulus bill’s small business provision would exclude nonprofits that receive Medicaid from being eligible for Small Business Administration assistance. The aide complained that this provision would impact Planned Parenthood, community health centers, rape crisis centers, and disability service providers.

As PJ Media’s Rick Moran pointed out, Planned Parenthood is not a “small business,” and neither are nonprofits.

On Monday, a senior Republican aide told Townhall’s Guy Benson that Schumer and Pelosi are pushing “unprecedented collective bargaining powers for unions,” “increased fuel emissions standards for airlines,” and “expansion of wind and solar tax credits.” These provisions would arguably make the situation even worse for businesses.

Via senior GOP aide, Schumer/Pelosi now pushing these demands amid pandemic-fueled economic collapse:

1) Unprecedented collective bargaining powers for unions
2) Increased fuel emissions standards for airlines
3) Expansion of wind and solar tax credits

— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) March 23, 2020

Democrats may hope to get more of their liberal wish-list crammed into the coronavirus stimulus bill because Senate Republicans entered self-quarantine after Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) tested positive for the coronavirus. Sens. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) missed the vote because they entered self-quarantine after exposure to Rand Paul. Sens. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) and Rick Scott (R-Fla.) also entered self-quarantine unrelated to Rand Paul’s announcement.

Democrats are engaging in political gamesmanship on this essential stimulus bill in part because some of their Republican colleagues are out-of-pocket due to the very coronavirus their bill is aiming to combat. This is utterly disgusting.

While Democrats loudly complained about a “slush fund,” they did not adopt one of the most obvious responses to it — a response put forth by the Heritage Foundation. Companies impacted by Americans’ efforts to combat the coronavirus should receive some relief, but a bailout is arguably the wrong way to go about providing it. The Heritage Foundation suggested a two-pronged alternative: first, apply the same paid sick and family leave provisions granted to small business employees to workers at large businesses; and second, the government can “pre-purchase expected goods and services to supply businesses with liquidity.”

Democrats are right to fear an unchecked government expansion to meet the coronavirus crisis — in fact, their fears that Mnuchin might abuse government funds in this crisis should serve as an important warning about the big-government solutions Democrats favor. “Progressives” support government solutions in part because they assume they will always be in control of the government — always a dangerous assumption.

Yet the coronavirus crisis is no time for political gamesmanship, and it appears Democrats are working overtime not to let this crisis “go to waste.”
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Tyler O’Neil is Assistant Editor of PJ Media, Tyler O’Neil is a conservative fundraiser and commentator. He has written for numerous publications.

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Tags: PJ Media, Tyler O’Neil, The Real Reasons, Democrats Stopped, Coronavirus Stimulus Bill To share or post to your site, click on “Post Link”. Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and “Like” Facebook Page – Thanks!

by Daniel Horowitz: Over 21,000 were flooding small-town American hospitals and stretching their resources to the limit. Agents were getting sick. They were also coming for surgeries, and we were paying for it. No, I’m not talking about Chinese coronavirus. I’m describing the public health crisis at our border thanks to what was essentially a court-driven invasion exactly this time last year. Yet our government refused to simply enforce our sovereignty, no matter how bad it got. It’s only now due to coronavirus that the DHS is finally enforcing our sovereignty.

Let’s face it: Most of our public policy is not directed by the rule of law but by the signaling of the media’s lack of virtue. The media, with their excessive panic-driven narrative, have driven governors to near-martial-law actions restricting movement of citizens. Thus, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) finally feels it has the ability to at least enforce our border laws against people who have no right to be here.

On Friday, the White House announced that all unauthorized aliens caught crossing illegally or coming without proper documentation will face immediate return to their home countries. No processing, no endless court cases, no detention, no games. Straight-up enforcement of our sovereignty. Why exactly can’t we expect our government to do that all the time?

Last year, I must have written several dozen articles detailing the president’s inherent constitutional and delegated authority to turn away those who seek entry to this country under any circumstance. Yet no matter how bad the situation got for America’s security, including the straining of our hospitals and the concern of communicable diseases (4,200 exposed to mumps), one excuse after another was given as to why we somehow had to indulge bogus asylum claims.

It’s truly hard to understate the degree of public health crisis when you have 1 million people coming from third-world countries in Central America and elsewhere around the world, with hundreds of thousands of them being released into our country immediately without quarantine and incubation. We will never know how much of the resurgence in measles, mumps, whooping cough, and TB in this country is due to this and prior influxes. Yet the CDC never seemed to be concerned.

During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last March, former acting CBP Commissioner Kevin McAleenan said during his testimony, “Migrants travel north from countries where poverty and disease are rampant,” and large numbers of them “may have never seen a doctor, received immunizations, or lived in sanitary conditions.” Randy Howe, head of operations for CBP’s Office of Field Operations, testified that “their health can be aggravated by the physical toll of the journey.” He elaborated:

In many cases, they arrive at our southern border already exhibiting symptoms of a health issue. … Close quarters on trains and buses that smugglers procure for moving them through Mexico can hasten the spread of communicable diseases. All of these factors leave migrants vulnerable to serious medical complications.Shockingly, we went another half a year through this massive influx without enforcing our sovereignty. It wasn’t until last week that Trump finally turned them back. The administration invoked 42 U.S. Code § 265 authority “to prohibit, in whole or in part, the introduction of persons and property from such countries or places as he shall designate in order to avert such danger” as communicable diseases.

A Washington Examiner report claimed CBP officers were continuing to let in nonessential persons at ports of entry despite the order to the contrary. Is this the deep state sabotaging the order?

I spoke with a senior DHS official and a White House policy official, and they both confirmed that, in general, the order is indeed being implemented. Illegal aliens without documentation are all being turned around immediately, and that includes the so-called unaccompanied alien minors. The only ones who are not being turned back immediately, according to my sources, are those who are not from Mexico or Central America. But even those are being flown back by ICE immediately to their home countries.

As for the travel between the ports of entry, my DHS source confirmed that nobody without documentation is being let through. “Yes, we are obviously trying to keep our commerce open, so if there is someone who works at a local McDonald’s, we definitely want to keep them working here. We use the same inspection standards that airports are using, no more, no less.”

Thus, conservatives should be pretty happy with the results at the border now. The issue is how long it took us to get here and whether this will continue. While Democrats are using coronavirus to remake America, this administration should at least use it to make illegal immigration illegal permanently. No more lawfare.
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Daniel Horowitz (@RMConservative) is a senior editor of Conservative Review He is also the author of Stolen Sovereignty.

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Tags: Daniel Horowitz, senior editor, Conservative Review, Chinese coronavirus, finally make illegal immigration, ILLEGAL To share or post to your site, click on “Post Link”. Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and “Like” Facebook Page – Thanks!

Victor Davis Hanson

by Dr. Victor Davis Hanson: There are a lot of known unknowns and paradoxes in these times of uncertainty. Here are a few.

1) Trump is criticized as both “racist” and “xenophobic” in his condemnations of the “Chinese” virus, while he’s also criticized for “appeasing” President Xi when he makes friendly references to their coronavirus chats. How can Trump be both?

Is he merely erratic? Perhaps any smart president at this moment would prefer both to galvanize Americans about the threat of Chinese near monopolies of industries key to the U.S. in extremis (such as medical supplies, pharmaceuticals, and rare earths) and yet to not to so offend our only importer that it cuts off a vulnerable U.S. in the middle of a crisis.

2) The media hype the increased number of cases (the denominator) without much attention to the number of deaths (the numerator) caused by, or perhaps mostly by, the virus. The numerator, however, is not increasing daily at a rate that’s commensurate with the denominator, despite a number of important other extenuating criteria:

a) Those seeking tests are mostly those with some sort of malaise or exposure, and yet they test overwhelmingly (so far) negative, perhaps at rates, depending on locale, of 80 percent to 90 percent negative (an increasingly not widely reported fact), and thus they may underrepresent percentages of the infected in the general population.

b) The real case number could be perhaps two or three times higher than tested positives, also given that many who are or were ill either did not get tested, or did not know they were ill, or did not know they were ill from the coronavirus.

c) If current daily small percentage declines in the fatality rate were to continue as the case numbers increase, we could approach flu-like levels as is almost true of Germany. This poses the dilemma: Did this encouraging trend occur because of our proper reaction to the virus, or were we mistaken about the lethality of the virus in the landscape of the U.S., or both, or neither?

We then are left with a paradox: Testing shows that many more Americans have had or have the virus than we now assume from prior tests, and many more Americans are recovering from it than we once expected.

3) The highest case numbers and deaths, as one would imagine, so far are in bicoastal, highly populated states, marked by either media and entertainment centers, numerous Chinese visitors and residents, or high-tech and financial nexuses — such as California, New York, New Jersey, and Washington State.

In some sense, our coverage and information of the virus reflect the greater influence of areas experiencing perceived greater viral ubiquity (though not always on a per capita basis) than say the experiences of Americans in a Kentucky, Utah, New Mexico, or Oklahoma.

Broadcasting from a studio or writing a column in New York, or living in Malibu or Beverly Hills, or working as a blogger-coder in Menlo Park, or working for Amazon in Seattle must affect a person’s perceptions and provide him greater exposure, compared with others who are in between such places — at least so far. ,

Even in California the natural reaction to the virus is quite different in Palo Alto than in rural Fresno County, a mere 200 miles away. These regional differences in reactions to the virus may soon be overwhelmed by a true national pandemic that finds its way into deserts, mountains, and great plains. But so far how we perceive the virus is in part influenced by how those in harder-hit states perceive it —especially in terms of relative fears of a deadly, second-phase viral explosion versus the all too human consequences of a great depression.

4) We should be somewhat suspect of data outside the U.S.

China, of course, for domestic and foreign-policy reason, has an interest in declaring victory and posing as the model of public-health policy — the new savior to those threatened by its own perfidy (which it now fobs off on the U.S.).

Italy is probably sui genesis in the Western context, for a variety of now often noted perfect-storm reasons — e.g., it has a more elderly population, a larger than average Chinese expatriate population, laxity in stopping travel from China and closing its borders, a greater percentage of elderly male smokers, suspect emergency health care, perhaps greater frequency of younger people living at home with their elders, lower per capita income ($38,000 versus $60,000 in the U.S.); pre-virus, it also had much higher unemployment (10 percent versus 3.5 percent in the U.S.).

Germany so far seems to have both lots more per capita infections (0.02 percent versus 0.001 percent) than we do in the U.S., and yet it has far fewer fatalities per positive cases (0.3–0.4 percent) than does the U.S (1.1–1.2 percent). Yet in terms of per capita fatalities, the two countries are doing about the same (0.0001 percent of the general population dying from the disease).

One might wonder how Germany is both doing an average job of preventing infections and a superb job in preventing coronavirus deaths. Or one might suspect that Germany may be better in finding and testing more of the infected, while using a different standard of ascertaining actual coronavirus deaths.

In general, however, political, cultural, economic, and climatic disparities make it hard to rely on comparisons, other than in a general fashion, between countries.

5) So far, the lethality rate is the key datum, given that, from what we tentatively know, the vast majority of people who recover have had no greater percentages of permanent lung or other organ damage than did those with the flu (this could change, of course, with further study).

The morbidity of the infected may be as severe or more severe than with a severe flu, but we do not know this other than from media-generated frightening anecdotes.

So the point is that we wish to concentrate on getting the lethality rate down, both to save the most vulnerable and to reassure a terrified public that we might get to a point where their fears should be commensurate with those typical of a characteristically bad flu year.

A caveat here: Under the present set of radically changed circumstances of the past eleven years — the current role of China, a different media and domestic politics, an election year, etc. — the mindset of 2020 transferred back to 2009 would most likely have radically changed what was then public response to the H1N1 influenza A virus. Under today’s perceptions, an eventual 60 million (?) infected Americans, and 15,000 (?) deaths at some point would have prompted similar shutdowns and lockdowns.

6) We do not know where it is yet, but there exists a golden mean between proper mobilization against the COVID-19 and proper circumspection needed to avoid a recession or great depression. We all agree that what this means is a nearly normal economy as tens of millions are tested and those who test positive and their contacts are quarantined, isolated, or restricted in their activities in the manner of tuberculosis, early AIDS, or measles, freeing up resources to concentrate on the elderly and chronically ill. But no one knows when this golden mean should be enacted.

The psychology of erring on either side is important to note: Those calling far more severe precautions that will further harm the economy do so in the admirable agenda to lower the deaths (in the sense that one dead American is a tragedy), and they can quantify their efforts in the known number of dead.

In contrast, those who advise caution out of fears of an economic meltdown will never be able to quantify the greater number of fatalities from a depression than from an infection. It is more difficult to tie likely spikes in suicides, postponed or canceled medical procedures, increased substance abuse, crime, ruined lives, etc. directly to the virus, even though the link is highly likely.

Those who urge caution, regarding the economic impacts, are also more likely to be damned as putting money over lives, even if they are more worried about lives than money in the event that a severe recession follows. And, of course, exaggeration is a two-way street — those favoring a relaxation of the shutdown may also embellish the economic costs of the present stagnation.

Still, in general, the historical psychology of plagues and panics is instructive: Pessimists who call for Draconian measures are credited with saving lives, not endangering far more lives through the severe countermeasures they take.

In a crisis, pessimism is usually more likely than optimism or realism to galvanize needed responses — at least up to a point of avoiding widespread defeatism and nihilism.

Psychologically, the expert statistician is more likely to err of the side of predicting catastrophe than amelioration, given that one is a win-win proposition, and the other a lose-lose surety. In retrospect, the pessimist’s incorrect warnings nevertheless are to be credited for inducing the needed panic to enact necessary remedies, while he appears a savior if he is correct in his prognosis. So, in a crisis, it seems wiser to overestimate the dangers than to underestimate them.

In contrast, the realist or optimist, if proven wrong, appears reckless, insensitive, even murderous. Even when right, he is deemed either lucky despite his recklessness, or proven prescient only thanks to those less cheery who ignored his unrealistic prognostications and took extreme measures to achieve what he predicted on surely false and unreliable data. That may be why early spikes in the death rate caused panic, and later declines comparative inattention.

One might wonder how Germany is both doing an average job of preventing infections and a superb job in preventing coronavirus deaths. Or one might suspect that Germany may be better in finding and testing more of the infected, while using a different standard of ascertaining actual coronavirus deaths.

In general, however, political, cultural, economic, and climatic disparities make it hard to rely on comparisons, other than in a general fashion, between countries.

5) So far, the lethality rate is the key datum, given that, from what we tentatively know, the vast majority of people who recover have had no greater percentages of permanent lung or other organ damage than did those with the flu (this could change, of course, with further study).

The morbidity of the infected may be as severe or more severe than with a severe flu, but we do not know this other than from media-generated frightening anecdotes.

So the point is that we wish to concentrate on getting the lethality rate down, both to save the most vulnerable and to reassure a terrified public that we might get to a point where their fears should be commensurate with those typical of a characteristically bad flu year.

A caveat here: Under the present set of radically changed circumstances of the past eleven years — the current role of China, a different media and domestic politics, an election year, etc. — the mindset of 2020 transferred back to 2009 would most likely have radically changed what was then public response to the H1N1 influenza A virus. Under today’s perceptions, an eventual 60 million (?) infected Americans, and 15,000 (?) deaths at some point would have prompted similar shutdowns and lockdowns.

6) We do not know where it is yet, but there exists a golden mean between proper mobilization against the COVID-19 and proper circumspection needed to avoid a recession or great depression. We all agree that what this means is a nearly normal economy as tens of millions are tested and those who test positive and their contacts are quarantined, isolated, or restricted in their activities in the manner of tuberculosis, early AIDS, or measles, freeing up resources to concentrate on the elderly and chronically ill. But no one knows when this golden mean should be enacted.

The psychology of erring on either side is important to note: Those calling far more severe precautions that will further harm the economy do so in the admirable agenda to lower the deaths (in the sense that one dead American is a tragedy), and they can quantify their efforts in the known number of dead.

In contrast, those who advise caution out of fears of an economic meltdown will never be able to quantify the greater number of fatalities from a depression than from an infection. It is more difficult to tie likely spikes in suicides, postponed or canceled medical procedures, increased substance abuse, crime, ruined lives, etc. directly to the virus, even though the link is highly likely.

Those who urge caution, regarding the economic impacts, are also more likely to be damned as putting money over lives, even if they are more worried about lives than money in the event that a severe recession follows. And, of course, exaggeration is a two-way street — those favoring a relaxation of the shutdown may also embellish the economic costs of the present stagnation.

Still, in general, the historical psychology of plagues and panics is instructive: Pessimists who call for Draconian measures are credited with saving lives, not endangering far more lives through the severe countermeasures they take.

In a crisis, pessimism is usually more likely than optimism or realism to galvanize needed responses — at least up to a point of avoiding widespread defeatism and nihilism.

Psychologically, the expert statistician is more likely to err of the side of predicting catastrophe than amelioration, given that one is a win-win proposition, and the other a lose-lose surety. In retrospect, the pessimist’s incorrect warnings nevertheless are to be credited for inducing the needed panic to enact necessary remedies, while he appears a savior if he is correct in his prognosis. So, in a crisis, it seems wiser to overestimate the dangers than to underestimate them.

In contrast, the realist or optimist, if proven wrong, appears reckless, insensitive, even murderous. Even when right, he is deemed either lucky despite his recklessness, or proven prescient only thanks to those less cheery who ignored his unrealistic prognostications and took extreme measures to achieve what he predicted on surely false and unreliable data. That may be why early spikes in the death rate caused panic, and later declines comparative inattention.

FDR perhaps found the right formula after Pearl Harbor. He warned Americans that full mobilization would be necessary to achieve what he assured them would be the sure defeat of Japan, at a time when U.S. Pacific forces were already doomed to suffer substantial losses for the next six months without let-up — and yet the U.S. Navy was also already prepped to build and launch an entirely new fleet by 1943–44, larger eventually than the world’s combined navies of the time.

7) Finally, reliable information is so scarce, and erroneous news is so volatile, politicized, and often sensational that any analysis is either outdated by the time it is read, or it’s based on conventional wisdom that almost hourly is revealed as fake news.

Despite the prior Ebola, MERS, SARS, and H1NI scares, the COVID-19 is the first truly worldwide meltdown, in the 21st-century globalized age of social media and the Internet. Instant unfiltered opinion adds to the panic and yet in some cases can aid rapid responses in finding cures and vaccinations. We are reacting much as did past plague sufferers (though with far more volatility), whose pandemics in terms of relative lethality were far more devastating.

Even in the preindustrial age, the sense of hysteria that accompanies a pandemic explains why both Thucydides and Procopius are more famous for their descriptions of the reactions to a plague than even their astute and empirical descriptions of its symptoms.
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Victor Davis Hanson (@VDHanson) is a senior fellow, classicist and historian and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution where many of his articles are found; his focus is classics and military history. He has been a visiting professor at Hillsdale College since 2004. Hanson was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2007 by President George W. Bush. H/T National Review!

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by Free Press International News Service: Amid the coronavirus outbreak, the Department of Justice reportedly is seeking “emergency” powers which would grant it the ability to ask chief judges to detain people indefinitely without trial.

Politico reported on Saturday that it had reviewed documents which “detail the department’s requests to lawmakers on a host of topics, including the statute of limitations, asylum and the way court hearings are conducted.”

Sen. Mike Lee, Utah Republican, tweeted: “OVER MY DEAD BODY”.

“The right to see a judge and seek release from detention after an arrest — known in legal lingo as habeas corpus — is one of the fundamental building blocks of a democratic society, one in which the state cannot deprive individuals of their freedom without due process. The times in American history when that right has been suspended or circumvented are some of the darkest. We should not be seeking to repeat them,” Eric Boehm wrote for Reason.

Scott Bullock, president and general counsel for the Institute for Justice, a libertarian law firm, said: “The DOJ proposal is deeply troubling and would raise a whole host of constitutional concerns. History demonstrates again and again that governments use a crisis to expand power and violate vital constitutional principles. And when the supposed emergency is over, the expanded powers often become permanent.”

The DOJ’s requests “span several stages of the legal process, from initial arrest to how cases are processed and investigated,” Politico reported.

In one of the documents, the DOJ proposed that Congress grant the attorney general power to ask the chief judge of any district court to pause court proceedings “whenever the district court is fully or partially closed by virtue of any natural disaster, civil disobedience, or other emergency situation.”

The DOJ is also asking Congress to grant top judges broad authority to pause court proceedings during emergencies, the report said. It would apply to “any statutes or rules of procedure otherwise affecting pre-arrest, post-arrest, pre-trial, trial, and post-trial procedures in criminal and juvenile proceedings and all civil process and proceedings,” according to draft legislative language the department shared with Congress. In making the case for the change, the DOJ wrote that individual judges can currently pause proceedings during emergencies but that their proposal would make sure all judges in any particular district could handle emergencies “in a consistent manner.”

The request raised eyebrows because of its potential implications for habeas corpus — the constitutional right to appear before a judge after arrest and seek release.

Norman L. Reimer, executive director of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, said the DOJ’s proposals would mean that “you could be arrested and never brought before a judge until they decide that the emergency or the civil disobedience is over. I find it absolutely terrifying. Especially in a time of emergency, we should be very careful about granting new powers to the government. That is something that should not happen in a democracy.”

In another request, the DOJ is looking to change the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure in some cases to expand the use of videoconference hearings and to let some of those hearings happen without defendants’ consent, according to the draft legislative text, the report said.

“Video teleconferencing may be used to conduct an appearance under this rule,” read a draft of potential new language for Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 5(f), crossing out the phrase “if the defendant consents.”

“Video teleconferencing may be used to arraign a defendant,” read draft text of rule 10(c), again striking out the phrase “if the defendant consents.”

Reimer said forcing people to have hearings over video rather than in person would threaten civil liberties.

“If it were with the consent of the accused person it would be fine,” he said. “But if it’s not with the consent of the accused person, it’s a terrible road to go down. We have a right to public trials. People have a right to be present in court.”

The DOJ’s requests are unlikely to make it through a Democratic-led House.

Lawmakers were adamant in their opposition to the power grab:

“Congress must loudly reply ‘NO,’ ” Rep. Justin Amash, Michigan Republican, tweeted.
———————–
Free Press International News Service, aka: Free Pressers (@FreePressers).

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Gary Bauer

by Gary Bauer, Contributing Author: Let Us Pray For You
Just hearing from many friends, I know there is tremendous anxiety around the country. We share it too. We have a pregnant daughter, and Carol and I are concerned about what the hospitals might be like in a few weeks.

During this time, our staff, like many Americans, is working remotely. But we are still working diligently to keep you up-to-date and informed as the coronavirus crisis develops. I also know there is nothing as powerful or as comforting as prayer, and I want you to know that we are here for you.

If you’re wrestling with anything right now – medical issues, personal or business financial issues, if you have been laid off or have a loved one who has been infected with coronavirus – please send us a short message and we will add you to our prayer list. In the days ahead, our staff will take these requests and pray for each person by name. (Please use this link to respond.)

Senate Stalemate
For the last three days Republican and Democrat senators have worked together almost non-stop to craft an emergency coronavirus relief bill that would satisfy both sides. Obviously, that means neither side gets everything it wants. But throughout the weekend, reports indicated that senators were close to reaching an agreement.

Then last night, a procedural vote was held in the Senate to begin debate on the legislation. Keep in mind, this is not a final vote on the bill. It was just a vote to begin 30 hours of debate.

With the nation on edge, and financial markets down 35%, the vote to begin debate failed 47-to-47. Not one Democrat senator voted to move forward. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is further hampered by the fact that several GOP senators are in quarantine.

Predictably, most media failed to accurately report the reason for the breakdown. To its credit, The Hill posted this headline: “Senate Democrats Block Mammoth Coronavirus Stimulus Package.” McConnell was furious, and last night he blasted left-wing senators for “fiddling” in the middle of this crisis.

There are millions of people and hundreds of thousands of businesses that desperately need these funds. The overnight futures markets collapsed, and the Dow dropped more than 500 points at the opening bell this morning.

Yet, even as the economic damage continues to pile up, Senate Democrats dug in. Chuck Schumer blocked another vote this morning.

Contrast this to what happened when Speaker Nancy Pelosi rammed through a bill with virtually no Republican input in the House. It went to the Senate and GOP senators tried to make improvements. Some were made, but there wasn’t enough time to make big changes.

So the GOP leadership agreed to accept it, with a handshake with House Democrats on the understanding that a corrective piece of legislation would move next through the Senate.

Referring to the House bill, McConnell told his caucus to “Gag and vote for it.” And that’s exactly what happened because Republican senators put the interests of the country first, rather than the demands of the “Resistance movement.”

“Ideological Wish List”
One issue holding up the rescue bill is that Democrats don’t want money going to businesses. They claim that they want to help workers. Well, how do you help workers without helping businesses?

The compromise bill that was developed would provide businesses with bridge loans so they could continue paying their workers. And if they don’t lay off workers, the loans would be forgiven. That is a completely logical way to help American workers.

But right now it seems that Democrat leaders are more afraid of Donald Trump being seen as successfully handling the crisis than they are of the economic and human damage the virus is inflicting.

Sen. McConnell and other Republicans are ripping Speaker Nancy Pelosi for holding up the coronavirus relief bill as the left pursues an “ideological wish list.” McConnell thought he had an agreement yesterday to move forward, but all that changed when Nancy Pelosi returned to Washington.

In fact, Rep. James Clyburn, a member of the House Democrat leadership, said that the “phase three” bill would be “a tremendous opportunity to restructure things to fit our vision.” Democrats are now demanding a host of unrelated things from expanding union bargaining rights to wiping out student loan debt, plus new climate change regulations.

“I’ll tell you what will really lower our carbon footprint,” McConnell said today on the Senate floor. “If the entire economy continues to crumble with hundreds of thousands of Americans laid off because Senate Democrats won’t let us act. . . This is no time for this nonsense!”

Just one more thing to remember in November.

Good News
There will be plenty of time in the days ahead to hold our elected officials accountable for politicizing this pandemic. Right now, I’d like to comment on some examples of Americans who are appealing to what Abraham Lincoln referred to as the “better angels of our nature.”

There appears to be a rebirth of patriotism in America. In the neighborhoods where I walk each morning, I’ve noticed American flags being flown by people who have rarely, if ever, flown them before.

Schools across the country have closed, but that isn’t stopping some students from continuing to say the Pledge of Allegiance. Multiple families in one Ohio suburb have started a daily tradition of standing outside their homes and reciting the words in unison.

As Mary Kressler explained, “I wanted to teach them that patriotism is awesome and they should be proud to live in America. They need to learn that when things get tough, everything will be okay when we stick together.”

Henry Lallave, a Vietnam veteran and 9/11 first responder, has been walking the streets of New York City carrying an enormous American flag from 9/11 as a way to inspire today’s first responders and instill hope in a city that is once again on the frontlines of a national crisis.

All over the country, there are stories that may never be told — stories of young people shopping for the elderly; of people with facemasks dropping them off at nearby hospitals; and of small businesses that are no longer open keeping their employees on payroll for as long as possible.

All of which is to say that even in an increasingly secular and cynical America, there is still a deep reservoir of goodwill based on our shared Judeo-Christian values and Jesus’s command to “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

Perspective
While we don’t yet know how this crisis will play out, there are many people suggesting that we need to shift back to work. We must maintain the economic viability of the nation in order to deal with the human tragedies.

Late last night, President Trump expressed similar sentiments. In a tweet, he wrote that the cure cannot be worse than the problem itself, and that at the end of this 15-day period, we will reevaluate the situation.

It is crucial that we keep everything in perspective. So far, the U.S. has just over 35,300 confirmed coronavirus cases, resulting in 473 deaths. This year’s regular flu has resulted in 36 million flu infections, with 370,000 hospitalizations and 22,000 deaths.
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Gary Bauer (@GaryLBauer)  is a conservative family values advocate and serves as president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for Working Families

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Tags: Gary Bauer, Campaign for Working Families, Let Us Pray For You, “Ideological Wish List”, Senate Stalemate, Good News, Perspective To share or post to your site, click on “Post Link”. Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and “Like” Facebook Page – Thanks!

. . . “Blessed to have her leadership,” Gov. Newsom says of Nancy Pelosi, during coronavirus crackdown.

by Lloyd Billingsley: “We believe the virus will impact about 56 percent of California’s population,” California governor Gavin Newsom said in a press conference last Thursday. So the governor was ordering all residents of Californians to stay home, except for essential services, and the order would remain in force until further notice.

“In addition,” Newsom said, “I want to thank Speaker Nancy Pelosi. We had a very long conversation today. Talk about meeting the moment. We are so blessed to have her leadership in California. She’s very familiar to northern Californians, certainly familiar to me as a former mayor of San Francisco.” In reality, Newsom’s relationship with Pelosi goes back a lot farther.

William Newsom, Gavin’s grandfather, helped Pat Brown win the 1943 race for San Francisco district attorney. In 1960, Governor Pat Brown awarded the concession for the Squaw Valley Winter Olympics to William Newsom and John Pelosi. In 1963, John’s son Paul married Nancy D’Alesandro, daughter of congressman and Baltimore mayor Thomas D’Alesandro. In 1969 Paul and Nancy Pelosi moved to San Francisco, where Paul’s brother Ron was a San Francisco supervisor. Ron married William Newsom’s daughter Barbara, and until they divorced Nancy Pelosi was Gavin Newsom’s aunt by marriage.

In 1975, governor Jerry Brown appointed Gavin Newsom’s father to a judgeship in Placer County, and in 1978 to the state Court of Appeal. Newsom admires Jerry Brown but for leadership now looks to Nancy Pelosi, a woman on the far reaches of the left.

In 2001, long after Stalinist thug Harry Bridges was exposed as a Soviet agent, Nancy Pelosi praised Bridges in the Congressional Record as “arguably the most significant labor leader of the twentieth century.” Pelosi was also a big fan of Vincent Hallinan, Bridges’ lawyer and the 1952 candidate for president of the Progressive Party, a Communist front. The progressive Democrat Pelosi is also a vicious partisan and that trend emerges in Gavin Newsom.

In an interview with Politico last year, Newsom said Republicans would go into “the waste bin of history.” He referenced “the experience and temperament of Speaker Pelosi” a woman with “better sense than a lot of folks.” Newsom also announced a commitment to “universal health care,” and to make that happen, the governor is exploiting the coronavirus crisis.

Newsom’s Executive Order N-25-20, issued on March 12, “readies state to commandeer hotels and medical facilities to isolate and treat COVID-19 patients,” and also “readies the state to commandeer property for temporary residences and medical facilities for quarantining, isolating or treating individuals.” As Milton Friedman observed, temporary government measures have a tendency to become permanent.

Newsom’s budget provides nearly $100 million for the health care of foreign nationals illegally present in the United States. Newsom has not announced support for stepping up cooperation with federal border enforcement that would prevent carriers of coronavirus and other contagions from entering the United States. Likewise, it remains unclear whether the state’s sanctuary law would allow carriers to defy quarantine measures.

Like Nancy Pelosi, who invokes the “spark of divinity” in MS-13 gang members, Gavin Newsom has a soft spot for convicted murderers. Last year he reprieved all 737 of them on California’s death row. In similar style, his coronavirus crackdown cuts criminals a huge break.

The state department of corrections, headed by Newsom appointee Ralph Diaz, is barring family members of crime victims from attending parole hearings. The family members, and prosecutors, must appear by phone or video conference but inmates’ attorneys can appear in person. This ban, allegedly based on virus fears, will prevent victims’ families from confronting murderers face to face.

Doris Tate, mother of slain actress Sharon Tate, frequently appeared at parole hearings to keep Charles Manson and his followers in prison. The department did not indicate when family members of crime victims would again be allowed to appear in person at parole hearings.

Meanwhile, according to California health officials, the day before Newsom’s “stay home” edict, there were nearly 699 confirmed cases of coronavirus in California. In a state of 40 million, that amounts to about .0000175 percent of the population. Gov. Newsom, not a scientist, did not explain how he knew 5

Newsom did say he had been on the phone with the House Speaker, so if Californians thought Nancy Pelosi was calling the shots it would be hard to blame them. For her part, Speaker Pelosi may have more in mind than, as they discussed, “what will be needed over the course of the next few months.”

As Tad Friend noted in the New Yorker, Newsom is forward looking and like his hero Bobby Kennedy, “Newsom seeks to embody Kennedy’s grainy glamour, to provide moral clarity in a bewildering hour.” The governor wears Ermenegildo Zegna shirts and his hair is “lacquered with Oribe gel,” but Nancy Pelosi may be grooming her boy for a run at the White House in 2024.

In the meantime, as Newsom said Thursday, “We are so blessed to have her leadership in California.”
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Lloyd Billingsley Writes for FrontPage Mag and is the author of Barack ‘em Up: A Literary Investigation, recently updated, and Hollywood Party: Stalinist Adventures in the American Movie Industry. Bill of Writes: Dispatches from the Political Correctness Battlefield, is a collection of his journalism.

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by Thomas Gallatin: At a moment when all Americans need to unite to address the China Virus pandemic and its economic impact, congressional Democrats have elected to play partisan politics.

On Sunday evening, as the Senate was preparing to move forward via a procedural vote on a $1.8 trillion stimulus bill, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer threw a last-second wrench in the works. Democrats lined up to vote against moving the bipartisan bill forward, offering the ridiculous excuse that it did too much to help corporations and not enough to help workers. That argument simply doesn’t hold water, as moving the legislation forward would have allowed continued debate.

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell noted as much when he blasted Democrats for obstructing the relief bill. “We had a high level of bipartisanship in five different working groups over the last 48 hours, where members who were participating were reaching agreement,” McConnell said. “And then all of a sudden the Democratic leader and the speaker of the House shows up, and we’re back to square one.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had conferred with Schumer hours before the Senate vote in a clear effort to derail the bill, as she and Schumer work to create the false narrative that Democrats are the ones most looking out for American interests. The truth is they are still seeking to exploit a crisis to tank the economy with the hopes of reaping political benefit.

McConnell noted the negative economic toll the Democrats’ obstruction play would have, pointing to the fact that the market was almost certain to suffer another terrible day Monday. He concluded, “The notion that we have time to play games here with the American economy and the American people is utterly absurd.”

While the growing economic pain is hitting home for millions of Americans, Democrats are exploiting the crisis to push their own political agenda. And don’t forget that these lawmakers, many of whom are millionaires like Pelosi and Schumer, continue to collect their paychecks. How about Congress forego their paychecks until the China Virus crisis has passed?

Even The New York Times was surprised by the Democrats’ sudden obstructionist move, worriedly noting, “In voting to block action, Democrats risked a political backlash if they are seen as obstructing progress on a measure that is widely regarded as crucial to aid desperate Americans and buttress a flagging economy.”

What may have ignited the Democrats’ gambit is recent polling showing President Donald Trump’s approval rating rising as he has worked tirelessly and in a bipartisan effort to address the pandemic. As Power Line’s Steven Hayward observes, “[Democrats] are in a panic about the fact that Trump’s approval ratings are rising at the moment, and they are desperate to keep Trump from having a ‘win’ on policy amidst this crisis. A package will pass, probably soon, and while it may have many defects and require many sequels, the political interests of Democrats demands that they delay and degrade the process as much as possible to diminish Trump. I doubt this would be happening if it was a year ago, or a year from now. But it’s election year, and deranged Democrats are desperate.”

McConnell plans to hold a second vote to move forward on the Senate’s stimulus legislation later today, but the markets already plunged this morning, which is exactly what Schumer, Pelosi, and company wanted.
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Thomas Gallatin is a Features Editor at The Patriot Post.

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by Kerby Anderson: Let me begin with a question. What do you think of the Trump administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic? Your response probably ranges from a belief that some of the government’s actions could have been better to a belief that it was a botched operation from the beginning.

Many pundits and politicians say the administration’s response has been a disaster. That harsh assessment may be overdone and unfair, but let’s assume it is accurate. That leads to a second question. If the federal government botched this health care response, why would you want the same government to take total control of your personal health care?

After all, the government had weeks of advance warning, had lots of international attention, and had access to some of the best disease experts in the government. If you have a personal health care crisis and need surgery or other treatment, your plight won’t be given media attention and you won’t have access to the best experts in the field.

Pundits and politicians critical of the administration might argue that President Trump is solely responsible for all the problems they list. In order to argue that, you would have to ignore the positive comments by experts about the value of the travel bans and even the establishment of the public-private response to the pandemic.

Those who argue that another president would have done better ignore some of the mistakes made by previous presidents concerning disasters and pandemics. And do we really think a democratic socialist who has never run a government agency or a former vice-president apparently dealing with mental and memory issues would do better? And if we do get a vaccine in the near future, it will probably come from pharmaceutical companies those two candidates often vilify.

These critics might want to pause and consider that their criticisms are making a good case against government-run health care.
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Kirby Anderson is an author, lecturer, visiting professor and radio host and contributor on nationally syndicated Point of View and the “Probe” radio programs.

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by Micaiah Bilger: Abortions are not safer than childbirth because a baby always dies.

Women, too, risk their physical and mental health – and their future children’s as well – when they have abortions.

But some of the most respected minds in the country continue to mislead the public about the truth.

On Wednesday, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg claimed abortion is safer than childbirth while attacking a Louisiana law that requires abortionists to have hospital admitting privileges for patient emergencies, The Independent reports.

The justices considered a challenge to the law Wednesday, and they are expected to rule on the matter in June. The case will determine whether states may require abortionists to have hospital admitting privileges for patient emergencies and whether abortion businesses may sue on behalf of their patients.

Ginsburg, a pro-abortion icon, questioned the necessity of the law, arguing that most women who get abortions do not require medical treatment afterward.

“Most of the people who get abortions never have any need to go to a hospital, isn’t that so?” she asked lawyers for the state. “You don’t dispute … that among medical procedures, first-trimester abortion is among the safest, far safer than childbirth.”

This is not the first time Ginsburg has made the old, debunked pro-abortion argument. She made the same claim in 2016 when the Supreme Court heard a challenge to a similar Texas law.

First and foremost, abortion never is safer for the unborn child. The very purpose of an abortion is to destroy an unborn human being’s life.

Second, it is not accurate to say that abortion is safer for the woman, either. At the very least, researchers point out that the U.S. does not receive enough data from abortion facilities to make that conclusion. Several European studies have refuted the claim even further, concluding that more women die after abortions than childbirth.

In 2016, Anna Paprocki, an attorney at Americans United for Life, wrote an article explaining how U.S. abortion data is incomplete and unreliable. This makes it hard to make any conclusions regarding the safety of abortion, she wrote.

Dr. Byron Calhoun, vice chair of West Virginia University-Charleston’s Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, published research in 2013 to explain how little data Americans have about abortion complications and maternal deaths. He wrote in the Catholic medical journal Linacre Quarterly:

There are numerous and complicated methodological factors that make a valid scientific assessment of abortion mortality extremely difficult. Among the many factors responsible are incomplete reporting, definitional incompatibilities, voluntary data collection, research bias, reliance upon estimations, political correctness, inaccurate and/or incomplete death certificate completion, incomparability with maternal mortality statistics, and failing to include other causes of death such as suicides. Given the importance of this disclosure about abortion mortality, the lack of credible and reliable scientific evidence supporting this representation requires substantial discussion.Studies that claim to show abortions are safer than childbirth tend to be biased. They come from pro-abortion organizations or abortionists themselves who have a financial interest in the outcome.

In contrast, a comprehensive study of medical records in Denmark found the opposite to be true: “Compared to women who delivered, women who had an early or late abortion had significantly higher mortality rates within 1 through 10 years.” The study was published in the Medical Science Monitor in 2012.

There also is evidence that legalizing abortion does not reduce maternal mortality rates. Before Ireland legalized abortion in 2018, research showed that maternal mortality rates were lower there than in neighboring countries where abortion is legal. A study from Chile also found that maternal mortality declined because of better access to health care, not changes in the country’s abortion laws.

Abortions also can affect the health of future children. A new study from the Acta Obstetricia et Gynecologica Scandinavica in Finland found that abortions can lead to an increased risk of preterm birth and low birth weight in future children. Previous studies found similar results.

An abortion is the exact opposite of safety or healthcare. Its purpose is to destroy the life of a unique, living human being – the woman’s own child. In America, abortions have killed more than 61 million unborn babies since 1973. But the number of mothers who have been harmed or killed as a result of an abortion remains a mystery.
——————
Micaiah Bilger is a LifeNews.com Staff Writer

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Tags: Micaiah Bilger, LifeNews.com, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Falsely Claims, Abortion is Safer. Than Childbirth To share or post to your site, click on “Post Link”. Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and “Like” Facebook Page – Thanks!

. . . Democrats are holding the COVID-19 crisis aid hostage to push through a left-wing goodie bag full of the non-coronavirus related funding.

Editorial Cartoon by AF “Tony” Branco

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Tags: editorial cartoon, AF Branco, twisted, Democrats, holding hostage, COVID-19 crisis aid, to push through, left-wing goodie bag, full of, non-coronavirus related funding To share or post to your site, click on “Post Link”. Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and “Like” Facebook Page – Thanks!

Senate Democrats are holding the U.S. economy hostage.

by Robert Romano: Senate Democrats are holding the U.S. economy hostage after blocking legislation to protect small businesses, guarantee payroll and expand unemployment relief to tens of millions of workers.

The vote failed 47 to 47, with 60 needed to advance the bill.

The fate of 30 million small businesses and critical industries, indeed, the U.S. economy hangs in the balance after the federal and state governments have practically closed everything except for essential services.

The government has put the economy into an induced coma, and now it has a responsibility not to lose the patient.

By forcing almost the entire population to stay home for all intents and purposes, the government must ensure the American people have an economy to go back to. That’s where small business relief comes in.

Small businesses employ 60 million workers nationwide and are the backbone of our economy, but right now they are in serious danger of disappearing. Without immediate relief by way of forgivable loans to meet payroll, there may be nothing left on the balance sheets when this is over except debt.

Many of those businesses will never come back—unless Congress acts right now to protect them.

Here is the truth.

People are going to start running out of money very soon as cash reserves are depleted. Without revenues, every aspect of the economy will seize up. Soon, it will become a vast financial crisis as people become rapidly unable to pay their debts. Then, banks.

Already, the Federal Reserve is intervening by purchasing commercial mortgage backed securities and has opened a new $300 billion lending window to businesses and larger employers. Interest rates are back down to zero. And quantitative easing has begun anew.

The Senate bill would provide $300 billion to cover payroll for small businesses and another $200 billion for critical industries. By covering everyone’s payroll, everyone will be able to continue paying their mortgages and utilities. Businesses will be able to cover building and maintenance expenses.

Debt markets won’t seize up. The financial and digital portions of our economy will continue functioning. Vast uncertainty about the coronavirus outbreak will be alleviated.

These closures in response to a public health emergency are now themselves a financial emergency that must be addressed by Congress before it is too late.

We also need to salvage as much of the economy and businesses can be after the virus passes. After this is all over, we’re going to need them to rebuild America in the aftermath.

The Senate and House must take responsibility for everything being closed and to stop putting politics above all of our lives. There is too much at stake.

The only way to safely contain the virus is for Congress to incentivize the American people to stay home. What Congress does affects the health emergency directly. It has to safely house every American for the next several weeks or months.

Or else people and businesses will begin breaking the national lockdown out of desperation.
————–
Robert Romano is the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government.

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Tags: Robert Romano, Americans for Limited Government, Senate Dems, Hold Economy Hostage, After Demanding Everything Close, To Slow Down, Chinese Coronavirus To share or post to your site, click on “Post Link”. Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and “Like” Facebook Page – Thanks!

. . . Bernie Sanders supporters learn what life under socialism is really like.

by Daniel Greenfield is : A few weeks after Californians cast their votes for Bernie Sanders, there are huge lines to buy toilet paper. Toilet paper, like dairy products and cleaning supplies, are limited to two per household.

Savvy shoppers have learned, like their counterparts in the old Soviet Union, to get what they need by bartering what they can buy. Toilet paper for antibacterial soap. Milk for wipes.

Yakov Smirnoff had spent his career joking about standing on line to buy toilet paper and discovering that the government store wasn’t even selling toilet paper, but something to be bartered for it.

“If I start making jokes about a shortage of toilet paper in America, it won`t make any sense because you walk into a store and see 15 brand names of toilet paper,” he had once told a newspaper.

“Yesterday I stood in line for two hours waiting for CVS truck to unload. Everyone was waiting for alcohol and toilet paper. I felt like I was back in Soviet Russia,” Smirnoff, who now lives in California, tweeted.

The old Soviet anecdotes finally make sense to Americans. All it took was a little taste of the real deal.

“You don’t necessarily need a choice of 23 underarm spray deodorants when children are hungry in this country,” Senator Bernie Sanders had once snapped.

And now there are no choices of deodorant. You take what’s on the shelf and learn to like it.

Sanders voters had wanted to live under socialism. And now they have the opportunity to learn what it’s really like. Between the curfews, the shortages, and the absolute government authority, they’re living in the type of system that Sanders and his base have admired when it was far away and safely overseas.

In 2003, Sanders, along with Rep. Conyers, Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr, and Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, had signed a letter of support for Hugo Chavez: the brutal Venezuelan strongman. “If Abraham Lincoln or George Washington were alive and here today, they would be on our side,” they told him.

“These days, the American dream,” Sanders once wrote, “is more apt to be realized in South America, in places such as Ecuador, Venezuela.”

The socialist dream in Venezuela began with toilet paper shortages, then dairy shortages, and eventually no food, medicine, or drinking water, while the Marxist regime paid its military thugs in food supplies.

A few supermarket lines are only a small taste of “democratic socialism” in action.

The coronavirus isn’t Communism, but it has created social, political, and economic conditions similar to that of Communism, with an authoritarian state, a frightened populace, and resource shortages.

There’s no better laboratory for seeing how the real thing would play out in California.

California’s Sandernistas are invariably on the wealthy and comfortable side. Bernie bumper stickers rarely show up on beat-up Chevys, but on a Tesla, on a Mercedes, or on a Beemer. You can spot Bernie lawn signs outside lavish mansions whose owners imagine that socialism is for someone else.

Someone else’s cars and mansions will be confiscated. Not theirs. Someone else won’t be able to buy basic staples. Not the Silicon Valley tech bros pouring a fortune into the Sanders campaign and its PACs.

Bernie’s wealthy donors in the Inner Mission and Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco, and Echo Park in Los Angeles, are now discovering the lifestyle that they’ve only romanticized from a distance before as they wait on line in empty supermarkets and stare baffled at ‘Out of Stock’ messages on Amazon listings.

To paraphrase Sinclair Lewis, the poet laureate of California socialists, “When Communism comes to California, it will be wrapped in a repurposed paint fume respirator mask, wearing medical gloves, and driving a BMW with a Bernie 2020 bumper sticker while frantically grabbing rolls of toilet paper.”

There are two kinds of socialism: the ideal and the real.

Ideal socialism is an entertaining set of intellectual games, castles in the sand, ivory towers in the air, where the right words and attitudes can enable the enlightened to implement heaven on earth.

Real socialism is standing on line for toilet paper.

Capitalism is the best argument for socialism. When the supermarkets are full and there are lots of good jobs, then it’s easy to imagine that the system can be improved with a lot of authoritarian planning. Why not take all those goodies and distribute them more efficiently? There’s so much of the stuff that it seems easy to redistribute it, to add a few zeroes to budgets already filled with imaginary numbers.

And socialism is the best argument against itself.

Socialists always think that they will lose their freedom to a wise ideal, only to discover that they will lose it to a grubby real of incompetent bureaucrats, frightened mobs, and armed men in the streets.

Bernie’s vague rambling plans to nationalize everything from electricity to the internet, to bring into being a nation where the government decides how much deodorant and shoes you get to have, sound great until it stops being a hip ideal and becomes the tawdry reality of waiting on line for toilet paper.

You don’t need a literacy program to realize socialism is a bad idea when you’re living through it.

California politicians have taken a break from a torrent of insane bills that proposed to ban receipts (they’re bad for the environment), ban fur, legalize eating roadkill, (if you run over a rabbit, you can eat it, but don’t you dare wear its fur), and banning separate clothes sections for little girls and boys, to ineptly tumble the state and its major cities headlong into a mismanaged response to the coronavirus.

The incompetence of California Democrats was all fun and games when it led to blowing up the homeless population while wasting billions of dollars, banning police from turning over illegal alien pedophiles to ICE, or accidentally outlawing freelance work across the entire state for the unions.

But now there are real consequences. It’s not just another bunch of zeroes or a handful of victims whose stories will never appear on any cable network except the one no respectable socialist would watch.

Millions of lives have been disrupted. And countless lives are potentially on the line.

Socialism sounds like a great idea if you imagine that the people running things are smart, moral, and competent, as socialists imagine that they are. It falls apart in the real world where people aren’t.

After voting for Bernie Sanders, Californians are discovering what it’s actually like to live in Venezuela, Cuba, or the Soviet Union, where they have no rights, there’s nothing in the stores, and nothing works.
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Daniel Greenfield (@Sultanknish) is Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and an investigative journalist and writer focusing on radical Left and Islamic terrorism.

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Tags: Daniel Greenfield, FrontPage Mag, Coronavirus, Communism, Comes to California To share or post to your site, click on “Post Link”. Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and “Like” Facebook Page – Thanks!

by Paul Jacob, Contributing Author: It’s war!

A common refrain regarding the coronavirus. “This is our World War II,” say media mavens and politicians . . . who have never had to endure anything like World War II.

The utter vapidity of the “war” response was explained very well by Peter Schiff on a recent episode of The Tom Woods Show. Schiff is famously bearish on the American economy, which he has argued for years is addicted to debt and consumption but not production and responsibility. He notes how different this new “war” is.

Folks today, he argues, have no more idea how World War II was won than how the economy works.

1. Politicians increased taxes during the war.
2. Americans were not bailed out: they had to struggle to survive, even on the home front, as
3. they had to do without creature comforts. Taxes on goods and services sky-rocketed, to pay for the war . . .
4. in which many young men died.
5. Middle-class wealth was tapped like never before, to win the two-front war, and one mechanism to aid the effort was the withholding tax . . .

which now we are talking about suspending.

What is widely being proposed today is not the “socialism” of war, where lives and wealth are conscripted.* What is being proposed is the “socialism” of bailouts and sugar-plum fairies, where consumers are coddled. And unlike in World War II, Schiff contends, there is no vast private wealth to tax to pay for what is deemed necessary. Instead, we have debt. It is indeed a strange war where we fight the threat of any harm coming to us, or any sacrifice required.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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* We should oppose the conscription of individuals, as was done in the First and Second World War as well as Korea and Vietnam. Not only does it violate the Thirteenth Amendment’s prohibition against involuntary servitude, it was not needed then, nor is it now. More on this later in the week.
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Paul Jacob (@Common_Sense_PJ) is author of Common Sense which provides daily commentary about the issues impacting America and about the citizens who are doing something about them. He is also President of the Liberty Initiative Fund (LIFe) as well as Citizens in Charge Foundation. Jacob is a contributing author on the ARRA News Service.

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Tags: Paul Jacob, Common Sense, How Un-Warlike To share or post to your site, click on “Post Link”. Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and “Like” Facebook Page – Thanks!

by NRA-ILA: Another week, another dubious “fact-check” from the professional propagandists at Politifact. This time the Poynter Institute project labeled a claim that Joe Biden has admitted to supporting gun confiscation as “Pants on Fire,” their most extreme rating for a supposed falsehood. In their herculean effort to obscure Biden’s support for gun confiscation, the media outlet went out of its way to avoid discussion of the overwhelming evidence of the presidential candidate’s intent to take guns.

Politifact took issue with an article from Conservative-Daily titled, “Watch: Biden Looks Into The Camera And Promises To Take Away Americans’ Guns​.” As evidence, the Conservative-Daily article cited a viral video of Joe Biden and Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke, eating at Texas hamburger chain Whataburger. During the video, Biden states “This guy changed the face of what we’re dealing with regarding guns, assault weapons… and I just want to warn [Beto’s wife] that if I win I’m coming for him.”

By narrowly focusing on only Biden’s statement at the Whataburger, while avoiding all context, Politifact came to the conclusion that Biden was only expressing his intent to have O’Rourke be part of his administration and that the video did not show evidence of the former vice president’s desire to ban guns.

When looking at the totality of Biden’s comments on confiscation, this view is untenable.

Just prior to the Whataburger outing, Biden shared the stage with Beto at a campaign rally where the failed U.S. senate and presidential candidate endorsed him for president. Biden told those gathered, “I want to make something clear. I’m going to guarantee you this is not the last you’ll see of this guy.” Biden went on say, “You’re going to take care of the gun problem with me. You’re going to be the one who leads this effort. I’m counting on ya.”

By offering Beto a role on guns in a potential future administration, Biden made clear that he supports Beto’s gun control position. That position is gun confiscation.

During the September 12, 2019 Democratic debate, Beto was asked about his proposal to confiscate commonly-owned semi-automatic firearms. Beto responded in part by saying, “hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15.” The Beto campaign would go on to sell t-shirts with the anti-gun slogan.​

Less than a week later, Beto reiterated his call for gun confiscation on CNN’s Cuomo Prime Time. During an interview, Chris Cuomo asked Beto, “All right, so let’s state the proposition. Are you, in fact, in favor of gun confiscation?” Beto responded with “Yes.”

There can be no doubt that Biden understands Beto would confiscate firearms, as he shared the debate stage with him on September 12.

However, it is not necessary to deduce that Biden supports gun confiscation from his support for Beto’s attacks on firearms rights. Biden has stated that he intends to take firearms.

Biden had the following exchange with CNN’s Anderson Cooper when asked about firearm confiscation during an August 5, 2019 interview.

Cooper: So, to gun owners out there who say well a Biden administration means they are going to come for my guns.

Biden: Bingo! You’re right if you have an assault weapon.

It is revealing that the purported “factcheckers” at Politifact did not make a full accounting of the facts concerning Biden and gun confiscation. Biden and Beto’s statements on gun confiscation are public and have been made widely available by those who support the Second Amendment. Such actions by Politifact suggest a determined ignorance calculated to protect a favored political candidate.
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NRA-ILA

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Tags: Joe Biden, Politifact Gun Confiscation, NRA-ILA To share or post to your site, click on “Post Link”. Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and “Like” Facebook Page – Thanks!

by Ana Quintana & Lora Ries: In mid-March, President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador closed his country’s borders to foreigners. At that point, his country had zero confirmed cases of COVID-19, commonly known as the coronavirus.

Bukele closed down schools, temporarily shut down the international airport, and banned flights from Mexico when he believed the Mexican government allowed corona-positive passengers to board El Salvador-bound flights.

While these measures might seem extreme, to date El Salvador has only one confirmed case.

El Salvador’s actions demonstrate that borders play a key role in combating against the coronavirus.

On Friday, the U.S. and Mexico announced a joint agreement to close their shared border for nonessential travel over the next 30 days.

Closing the border to nonessential travel while still allowing trade was the right move by President Donald Trump.

The U.S. and Mexico are each other’s largest trade partners and with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, there are safety guarantees to protect lawful cross-border trade. Americans should be confident that necessary supply chains like food and manufactured goods are well-protected.

More importantly, this travel restriction protects border agents from unnecessary exposure to the coronavirus and reduces the workload they are experiencing from the border crisis.

It is also a smart move as it allows Customs and Border Protection to redirect manpower and sanitary resources that would have gone to inadmissible migrants toward first responders and critical industries.

Border agents are at the front lines and put their lives at risk every day protecting the country. With the coronavirus, they are now unwittingly risking their family, friends, and Homeland Security co-workers. Trump was right to give them this momentary reprieve and, should the crisis continue, the travel restrictions should be extended.

A recent Politico article reported that “nearly 500 Homeland Security employees are quarantined because of the novel coronavirus, and at least 13 are confirmed or presumed COVID-19 positive.”

Despite what partisan pundits in the mainstream media want you to think, travel restrictions are not racist or xenophobic. Currently, 41 countries have implemented travel restrictions or border control policies.

It is important to note that Friday’s border action was a joint agreement with Mexico. Hopefully, the Trump administration is deepening cooperation with Mexico on their domestic efforts to counter the coronavirus.

As cases of the virus increase in Mexico, the Mexican government is seriously falling behind on developing and executing a plan.

The capital city has only prohibited events larger than 1,000 people and recently allowed a concert of 70,000 people to take place.

Flight restrictions from high-risk countries are not in place and President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador continues traveling around the country, hugging and kissing supporters.

Recently, around 400 Mexican businessmen chartered private planes to Vail, Colorado, for a skiing trip. Upon return, a few tested positive for COVID-19. The Jalisco government is looking for them and asking them to self-isolate.

Should Mexico’s lack of internal enforcement continue, the U.S. should also consider banning flights.

In the midst of a highly contagious global pandemic, definitions of normalcy are rewritten. Viruses do not respect borders or boundaries. What was extreme a month ago is now prudent and responsible.
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Ana Quintana (@Ana_R_Quintana) is a senior policy analyst for Latin America and the Western Hemisphere in The Heritage Foundation’s Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies. Lora Ries (@lora_ries) is a senior research fellow specializing in homeland security at The Heritage Foundation. H/T The Daily Signal

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Tags: Ana Quintana, Lora Ries, Protecting America’s Borders, Is Critical, to Combating Coronavirus, The Daily Signal To share or post to your site, click on “Post Link”. Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and “Like” Facebook Page – Thanks!

by Kathleen Dynan, Contributing Author: In the current, uncertain health and financial environment, Americans must remember the real, positive changes we are seeing under the leadership of President Donald J. Trump. Americans are taking their power back from the self-anointed elites.

For instance, elites can no longer escape punishment for their crimes. A prime example is former Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein. He is not likely to ever see another day of freedom. New York recently sentenced him to 23 years in prison and he still faces a trial in California for more, sexual-abuse charges.

Another welcome development is that elites have found that freedom-loving American citizens will not be bought. Mike Bloomberg spent over $500 million, more than $13.5 million for each delegate he won, in his quest to buy the nomination for President. He failed as a candidate because it is obvious that he does not like people and is ill-prepared to govern. Now, he’ll throw away more money to try to buy the Presidency for Joe Biden. He will fail again.

As of March 11, 2020, the Democrats held twenty-four primaries. In this greatly divided Democrat party, “Sleepy Joe Biden”, the mentally-deteriorating, phony middle-of-the-road candidate, won 7,262,724 votes. “Crazy Bernie Sanders” who wants American lives and money controlled by government won 5,654,361 votes. As the real costs of unfulfillable promises are exposed, even Democrats are rejecting Sanders’ Socialism / Communism.

As of March 11, 2020, the Republicans held eighteen primaries. Donald Trump won 9,486,212 votes. He is not being challenged for the nomination. Americans did not need to go out and vote for him, but did. Americans want him to know he is loved, respected and supported, the same sentiments he holds for all Americans. This is proven in every action he takes to defend, protect and make life better for all American citizens and legal aliens. Unity and enthusiasm for the 2020 election belong to the Republicans.

The current health crisis is proving to all Americans the significant benefits of having a leader who: quickly analyzes situations; listens to the advice of experts in their fields; employs both government and private sector assets to help; and makes and implements decisions in a timely manner. Within weeks of learning that China is the source of this coronavirus, President Trump stopped flights into the US from the area in China where the crisis started.

Trump has since stopped EU and UK nationals from entering the US, because now they are also a major source of transmission of the virus. He has put together medical experts to assess and recommend actions to end this health crisis and financial and business experts to help Americans through this time. The numbers will continue to grow, but the United States has the best medical care in the world and will suffer far fewer cases and deaths proportionately than any country in the world. President Trump’s early and continuing decisive actions are invaluable in protecting us.

In contrast, it took 1,000 plus American deaths before Obama and Biden declared swine flu, or H1N1, a public health emergency in April, 2009. It took an additional six months before they declared it a national emergency. By April, 2010, Americans suffered about: 60.8 million cases; 274,304 hospitalizations; and 12,469 deaths. They are politicians, not competent leaders.

This contrasts the importance of having a President whose strong planning, delegating, management, negotiating and decision-making skills resulted in a highly successful business in the real world. The other option, career-long, clueless, elite politicians and interest groups focused on how well they, not we, emerge from a crisis has hurt us all in the past. Keep the “American Dream” growing stronger and more obtainable for all Americans. In November, vote only for strong conservatives who support President Trump and his agenda to benefit us.
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Kathleen Dynan is a constitutional conservatives who believes without law and order, borders, the opportunity for a good education, jobs, and safety, America will cease. She is a former English teacher, an education director for a second-chance program for high school drop outs, and executive recruiting. She enjoys traveling with her husband; they have visited 61 countries, all 50 states, and most of Canada. She is a contributing author to the ARRA News Service.

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Tags: Kathleen Dynan, Major Contrasts,  To share or post to your site, click on “Post Link”. Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and “Like” Facebook Page – Thanks!

by Michael Tilley: An unprecedented number of Arkansans – up to 10,000 – have in recent days filed for unemployment insurance, and around 300 businesses have sought info on an emergency loan program, Gov. Asa Hutchinson and other state officials said during a Sunday (March 22) press conference.

Unemployment filings and loan assistance are driven by how COVID-19 has significantly disrupted economic activity globally.

COVID-19 cases in Arkansas rose from 118 on Saturday to 165 on Sunday, with 119 persons under investigation and 517 people being monitored because of a possible risk. Three Arkansas counties posted double-digit cases – Pulaski (52), Cleburne (25) and Jefferson (20). As of Sunday at noon, there were more than 31,000 U.S. cases and around 290 deaths, with 53% of those in two states – New York (114) and Washington (94). Globally, there were around 319,000 cases and almost 14,000 deaths.

Gov. Hutchinson said the best estimate is that 8,000 to 10,000 have filed jobless claims in the past few days.

“We anticipate that that number will continue to go up,” Arkansas Secretary of Commerce Mike Preston said.

Acknowledging glitches in the system, Preston said the state is working to ensure the process goes smoother for those who file online for benefits. He urged people to avoid visits to state unemployment offices to file a claim to avoid possible COVID-19 spread, and because those people are working to respond to the online claims.

He said the Arkansas Economic Development Commission has received around 300 calls and e-mails asking for info or assistance from a fund created recently to provide bridge loans to businesses. Gov. Hutchinson announced March 20 that $4 million from the Governor’s Quick Action Closing Fund – created to provide cash incentives for businesses expanding or locating operations in Arkansas – would be set aside to support bridge loans to small businesses that need help making payroll and pay other essential costs. The loans can be up to $250,000. Attorney General Leslie Rutledge released $3 million from a settlement fund to add to the $4 million.

Preston said those wanting more information on COVID-19 support resources for businesses should visit the state’s website created to outline the programs.

‘REAL HEROES’
Secretary of Health Dr. Nate Smith said 44 of the 165 COVID-19 cases in Arkansas are nursing home workers and residents at Apple Creek Nursing and Rehab in Centerton, The Villages of General Baptist West in Pine Bluff and Briarwood Nursing Home and Rehab in Little Rock. Of the three, 35 residents and 6 staff are at Briarwood, and the state is in the process of testing residents and staff at the other two nursing homes.

Smith said there are some “real heroes” working in the three nursing homes and others in the state, with some workers pulling 12-hour shifts or remaining in the home when not working. He also praised the Arkansas Department of Health lab, which increased testing capacity from around 10 a day to 135 tests on Saturday.

Of the positive cases, 10 are age 18 or younger, 62 are age 65 and older, and 93 are between ages 19 and 64. Smith said 61% are female. He also said 19 patients are or have been hospitalized, 12 are or have been in an intensive care unit, and six are or have been on a ventilator.
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Michael Tilley writes for Talk Business & Politics.

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Tags: Michael Tilley, Talk Business & Politics, Almost 27%, CIVIS-19, Arkansas Cases, 3 Nursing Homes To share or post to your site, click on “Post Link”. Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and “Like” Facebook Page – Thanks!

by Dr. Patrick Briney: Is the government overreacting? Are people around you overreacting? Are you overreacting?

If you are not worried about being infected with THE virus, why should anyone else be concerned? If people are infected by the flu virus every year, why be concerned about people being infected by the corona virus? And why should you be told to self-quarantine, when you feel so good and healthy?

Here are 6 insights into our current pandemic that will help you understand what is going on and why the government is issuing such drastic measures.

1. The Problem
The problem facing the world today is suffering and death caused by the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.

COVID-19 is the name of the disease caused by a corona virus that has been named SARS-CoV-2. (SARS is the abbreviation for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome.)

A similar outbreak appeared in China in 2002. That outbreak was caused by a different strain of corona virus. Another outbreak by another corona virus occurred in 2012, originating in Saudi Arabia. It was called MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome).

2. The Threat
The current threat of suffering and death preoccupying the world at the moment is caused by the virus named SARS-CoV-2. This name distinguishes it from the other corona viruses. It is virulent and contagious. This means it is easily transmitted, and it will cause disease. It is being treated as an airborne disease, which means it can be transmitted just by talking and breathing. This is what makes it so contagious. However, new studies are showing that this may not be the most common mode of transmission.

Two secondary social threats to our well-being are panic and complacency. Both are extreme and irrational responses to the pandemic challenging the world right now.

There is also the threat of evil. Whenever there is opportunity, evil strikes. It resides in the heart of humanity. When there is panic and fear, people do irrational things. Fear and ignorance can turn a civil society into an uncivil society very quickly.

3. The Complications
Complications result from bad decisions. The proud and ignorant prematurely pontificate their “amazing” insights and predictions. This means that more ignorant and poor choices will be made, resulting in more people suffering and dying. Fear and panic may overprotect, but complacency can lead to increased suffering and death.

Can you imagine if the healthcare systems looked like the stores do today, with long wait lines? If the virus spreads too fast, this is what the hospitals will look like. This is the reason that such drastic measures are being taken to slow the rate of transmission.

We know how fast the virus spreads when precautions are not taken in time. This is not theory. China, Italy, and France are examples of what not to do. The challenge with precautions is that people do not believe there is a crisis until they see the crisis. But if they wait to see evidence of crisis, it is too late.

4. The Vulnerability
The first vulnerability is an overwhelmed healthcare system. Epidemiologists have analyzed the spread of the virus and are convinced that delaying an appropriate response to the virus will lead to more suffering and death. Why? An overwhelmed healthcare system cannot attend to the needs of all the sick. Our healthcare system is designed to respond to the normal expectations of medical needs in communities. With a sudden increase of patients, medical supplies will be insufficient; bed spaces will be in short supply; and healthcare personnel will be overwhelmed due to contracting the disease themselves, fatigue, and too many patients to care for.

The second vulnerability is the elderly. These are the most vulnerable in the population. Statistics show that people 55 and older are facing a mortality rate of 3% to 14.5%. Many of these deaths may have been preventable if adequate healthcare had been available.

The third vulnerability is the chronically ill who suffer from lung disease, heart disease, diabetes, and a compromised immune system. The virus will complicate their health conditions, and an overwhelmed healthcare system will not be readily available to help them.

The fourth vulnerability is the lack of herd protection. The human population has not been exposed to the SARS-CoV-2 virus before, so there is no natural protection. Unlike the seasonal influenza virus which has come to an equilibrium in the human population, it can be assumed that 100% of the human population is vulnerable to infection by the CoV-2 virus. This is one reason it spreads so quickly and exponentially.

You might not be vulnerable. But you can be a threat to those who are, if you do not take precautions to avoid spreading the virus.

5. The Transmission
The route of transmitting the virus is through the eyes, the nose, and the mouth. These are the doors into your body. Once the virus comes into contact with these openings, you will be infected.

The severity of infection you will suffer is determined by several variables.

A relationship of these variables used in immunology classes is described as Infection = Virulence x Number of pathogens / Resistance [ I = (V x N) / R ]. The greater the virulence and the greater the number of pathogens you are exposed to, the greater the severity of infection you can expect. The greater your resistance to the infection, the less severe the infection will be.

You can see that those with little resistance who are exposed to large numbers of a virulent pathogen can expect a very severe infection. Those who are healthy and have a greater resistance to pathogens can expect to be affected with less severity.

CoV-2 is being treated like an airborne pathogen that can be transmitted during the incubation period. This means that, prior to showing symptoms, an infected person can transmit viruses to others by breathing and talking, as well as by coughing and sneezing. The more viruses shed in each breath, the greater the number of virus particles others are exposed to. This means that you could be infected and transmit the disease to others before you are even aware that you are infected. This is the reason drastic steps are being taken to isolate people from one another.

Feeling good or only mildly sick does not make you safe. It makes you more dangerous to others if you do not take precautions to avoid spreading the virus.

The incubation period appears to be averaging about 5 days before symptoms appear. But it can incubate for up to 12 days. This is the reason a 14-day isolation period is recommended if you suspect that you have been exposed. After 14 days of an effective and successful community-wide quarantine, it will be evident who is infected and who is not.

6. The Response
Prevent infection with social distancing, hand-washing, disinfectants, antiseptics, and quarantine. Eventually, there will be vaccines available, but these take up to a year to prepare and test.

If possible, avoid going to the emergency room, medical clinic, or hospital for minor ailments or just to be tested. Others shedding the virus will be there, and you will be exposed. Go if there is a true emergency.

If you are wondering whether you should go to the hospital, call before you go. Look up websites provided to pre-screen prospective patients.

Summary
Viral diseases, like CoV-2, must run their course. The complications are what need to be treated, such as pneumonia, cough, fever, and headache, as well as the social complications of panic, complacency, and overwhelming the healthcare system. Be informed, and make good choices. Use common sense to avoid being infected and to avoid infecting others. Pray for health and wisdom.

You can read more about appropriate responses to COVID-19 in my article “5 Ways to Respond Appropriately to COVID-19.”
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Dr. Patrick Briney (@drpatrickbriney)earned his Ph.D. in microbiology from the University of Arkansas, specializing in immunology and infectious diseases.

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Tags: Dr Patrick Briney, 6 Helpful Insights, Help You Know, What to Do About, the COVID-19 Pandemic To share or post to your site, click on “Post Link”. Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and “Like” Facebook Page – Thanks!

Last Week, Senate Democrats Asked For Immediate Action On Coronavirus Legislation: ‘This Is Not Just Another Political Issue,’ And Senators Must ‘Shed Our Partisanship And Rise To The Occasion’ Because ‘Time Is Of The Essence,’ Yet Today Democrats Blocked Critical Bipartisan Coronavirus Relief From Moving Forward
“Democrats block advancement of critical economic relief package” (Washington Examiner, 3/22/2020)

“Senate Democrats block mammoth coronavirus stimulus package” “Democrats block advancement of critical economic relief package” (The Hill, 3/22/2020)

SENATE MAJORITY LEADER MITCH McCONNELL (R-KY): “Thus far, throughout this crisis, the Senate has risen to the occasion. It was just a few days ago when this Republican Senate majority moved expeditiously to pass the House Democrats’ “phase two” legislation, even though many of my colleagues on this side of the aisle and I had serious reservations and would have written it differently. Nevertheless, I pushed the Speaker’s legislation through the Senate. Because urgency and results matter during a national crisis. Because, imperfections notwithstanding, it was the right thing to do for our country. So I hope and anticipate that a similar degree of bipartisanship and urgency will be reciprocated now.” (Sen. McConnell, Remarks, 3/22/2020)

• SEN. McCONNELL: “This is not a political opportunity. It is a national emergency. That’s why we have engaged in days of bipartisan talks to get to this point. And that’s why it is time to move forward. Americans don’t need us to haggle endlessly. They don’t need us to jeopardize all the progress we’ve made over the past several days for the sake of eleventh-hour brinkmanship. The American people need an outcome and they need it tomorrow.” (Sen. McConnell, Remarks, 3/22/2020)
• SEN. McCONNELL: “Senators have now spent days engaged in vigorous bipartisan discussions, among ourselves and with the Administration…. These intense conversations have built a piece of legislation that is as bold and big as the American people deserve, and as thoroughly bipartisan as our process demands. Now we need to move forward. This national crisis is not going to wait around if Congress slips back into conventional politics or haggles endlessly over the finer points…. The risks to our country grow every single day that we do not act.” (Sen. McConnell, Remarks, 3/22/2020)

SEN. SCHUMER, Just This Past Week: ‘There’s A Crisis In This Country And We Have To Move Quickly,’ ‘[E]veryone Is Going To Have New Ideas But That Will Slow Things Down’
SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): “We need the Senate to act immediately. Americans can’t wait.” (Sen. Schumer, @SenSchumer, Twitter, 3/18/2020)

• SEN. SCHUMER: “Leader McConnell was right when he said that in times of national emergency, we must shed our partisanship and rise to the occasion.” (Sen. Schumer, Remarks, 3/18/2020)
• SEN. SCHUMER: “We’ve got to move quickly…. The typical legislative process takes too long and it won’t work…. Time is of the essence.  Let us come together, construct and pass this next bill as soon as we possibly can.” (Sen. Schumer, Remarks, 3/19/2020)
• SEN. SCHUMER: “There’s a crisis in this country and we have to move quickly…. [E]veryone is going to have new ideas but that will slow things down…. We have to act immediately, and this aid is needed immediately. So, I would say to Leader McConnell, pass the bill as is.” (Sen. Schumer, Press Conference, 3/14/2020)

SEN. SCHUMER: “If people have ideas of how to do other things and other amendments, we’re going to have new legislation down the road, but pass this now.” (Sen. Schumer, Press Conference, 3/14/2020)

• SEN. SCHUMER: “[P]lease, my colleagues, we will have other opportunities to legislate, and there will be a great need for them. But let’s move this now. Let’s move this now.” (Sen. Schumer, Remarks, 3/17/2020)
• SEN. SCHUMER: “In a time of national emergency, this Republican amendment is ridiculous and a colossal waste of time.” (Sen. Schumer, Remarks, 3/18/2020)

SEN. DURBIN, Just This Past Week: ‘Now Is Not The Time To Get Caught Up In Political Differences,’ ‘We Have To Understand That Business As Usual Is Unacceptable’
SEN. DICK DURBIN (D-IL): “This is not just another political issue. We know it.” (Sen. Durbin, Press Conference, 3/17/2020)

• SEN. DURBIN: “Senate Democrats stand ready to provide aid to working families – I urge my Republican colleagues to join us. Now is not the time to get caught up in political differences. Let’s get to work for the American people.” (Sen. Durbin, @SenatorDurbin, 3/18/2020)
• SEN. DURBIN: “[W]e needed to tell the American people we are moving on that bipartisan agreement quickly. There are parts of it which I’m not excited about, there are parts I’m sure the Republicans are not, but it is a bipartisan agreement.” (Sen. Durbin, Press Conference, 3/17/2020)
• SEN. DURBIN: “So we have to understand that this circumstance is unusual…. We have to understand that business as usual is unacceptable…. [L]et’s get this done and done in an effective and efficient and timely way.” (Sen. Durbin, Press Conference, 3/17/2020)

Senate Democrats, Just This Past Week: ‘We Need To Stop The Political Games, Stop The Legislative Sabotage,’ ‘The Clock Is Ticking,’ ‘The American People Cannot Wait’
SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA): “We need to stop the political games, stop the legislative sabotage, & pass this House bill.” (Sen. Warren, @SenWarren, Twitter, 3/17/2020)

SEN. CHRIS MURPHY (D-CT): “The clock is ticking. Lives are at stake.” (Sen. Murphy, @ChrisMurphyCT, Twitter, 3/14/2020)

SEN. BRIAN SCHATZ (D-HI): “Time is of the essence. Let’s get this done now.” (Sen. Schatz, @brianschatz, Twitter, 3/14/2020)

SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D-CT): “Message to McConnell: Do unanimous consent for the emergency coronavirus package today, right now. Families & businesses are making potentially life & death decisions. Time matters.” (Sen. Blumenthal, @SenBlumenthal, Twitter, 3/15/2020)

SEN. KAMALA HARRIS (D-CA): “I’m in DC waiting to vote on the emergency coronavirus bill the House already passed. We need to pass it and we need to do it now. The American people cannot wait.” (Sen. Harris, @SenKamalaHarris, Twitter, 3/17/2020)

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