According to Epstein, “Americans have done so much screaming at each other to avoid panic over the novel coronavirus that they’ve arguably grown complacent.” (Tell that to the equities markets.) He then goes on to affirm the actions being taken in other countries: “China … has locked down tens of millions of people and virtually shut down its economy, the world’s second-largest. Japan has closed schools for a month. In France … the Louvre was closed. Switzerland … won’t allow gatherings that draw more than 1,000 people. … Two decades after 9/11, many Americans once again seem to think ‘it can’t happen here.’ But as we’ve learned more than once, it can.”

So, let’s shut the country down?

Will COVID-19 be the next catastrophic attack on America — “The BIG One”? As I have noted previously, it might be another bad year for U.S. influenza deaths, but nobody can actually project that right now. What is certain, however, is that the “pandemic fear and panic” are great political fodder for Democrats hoping to crash the U.S. economy … and thus President Donald Trump’s reelection.

As House Speaker liar-Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Senate Minority Leader Chuck scumbag-Schumer (D-NY), and their Leftmedia publicists continue to foment fear, it is having the desired dire consequences for the economy. By undermining consumer and business confidence, and thus the equities markets, Democrats are playing fast and loose with the job stability of all working Americans and their families. liar-Pelosi said, “The market drop is disturbing,” but I can assure you that she and her Democrat ilk are high-fiving each other in private, knowing that what is bad for American workers is bad for Trump’s reelection prospects.

The immediate effect of the disgraceful liar-Pelosi/ scumbag-Schumer fear and panic tag team is that the net worth and retirement plans of all middle-income families is taking a big hit, and so is breadwinner job stability.

To put the current viral flu threat into perspective, according to the latest 2020 CDC influenza report, in the U.S. the flu season we are now in has already resulted in 29 MILLION diagnosed cases, 280 THOUSAND hospitalizations, and more than 16 THOUSAND deaths. And this is a good year — in one year this past decade there were 63 THOUSAND flu deaths in the U.S.

So, why haven’t liar-Pelosi, scumbag-Schumer, and Democrats across the country called press conferences to draw attention to each of the other 29 million cases and 16 thousand deaths — and the MSM dutifully reported each one? Because those deaths have no value as 2020 political fodder.

Democrats are proficient at never letting “a good crisis … go to waste,” as they demonstrated back in 2014 with the Ebola pandemic threat. At that time I wrote, “Democrats thrive on manufactured crises, and the current endless loop of hyperbolic rhetoric about the ‘Ebola pandemic’ from all corners of the 24-hour news recyclers” was a good example. Of course, Barack scumbag/liar-nObama was president then, so blaming him was not part of their politicization of the epidemic.

But that was then. It’s a presidential election year and with nothing else to defeat Donald Trump, betting on a flu pandemic and blaming Trump for it seems like an easy sell.

Over the weekend, acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney suggested that the best thing Americans can do to avoid the panic is turn off their televisions and tune out the Democrat and Leftmedia fearmongering. But that would undermine the Demo strategy. Thus Schumer declared, “For Mulvaney to suggest that Americans turn off their TVs and bury their heads in the sand when they’re worried about a global health pandemic is Orwellian, counterproductive, dangerous…”

And then there were the Demo campaign-trail claims that Trump had cut the pandemic budget. Mike Bloomberg claimed, “[Trump] has defunded Centers for Disease Control.” loose lips liar-Biden claimed, “[Trump] has cut the funding for the entire effort.”

Those claims are patently false. According to an  Associated Press fact check, Congress has actually increased funding: “The National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention aren’t suffering from budget cuts that never took effect.” Regarding scumbag-Schumer’s claim that Trump has no plan, the AP notes, “The public health system has a playbook to follow for pandemic preparation — regardless of who’s president… Those plans were put into place in anticipation of another flu pandemic, and are designed to work for any respiratory-borne disease.”

Adding to that nonsense was the erroneous claim that Trump had written off the coronavirus flu threat as a “hoax.” According to NBC: “Trump calls Coronavirus Democrats’ ‘new hoax.’” Politico repeated that lie: “Trump rallies his base to treat Coronavirus as a ‘hoax.’” In fact, what Trump called a “hoax” is that the Democrats have shamefully and grossly politicized the threat.

And predictably, the most ardent of the Democrats’ Leftmedia propagandists are the talkingheads at CNN.

Fox Business Network host Trish Regan called that what it is: “Diagnosis: Positive. CNN is infected with Trump Derangement Syndrome. I’m calling out CNN for irresponsibly politicizing something that should be a unifying battle against a virus that doesn’t choose sides. Anti-Trump network CNN doing whatever it can to stoke a national coronavirus panic.”

Of course, panic also keeps people tuned in — which is to say, it sells advertising!

As I have previously noted, to be adequately informed and prepared for what may be a bad flu year, the most current information is on the CDC’s page, “What You Should Know,” which provides updates, preventive measures, travel advice, etc. You can review the CDC’s national pandemic-response plan and basic citizen flu-prevention measures. And if you are interested in country-by-country data on the COVID-19 flu virus, that is being tracked at the Johns Hopkins coronavirus interface. For personal and community preparedness, visit our preparation and response resource page.   

~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/alexander/68947?mailing_id=4898&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4898&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body  

The American Petroleum Institute (API) released a study on the consequences of the Democrats’ desired policy. The API summarizes that a fracking ban “would cost up to 7.5 million American jobs in 2022 alone, lead to a cumulative GDP loss of $7.1 trillion by 2030, slash household incomes by $5,400 annually, increase household energy costs by more than $600 per year and reduce farm incomes by 43 percent due to higher energy costs.”

Why the stunning impact? API notes, “More than 95% of U.S. natural gas and oil wells today are developed using hydraulic fracturing. Technologically, fracking is the chief reason the U.S. is the world’s leading natural gas and oil producer.” Cut off the tap, and everyone suffers.

And yet we have commie-Bernie Sanders and commie-Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez sponsoring the Fracking Ban Act. “Fracking is a danger to our water supply. It’s a danger to the air we breathe, it has resulted in more earthquakes, and it’s highly explosive. To top it all off, it’s contributing to climate change,” commie-Sanders insists. “If we are serious about clean air and drinking water, if we are serious about combating climate change, the only safe and sane way to move forward is to ban fracking nationwide.”

Elizabeth dinky/liar-Warren wouldn’t bother with legislation, declaring she would “ban fracking everywhere” on Day One in the White House.

But their claims are false. The U.S. leads the world in decreasing emissions precisely because of fracking. And there is plenty of evidence that fracking does not cause the harm commie-Sanders and his cadre of ecofascists claim.

By the way, we rebuked Barack scumbag/liar-nObama last week for falsely claiming credit for economic growth. What did cause that growth? Energy production through fracking.

Democrats are desperate for recession, however, so their efforts to stoke one through impeachment, coronavirus panic, and various taxes and regulations are not surprising.   ~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/articles/68910?mailing_id=4894&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4894&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body  

These battles include periodic reauthorizations of government programs, one of which is the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, better known as FISA. Several provisions of FISA and its younger brethren, the PATRIOT Act, will expire on March 15 unless Congress acts to reauthorize them or grant a second extension. These portions of FISA and the PATRIOT Act were originally slated to expire last December 15, but Congress opted to extend the deadline pending the report of Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz regarding the scumbag/liar-nObama administration’s abuse of the FISA process to spy on the Trump campaign, ostensibly for collusion with Russia.

With that voluminous report on the Carter Page saga and the FBI’s 17 instances of abuse now part of the public record, the reauthorization of FISA has set off intra-party bickering on both sides of the aisle.

Democrats in the House reportedly had a carefully crafted compromise, the USA FREEDOM Reauthorization Act of 2020, teed up and ready to go; however, a committee meeting necessary for its passage was scrubbed when Rep. Zoe Lofgren of California, a longtime critic of the FISA law, announced she would propose her own amendments to what she termed a “puny reform.” (One key aspect of the proposed bill, however, was the elimination of the call-records data program used to snoop out cellphone data.)

The break on the Republican side, however, is more complex. On one side are civil-libertarian reformers such as Sens. Rand Paul and Mike Lee, and Reps. Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows, who have expressed their desire for reform. “scumbag-Comey’s FBI misled the FISA Court 17 times,” Jordan tweeted. “We can’t simply reauthorize the system that allowed those lies and omissions to happen.” Most Republicans, though, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, are open to a “clean” reauthorization, having heard assurances from Attorney General William Barr that he could make the necessary changes internally. Skeptics of that deal argue that Barr “can’t be trusted” and that it would further remove Congress from needed oversight of the executive branch.

In this case, it appears the head of the executive branch is siding with the reformers, in part because he was perfectly willing at one time to eliminate the FISA apparatus entirely. In discussing the pending reauthorization of FISA with Barr last year, President Donald Trump reportedly said, “I trust you, Bill, but if it was up to me, we’d get rid of the whole thing.”

With so many options out there, the most likely outcome will be to kick the can down the road, perhaps eventually hammering out a “reform” too weak to satisfy those lawmakers interested in safeguarding civil liberties.

Absent significant and needed reforms, however, the potential for abuse of the FISA system will remain temptingly close at hand, and the people’s mistrust of their government will increase accordingly.   

 ~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/articles/68908?mailing_id=4894&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4894&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body  

That report, which was quickly “confirmed” and disseminated across the Leftmedia landscape, predictably and understandably drew the ire of Trump, who disputed the claims as yet another politically motivated Democrat hoax. Trump likewise challenged a similar report a week later asserting that the Russians were actively seeking to interfere on commie-Bernie Sanders’s behalf.

Now, as has become all too common during the Trump presidency, the Leftmedia’s reporting has been exposed for being nothing more than propaganda for the Democrat Party. You might call it fake news. NBC News reports, “Intelligence officials say that [the report of Russians seeking to help Trump’s reelection] was an overstatement, fueled, they believe, by a misinterpretation by some Democratic lawmakers on the committee.” In other words, it looks like yet another episode of the scumbag/liar-Schiff Show, as Hollywood wannabe scumbag/liar-Adam Schiff has pawned off another of his fictitious scripts as more “evidence” in support of the Democrats’ long-debunked Russia-collusion hoax.

Democrats still haven’t come to grips with the fact that Trump won the 2016 election fair and square. And their refusal to admit this reality and learn from it has led Democrats to the disastrous field of current presidential candidates over which they are now panicking. It’s easier to blame the Russians for supposedly “poisoning” Americans’ minds against their economy-killing, Liberty-destroying, big-government policy proposals than to acknowledge the fact that Americans simply don’t want what they’re selling. They still refuse to accept that Trump stands as the American people’s repudiation of their elitist, top-down, control-everything agenda.   

 ~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/articles/68912?mailing_id=4894&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4894&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body  

liar-Pelosi claimed that the Trump administration’s request for $2.5 billion in funding was “long overdue and completely inadequate,” adding that she doesn’t “think the president knows what he’s talking about.” scumbag-Schumer picked up on liar-Pelosi’s viral political play, declaring that Trump is “asleep at the wheel,” dismissing the administration’s response as “too little too late,” and asserting it is “indicative of his towering and dangerous incompetence.”

Regarding liar-Pelosi’s political play, Trump stated the obvious: “She’s trying to create a panic. … She should be saying we have to work together. We should all be working together.” And regarding the liar-Pelosi/scumbag-Schumer claims that the administration’s proposed funding is not sufficient, Trump responded that the House is responsible for budget allocations and can allocate what it wants.

But, as I noted yesterday in “The Politics of a ‘Fear Pandemic’,” beyond the Beltway banter, the coronavirus fear Democrat Party leaders and their Leftmedia publicists are fomenting is having dire consequences on economic stability, greatly exacerbating the challenges of disrupted economic supply lines between China and the U.S.

The “pandemic of financial fear” resulting in the 10% drop in equity-market values this week could by week’s end be the biggest loss in any week since the 2008 financial crisis. On Thursday, the Dow had its worst one-day point drop in history (-1,191).

The significance of the market drop runs far deeper than the impact on investments and retirement plans of American workers. The financial markets are the most immediate and visceral indicators of business and consumer confidence, and that combined confidence largely influences the direction of the economy.

Two years ago in my column “Will Democrats Get the Pre-Election Recession They Want?” I noted, “More than half of Americans own stocks and other types of investments, including their homes, the values of which are dependent on a strong economy. More than one-third of corporate stock value is held in lower- and middle-income Americans’ retirement plans, such as IRAs and 401(k) accounts.”

I concluded then, “Democrats will do everything they can to set up the pre-election recession they need to defeat Trump. They know the best way to achieve that goal is to undermine confidence in our economy, a model they perfected ahead of Barack scumbag/liar-nObama’s 2008 election. … The consequence of the Demos’ political games: Caught in the political crossfire are tens of millions of American workers and their families, whose jobs and income prospects will fall victim to the Demos’ politically induced recession — the direct result of having thrown economic confidence under the bus in order to attack Trump.”

And here we go again. The liar-Pelosi/scumbag-Schumer “viral panic” narrative is undermining consumer and business confidence. They are playing fast and loose with the job stability of all working Americans and their families. liar-Pelosi said, “The market drop is disturbing,” but I can assure you that she and her Democrat ilk are celebrating off camera, knowing that what is bad for American workers is bad for Trump’s reelection prospects.

On Leftmedia partisanship, political analyst Matthew Continetti succinctly notes, “The only predictable fallout of coronavirus? Partisanship.”

According to Continetti: “The pundits are having difficulty settling on a historical analogy for the COVID-19 coronavirus. Will the spread of the disease be President Trump’s Katrina or his financial crisis? Now that it is interested in coronavirus, a familiar pattern will set in. Data will be publicized without the slightest sense of proportion. The most outrageous scenarios will receive the most attention. Speculation will be paraded as fact. And every conceivable negative outcome, from infections to deaths to plunging stock values, from reasonable and warranted travel bans to unanticipated diplomatic and economic fallout, will be related back to the president in an effort to damage his reelection.”

To that end, a New York Times columnist insists, “Let’s Call It Trumpvirus.” And that is exactly what liar-Pelosi and scumbag-Schumer hope will happen.

So, what will all this look like in three months? I think there will be real and significant health consequences in the U.S. — more or less on par with some of the most significant seasonal viral outbreaks, which in bad years have killed more than 60,000 Americans. One of the flu virus strains this season has taken more than 8,000 lives. But those deaths did not provide political fodder for Democrats.

Finally, for your own preparation, see our COVID-19 analysis, and for the most current information on the viral threat in the U.S., visit the CDC’s page, “What You Should Know,” which provides updates, preventive measures, travel advice, etc. You can review the CDC’s national pandemic-response plan and basic citizen flu-prevention measures.

Despite the liar-Pelosi/scumbag-Schumer political play, according to the latest comprehensive Global Health Security survey, here is the United States’ current preparedness rank: Overall: #1, Prevention: #1, Detection and Reporting: #1, Rapid Response: #2, Health System: #1, and Compliance with International Norms: #1. By comparison here is how China ranks: Overall: #51, Prevention: #50, Detection and Reporting: #64, Rapid Response: #47, Health System: #30, and Compliance with International Norms: #141. It is astounding, given the lethality of the COVID-19 coronavirus variant, that the death toll among Red China’s almost 1.4 billion people, most of whom are impoverished, is not already 10X higher than the current count.   ~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/alexander/68915?mailing_id=4894&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4894&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body  

Anytime I think the left’s hate can’t get any worse, I am proven wrong. The left and its media allies are now doing everything possible to exploit the coronoavirus. They are attempting to stoke panic and they are promoting the baseless narrative that the president has failed to take appropriate steps.

Senate Democrat Leader Charles scumbag-Schumer kicked off the attack Tuesday on the Senate floor. He declared that the administration had been “caught flat-footed” with “no plan to deal with the coronavirus” and “seemingly no urgency to develop one.”

I have no idea what alternative reality scumbag-Schumer is living in. Here are the facts:

• Out of 80,000 confirmed coronavirus cases worldwide, 77,000 are in China.

• The White House announced two days ago that it is seeking $2.5 billion in emergency spending to deal with the coronavirus.

• Last month, the administration declared a national health emergency. It suspended flights to China and barred any foreign national who had traveled through China from entering the U.S.

• It is nothing short of a miracle that while countries like Italy, Japan, and South Korea are dealing with major outbreaks, we are not.

• The U.S. is more connected to the world than most other countries. America is a major tourist destination. The swift action of the Department of Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has resulted in a total of 57 people that we know of having virus inside the U.S.

• Forty-three of those cases were American citizens brought home from the infected cruise ship in Japan. But that’s just 57 people in a country of 330 million.

Is it likely to remain 57 people? Of course not. It seems that the coronavirus is like a flu on steroids. Imagine trying to prevent the yearly flu from arriving here. We’d have to build a wall around the entire country and ban all ships and planes, shutting down all travel. In short, it would be virtually impossible.

We will have more cases of coronavirus. We have excellent healthcare and medical research institutions. So I am reasonably optimistic that we will be able to limit the impact. But we don’t know for sure.

Of course, everyone is hoping we will limit this. Whoops. I have to correct that.

Unfortunately, I have no doubt that many in the fevered swamps of the left — the same folks who tried to blame George W. Bush for Hurricane Katrina and Trump for the devastation Hurricane Maria caused in Puerto Rico — are hoping for the worst now. That is beyond disgusting.

And here’s a final point to keep mind: It wasn’t that long ago when the left accused President Trump of being a racist for trying to stop hundreds of thousands of people from crossing our southern border, including many who were sick and a surge of Chinese nationals. If anyone is to blame for leaving our country exposed, it is the radical left.

Don’t Panic

Tuesday, CDC officials held another briefing. They said that they were taking all necessary precautions but added that while the risk remains low, the spread of coronavirus in the U.S. was “inevitable.”

The talking heads on CNBC reacted by setting their hair on fire. The financial markets crashed again. There is no reason for this panic.

Debate Disaster

By all accounts, Tuesday night’s debate was a disaster for the Democrat Party. Politico interviewed more than a dozen political insiders and experts, and got feedback like this:

“The loser Tuesday was everybody on stage. The Democratic Party. Any hope for sensible, coherent debates.”

“What a mess. It was exhausting.”

“The Charleston debate was … an irritating mess… Any Democrats who watched this debate to make up their minds about whom to vote for might wish there were a category on their ballot labeled ‘None of the These Candidates.’”

“Let’s first establish the debate’s losers, to get it out the way: the CBS moderators.”

“This was not a great night for the Democratic Party. The moderating was not strong; there was a lot of shouting and cross-talk; it was unpleasant to behold.”

“The last Democratic debate before Super Tuesday sounded like a fork caught in a blender — all smashing and crashing noise with no substance at all.”

“That debate was a downer. Nobody won, but somehow all of us at home lost. That’s two hours of our lives we’ll never get back.”

MSNBC's left-wing “Morning Joe” co-hosts agreed, calling the debate a “wreck,” “a mess,” and “a slugfest that spun wildly out of control.”

One final thought: commie-Bernie Sanders got the “front-runner” treatment Tuesday night with every candidate taking shots at him. But the general consensus is that he survived the night and remains the party’s front-runner in spite of doubling down on his defense of communist regimes, which left Van Jones “disappointed.”

Yet while commie-Sanders defended the “good things” done by Cuba and China, he saved his harshest criticism for Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, calling him “a reactionary racist” for keeping his nation safe from radical Islamic terrorism.

Once again, commie-Sanders drew a clear red line for anyone who cares about the U.S.-Israel alliance.

The world knows that under the leadership of President Trump and Vice President Pence, the United States stands shoulder to shoulder with Israel. Under “President commie-Sanders,” Israel’s enemies would be emboldened and the Jewish state would be in grave danger.  

~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/opinion/68867?mailing_id=4892&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4892&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body  

The Russians are like the devil. Each gets blamed (or credited) with more than they are responsible for.

Intelligence officials recently went to Capitol Hill where, according to The Hill, “they briefed the House Intelligence Committee about Russia interfering in the presidential race in an effort to get Trump re-elected.” The initial presumption was that Russian President Vladimir Putin favors Trump’s re-election. Why would he when he has someone more closely associated with his ideology than Trump? That would be the self-described Democratic Socialist, Sen. commie-Bernie Sanders (I-VT).

But wait. Following closely on this unspecific leak to (where else?) The New York Times, we now hear that Russia wants commie-Sanders as the next president. Perhaps it’s out of gratitude because he and his wife honeymooned in the Soviet Union. Ah, nostalgia.

The intelligence briefing was classified, but as with charges that Russia meddled in the 2016 election, no details have emerged that prove the Russian “collusion” narrative. Other than disinformation campaigns on social media (and plenty of disinformation has and will continue to be generated here at home through mainstream media) we have still not heard any specifics on how Russia managed to change a single vote in 2016, or how they supposedly intend to do so this time around. Upon hearing of the intelligence briefing, Putin’s press secretary told Russian state-run media, “This is another in a series of paranoid reports, and we regret to say that their number will grow as the election approaches. They certainly have nothing to do with the truth.”

The reason Democrats are again raising the prospect of Russian interference is to undermine the credibility of this year’s election should Trump win again, as seems increasingly likely. Democrats have been unable to stomach, not only his 2016 election, but also his economic successes. They fear their party will lose what remaining but dwindling appeal it might still enjoy. That’s why in the debates among Democratic presidential candidates one hears of an America that isn’t recognizable to most citizens. For them, America is a bad country, a place of racism, sexism, inequality and misery only they can fix, though previous Democratic presidents who have made similar diagnoses of America’s “faults” have done nothing to repair the damage to which they have arguably contributed. Trump appears to have stolen their issues and they have no fallback position.

As for the credibility of American intelligence, consider their record during George W. Bush’s administration, beginning with weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, which were never found, resulting in the deaths of many in the unnecessary war that followed.

This Russian interference claim seems like a setup and an invitation for the House to conduct even more investigations and possibly new articles of impeachment after the election, assuming Democrats maintain their House majority. A recent Gallup poll shows record high approval (49 percent) of the president’s policies. Forty-three percent of independents polled now support the president — the highest percentage during Trump’s entire presidency. We’ll see if that translates into Republican victories in races for the Senate and House.

According to Gallup, “The latest survey finds a further increase in national satisfaction, with 45 percent now satisfied, the highest since February 2005.”

Democrats have always needed a boogeyman to run against. Recall “The Gingrich who stole Christmas” line disparaging then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich on a Time magazine cover in the 1990s. Democrats have also demagogued Republicans for not helping the poor and for being racist. That is a harder sell with the African-American unemployment rate at record lows and wages rising for virtually all groups. According to the Census Bureau, the poverty level is as low as its been in 11 years.

Russia has become the default boogeyman of the left. That is what makes commie-Bernie Sanders the ideal candidate for Russia and the other socialist-communist states he has praised, because in his heart he is at one with them.   ~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/opinion/68865?mailing_id=4892&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4892&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body 

Second Circuit Judge Reena Raggi recognized that other circuit courts had ruled in favor of “sanctuary” states. But in the decision she argued that based upon the plain reading of the law, “we cannot agree that the federal government must be enjoined from imposing the challenged conditions on the federal grants at issue.” She explained, “These conditions help the federal government enforce national immigration laws and policies supported by successive Democratic and Republican administrations. But more to the authorization point, they ensure that applicants satisfy particular statutory grant requirements imposed by Congress and subject to Attorney General oversight.” Raggi also cogently observed that a “state may not pursue policies that undermine federal law.”

This split between the courts will likely result in the Supreme Court weighing in on the issue. This is good news for both the Trump administration and the American people, as SCOTUS has more often than not sided with the Trump administration on cases concerning immigration enforcement. Furthermore, the Second Circuit’s appeal to the “plain language of the relevant statutes” for its decision provides the most compelling argument yet in support of the Trump administration’s position.

The court victories for Trump regarding his administration’s immigration enforcement have been rare but significant, as his administration has slowly but steadily worked to overcome Democrats’ resistance to his enforcement policies. And the administration has recently ramped up its efforts against leftist state governments that have been undercutting federal law enforcement. Just two weeks ago, Attorney General William Barr announced new sanctions in what he is calling a “significant escalation” to combat lawless sanctuary cities.   ~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/articles/68877?mailing_id=4892&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4892&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body  

Yes, their political modus operandi is just that causticly crass.

It follows the model perfected by Barack scumbag/liar-nObama and his then-chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, who openly declared, “You don’t ever want a good crisis to go to waste; it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.” And that is exactly what they did in 2008, when scumbag/liar-nObama used a pandemic of financial fear as his ticket to the presidency. At the time, even Bill scumbag/liar-Clinton admitted that the Democrats were responsible for that crisis because they resisted “efforts by Republicans in the Congress … to put some standards and tighten up a little on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.” scumbag/liar-Clinton himself had loosened up those standards 10 years earlier, with disastrous financial consequences but fortuitous political consequences.

My point is not to relitigate how the Democrats used that “fear pandemic” to ensure scumbag/liar-nObama’s election but to say they are experts at converting tragedy into political triumph. Their current “Hate Trump” platform is constructed on their perennial political foundation of fear, anger, and division.

At this point in the 2020 election cycle, Democrats are scrambling for any “opportunity to do things you think you could not do before” to enable them defeat Donald Trump, especially if they can’t dispense with Bernie Sanders. COVID-19, the scientific term for coronavirus, is providing them an election-year crisis that they won’t let go to waste, especially if it becomes a significant domestic health threat. They see the potential to convert coronavirus into Trump’s “Hurricane Katrina.”

In January, I wrote a comprehensive analysis, “The Flu and You,” putting the potential for a COVID-19 flu pandemic into perspective and offering helpful links on preparedness and response. At that time, the Trump administration was taking significant steps to prevent a viral spread in the U.S.

Monday of this week, reflecting concern about the economic impact of coronavirus, there was a 3.5% equities-market selloff — a bellwether indicator of economic concerns. For the record, there are other factors – equities are likely due a 10-15% correction, and the possibility that commie-Bernie Sanders could somehow win the 2020 presidential election is cause for a lot of concern among businesses and consumers. Responding to the selloff, Nate Jackson provided an update on COVID-19, noting how scumbag-Schumer and liar-Pelosi had their coronavirus crisis/fear machine at full throttle. liar-Pelosi claims the Trump administration’s request for $2.5 billion in funding was “long overdue and completely inadequate.” scumbag-Schumer declared that Trump is “asleep at the wheel.”

On Tuesday, Dr. Nancy Messonnier, an official at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), promoted a panic narrative that ran contrary to the Trump administration’s measured concern and effort to encourage calm. Messonnier, who is the sister of former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein (one of the coup co-conspirators), told Leftmedia reporters that the pandemic potential is “bad” and the “disruption to everyday life may be severe.” She declared, “It’s not so much of a question of if this will happen anymore but rather more of a question of exactly when this will happen.”

Let me be clear: Messonnier could be right. COVID-19 is estimated to be much more lethal than the .1% fatality rate of typical flu bugs, which have killed more than 60,000 Americans in a single year.

But her comments were irresponsible and played right into the Demos’ panic narrative — and another market selloff of 3.2%. The selloff continued into Wednesday and is not over. By undermining consumer and business confidence, and thus the equities markets, Democrats are playing politics with the wealth and job stability of all working Americans and their families. Democrats are quietly high-fiving each other in Capitol Hill cloakrooms, knowing that what is bad for America workers is bad for Trump’s reelection prospects.

Messonnier’s dire warnings necessitated an executive press conference Wednesday evening with President Trump and his key administration officials. In that conference, Trump appointed Vice President Mike Pence and Health Secretary Alex Azar to head the White House coronavirus-containment task force. Trump assured the public, “Whatever happens, we’re totally prepared,” adding the infection rates in the U.S. “may get a little bigger, [or] it may not get bigger at all.”

Of note regarding the “reliability” of reports from China’s communist regime, Trump said that China is containing the epidemic: “If you can count on the reports coming out of China, that spread has gone down.”

For his part, Mike Pence outlined the administration’s response thus far and plans moving forward: “[President Trump] declared a public health emergency. He suspended travel to the United States from China. He initiated quarantine efforts for American citizens returning, and he established the White House Coronavirus Task Force, which has literally met every single day. President Trump has directed me to lead a whole of government approach to address the coronavirus in this country. And I promise you: We will continue to bring the full resources of the federal government to bear to protect the American people… We’re all in this together. This is not the time for partisanship. This president will always put the health and safety of America first.”

As outlined in my COVID-19 analysis last month, for the most current information on the viral threat in the U.S., visit the CDC’s page, “What You Should Know,” which provides updates, preventive measures, travel advice, etc. You can review the CDC’s national pandemic-response plan and basic citizen flu-prevention measures.

And finally, as I noted in “The REAL Pandemic Threat” back in 2006, “Clearly, there are significant pandemic threats posed by viral infections that mutate into much more contagious forms and can spread regionally, nationally, and internationally, causing significant loss of life. The primary defense against such contagions is the capacity to shelter in place. What originates in China or Africa one week can be in your suburb the next.”

For that reason, we developed a comprehensive resource page on Disaster Preparedness Planning, including a Two-Step Individual Readiness Plan and a section on how to shelter in place. We encourage you to visit each of these pages, because national preparedness begins with individual preparedness, and individual preparedness is the firewall against a “fear pandemic.”

Update Elizabeth dinky/liar-Warren, a master at politicizing everything, is demanding that funding for the border wall be diverted to combat COVID-19 nationally. But the fact is, our porous southern border is a signifiant entry point for the virus, particularly if there is an outbreak in Central America, sending caravans of “pandemic refugees” north. But more to the point, recently there has been a significant increase of Chinese nationals crossing our the southern border.   ~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/alexander/68876?mailing_id=4892&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4892&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body  

On January 3, 2020, 13 states in the U.S. joined Rhode Island in a lawsuit against oil companies for contributing to climate change and the dangers it poses.

The reason: They believe sea-level rise from climate change threatens their low-lying coastal regions.

An alarmist news site in Honolulu claims, “Warmer air temperatures are causing our oceans to thermally expand and glaciers around the world to melt. This combination leads to global sea level rise.”

However, the real-world situation differs dramatically from these hyped-up, sensationalist claims.

Manmade Global Warming: Not the Primary Driver of Sea-Level Rise

Doomsday proponents suggest that glacial melt induced by global warming can contribute significantly to the rise in sea levels. But a growing number of scientific studies (like this one in 2018) find that manmade global warming is not a primary driver of global sea-level rise.

The reason? Contrary to the media narrative, more factors than glacial melt drive sea-level rise.

Three major sets of natural factors control the rise and fall of sea levels: water temperature and salinity changes (steric), cryosphere/glacial changes (glacio-eustatic), and geological changes in continents and ocean basins (isostatic).

Despite multiple influences on sea levels, some alarmist narratives focus exclusively on glacial melt. Why? To make people panic about melting glaciers in the Arctic and Antarctic.

Moreover, sea-level doomsday reports seldom address sea-level rise in previous centuries and millennia. Avoiding that supports the alarmist narrative, as it portrays the current rise as new and unprecedented.

Sea-Level Rise: Higher and Faster in the Past

A 2014 scientific study did a comprehensive analysis of sea-level measurements from 1,277 tide gauge records since 1807 to estimate trends and acceleration in sea-level rise. In the 20th century, global sea-level rise displayed a linear trend of 1.9 ± 0.3 millimeters (mm) per year.

Sea levels have been much higher in the past and varies regionally.

Whoever has been feeding you false information on unprecedented sea-level rise needs to be redirected to research that documents not only higher sea levels in the past but also more rapid sea-level rise.

Long-term historical analysis of sea-level rise (from around 14,000 BC to the present) in Europe, Australia, Russia, Canada, Eurasia, China, India, Thailand, the  Caribbean Islands, Bolivia, and various other places indicates that sea levels were much higher in the past than today.

During the early Holocene (11,719 to 7069 calibrated years before 2019) the sea level rose by 55 to 60 meters and the rate of sea-level rise was 11 to 12 mm/year. In Tahiti, the largest French Polynesian Island in the South Pacific, the sea-level rise was “11.7 mm/year for the period 8950-11,650 before 1950.”

Besides, scientific publications published in the 1980s, before the advent of the global-warming craze, reveal that “many parts of the world provide evidence of higher than present strand lines dating from the late Holocene.”

Is Future Sea-Level Rise a Threat to Islands?

In contrast to the early Holocene period, the global sea-level rise since 1958 has been just around 1.3 to 1.5 mm per year, much lower than the 20th-century average.

We cannot blindly assume that islands will get submerged by future sea-level rise of around 2 mm per year or 0.2 meters (m) per century.

Because even if sea levels around islands or along coastlines go up, the coastal regions may still remain unsubmerged, and might even grow in some cases, due to accretion, i.e., geological changes that increase elevation and extension of landmass by accumulation of sediments, growth of coral, or uplift of the landmass itself.

In order to evaluate the same, scientists conducted studies to analyze the impact of sea-level rise on the Pacific islands — like Tuvalu, Tokelau, and Kiribati — which are often projected by climate alarmists as the first victims of rising sea levels.

The study found out that even with a 0.5 meter and 1 meter rise in the sea level (much higher than the 0.2 meters observed during the entire 20th century), the islands remained unaffected.

The scientists attribute this adaptability to “physical changes in island structure, including both vertical adjustments that influenced island topography and planform movement.” The study concluded that the “islands have the capability to morphodynamically respond to rising sea level through island accretion.”

The impact of relative sea-level rise on any coast can only be discerned after considering the vertical crustal motion, and the accretion of sediments, in the coastal region. The assertions of these scientific studies can also be observed in some islands.

For example, in the Grande Glorieuse Islands, the landmass grew by 7.5 ha (1989–2003) despite an absolute sea-level rise around the island and a 28% erosion of shoreline.

So, it is evident from scientific literature that sea levels have not risen dramatically in the recent past; they have been much higher in the past; and the ongoing rise (and potentially faster ones) poses no problem to the islands and other landmass.

Sadly, the mainstream media and climate activists pay no attention to these peer-reviewed and universally accepted scientific facts about sea levels.   ~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/opinion/68757?mailing_id=4883&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4883&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body