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~ Featuring ~
Treatments, Vaccines, and Defeating COVID-19
Mark Alexander
Treatments, Vaccines, and Defeating COVID-19
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Coronavirus bill includes $350 million
for migration, refugee assistance
By Adam Shaw
{ foxnews.com } ~ The $2 trillion spending package to boost the economy in response to the coronavirus crisis includes a $350 million pot of money for “Migration and Refugee Assistance”... the latest item in the legislative behemoth that is angering critics. While a number of items that Republicans objected to got trimmed in the final Senate bill, the Migrant and Refugee Assistance item actually increased by $50 million to $350 million. That's more than the bill put forward by House Democrats earlier this week, which included $300 million in “Migrant and Refugee Assistance” for the State Department. Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla, called it a “poison pill” that put “America LAST.” “Democrats: This is not the time to advance your legislative agenda,” he tweeted before the bill passed the Senate late Wednesday. “This is the time to put #AmericaFirst.’ The bill ultimately passed the Senate 96-0 and is expected to pass the House in a voice vote on Friday. It includes a number of measures to boost businesses and help individuals hurt by the economic downturn triggered by the coronavirus pandemic. But it includes controversial items, such as $25 million in funding for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. The Senate bill also provides $75 million to each the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. That is down from the $300 million for each that was in the House stimulus bill. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/coronavirus-bill-350-million-for-migrant-refugee-assistance .
Republicans targeting 2024 White House
bid diverge from Trump on coronavirus
by David M. Drucker
{ washingtonexaminer.com } ~ Prominent Republicans eyeing a 2024 White House bid have placed themselves at the epicenter of efforts to blunt the coronavirus pandemic... with some departing from President Trump by proposing an extended and more aggressive economic shutdown. As Trump floats reopening a quarantined national economy by Easter, two Republican senators with presidential aspirations, Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Rick Scott of Florida, support tightening current restrictions and maintaining them for at least 30 days. Scott’s eight-point plan would suspend domestic airline travel and place a moratorium on people’s monthly financial obligations. Cotton advocates nationwide shelter-in-place rules and is urging the administration to heed the recommendations of Anthony Fauci and other experts. “This is the stark truth: we have to arrest the spread of the China virus to get the economy back on its feet & get life back to something like normal,” Cotton tweeted Tuesday. The same day, Trump began discussing the need to balance public health concerns properly with the damage to a stunted economy could have on the public's psyche. Cotton and Scott are among a handful of potential 2024 presidential candidates who have sought to influence the federal government’s response to the coronavirus. Others have been drafted, willingly or not, by virtue of their position in the Trump administration. Vice President Mike Pence was tapped to lead the White House pandemic task force; Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is running point as it relates to coordination and interaction abroad. Marco Rubio of Florida, chairman of the Senate Small Business Committee and a potential 2024 contender, was the lead Republican negotiator of a bipartisan blueprint to rescue small businesses teetering on insolvency because of the pandemic. The measure was a critical component of the $2 trillion coronavirus relief package poised to clear Congress this week. With thousands of businesses endangered and millions poised to lose their jobs, some Republican strategists believe GOP primary voters will reward, or punish, 2024 contenders based on how they responded to the economic fallout. At the very least, some political professionals expect the coronavirus pandemic to affect how Republicans campaign, even if it does not substantially alter what primary voters are looking for in a successor to Trump....
Netanyahu and Gantz said forming
unity government; Blue and White collapses
By RAOUL WOOTLIFF
{ timesofisrael.com } ~ Blue and White chairman Benny Gantz is set to partner Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a unity government, serving initially as foreign minister... but then taking over from Netanyahu as prime minister in September 2021, according to a reported deal taking shape amid immense political drama in Israel on Thursday afternoon. Gantz’s decision to join forces with Netanyahu immediately led to the collapse of Blue and White, with the party’s No. 2 Yair Lapid rejecting the move and apparently heading into opposition with others from his Yesh Atid component of Blue and White. “Gantz chose Netanyahu over Lapid,” Channel 12 reported succinctly. Yesh Atid and Moshe Ya’alon’s Telem faction both filed a formal request to break away from Blue and White late on Thursday afternoon, leaving only Gantz’s Israel Resilience Party to join forces with Netanyahu’s Likud. Lapid had reportedly told Gantz he preferred that Israel go to fourth elections rather than see Blue and White partner Netanyahu in power. The coalition is reportedly likely to constitute 78-79 MKs — Likud, Gantz’s Israel Resilience, Labor, Yamina, Shas and United Torah Judaism — according to Channel 12. That would leave Lapid’s Yesh Atid, Ya’alon’s Telem, Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu, Meretz and the mainly Arab Joint List in opposition. However, various other fluctuations are deemed possible, with Yoaz Hendel and Zvi Hauser from Telem, for instance, said to be weighing joining the coalition. The unity deal was taking shape as the Knesset met to vote for a new speaker, following Likud speaker Yuli Edelstein’s resignation on Wednesday. Gantz offered himself as the sole candidate for the Knesset speaker’s job, which he is set to hold only for a brief period while the terms of the unity coalition are finalized. He will then serve as foreign minister for the first 18 months of the emergency unity government, under the terms of the reported deal, before succeeding Netanyahu as prime minister. It was not clear what post Netanyahu would fill at that stage. The prime minister has been indicted in three corruption cases, in a trial that was supposed to begin last week but has been postponed to May amid the coronavirus crisis. After a bitter fight with Likud over the speaker’s job, Blue and White had been set to see its MK Meir Cohen voted in, which would give the party control of the parliamentary agenda... https://www.timesofisrael.com/gantz-and-netanyahu-said-forming-unity-government-blue-and-white-collapses/?utm_source=Breaking+News&utm_campaign=breaking-news-2020-03-26-2269331&utm_medium=email .
Trump Campaign Threatens to Sue
TV Stations Over Deceptive Ad
By Ken Meyer
{ mediaite.com } ~ President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign is threatening to file lawsuits against local news outlets in several battleground states... if they continue to air a political ad showing his attempts to downplay the coronavirus. Priorities USA, a liberal super PAC, crafted the ad entitled “Exponential Threat,” and it splices audio of Trump from recent weeks as he made dismissive comments about COVID-19’s severity. At the same time, a visual graphic charts the escalation of case numbers in the U.S., which torpedoes Trump’s claims to have always taken the virus seriously. The ad is being run on TV stations in Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, according to The Hill. The ad uses audio to advance a frequent, misleading claim from Democrats that Trump called the coronavirus a “hoax” at a rally. A fact check by Washington Post explains, however, that Trump was referring to public concerns about the virus and attempts by critics to politicize it against him. Campaign attorney Alex Cannon sent cease and desist letters to all the stations airing the ad, saying they will take legal action if they don’t stop airing it. “PUSA’s advertisement is false, misleading, and deceptive, and we formally demand that your station refuse to continue airing it to meet your responsibilities not to broadcast false information,” the letter says. “Should you fail to immediately cease broadcasting PUSA’s ad ‘Exponential Threat,’ Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. will have no choice but to pursue all legal remedies available to it in law and in equity; we will not stand idly by and allow you to broadcast false, deceptive, and misleading information concerning President’s Trump’s healthcare positions without consequence.” https://www.mediaite.com/tv/trump-campaign-threatens-to-sue-tv-stations-over-deceptive-ad-claiming-potus-called-coronavirus-a-hoax/ .
Ted Cruz and rino-Susan Collins Pummel
Democrats Over Coronavirus Stimulus
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MediaPush to Censor President
Trump's Coronavirus Briefings
by Daniel Greenfield
{ frontpagemag.com } ~ It's all about controlling the narrative. And in pursuit of controlling the narrative, the media is... 1. Lying compulsively about Trump 2. Trying to cut off presidential briefings during a crisis. The first is expected. The second is obscene. Here the New York Times offers both. He has also encouraged the use of medications that have yet to be proved effective against the virus; on Monday, a man in Arizona died after he and his wife consumed a form of chloroquine, a drug that Mr. Trump has promoted on the air. The media is pushing this false claim repeatedly. The Arizona couple took fish cleaner. Not a prescribed medication. The Times, like the rest of the media, fails to mention this while pursuing its political narrative. And that's what this is about. Maintaining media supremacy. “I would stop putting those briefings on live TV — not out of spite, but because it’s misinformation,” the MSNBC host Rachel Maddow declared to her viewers last week. The Times is quoting a conspiracy theorist who pushed nonsense and lies to her viewers for years about misinformation. If knows about misinformation, it's Maddow. The White House, in turn, has been critical of TV networks that do not do its bidding. On Monday, after CNN and MSNBC cut away from the final portion of Mr. Trump’s briefing, a White House spokesman, Judd Deere, called the move “pretty disgraceful.” CNN responded that the network “will make our own editorial decisions.” MSNBC said it had cut away only “because the information no longer appeared to be valuable to the important ongoing discussion around public health.” It's not the job of the media to "fact check" press briefings in real time. This is public radio in a hot zone announcing that it won't provide the public with coronavirus task force briefings. https://cms.frontpagemag.com/point/2020/03/media-push-censor-president-trumps-coronavirus-daniel-greenfield .
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Treatments, Vaccines, and Defeating COVID-19
Mark Alexander The latest mainstream media drama and distraction is centered on politicized claims accusing the HHS/CDC (and, by extension, Donald Trump) for being slow to implement testing for COVID-19 (CV19) infections. While tests are not vaccines, antidotes, or cures, they certainly are instructive in determining viral spread and how to retard it.
As for all the Demo finger pointing, some issues about our national response to CV19 should be fairly debated at the proper time, in hindsight after-action. But those conclusions regarding those issues can’t be fairly assumed now, as the Demos and Leftmedia have done.
One of the physicians who has been a Patriot Post resource for years is a former Army doc and an exceptionally gifted medical analyst. He graduated from a highly esteemed medical school at age 20 and completed seven medical specialty fellowships.
He offered the following assessment on the prospects for CV19 treatment and vaccines: “Healthcare providers from around the world are collaborating as never before to improve treatment results. Anti-viral, antibiotic, inhaled medication, and connective-tissue-disease medications have all shown promise and the world’s medical community has embraced the challenge. We get daily updates from our Seattle, French, and Italian colleagues from the trenches on what is working and what is not (avoid nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs!). Outcomes are improving. We are utilizing this information to treat our sickest patients.”
Regarding hopes of a quick vaccine, he notes, “Vaccine is many months away and double-blinded treatment protocols are not being considered (who wants to be in the ‘no treatment’ group?). A vaccine requires a stable locus on the virus (no mutation that would delete the antigen), safety and efficacy data, as well as the ability to mass produce the vaccine. This process usually takes 2-5 years and very few of these ever make it to market. Approximately 87% of would-be vaccines never make it to human testing. We are attempting to greatly accelerate the process, but only so many corners can be cut if we are to have a safe and effective product. It’s worth mentioning that we’ve had the SARS virus around for over a decade and have yet to develop a vaccine for it. A daunting task, but with many brilliant minds, the human spirit, and a healthy dose of prayer, we shall overcome.”
As for the vaccine now being administered in Seattle, the original epicenter of CV19 in the U.S., he adds, “While the vaccine doses being administered there are being used under a ‘compassionate need’ basis, it will take time to know if that vaccine has any effect on prevention.”
In other words, successful treatments and vaccines are not likely to emerge soon.
Additionally, regarding the rise and decline of CV19, Nobel laureate and Stanford biophysicist Michael Levitt believes the virus spread will be much more manageable than current risk assessments trumpeted by the mass media.
According to Levitt, “What we need is to control the panic. … We’re going to be fine. The real situation is not nearly as terrible as they make it out to be.” His analysis indicates that CV19 in the U.S. will follow a similar pattern to that in Asia and will peak sooner than thought. Let’s pray that assessment is correct.
(For more on the efficacy of vaccines, visit this resource page.)
~The Patriot Post
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