We’re All in This Together…Well, Maybe Not ALL of Us
(These “news” organizations would be the first to complain and criticize Trump for not providing enough information about the government’s efforts to combat the coronavirus pandemic.)
“There have been a lot more empty seats at President Donald Trump’s daily news briefings – but no, news organizations aren’t boycotting the events in protest or attempting to silence him, despite what he suggested at a briefing this week.” (Of course not! Anybody think the Post and Times and NBC would not make every effort to cooperate with and support Trump?)
According to the Washington Post:
“Instead, something else is afoot: Reporters are keeping their distance because they are concerned about the health risks at a time when many consider the president’s evening news conferences to have become increasingly less newsworthy.
“The decision by such outlets as The Washington Post, The New York Times and CNBC to stay away may be fundamentally changing the character of the briefings. With veteran White House reporters on the sidelines, the president has primarily engaged with TV journalists, including one from a small, far-right conservative news channel that rarely gets such a prominent stage.
“The Post, The Times and CNBC stopped sending reporters to the briefings – which have taken place in the Rose Garden as well as the more cramped confines of the West Wing’s James S. Brady Press Briefing Room – after two White House correspondents were suspected of having contracted covid-19, the disease caused by the virus. (One of the reporters, who hasn’t been publicly identified, tested negative on Tuesday, according to ABC News’ Jonathan Karl, the president of the White House Correspondents Association).
“Times Executive Editor Dean Baquet said his organization has withdrawn its reporters from the briefings, both because of health considerations and the uncertain newsworthiness.
Reporters continue to monitor them on TV and report anything worthwhile. (There you go. Their “reporters” will determine what’s “newsworthy”; they’ll even ‘interpret ‘ what is reported in the briefings.)
“Nowadays, it seems they make little news,” he said. “We, of course, reserve the right to show them live [via streaming] if we believe they will actually make news. But that hasn’t happened in quite some time.”
Who wouldn’t want to support a campaign with that for a theme ? dlh
Washington (CNN)New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said America “was never that great” during a speech on Wednesday, drawing criticism…
Cuomo made the comments in the context of a larger argument about gender equality and women achieving their full potential.
“We’re not going to make America great again. It was never that great,” Cuomo, a Democrat, remarked at a bill signing event in New York City. The comment was met by an audible reaction from the crowd.
His comments were a response to President Donald Trump’s campaign catchphrase — “Make America Great Again.”
“We have not reached greatness. We will reach greatness when every American is fully engaged,” Cuomo added. “We will reach greatness when discrimination and stereotyping of women, 51% of our population, is gone, and every woman’s full potential is realized and unleashed and every woman is making her full contribution.”
But never rule anyone out when the leading contender for the Demo nomination is “senile positve” Joe Biden
Via Gary Bauer at Campaign for Working Families:
Carlson’s Prediction
Tucker Carlson is predicting that Joe Biden won’t be the Democrat nominee in November. Carlson said people close to Biden have told him that the former vice president isn’t up to the task of taking on Trump. “He’s not going to make it, and the people around him know it,” Carlson said.
He also predicted that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo was the “most likely” Democrat to replace Biden on the national ticket.
It’s a concern that the ‘pandemic’ has moved everything having to do with the criminal activity of Obama, Brennan, Comey, et al, et al, et al off the news pages. We have not forgotten and dedicate this post to commentary regarding the latest report from Inspector General Horowitz.
The DOJ IG is a disgrace…and we’ve all breathlessly awaited his (whitewash) “call it like it is” report
As regards Former FBI Director “Big Jim” Comey’s a job performance appraisal doesn’t get much worse than this. It seems Big Jim’s self-serving “higher loyalty” should have been a devotion to ‘higher competency’.
But there are two things about the IG’s report for which we can all sit back and “allow things to move along since there really wasn’t all that much to see here:”
1) IG Horowitz, as is his won’t, failed to see, or at least made NO mention that there was any of that dreaded “political bias”, and,
2) Not to worry folks ! FBI Director Wray has it all under control. FBI personnel are being trained to ‘be accurate’, somewhat ‘competent, and, not that they ever were, ‘politically biased’.
Here are some excerpts from the Wall Street Journal’s story on the IG report which was released this week, along with some of our observations:
The IG released its report on the FBI’s FISA performance this week. It was as expected. Unavoidably critical but anxious to file it under “Move on; nothing much to see here”: “The report said investigators didn’t reach any conclusions on whether the errors were material to the applications themselves or would have influenced the court’s decisions to approve the applications.”
Huh!?
Well, we should not worry. FBI Director Chris Wray has everything under control (he’s training FBI personnel to be ‘accurate’, competent and not politically biased; Uh, gee, I wonder why nobody ever thought of that before!):
“FBI officials stressed the agency already was in the process of taking steps to improve its surveillance application process. The “findings underscore the importance of the more than 40 corrective actions that [FBI Director Chris] Wray ordered late last year,”
Missing but implicit (at least to our cynical eye) was the IG’s propensity to be unable to find any ‘political bias’. (The report said investigators didn’t reach any conclusions on whether the errors were material to the applications themselves or would have influenced the court’s decisions to approve the applications. The report did say the pattern “undermines the FBI’s ability to achieve its ‘scrupulously accurate’ standard for FISA applications.”)
More highlights from the WSJ ‘story’, “”FBI WIRETAP REQUESTS SHOW PERSISTENT FLAWS” (bold our emphasis):
“More than two dozen Federal Bureau of Investigation applications to monitor Americans suspected of having links to foreign intelligence or terrorism had errors in their files, a Justice Department watchdog said, representing 100% of the sampling of applications he examined.
“The results point to widespread problems at the FBI, including sloppy recordkeeping by case agents, and indicate the shortcomings aren’t limited to those previously found in the highly scrutinized requests to surveil for former Trump campaign aide Carter Page.
“The report said investigators found facts in all 25 applications that were either not supported, not clearly corroborated or inconsistent with documentation in factual-support files, though it didn’t look at the broader case file for such information. It said the review had found an average of 20 issues per application, with as many as 65 issues in one, and fewer than five in another.”
The results point to widespread problems at the FBI, including sloppy recordkeeping by case agents, and indicate the shortcomings aren’t limited to those previously found in the highly scrutinized requests to surveil for former Trump campaign aide Carter Page.
In a report released Tuesday, the Justice Department’s inspector general said he discovered “apparent errors or inadequately supported facts” in the files meant to provide factual support for the information cited in the 25 secret applications. Those requests sought wiretapping authority from a special court under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, a law that is the subject of pointed debate in Congress.
The findings follow a December report in which the watchdog found a series of errors in the FBI’s pursuit of a wiretap against Mr. Page, a former Trump foreign-policy adviser.
In four additional applications, the FBI couldn’t locate the files of factual support, the report said.
Applications were reviewed across eight FBI field offices that involved surveillance on Americans related to counterintelligence or counterterrorism investigations between October 2014 and September 2019, it said.
FBI officials stressed the agency already was in the process of taking steps to improve its surveillance application process. The “findings underscore the importance of the more than 40 corrective actions that [FBI Director Chris] Wray ordered late last year,” the FBI’s associate deputy director Paul Abbate wrote in response to the new report.
But some privacy advocates said the new findings vindicated their views that problems with FISA are systemic—rather than evidence of bias against President Trump and his campaign, as Mr. Trump has suggested—and far broader than the public knows due to a lack of rigorous independent oversight.
“If an application as sensitive as Page’s had serious problems, it was highly likely there were going to be issues elsewhere,” Jake Laperruque, senior counsel at Project on Government Oversight and a former Senate aide who worked on surveillance issues.
In particular, the review found that the FBI hadn’t adhered to a set of internal standards, known as the Woods Procedures, that were adopted in 2001 to better safeguard against FISA application abuses. Those procedures—designed to ensure the accuracy of facts represented in FISA applications—have long been cited by the FBI to answer concerns of potential privacy abuses in the secretive surveillance system that was established more than 40 years ago.
“We do not have confidence that the FBI has executed its Woods Procedures in compliance with FBI policy,” the report said.
MAYBE ‘BIG JIM’ COMEY MIGHT WANT TO MAKE SOME REVISIONS TO HIS BOOK, “A HIGHER LOYALTY”.
POWERLINE sees it about the same way we do
DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report “helps the FBI politically because it undercuts the narrative among President Trump and his supporters that the bureau cut corners to surveil the adviser, Carter Page, as part of a politically motivated conspiracy.”
Eli Lake takes a look at the latest Department of Justice Inspector General report on the rot at the FBI in the Bloomberg column “The FBI Can’t Be Trusted With the Surveillance of Americans.” Subhead: “An inspector general report finds that the bureau has been systematically unscrupulous.” I posted a copy of Horowitz’s OIG “memorandum” hereyesterday.
It is not hard to believe how pervasive the rot at the FBI is, but the Horowitz memo should serve as a call to action and to the administration of justice in the matter of Donald Trump. However, that is not quite how it is being received. Lake writes, for example, that we have “a system that relies almost exclusively on the FBI being scrupulous with its facts. [Yet] Horowitz’s findings show that the bureau has been systematically unscrupulous.” Eli doesn’t call out the New York Times, but the Times is Exhibit A of what he calls “the twisted politics of the Trump era.” How twisted? This twisted:
In the twisted politics of the Trump Era, some of bureau’s defenders might actually view this report as good news: It shows that the investigation of the Trump campaign was not necessarily politically motivated. The bureau made the same kinds of mistakes with suspects who were not connected to the Trump campaign.
That’s hardly reassuring — and the malpractice that the report uncovers is a much larger problem than the FBI and its defenders may wish to admit. So far, the response to Horowitz’s December report has been a series of administrative reforms, such as a requirement that FBI field offices preserve their “Woods files” and a mandate for new FISA training for FBI lawyers and agents. That’s all well and good. But one need not go back to the bad old days of J. Edgar Hoover to see that the bureau has been careless in its monitoring of U.S. citizens.
The Woods procedures were issued in 2001 after Congress obtained a memo from the FBI’s counterterrorism division detailing surveillance abuse in the late 1990s. One target’s cell phone remained tapped after he gave it up and the number was reassigned to a different person. Another FBI field office videotaped a meeting, despite a clear prohibition on that technique in its FISA warrant. In 2003, an interim report from the Senate Judiciary Committee concluded that the 2001 memo showed “the FBI was experiencing more systemic problems related to the implementation of FISA orders” than a problem with the surveillance law itself.
Very little has changed in the intervening 17 years. That’s why it’s foolish to expect new and better procedures will work this time. A better approach would be an aggressive policy to prosecute FBI agents and lawyers who submit falsehoods to the surveillance court. The best way to prevent future violations is to severely punish those who commit them in the present.
Radio host Larry O’Connor read a passage from the [Times’s] report [on the Horowitz memo] to Nunes during the Examining Politics podcast on Tuesday. It said DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report “helps the FBI politically because it undercuts the narrative among President Trump and his supporters that the bureau cut corners to surveil the adviser, Carter Page, as part of a politically motivated conspiracy.”
“So, the good news for the FBI is that they trampled on people’s rights all over the place, not just people who worked with Donald Trump’s campaign,” O’Connor said. “Is that the takeaway we should have here congressman?”
You can hear Rep. Nunes’s response in the podcast of the interview segment below, preceded by Larry’s interview with Mark Cuban.
Quotable quote (Chaitin quoting the Times): “The finding of systemic incompetence is devastating for the FBI. But, in the Trump era, the discovery is leavened by an unusual side benefit for the bureau: It undercuts the narrative fostered by President Trump and his supporters that the botching of applications to surveil his campaign adviser Carter Page is evidence that the FBI engaged in a politically biased conspiracy.”
The article below is from American Greatness (free subscription and highly recommended publication). It is by Julie Kelly and expresses important considerations. Accompanying it are some insightful comments we picked from those that were attached to it. The YouTube video set forth below the American Greatness rendering exposes the deliberate lying media treatment of the ChiCom virus; aka CCP virus; aka Wuhan virus; aka coronavirus; aka COVID-19.
There’s still time to find a balance between public health and the economy: Trump must find it before April 30.
Last year, Glacier National Park in Montana began removing signs that warned visitors the park’s gigantic glaciers would start melting away by 2020 due to global warming. Park officials altered other climate change flair such as brochures and displays to postpone the threat to sometime in “future generations.”
Like so many claims about the catastrophic consequences of anthropogenic global warming, predictions about disappearing glaciers were quickly memory-holed. And, as usual, the experts behind the flawed science that misled millions of people to believe their actions would cause the destruction of one of nature’s most awesome sights didn’t apologize. No scientist or government official even had the guts to stand up and say, “Oops, my bad.”
Quite to the contrary—prophets of nonexistent doom are often cheered as heroes no matter how many times they’ve been wrong.
Take Dr. Michael Mann, for example. The Pennsylvania State University author of the infamous “hockey stick” graph is still considered a god among the international climate change set; his graph launched the modern-day climate movement even though his work has been widely refuted by scientists and hacked emails showed how he and his fellow researchers manipulated data to “prove” their theory.
Now, we have the latest version of the hockey stick graph and it is related to COVID-19. The alarming visual indicates a huge spike in estimated deaths and hospitalizations in the United States from coronavirus infections over the next few weeks. Last week, a researcher at the University of Washington released a study that appears to serve as the scientific justification to extend the CDCs social distancing guidelines until at least April 30.
Christopher Murray, director of the university’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, warns that daily fatalities will climb from zero on February 24 to a high of 2,214 on April 15. (Much like Mann’s hockey stick graph that claimed to show warming temperatures, data from the period before the spike cannot be accurate since the first case of coronavirus in the U.S. was reported in mid-January. If it’s as contagious and as lethal as we’ve been told, hundreds if not thousands of people would already have died from the disease in the first two months of the year unbeknownst to healthcare providers.)
By May 2, based on Murray’s model, more than 60,000 Americans will be dead; by the beginning of August, nearly 84,000 of our fellow countrymen will have succumbed to the disease.
The need for hospital beds, intensive care units, and ventilators will far outpace supply, according to Murray. By this Friday, U.S. hospitals will need more than 135,000 beds, nearly 26,000 ICUs and more than 20,000 ventilators to accommodate COVID-19 patients.
And this disaster scenario will occur even with the draconian measures enacted at the federal, state and local level to slow the disease’s death march.
“The estimated excess demand on hospital systems is predicated on the enactment of social distancing measures in all states that have not done so already within the next week and maintenance of these measures throughout the epidemic, emphasizing the importance of implementing, enforcing, and maintaining these measures to mitigate hospital system overload and prevent deaths,” wrote Murray. From Common Sense to House Arrest
The White House, apparently, is listening. After first disputing an outlandish study produced by the UK’s Imperial College that projected a few million Americans would die from COVID-19 this year, Dr. Deborah Birx presented Murray’s report to the president over the weekend. Birx referred to Murray’s model in a Rose Garden briefing on Sunday.
“It’s anywhere, in the model, between 80,000 and 160,000, maybe potentially 200,000 succumbing to this,” Birx cautioned. “That’s with mitigation.” She insisted that the current measures would need to continue “with a level of intensity.”
During a confusing press briefing Tuesday evening, Birx and Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, presented the models to the American public. The president solemnly prepared the country for a “very tough two weeks” that could witness the death of 100,000 to 200,000 Americans. But neither Birx nor Fauci could convincingly explain the data supporting the ominous charts—while Birx seemed married to the ultimate death toll, Fauci tap-danced around the study’s projections, wish-casting about better outcomes and riffing about how new information would improve the model’s efficacy.
So in a matter of weeks, relying on sketchy and incomplete data, government experts have pivoted from offering common-sense steps to fight a virus to declaring government-imposed house arrest. “Flattening the curve” is old news; preventing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans requires tyrannical diktats that a month ago freedom-loving Americans could scarcely imagine.
COVID-19 wasn’t transmitted person-to-person before it was transmitted person-to-person. Masks weren’t necessary; now, they might be part of a required uniform should anyone dare to leave the house. It’s like a bad flu; now it’s way worse than the flu.
Governors are one-upping each other in an egregious power play that defies science, common sense, and decency in a despicable trampling of constitutional rights. The appeal to authority, a common tactic to quash any dissent in the climate change debate, is in full effect as laypeople are warned not to question the advice of credentialed medical and health professionals.
The consequences of this collective overreach—and that’s putting it mildly—have been mind-boggling. The world’s most vibrant economy is at a standstill. Millions of hourly employees are being laid off or let go as unemployment claims skyrocket to historic levels with the worst yet to come. Small business owners fear bankruptcy. The stock market is tanking while politicians on both sides of the aisle, along with the president, concoct bailout plans to fix the economic disaster they helped create.
School children and college students are done with public classes for at least five months. Job offers to college graduates have disappeared. Weddings, graduation ceremonies, and funerals are prohibited. Places of worship are shuttered; religious leaders who defy a government guideline—not a law on the books—to serve their flock are being arrested. Daily joys like a stroll on the beach or dinner at a restaurant or a game of pickup basketball or a round of golf have been stripped from our lives with shockingly little protest. And an army of Karens are policing public spaces to tattle on Facebook if anyone refuses to submit.
Sick people suffer alone; seniors are cut off from family and friends. Lonely children are further isolated as schools close down and their teachers and friends are out of reach. Panic and fear are weaponized to dictate individual behavior. Echoes of Climate Alarmism
It all has an eerie ring to those of us who’ve covered the climate movement. (Barack Obama connected climate and coronavirus in a tweet on Tuesday: “We’ve seen all too terribly the consequences of those who denied warnings of a pandemic. We can’t afford any more consequences of climate denial.”)
And just as happened with the climate change agenda, farfetched models with incomplete, untested data drive public policy decisions. Anyone who disputes the experts or challenges the assumptions must hate the environment or the children or the future. (In the case of COVID-19, you must hate grandma.) Anyone who laments the destruction of the economy is a heartless, greedy money-grubber. “Profits over people!” the detractors are taunted. The goalposts keep moving, doomsday is extended, but harsher and harsher actions are nonetheless demanded from above.
So, what if, as Trump accurately said just a week ago, the cure is worse than the disease? What if Murray’s models are woefully off by a factor of five or even 10 but it’s too late to salvage jobs or small businesses? His data is already way off: As of March 31, Murray predicted the U.S. would need 98,000 hospital beds for COVID-19 patients but only 22,000 were hospitalized that day.
Will the White House, much like Glacier National Park, just change the message while the agitators escape any accountability?
The president is trying to do the right thing but this is a breaking point. If Trump ruins the economy and torches his solid economic achievements based on a handful of flawed models and the evolving opinions of unsure advisors, it will be hard to walk it back. If these figures don’t move to support Murray’s modeling—and fast—Trump needs to reconsider his plan.
There’s still time to find a balance between public health and the economy: Trump must find it before April 30.
Select comments appended to AG article:
AntiPoliticallyCorrect longplay
I agree, That’s why i can’t help but feel like something else is going on here. If he listens to the experts and they are wrong, he loses. If they are right, he loses all his gains. If he goes with his gut, and is wrong, people die. If he’s right, people live and economy is on track. I wouldn’t want to be in that situation. But it seems very scripted.
Jason P
With a gestation period of under two weeks, Italy tried a two-week lockdown, then we tried a two-week lockdown. This was supposed to show who had or didn’t have covid-19 in lieu of mass testing. Subsequently we’d know who needs help and who is in the clear. Both countries tried this and it didn’t help us. Now we’re told we have to do this another month and perhaps a year until a vaccine is found. For what? There’s no stopping this virus. We’ll still have the 200,000 deaths even with mitigation.
The common sense solution is to isolate seniors and those caring for seniors while the young and healthy get back to work. They healthy will develop a herd immunity and by the summer we all can come back out. If we continue the lockdown I predict massive unrest. This won’t work.
Jack Armstrong
Unlike the climate predictions, this one will be proved wrong in very short order. I suspect that Trump and team know that the model is off, and Trump is just playing the game. He will look like a brilliant leader when the death toll ends up being a fraction of the prediction.
Phil James Jack Armstrong
Unfortunately, if he plays the game until April 30th, our economy will be destroyed. We have already done significant damage, another month will be devastating. Trump started off strong but now he is letting the doomsayers steer the ship. The model they talked about in the briefing today is already wildly wrong but we are full steam ahead on lockdowns.
Garrett W. Sheldon
Thank you for this intelligent, sane analysis, which I think most Americans feel at the gut level. This is an overreaction (not to say overkill) which is based on problematical statistical modelling, fear, and political manipulation. I hope with the rapid development of diagnostic tests and medicinal cures (both of which are found, only need to be mass produced and delivered) this hysteria will be over sooner than later and we will learn the valuable lesson of how easily people can give up their rights and martial law can be established. Fortunately, we still have enough common sense and free speech that this should be averted. For now. But with google’s new censorship scheme and the Deep State’s unending efforts for survival, this may just be a dry run. Pray for God’s mercy and protection over our country.
basehitz
“If these figures don’t move to support Murray’s modeling—and fast—Trump needs to reconsider his plan.”
Have you not noticed Trump’s ability to out-fox the foxes yet? My key takeaways of the big picture: 1) Trump has aggressively pushed the cheap and effective drugs, which have now been proven in multiple countries in documented cases, and is finally being accepted by our medical “professionals” though reluctantly. FDA wanted a year or more to approve. Trump got it already. When Cuomo’s tests and others finally make news, it will be a new ballgame. Trump even used this phrase. He knows what’s going on. 2) The medical establishment is aggressively pushing a new vaccine, which when offered to a panicked world, they will make a fortune in profits. They need to keep the panic alive. They also need to suppress the cheap solutions. Fauci’s history demonstrates he is part of the medical establishment and serves the interests of Big Pharma. 3) The fake news media is willing to destroy the country economically and/or kill millions of people just to hurt Trump. So they will also fuel the panic. BTW, Big Pharma spends $5/yr in advertising. Media will hide the real solutions on cheap drugs in service to their benefactors. And they also bash the cheap drugs . . . probably just because Trump supports it. 4) Based on current actions being taken, item #1 will win, because #2 takes too long. 5) Fake news media will have further decimated it’s already destroyed reputation for both hyping the virus and bashing the remedy. 6) Trump will take all the poker chips again.
linda goudsmit
The only think this article missed is that the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), founded by Dr. Christopher J.L. Murray, is committed to globalism and the the UN 17 sustainable goals. This is political science, not medical science. http://www.healthdata.org/n… IHME – Publication date: November 25, 2019 “SEATTLE – The lack of data, particularly in low- and middle-income countries, combined with the absence of international standards for data management, is hindering efforts in measuring progress toward meeting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) according to a viewpoint published in the international medical journal The Lancet.
“We cannot make progress without being able to measure progress,” said Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO). “Strong health data is essential for highlighting who is being left behind, and why. Together, WHO and IHME and other partners are working to strengthen country data systems for better decision-making, and better health.”
The viewpoint is a collaboration by global health experts from several countries and organizations, including WHO and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington’s School of Medicine.”
Tony_Petroski
Ms. Kelly states that “There’s still time to find a balance between public health and the economy.”
I recommend she read the March 28, 2020 article written by Roger Kimball, “It’s Not a Choice Between Lives and the Economy.”
There’s no “balance” to be struck here. Lives will be lost no matter what course is chosen. Is the current nationwide lockdown to combat the spread of a virus wise policy given that it is leading the nation into a second Great Depression? Perhaps. Should the lockdown continue until the end of April? Indefinitely?
And what to do about the scary flu viruses coming at us in the Fall?
This criminal and illegal shut-down of the nation has to end immediately.
Forwarded by HP: Of note – people who received flu vaccines more likely to be diagnosed with COVID19. – (self-select factor perhaps??)
We recently posted a commentary regarding criticisms pertaining to Congressman Thomas Massie’s (R,KY) brief parliamentary delay of the $2,000,000,000,000 cornavirus rescue bill.
The implications of such a jaw-dropping expenditure of borrowed funds of thin air creation, however justified (we are not here saying it was not) as a precedent for panic driven crisis after crisis needs to be soberly analyzed. What a pallet it could present for the usual suspects to justify every big-government socialist whim (indeed they tried with the bill in question . . . in for a dime . . . in for a dollar . . . what’s wrong with a another trillion or two). Not to mention that the anti-civil liberties implications of so much of the governments response at various levels to all of this is very serious and needs to be addressed.
Massie was charged with, a) delaying passage of the very important coronavirus relief bill. As he notes, his action did not ‘delay’ action…and certainly not to the extent that Pelosi’s effort to lard the bill with a radical left ‘wish list’ did; b) Massie was also criticized for “endangering the lives of members of congress by forcing them to come to the House chamber” His response to that, via Daily Caller is below:
“…Asked about Republican Rep. Peter King’s insistence that “blood” would be on “Thomas Massie’s hands” if any lawmakers forced to return got infected. “That’s a pretty strong statement,” Massie responded. “Think about the arrogance of these congressmen. They are telling the truckers to keep driving so that their grocery stores will have groceries. They are telling the UPS drivers to keep bringing their Amazon packages. They are telling the bagger at the grocery store to keep bagging those groceries. But these congressmen make $174,000 a year. They’ve got the best health care that you can buy these days right now. And they are telling people that the congressmen need to stay home, but everybody else needs to work for them. I think that is the wrong message, but that really gives you a glimpse into how some of these people in Washington, D.C., think.”
Compare the scorn shoveled on Massie by many a conservative to the accolades they heaped upon former Senator (MD) Coburn upon his passing a few days ago. In his time in the Senate he was referred to as Dr No for objecting to “important” spending bills, calling fellow legislators to task. We find the treatment “interesting.”
We also find ‘interesting” that those “Libertarians” out there, some of whom are known to be readers of Veritaspac, weren’t motivated to come to the rightful defense of one of their ‘own’ (Massie).
While we are not Libertarians, we believe that Massie, consistent with his beliefs and courage in the face of fierce opposition by friend (GOP) and foe (the radical left Democrat Party) alike, “kept the faith”…and was able to effectively and coherently explain his position…with dignity and reason.
Veritaspac is not a national forum, certainly, but it is a place where people in this community can make known their opinion on issues of national and local importance. One never knows how a reasoned and informed commentary from regular citizens may enlighten others to join in collective opinion so important during difficult periods in our history.
There are few forums in the Quad Cities area that offer such an opportunity.
We encourage our readers to use it, and if preferred, you can do it anonymously.
We note the reference in the article linked below that the statement was only “joked about” and we can’t vouch for the truth or accuracy of this story, but if factual, it is chilling and enraging, Chinese companies not known for their sense of humor.
Should be noted that this story does not say that the Chinese company did, in fact, produce and sell to America the defective thermometers…only that the company’s owner JOKED about doing so.
Nevertheless, it is chilling to know there are people of some power in the world, and among our nation’s rivals (if not enemies) who think and talk about doing such evil. It also underscores the wisdom and necessity of producing products of vital need and/or of great strategic value within our own country.
To a great extent, during this time of great moment and high stress, it comes down too WWBD*? dlh
No we are not talking about the putative Democrat presidential nominee’s campaign being in the toilet.
Rather, if you are a Democrat, we are encouraging your support for MAZIE HERANO to be his VP pick.
We know: “It’s an honor just to be considered” (by the senile fool)
In our opinion, the dumbest, nastiest member of Congress in either House, Senator Mazie Hirono (D,HI), would be no less destructive of this great country than Joe Biden or any of his five “short list” prospective running mates.
If you’re voting Democrat in November, one of these is your pick for 47th president of the U.S.:
You’d better find out more about these people; a horrendous mistake to vote to elect Joe Biden the 46th president of the United States in the first place, but since he’d be in office only until his complete mental collapse, one of these 5 is likely to ‘lead’ this nation for nearly 4 years. dlh
Presidential candidate Joe Biden has narrowed down his list of potential running mates to a small group of women in recent weeks after pledging that his nominee for vice president would be female during the last Democratic debate earlier this month.
Putative Democrat presidential nominee Joe Biden reportedly told former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid that Senator Catherine Cortez Masto is in his “top three” picks for the role of his running mate, and according to Mediaite, Reid has expressed his support for her as the former vice president’s vice presidential nominee.
Reid believes Cortez Masto, the first Latina Senator in the U.S., will help Biden garner support from members of the Latino community in the general election.
Cortez Masto’s name has also been mentioned in other recent reports about Biden selecting his potential running mates. On Tuesday, the Democratic 2020 frontrunner said he is whittling his list and will soon begin a vetting process. Although Biden declined to name any candidates, unnamed sources with direct knowledge of the matter told CNBC that Senators Kamala Harris and Amy Klobuchar are also on the shortlist, as well as Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and Florida Rep. Val Demings. . . .
Moreon Mazie — tells how ~~ gosh us Dems are so smart (via RealClearPolitics) . . .
So smart that she does not understand the concept of illegal immigration:
Then there is Gretchen Whitmer, Governor of Michigan. Does anyone seriously believe this is not the most vile calumny??
Like almost everyone, politicians, media figures, political junkies, regular Americans throughout the land, I was angry at Thomas Massie, a Republican congressman from Kentucky who was singlehandedly exercising his ‘power’ to delay the House approval of the badly needed Coronavirus legislation on which so many Americans are relying on in this time of dire crisis in our country.
As President Trump described Mr. Massie, I, too, had determined him to be a crass “grandstander”, finding an opportunity to get his 15 minutes of fame, no matter what the cost to the people of America.
Massie was blocking a vote on the bill that was certain to pass by demanding a roll call vote requiring a quorum of members to be present in the House chamber and voting on the record, instead of a voice vote of members physically present.
Here is how Massie’s objection is reported : “Massie’s objection to the relief package is understandable. He disagrees with the unnecessary, irrelevant pork that legislators managed to hide within it, such as the $25 million allocated to the Kennedy Center, grants for the National Endowment for the Humanities and Arts, and more (funds for PBS and Planned Parenthood as examples).
“People should be rightly frustrated with this unnecessary spending. But forcing the House to reach a quorum is not the way to express that frustration, especially since the bill is going to pass anyway.”
And this is how the media describes the Kentucky congressman’s recalcitrance: “…defying GOP leadership to request a roll-call vote on the relief package…means that if 216 lawmakers are not physically present in the House to vote on the measure, the relief package will remain at a standstill until a quorum is reached. ”
“This roll-call vote is irresponsible for several reasons, the most obvious being that it forces representatives to abandon isolation and group together in direct violation of health officials’ social distancing guidelines. Some representatives have tested positive for COVID-19, and others have remained self-quarantined out of respect for their other colleagues.
“Massie is now callously undermining the caution this pandemic demands. “
The congressman’s “side of the story”, as of noon Friday was nowhere to be found, it seemed.
However, Todd Herman was filling in for Rush on the Rush Limbaugh Show today. In the course of the popular 3 hour show, Herman had the Congressman, Thomas Massie, himself, on as a guest to explain his action and the reasons he resorted to them.
It is true that he had many objections to the hastily drawn legislation, and concerns shared by many that, while badly needed short term relief to many sectors of the nation would accrue from the bill, there are many provisions that may have a devastating effect in the future on the country’s entire Constitutional structure… concerns also shared by many.
The major concern Massie seemed to have, however, was with the latter, and the reality that, a), with a welcome end to the crisis there will be no pressure or will to correct the long term defects in the legislation, and, b) as importantly, as the highly problematic issues become apparent to the American people, because there was no roll call vote, and thus no record, no member of Congress will be held responsible for the serious consequences likely to result.
Massie also noted that “forcing the House members to ‘abandon isolation’ to be present” seems not too drastic a price to pay, while ordinary Americans and first responders, truck drivers, doctors, nurses, workers in “essential” businesses, etc. are being asked to do the same. More than adequate safeguards against transmission of the virus among members of Congress can certainly be made.
He also properly notes that, for legislation as large as this bill, the Constitution requires a roll call vote.
To me, “libertarians’, which Massie claims to be, are generally thoughtful and have soundly conceived reasons for their views and actions. I also feel, though, that at times their views and actions go unnecessarily beyond what are shared by most reasonable, informed, and intelligent people of a different ideology…libertarians on those occasions, to me, are sometimes self-righteous and too convinced of the superiority of their views.
After hearing Congressman Massie, however, this was not such an occasion for him, and I believe this was a very difficult and courageous thing for him to do.
And I think he was right! I applaud the good this bill will do for deserving American people…I deplore the dangerous consequences of the provisions forced into the bill by the unconscionable and opportunistic Left in Congress. dlh
Notice the constant breathless updates from dominant liberal legacy media about “ONE NEW CASE OF COVID19 IN (insert name of city or county)” or “ONE NEW CASE OF COVID19 HOSPITALIZATION IN (insert name of city or county)” or “ONE NEW DEATH REPORTED DUE TO COVID 19 IN (insert state or country)”
In context these are reports where there was a positive test for the COVID19 virus but in the case of hospitalization or deaths the medical vulnerability of the patient is not part of the headline and may be submerged in the reporting.
Now ask yourself where are the breathless reports today of diagnosis, hospitalizations and deaths due to one of the more common flu’s that have been floating around for say ~~ since epidemiology came into being? There have been more associated deaths this season with those, indeed probably including complications from cold viruses that go unsensationalized. COVID19, as to danger, is just another flu virus. They all are to the vulnerable.
That said . . .
Would we see such headline stuff if (name politician, or Hollywood star or other celebrity) if the incident was “X came down with the flu today.” Would there be a shutdown of such and such (name business) if one or two of their employees out of a hundred “came down with ‘the flu’ or a ‘bad cold’ today” COVID 19 is not greatly more dangerous or transmitted significantly more easily such that the same precautions would not be in order for other flu or cold virus. All are of significant danger to the medically vulnerable, but we do not shut down the country.
Ann Coulter has an insightful article today, short of her usual level of shrillness.
Don’t give this guy any credit. He is trying to have it both ways as a political gambit in a state where Trump is popular, the tertium quid ruse. His vote meant nothing as far as effecting anything. He is thoroughly a Democrat and responsible as such unless he removes himself from that party.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but when a Democrat was in the White House, Andrew Cuomo had a rather laissez faire attitude towards supplies of medical equipment and a decidedly die-and-go-to-hell opinion of people in need of said equipment.
It was Andy Cuomo’s daddy (Mario) who gave “deeply devout Catholic Democrats” their ‘great election rationale’: 
Washington (CNN)New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said America “was never that great” during a speech on Wednesday, drawing criticism…
The implications of such a jaw-dropping expenditure of borrowed funds of thin air creation, however justified (we are not here saying it was not) as a precedent for panic driven crisis after crisis needs to be soberly analyzed. What a pallet it could present for the usual suspects to justify every big-government socialist whim (indeed they tried with the bill in question . . . in for a dime . . . in for a dollar . . . what’s wrong with a another trillion or two). Not to mention that the anti-civil liberties implications of so much of the governments response at various levels to all of this is very serious and needs to be addressed.
Should be noted that this story does not say that the Chinese company did, in fact, produce and sell to America the defective thermometers…only that the company’s owner JOKED about doing so.
In our opinion, the dumbest, nastiest member of Congress in either House, Senator Mazie Hirono (D,HI), would be no less destructive of this great country than Joe Biden or any of his five “short list” prospective running mates.
Like almost everyone, politicians, media figures, political junkies, regular Americans throughout the land, I was angry at Thomas Massie, a Republican congressman from Kentucky who was singlehandedly exercising his ‘power’ to delay the House approval of the badly needed Coronavirus legislation on which so many Americans are relying on in this time of dire crisis in our country.