Ronald E. Yates's Blog, page 59

The Lost Years of Billy Battles wins New York City Big Book Award

I am honored to announce that The Lost Years of Billy Battles has won an NYC Big Book Award.

Here is the Press Release announcing the award.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Author wins national recognition with the NEW YORK CITY BIG BOOK AWARD®!

The NYC BIG BOOK AWARD has recognized The Lost Years of Billy Battles by Ronald E. Yates as the Winner in the category of Historical Fiction.

Experts from different book industry disciplines judge the competition, including publishers, writers, editors, book cover designers, and professional copywriters. Selected award winners and distinguished favorites are based on overall excellence.

In 2020, the NYC Big Book Award once again achieved worldwide participation.  Entries remained strong during the worldwide pandemic. Book submissions streamed in from six continents and over 100 cities. Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, and South America all participated.  Across the globe, book entries poured in from places such as Budapest, Capetown, London, Los Angeles, Mumbai, New York City, Port of Spain, Vancouver, and Victoria, to name a few.  Winners were recognized globally from Australia, Canada, England, India, Singapore, Uganda, and the United States of America, among other nations.

The breadth of publishers ranged from Amazon to Wiley, from Black Rose Writing to She Writes Press.  Our award-winning authors are from all kinds of different backgrounds and enrich the program.  We are proud of such diversity of winners and distinguished favorites in the annual NYC Big Book Award.

“We are pleased to highlight these books, recognize their excellence, and share their achievements,” said awards sponsor Gabrielle Olczak.  The awards program “foments a strong interest in these authors and publishing houses, and we expect our winners and favorites to receive a heightened level of attention.”  Olczak went on to say that “excellent books can be found globally, and we are happy to help bring them to a larger audience.”

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Here is a short synopsis of The Lost Years of Billy Battles, Book 3 of the Finding Billy Battles Trilogy.

The year is 1914, and the world is in turmoil. In Europe, the Great War is raging. In Asia, fierce insurgencies are in progress against the colonial powers of Europe. In Mexico, a bloody revolution is ripping that nation to shreds and threatening to spill over into Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona.

Meanwhile, in Chicago, Billy Battles and his wife, the former Baroness Katharina von Schreiber, have managed to live an uncommonly sedate life for almost ten years. But, with one telephone call, their tranquil world is shattered when they agree to a secret assignment in Veracruz, Mexico.

In Veracruz, Katharina and Billy embark on a succession of wild adventures that will alter their lives for all time. Their new and violent world is one brimming with miscreants, secret agents, treachery, and tragedy. But most importantly, it triggers Billy’s mysterious decades-long disappearance. Where is he? What happened? The answers are in The Lost Years of Billy Battles, Book 3 of the award-winning Finding Billy Battles trilogy.

For more information, please visit www.nycbigbookaward.com.  To view the list of winners, visit https://www.nycbigbookaward.com/2020winners; Distinguished Favorites listed here: https://www.nycbigbookaward.com/2020distinguishedfavorites.

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Are American Voters Stupid or Just Ill-Informed?

With the 2020 election a little more than two weeks away, I found myself speculating on how informed the American electorate is. Given a biased mainstream media, I wondered if American voters are able to make an informed decision when they mark their ballots.

A few years ago during an academic conference, MIT professor Jonathan Gruber referred to the “stupidity of the American voter” and his comments ignited a firestorm of outrage.

But was Gruber wrong when he made those off-the-cuff remarks about the American electorate?

Sadly, it appears that he may have been right in his assessment. According to at least two recent surveys, Americans are woefully ignorant when it comes to their country and its governance.

Ask them to name just one Supreme Court Justice and 65 percent can’t, according to the Annenberg Public Policy Center.

It gets better. Ask Americans to name the three branches of their government and 36 percent of Americans can’t. Ask them to name just a single branch of government and 35 percent can’t even do that.

But in a nation consumed like no other with celebrity, ask Americans to reel off the names of the top rock stars, gansta rappers, Oscar favorites, superstars in the NFL, NBA and Major League Baseball, and any number of mindless reality TV shows and their minions and guess what? You will have no problem getting an answer.

So while Gruber was pilloried for his remarks, the sad truth is that he was right. American voters are stupid–or perhaps apathetic or indifferent are better descriptions.

Lying to them, as the Obama administration did when it was ramming Obamacare through Congress and down our throats, was viewed as an acceptable tactic. After all, they reasoned, Americans are too stupid to know what’s good for them.

Remember President Obama’s famous fib: “if Americans like their doctor, they’ll be keeping their doctor. You like your plan? You’ll be keeping your plan.” 

While such a conclusion about the stupidity of the American voter may smack of somebody’s opinion, it was backed up last month in a groundbreaking survey by the U.K. research firm Ipsos MORI. That survey highlighted the political “ignorance” of 11,527 people across 14 countries

It found that Americans are second only to Italians in how little we understand our nations and the issues facing it. (See Graphic)

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Here are a few of the questions asked and the results:

What percentage of the U.S. population identifies as Muslim?

Americans guessed: 15%.  Reality: 1%
What percentage of the population do you think are immigrants to America?

Americans guessed: 32%. Reality: 13%
Do you think this statement is true or false: The murder rate is rising in America

70 percent of Americans guessed: True . Reality: False
What percentage of American girls aged between 15 and 19 years give birth each year? Americans guessed: 23.9%. Reality: 3.1%

Back in 2008, Rick Shenkman, the editor-in-chief of the History News Network, published a book entitled: Just How Stupid Are We? Facing the Truth about the American Voter.

Shenkman found that most Americans were, among other things:

Ignorant about major international events
Knew little about how their own government runs and who runs it
Were nonetheless willing to accept government positions and policies even though a moderate amount of critical thought suggested they were bad for the country
Were easily swayed by stereotyping, simplistic solutions, irrational fears and public relations babble.

Shenkman found that Americans, when they do pay attention, do so when they perceive that an issue may impact them, their families or friends personally. That is not earth shattering, but it does say something about the fact that Americans, like it or not, are part of the global family.

I spent some two decades as a foreign correspondent, covering stories throughout Asia and Latin America. During that time I discovered that relatively few Americans had any understanding at all of the impact events and policies in places like China or Japan can have on their lives.

For example, when products are manufactured more inexpensively in China or India or Vietnam that often means higher paid Americans lose their jobs.

When rapacious government policies allow a Chinese steel company to export its products at a price that is lower in the American market than the price charged in the domestic Chinese market, and thereby unfairly undercut American steel makers, that is called “dumping.”

What most Americans may not know is that dumping is legal under World Trade Organization rules unless the aggrieved foreign country can demonstrate the negative impact of the exporting company on domestic producers. In order to counter dumping, most nations use tariffs and quotas to protect their domestic industry from the negative effects of predatory pricing.

But let’s get back to that Ipsos MORI survey and Gruber’s unflattering characterization of the American voter.

We often decry the quality of elected officials today. But what about the quality of voters?

How can we make informed decisions about places like Iraq and Iran, organizations like ISIS, government spending, and societal issues if we have no understanding of the essential specifics involved?

American educator and philosopher Robert Maynard Hutchins may have said it best:

“The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment.”

 

 

Letter from a Canadian: “Why I Support Trump”

Ernie Meggisen says he is a Canadian. I have no reason to doubt that. The other day I received a commentary he wrote for a Canadian newspaper. I’m not sure which newspaper, but that is beside the point. As I read through his commentary I was struck by his view of President Trump. Why would a Canadian be such a supporter of an American president? If you take the time to read what Ernie Meggisen wrote, you will discover the answer to that question. 

Why I  Support Donald Trump

By Ernie Meggisen

Make no mistake, I’m not posting this for debate. I don’t want your commentary. Unfollow or unfriend me, if it makes you feel better. Just consider this. . . .

When you think that your President Trump is a jerk; HE IS… He’s a New Yorker… He’s crude and can be downright rude. Some say he’s a thin-skinned, arrogant, bombastic ass. No argument, even from most Republicans if they’re really honest. He gets his feelings hurt and he’s a hot head… Then he hits back; harder… And he probably should Tweet less.

But let me tell you what else he is. And if you disagree with this that’s your privilege. But in that case my friend, you’d be DEAD WRONG!!! And here’s why; He’s a guy who DEMANDS performance. And more importantly; RESULTS!!

He spent his entire life in the private sector where you either produce or get your ass fired! He’s a guy who asks lots of questions. And the questions he asks aren’t cloaked in fancy “political” phrases; they are “Why the hell….?” questions.

For decades the health industry has thrown away billions of face masks after one use. Then Trump asks, “Why are we throwing them away? Why not sterilize them and use them numerous times?” (Good question.) He’s the guy who gets hospital ships readied in one week when it would have taken a bureaucrat weeks or months or never to get it done. He’s the guy who gets temporary hospitals built in three days. He’s the guy who gets auto industries to restructure to build ventilators in a business that’s highly regulated by agencies that move like sloths. He’s the guy who asks “Why aren’t we using drugs that might work on people who are dying; what the hell do we have to lose?” (Another good question.)

He’s the guy who restricted travel from China when the democrats and liberal media were screaming “xenophobia and racist.” Now they’re wanting to know why he didn’t react sooner? When he shut down the borders in the early days of the coronavirus, the democrats screamed even LOUDER… Then the rest of the world, including the European Union quickly restricted travel between their own member countries.

He’s the guy who campaigned on securing the border – protecting America – in the face of screaming democrats and the liberal media… And these SAME leaders of your democrat party (both the Clintons, Chucky Schumer, Harry Reed, Barack Obama, Maxine Waters, Nancy Pelosi, et al… ALL were in FAVOR of constructing the wall ‘UNTIL’ Trump had the fortitude to actually do it!!! Now your comeback might be: ‘Oh, he said Mexico was going to pay for it’. Does that ring a bell?

Well let me quickly set you straight on this one: Have you compared the old EXTREMELY one-sided NAFTA agreement (negotiated by none other than Jimmy ‘Peanuts’ Carter) with the NEW U.S.MC. agreement? Well, I have…And let me tell you this: Mexico will now end up paying much MORE for your goods than you will for theirs… And why you might ask?? Because they’re far more reliant on the U.S. than you are of them. Yes, it will take time but the bottom line is– They WILL end up paying for the wall just like Trump said all long!

Admittedly as a Canadian, this new USMCA is certainly not as beneficial as NAFTA was for both my country and Mexico. Previously our farmers had a huge monopoly over your farmers but ‘fair is fair’… Has Trump made mistakes? Of course. You can’t fault a person for being a human being. Only ONE perfect man walked this earth 2000 years ago, Jesus. Everyone I know has made mistakes and continues to make them and LEARNS from them.

Trump is, and has accomplished more than any U.S. President in my lifetime. (I’m 77 years old)… He puts in 18 to 20 hour days. He isn’t hiding in his office; he’s out front – Briefing – ALL Americans almost every day. According to Democrats and liberal media, when he offers hope he’s lying, and when he’s straight forward he should be hopeful. It’s a no-win situation for him every day with the haters and naysayers, but he is NOT deterred

I’ll take THIS kind of leadership 6 days a week and TWICE on Sunday over a “polished, nice guy” politician who has seldom or never held a real private-sector job in his or her adult life, reads prepared and “written by a speech-writer” speeches from a teleprompter and ONLY answers pre-scripted questions selected for him/her prior to the open forum. (Sorry folks, but that’s EXACTLY what your previous POTUS did.)

I am completely mystified as to why this man has been bombarded by the media and liberal electorate EVERY day since back in 2015 when he announced his run for the U.S. presidency. And whether you want to believe it or not, Americans, let me tell you one more thing, if you REALLY think that Hillary would have accomplished even a fraction of the things for the betterment of the American public that POTUS Trump has, you’ve really got your head in the sand.

I can only wish he was MY President! – For the good of America, you’d better hope he’s re-elected this November.

BOTTOM-LINE: VOTE for RESULTS.

I do!

World Health Organization Urges Halt to Lockdowns

Well, what do you know? The World Health Organization has urged world leaders, including those in the United States, to stop using lockdowns as the primary control method against the spread of the China Virus, aka, the novel coronavirus or Covid-19.

This is a dramatic turnaround by the W.H.O. and I wonder how the mainstream media will cover it. I suspect it will not get much coverage because the organization’s new position on lockdowns does not comport with the media narrative.

But wait a minute. Don’t media mavens all say we must follow the science? Do what the medical experts tell us to do?

What’s going on?

What’s going on is that after watching one nation after another force citizens and businesses into lockdown mode, scientists are seeing that that strategy is having deleterious effects on the mental and physical well-being of people.

“We in the World Health Organization do not advocate lockdowns as the primary means of control of this virus,” David Nabarro, the WTO’s special envoy on COVID-19, said in an interview aired October 8. “The only time we believe a lockdown is justified is to buy you time to reorganize, regroup, rebalance your resources, protect your health workers who are exhausted, but by and large, we’d rather not do it.”

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Just what is “herd immunity?”

Herd immunity, or community immunity, is when a large part of the population of an area is immune to a specific disease. If enough people are resistant to the cause of a disease, such as a virus or bacteria, it has nowhere to go.

While not every single individual may be immune, the group as a whole has protection. This is because there are fewer high-risk people overall. The infection rates drop, and the disease peters out. Herd immunity protects at-risk populations. These include babies and those whose immune systems are weak and can’t get resistance on their own.

As the W.H.O. says, there are two ways for nations and societies to achieve herd immunity and resistance.

You can develop resistance naturally. When your body is exposed to a virus or bacteria, it makes antibodies to fight off the infection. When you recover, your body keeps these antibodies. Your body will defend against another infection. This is what stopped the Zika virus outbreak in Brazil. Two years after the outbreak began, 63% of the population had had exposure to the virus. Researchers think the community reached the right level for herd immunity.

Vaccines can also build resistance. They make your body think a virus or bacteria has infected it. You don’t get sick, but your immune system still makes protective antibodies. The next time your body meets that bacteria or virus, it’s ready to fight it off. This is what stopped polio in the United States.

Will the United States stop the lockdown madness and begin reopening?

I doubt it. Because once the lockdowns end and the country reopens there will be a spike in cases and that will cause politicians and others to panic and push for another lockdown instead of allowing the virus to die out by itself.

Experts say for that to happen in the United States, 50 to 67 percent of the population would need to be resistant before herd immunity kicks in and the infection rates drop.

To its credit, that’s what the W.H.O. now believes and that’s the strategy that sane nations like Sweden have adopted.

I’m not holding my breath that American politicians and health professionals will do the same.

The Great Barrington Declaration: An Alternative to the National Lockdown

For those who have had enough of living under house arrest, losing jobs, and being targeted with dictatorial decrees and dictates from public officials and bureaucrats, here is an alternative assessment of Covid-19 and how we should deal with it.

It’s called The Great Barrington Declaration.

It comes from thousands of medical and public health scientists, medical practitioners, and members of the general public.

I urge you to read it and think about it. It makes a lot of sense.

Of course, it is antithetical to the recognized medical dogma that pervades our news media and is espoused by many of those in power, including the despotic czars who rule social media and censor alternate opinions.

But in a nation where speech is free and where ideas should be debated openly, it seems to me that this Declaration should be available for all to see and read. You can also sign it if you wish. I did.

Sadly, you probably will not see the Declaration mentioned or discussed in the mainstream media, so I am posting it here and doing my best to disseminate it to as many people as possible. Feel free to pass it on. Minds need to be opened to alternative perspectives—especially those from highly qualified medical and scientific experts.

  THE GREAT BARRINGTON DECLARATION

As infectious disease epidemiologists and public health scientists, we have grave concerns about the damaging physical and mental health impacts of the prevailing COVID-19 policies and recommend an approach we call Focused Protection.

Coming from both the left and right and around the world, we have devoted our careers to protecting people. Current lockdown policies are producing devastating effects on short and long-term public health. The results (to name a few) include lower childhood vaccination rates, worsening cardiovascular disease outcomes, fewer cancer screenings, and deteriorating mental health – leading to greater excess mortality in years to come, with the working class and younger members of society carrying the heaviest burden. Keeping students out of school is a grave injustice.

Keeping these measures in place until a vaccine is available will cause irreparable damage, with the underprivileged disproportionately harmed.

Fortunately, our understanding of the virus is growing. We know that vulnerability to death from COVID-19 is more than a thousand-fold higher in the old and infirm than the young. Indeed, for children, COVID-19 is less dangerous than many other harms, including influenza.

As immunity builds in the population, the risk of infection to all – including the vulnerable – falls. We know that all populations will eventually reach herd immunity – i.e., the point at which the rate of new infections is stable – and that this can be assisted by (but is not dependent upon) a vaccine. Our goal should, therefore, be to minimize mortality and social harm until we reach herd immunity.

The most compassionate approach that balances the risks and benefits of reaching herd immunity is to allow those who are at minimal risk of death to live their lives normally to build up immunity to the virus through natural infection, while better protecting those who are at highest risk. We call this Focused Protection.

Adopting measures to protect the vulnerable should be the central aim of public health responses to COVID-19. By way of example, nursing homes should use staff with acquired immunity and perform frequent PCR testing of other staff and all visitors. Staff rotation should be minimized. Retired people living at home should have groceries and other essentials delivered to their homes. When possible, they should meet family members outside rather than inside. A comprehensive and detailed list of measures, including approaches to multi-generational households, can be implemented and is well within the scope and capability of public health professionals.

Those who are not vulnerable should immediately be allowed to resume life as normal. Simple hygiene measures, such as hand washing and staying home when sick, should be practiced by everyone to reduce the herd immunity threshold. Schools and universities should be open for in-person teaching. Extracurricular activities, such as sports, should be resumed. Young low-risk adults should work normally, rather than from home. Restaurants and other businesses should open. Arts, music, sport, and other cultural activities should resume. People who are more at risk may participate if they wish, while society as a whole enjoys the protection conferred upon the vulnerable by those who have built up herd immunity.

On October 4, 2020, this declaration was authored and signed in Great Barrington, United States, by:

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Dr. Martin Kulldorff, professor of medicine at Harvard University, a biostatistician and epidemiologist with expertise in detecting and monitoring of infectious disease outbreaks and vaccine safety evaluations.

Dr. Sunetra Gupta, professor at Oxford University, an epidemiologist with expertise in immunology, vaccine development, and mathematical modeling of infectious diseases.

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, professor at Stanford University Medical School, a physician, epidemiologist, health economist, and public health policy expert focusing on infectious diseases and vulnerable populations.

Co-signers
Medical and Public Health Scientists and Medical Practitioners

Dr. Rajiv Bhatia, physician, epidemiologist, and public policy expert at the Veterans Administration, USA

Dr. Stephen Bremner, professor of medical statistics, University of Sussex, England

Dr. Anthony J Brookes, professor of genetics, University of Leicester, England

Dr. Helen Colhoun, professor of medical informatics and epidemiology, and public health physician, University of Edinburgh, Scotland

Dr. Angus Dalgleish, oncologist, infectious disease expert and professor, St. George’s Hospital Medical School, University of London, England

Dr. Sylvia Fogel, autism expert, and psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital and instructor at Harvard Medical School, USA

Dr. Eitan Friedman, professor of medicine, Tel-Aviv University, Israel

Dr. Uri Gavish, biomedical consultant, Israel

Dr. Motti Gerlic, professor of clinical microbiology and immunology, Tel Aviv University, Israel

Dr. Gabriela Gomes, mathematician studying infectious disease epidemiology, professor, University of Strathclyde, Scotland

Dr. Mike Hulme, professor of human geography, University of Cambridge, England

Dr. Michael Jackson, research fellow, School of Biological Sciences, University of Canterbury, New Zealand

Dr. Annie Janvier, professor of pediatrics and clinical ethics, Université de Montréal and Sainte-Justine University Medical Centre, Canada

Dr. David Katz, physician and president, True Health Initiative, and founder of the Yale University Prevention Research Center, USA

Dr. Andrius Kavaliunas, epidemiologist and assistant professor at Karolinska Institute, Sweden

Dr. Laura Lazzeroni, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and of biomedical data science, Stanford University Medical School, USA

Dr. Michael Levitt, biophysicist, and professor of structural biology, Stanford University, USA.

Recipient of the 2013 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Dr. David Livermore, microbiologist, infectious disease epidemiologist, and professor, University of East Anglia, England

Dr. Jonas Ludvigsson, pediatrician, epidemiologist, and professor at Karolinska Institute and senior physician at Örebro University Hospital, Sweden

Dr. Paul McKeigue, physician, disease modeler, and professor of epidemiology and public health, University of Edinburgh, Scotland

Dr. Cody Meissner, professor of pediatrics, expert on vaccine development, efficacy, and safety. Tufts University School of Medicine, USA

Dr. Ariel Munitz, professor of clinical microbiology and immunology, Tel Aviv University, Israel

Dr. Yaz Gulnur Muradoglu, professor of finance, director of the Behavioural Finance Working Group, Queen Mary University of London, England

Dr. Partha P. Majumder, professor and founder of the National Institute of Biomedical Genomics, Kalyani, India

Dr. Udi Qimron, professor of clinical microbiology and immunology, Tel Aviv University, Israel

Dr. Matthew Ratcliffe, professor of philosophy, specializing in mental health philosophy, University of York, England.

Dr. Mario Recker, malaria researcher and associate professor, University of Exeter, England

Dr. Eyal Shahar, physician, epidemiologist, and professor (emeritus) of public health, University of Arizona, USA

Dr. Karol Sikora MA, physician, oncologist, and professor of medicine at the University of Buckingham, England

Dr. Matthew Strauss, critical care physician and assistant professor of medicine, Queen’s University, Canada

Dr. Rodney Sturdivant, infectious disease scientist and associate professor of biostatistics, Baylor University, USA

Dr. Simon Thornley, epidemiologist and biostatistician, University of Auckland, New Zealand

Dr. Ellen Townsend, professor of psychology, head of the Self-Harm Research Group, University of Nottingham, England

Dr. Lisa White, professor of modeling and epidemiology, Oxford University, England

Dr. Simon Wood, biostatistician and professor, University of Edinburgh, Scotland

The Declaration has so far been signed by 5,953 Medical & Public Health Scientists; 12,172 Medical Practitioners; and 167,330 members of the public.

PLEASE SHARE THE GREAT BARRINGTON DECLARATION

https://gbdeclaration.org/

Facing Down Coronavirus Hysteria

After three days of treatment for the China virus at the Walter Reed Medical Center, President Trump was back at the White House this week with a new message for Americans.

In a video posted Monday shortly after his return, the president implored Americans not to let the virus “dominate” their lives. “Don’t be afraid of it. You’re going to beat it,” he said. “Don’t let it take over your lives. Don’t let that happen.”

Unsurprisingly, rather than see the president’s message as one of hope and strength in the face of the pandemic, the mainstream media chose to condemn Trump’s comments as an insult to those still suffering or who have lost family members to the virus.

Pointing to nearly 7.5 million Covid-19 cases and more than 210,000 deaths nationwide, the talking heads at CNN, MSNBC, and even at Fox News condemned Trump for his statement.

Their reaction made me wonder how today’s media might have reacted to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s words after his 1932 election during the worst economic depression in American history when unemployment was at 25 percent and the future was at its bleakest.

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In ten short words, FDR gave a nation in free fall hope:

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

Somehow I think if today’s television pundits were transported back to 1932 they would attack FDR for trying to put a positive spin on things in the face of unprecedented national homelessness, poverty, and despair.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want a leader like Joe Biden who traffics in doom and gloom. I want a president who is positive when negativity is the prevailing sentiment.

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South African author and blogger Mandi Hart is correct when she says: “Fear lies to us. It keeps us locked behind closed doors. Whether the doors are wooden ones or our hearts, fear locks us in and holds us captive.”

Unfortunately, China virus hysteria fanned and fueled by a dishonest media is apparently here to stay and it is getting worse seven months after we first confronted the novel disease.

Take a look at these recent figures from the Centers for Disease Control. They confirm that nearly everyone under the age of 70 who contracts the disease recovers and that 95 percent of adults over 70 also recover.

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What’s more, most sufferers report mild symptoms and overly-sensitive tests give false positives for people showing no symptoms at all. Hospitals are not overflowing with COVID patients and, with few exceptions, never were.

Yet the terrified media slogs on in its mission to destroy the Trump presidency by terrifying Americans with doom and gloom stories about the virus.

To his credit, President Trump is not having any of it.

“The president isn’t going to hide from the public or the press,” Dr. Scott Atlas, a critic of lockdowns, said recently. “He wants to go to work. He wants to see Americans and he wants to interact with others. He won’t hide in the basement or frozen in fear behind a mask.”

What is wrong with that? Do we all have to curl up into a ball and lie shaking with fear on the floor? What is wrong with confronting the China virus for what it is—a contagious respiratory illness similar to the flu. The difference is that Covid-19 is a new virus called SARS-COV-2 while the flu is caused by infection with an influenza virus.

Of course, there are some key differences between flu and COVID-19. COVID-19 seems to spread more easily than flu and causes more serious illnesses in some people. It can also take longer before people show symptoms and people can be contagious longer.

Another important difference is there is a vaccine to protect against flu. There is currently no vaccine to prevent COVID-19, but it’s on the way.

Unfortunately, because the virus has been so politicized by the media and those eager to throw Trump out of the White House, the paranoia enveloping the disease is baked in so deeply that it’s unlikely the country will emerge from this constant state of fear anytime soon.

The question is this: How can a nation once so resilient and optimistic regain its sanity and return to life as usual? Will we ever be able to accept that this virus is not unlike other serious viruses that we’ve handled in the past without obliterating the economy, submitting to house arrest, or squawking manically about face-coverings?

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Dr. Atlas said recently that contrary to Joe Biden’s frequent accusation that President Trump won’t “listen” to the scientists, that “narrative could not be more wrong. There is a difference of opinion in the scientific community. There is no monopoly on knowledge.”

In a recent article by author and journalist Julie Kelly, Dr. Atlas named several top scientists, including noted epidemiologists, who refute the efficacy and humanity of lockdowns, especially school closings.

Dr. John Ioannidis, who like Atlas is associated with Stanford University, wrote a prophetic article in March 2020 forewarning the “fiasco” of extended lockdowns. Dr. Ioannidis’ explanatory video that same month was removed from YouTube for violating the site’s terms of service, which meant the professor of medicine and epidemiology at one of the world’s premier universities dared to hold an opinion outside mainstream thinking at the time.

As Kelly wrote: “Other experts such as Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, Dr. Martin Kulldorff, and Dr. Sunetra Gupta are partnering with Atlas to use science and logic in hopes of deprogramming a largely brainwashed public. The trio this week issued a statement, called the Great Barrington Declaration, aimed at promoting ‘focused protection’ that would safeguard high-risk populations while encouraging life to return to normal as quickly as possible.”

“As infectious disease epidemiologists and public health scientists, we have grave concerns about the damaging physical and mental health impacts of the prevailing COVID-19 policies,” the declaration states. “Current lockdown policies are producing devastating effects on short and long-term public health.”

Thousands of experts and members of the public have signed the petition so far.

Kelly and a handful of other determined journalists who don’t drink the mainstream media’s noxious Kool-Aid are doing this nation a tremendous service by providing substantiated research and information that doesn’t comport with the established leftist orthodoxy. The problem, of course, is in the dissemination of that information to a broader audience when outlets are few, and social media czars are censoring anything they believe is antithetical to the putative medical canon.

[image error] Marie Curie

As Nobel prize-winning physicist and chemist, Marie Curie once said: “Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.”

Amen to that.

Schools Using Fake ‘History’ to Kill America

America is facing one of the most critical and consequential elections in its history and fully half of the voting population is largely ignorant of American history, civics, or the way our federal, state, and local governments work. Their knowledge of current events is shaded by a news media no longer content to provide unbiased information, but which feels a duty to persuade voters, by any means possible, to adopt a particular political point of view or ideology.

Even worse is what is happening to the next generation of voters in our schools. Rather than turning out an informed citizenry, schools today are rewriting American history and turning young minds away from the enlightened philosophies of the founders. Instead, they are being indoctrinated with failed socialist ideals and attitudes while founding fathers such as Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and even George Washington are debased and dishonored by leftist and socialist teachers infused with such ideas as “critical race theory,” the discredited 1619 Project, and Marxist ideology.

Is it any wonder then, that thousands of teenagers and college-age students have taken to the streets in the past several months to demonstrate against America’s capitalist economic system and its unique Constitution that guarantees free speech, the right to bear arms, and freedom of religion, among other liberties. Students are told they aren’t really free. Minorities are told they are the victims of systemic racism. And the news media are complicit.

A recent survey found that Americans have an abysmal knowledge of the nation’s history and a majority of residents in only one state, Vermont could pass a citizenship test. The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation surveyed 41,000 Americans in all 50 states and Washington, DC and the results were unsettling. They showed that only 27 percent of those under the age of 45 across the country demonstrate a basic knowledge of American history. And only four in 10 Americans passed the exam.

The study also revealed that only 15 percent of American adults were able to correctly note the year the US Constitution was written — 1787 — and a mere 25 percent could correctly state that the Constitution has 27 amendments. A quarter of survey-takers were unaware that freedom of speech was guaranteed under the First Amendment — and 60 percent did not know that Woodrow Wilson was president during World War I.

This is a recent phenomenon as school districts nation-wide replace the teaching of American history with an alphabet soup of contemporary social ills and victimhood triggered by Marxist and anarchist groups such as Black Lives Matter and Antifa.

As George Orwell once wrote:  “The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.”

Recently, I received an instructive essay on the way American history is being taught in our schools. I am reposting it here. I hope you will take the time to read it. It is convincing and edifying.

Schools Using Fake ‘History’ to Kill America

By Alex Newman

Americans educated by public schools today are, for the most part, hopelessly ignorant of their own nation’s history—and that’s no accident. They’re beyond ignorant when it comes to civics, too. On the history of the rest of the world, or the history of communism, Americans are generally clueless as well. This was all by design, of course.

After generations of flying under the radar, the ongoing corruption of history education in public schools is now suddenly the topic du jour. With the spread of The New York Times’ discredited 1619 Project aiming to “reframe” history through the lens of slavery, which even The New York Times’ own fact-checker called out, Americans everywhere are suddenly paying attention to what’s being taught to impressionable children at taxpayer expense.

President Donald Trump recently blamed the escalating mayhem in the streets on indoctrination by schools and the media. In September, he blasted the “toxic propaganda” being peddled as “history” in American classrooms. To deal with it, the president even said he will sign an executive order to “promote patriotic education.”

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The reason why history is being rewritten is hardly a mystery. In George Orwell’s classic dystopian novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” the totalitarian ruling Party’s motto explaining its strategy is “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” And it’s very true—whoever controls the historical narrative will be able to shape the future. Liberty-minded Americans and truth are currently losing the battle—big time.

Totalitarians have long understood the power of historical narratives. Consider Chairman Mao’s “Cultural Revolution” in communist China. Under the guise of purging remnants of the old ways of capitalism and tradition, Mao’s communist storm troopers did their best to destroy the records and evidence of thousands of years of Chinese history. Books were burned and monuments destroyed in an orgy of destruction.

After true history was erased and disfigured, the Chinese Communist Party was able to rewrite history on a blank slate to suit its own agenda. Especially important to that effort was the indoctrination of children in government schools. Everything ancient and traditional was portrayed as primitive or even evil, while the new party line surrounding the supposed glories and progress of communism was force-fed to China’s youth.

America’s ongoing cultural revolution hasn’t been quite as dramatic, violent, or thorough—so far. But if left unchecked, the results of this long-term operation may turn out to be just as deadly. And there should be no doubt in anyone’s mind about the effectiveness of the effort to rewrite the history of the United States, Western civilization, and even the world.

Consider the data. According to the U.S. Department of Education’s 2018 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), known as the “nation’s report card,” just 15 percent of American students were at or above the “proficient” level in history. When it comes to civics, less than 1 in 4 U.S. eighth-grade students performed at or above “proficient” in 2018 on the NAEP, the latest year for which scores are available.

Keeping in mind the wild bias of the Education Department (some 99.7 percent of the bureaucrats’ contributions to a presidential candidate in the 2016 election went to Hillary Clinton), even those numbers probably drastically overstate the true level of historical and civic understanding of U.S. students.

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Contrast the dismal scores with previous generations. There was a time when Americans were the best-educated people on the planet—especially when it came to history and civics. According to prominent French scholar Alexis de Tocqueville, who visited America in the early-to-mid 1800s and recorded his observations in two volumes before government hijacked education, “every citizen … is … taught the doctrines and evidence of his religion, the history of his country, and the leading features of the Constitution.”

Some areas on the Western frontier and the deep South weren’t quite as advanced educationally. However, in the more populous and developed areas, “it is extremely rare to find a man imperfectly acquainted with all these things, and a person wholly ignorant of them is a sort of phenomenon,” de Tocqueville continued.

Today, it’s just the opposite: Finding a person who understands the history of America or the leading features of its Constitution is a sort of phenomenon.

The Rewriting of History in America

The process of rewriting history was a long one. Unlike Mao’s Cultural Revolution, which took about a decade, those seeking to erase and distort America’s incredible and unique history were forced to proceed slowly, working over decades and generations rather than accomplishing it all in one fell swoop. But concrete evidence of this deliberate plot has surfaced periodically since at least the 1940s.

In the early 1950s, Congress became suspicious about the scheming of the major tax-exempt foundations, a subject covered extensively in part 7 of this series on education. To deal with the issue, lawmakers formed the Select Committee to Investigate Tax-Exempt Foundations and Comparable Organizations, sometimes referred to as the “Reece Committee” after its chairman.

What investigators found should have shocked America to the core. In its final report, the select committee reported that the major foundations of the day, which still exist, had “supported a conscious distortion of history.” The foundations also sought to hijack education for the purpose of undermining American constitutional principles and liberty, investigators found.

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One of the expert witnesses who testified during the select committee’s investigation, attorney and investigator Aaron Sargent, an expert in subversion through education, put it clearly. “They sought to create a blackout of history by slanting and distorting historical facts,” Sargent testified about the goals of the major tax-exempt foundations in the education field. “They introduced a new and revolutionary philosophy—one based on the teachings of John Dewey.”

By the time of the congressional probe, the situation was so serious that Norman Dodd, the chief investigator for the committee, said the foundations had orchestrated a “revolution” in the United States. The revolution “could not have occurred peacefully or with the consent of the majority unless education in the United States had prepared in advance to endorse it,” Dodd told lawmakers in his sworn testimony. The attack on real history in school was a crucial element of that.

Of course, the situation only got worse from there. By 1980, pseudo-historian Howard Zinn, a radical exposed in declassified FBI documents as a Communist Party member, had published his book “A People’s History of the United States.” It’s a favorite in public schools. More than 3 million copies have been sold so far, shaping the minds and attitudes of countless millions of Americans while turning them against their own nation and their own political institutions that guaranteed individual liberty for so long.

The propaganda “history” book was full of obvious lies, as exposed most recently by scholar Mary Grabar in her book “Debunking Howard Zinn.” The deception was strategic, too, and powerful. The lies begin right at the start of the book, portraying Columbus as a genocidal monster, and continue onward from there.

“We were really no better than the Nazis in the way Zinn presents it,” Grabar told The Epoch Times.

It was carefully calculated. “Rewriting history is what communists do,” continued Grabar, who also serves as a resident fellow at the Alexander Hamilton Institute for the Study of Western Civilization. “They don’t want people to know about any other form of government or to remember a time when there was freedom and abundance. Like Zinn, the Marxists of today want young people to be so disgusted with their own country that they become inspired to overthrow it.”

While demonizing the United States and Western civilization more broadly, Zinn and other communists work hard to conceal the history of communism—“the horrors of starvation, gulags, repression, and mass murder,” Grabar said. Interestingly, there were clear parallels between Zinn’s fake history and a history written by Communist Party USA chief William Z. Foster published in 1951 dubbed “Outline Political History of the Americas.” Foster wrote openly about how crucial hijacking education would be for the Soviet-style communist regime he envisioned for America.

When starting the project, Grabar said she already knew Zinn’s book was biased. “But even I was surprised by how blatantly and deliberately Zinn lied,” she said, urging students, parents, and community members to use her book to refute the propaganda with facts.

More recently, The New York Times released its 1619 Project, the brainchild of Nikole Hannah-Jones. Like Zinn’s book, it’s essentially fake history, as historians from across the political spectrum—and even The New York Times’ own fact-checker—publicly confirmed. Like Zinn’s book, it seeks to “reframe” America’s history as one based on oppression, slavery, and racism rather than liberty. And like Zinn’s fake history, the 1619 Project is now being used in public schools across America.

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Perhaps most alarming about Hannah-Jones’s false narrative is the notion that racism and evil are embedded “in the very DNA” of America. In other words, there’s nothing short of the complete annihilation of the United States’ very foundations and essence that could possibly resolve the real and imagined shortcomings. The message of the project was obvious and clear: Death to America!

In reality, the truth about American history is almost exactly the opposite of what the project presents. The principles upon which the nation was founded—“all men are created equal,” for instance, and are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights”—paved the way for abolishing slavery worldwide while facilitating the greatest expansion of human freedom and prosperity in world history.

Despite the obvious lies and deception, Hannah-Jones received a Pulitzer Prize for her work on the 1619 Project. Ironically, though, New York Times writer Walter Duranty also won a Pulitzer Prize for peddling lies and communist propaganda. In Duranty’s case, he infamously parroted Stalin’s obvious propaganda and covered up the Soviet genocide in Ukraine that killed by some estimates up to 10 million people.

Effects of Fake History

This strategic rewriting of history in public schools across America has led to dramatic shifts in Americans’ attitudes, values, beliefs, and worldview. For example, national pride among Americans, who arguably live in the richest and freest nation in human history, has reached historic lows, according to a Gallup poll released this summer. Among younger Americans, just 1 in 5 are extremely proud to be American, while among those 65 and older, just over half are extremely proud.

But the real dangers are becoming clear, too. A 2019 survey by the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation found that 7 in 10 millennials said they are likely to vote for a socialist. Fully 36 percent of millennials support communism, the survey found. And just 57 percent of them believe the Declaration of Independence guarantees freedom and equality better than the Communist Manifesto. A generation ago, these numbers would have been inconceivable.

“When we don’t educate our youngest generations about the historical truth of 100 million victims murdered at the hands of communist regimes over the past century, we shouldn’t be surprised at their willingness to embrace Marxist ideas,” explained Victims of Communism (VOC) Memorial Foundation Executive Director Marion Smith.

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“We need to redouble our efforts to educate America’s youth about the history of communist regimes and the dangers of socialism today.”

VOC Director of Academic Programs Murray Bessette explained that American public schools simply don’t teach the true history of communism. Part of the reason for that, he said, is the “ideological character of many involved in developing and delivering curricula for American schools.” Parents must insist on a full account of history, and teachers must seek out programs and materials that teach the whole truth, added Bessette.

The effects of these false narratives pushed on children in government schools are becoming more and more obvious. Just think of the brainwashed armies of young Americans rampaging through the streets rioting, looting, killing, protesting, and destroying. Funded by rich and powerful individuals, companies, and foundations, their goal is to “fundamentally transform” what they view as an evil America. And because they don’t know the truth about their own nation or its history, many genuinely believe in what they’re doing.

Speaking at an Independence Day celebration this summer, the president of the United States hit the nail on the head. “The violent mayhem we have seen in the streets of cities that are run by liberal Democrats, in every case, is the predictable result of years of extreme indoctrination and bias in education, journalism, and other cultural institutions,” Trump explained. “Against every law of society and nature, our children are taught in school to hate their own country, and to believe that the men and women who built it were not heroes, but that they were villains.”

Their goal, the president correctly observed, is not to improve America, but to destroy it.

Fortunately, now that the problem has been identified, steps are being taken to address it. And at the core of that process will be ensuring that young Americans understand the truth about their own nation’s history. During remarks made on Constitution Day, Trump blasted the left’s distortion of American history with lies and deception.

“There is no better example than The New York Times’ totally discredited 1619 Project,” said Trump, calling it “toxic” propaganda that would “destroy” America. “This project rewrites American history to teach our children that we were founded on the principle of oppression, not freedom.”

In reality, as Trump correctly pointed out, “nothing could be further from the truth.”

“America’s founding set in motion the unstoppable chain of events that abolished slavery, secured civil rights, defeated communism and fascism, and built the fairest, equal, and prosperous nation in human history,” the president declared.

Trump also promised action to reverse the progress of the history destroyers and rewriters. “We must clear away the twisted web of lies in our schools and classrooms, and teach our children the magnificent truth about our country,” he said. “We want our sons and daughters to know that they are the citizens of the most exceptional nation in the history of the world.”

To accomplish that, grants are being awarded by the National Endowment for the Humanities to help develop a pro-American curriculum that “celebrates the truth about our nation’s great history,” Trump said. He also said he would soon sign an executive order to create a national “1776 Commission” that will promote patriotic education that will “encourage our educators to teach our children about the miracle of American history.”

Whether the rot and corruption that has taken over the teaching of history and civics in America’s government schools can be reversed remains to be seen. But diagnosing an illness is the first step to treating and curing it. Now that Americans are starting to understand what’s killing their nation, serious efforts can be made to stop the bleeding. Teaching children the truth about U.S. history will be a good first step.

Alex Newman is an award-winning international journalist, educator, author, and consultant who co-wrote the book “Crimes of the Educators: How Utopians Are Using Government Schools to Destroy America’s Children.” He is the executive director of Public School Exit, serves as CEO of Liberty Sentinel Media, and writes for diverse publications in the United States and abroad.

 

Round One of Presidential Debates: Who Won?

Like millions of other Americans, I tuned in to round one of the Presidential Debates moderated by Fox’s Chris Wallace. It was unlike any other presidential debate I have ever seen—and I have watched every presidential debate since the JFK vs. Nixon debate in 1960 when I was just a kid growing up in Kansas.

I had a lot of impressions and I was going to list them on my blog, but I received a piece by fellow blogger E. P. Unum and he has enumerated many of the same ringside conclusions I had.

Nevertheless, I have a few thoughts that I will share with you and then I urge you to read Mr. Unum’s impressions below.

First, I thought President Trump was correct when he stated that he was debating both Biden and Wallace. Wallace clearly had an agenda to pepper Trump with tough questions while allowing Biden to repeatedly wiggle free from the hook. For example, Biden categorically refused to answer whether or not he would pack the Supreme Court or ban the filibuster if elected. Okay, next question. Only Trump pressed Biden on that question. Wallace didn’t.

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I wish Trump had answered the question about “white supremacy” differently. He should have said that he has already condemned and disavowed white supremacist groups and the KKK. How often does he have to do it? This was clearly a “gotcha” question by Wallace. Why didn’t Wallace ask Biden about his long history of plagiarism? At least that would have balanced out some of the “gotcha” questions a bit.

I wish Trump had pointed out, when asked about his record on race, etc., that during his watch, black unemployment dropped to the lowest point in American history and his “Opportunity Zones” have seeded thousands of businesses for blacks. Then, he should have mentioned the $500 billion he recently earmarked for minority communities.

I wish both men had remained focused on the issues facing our country and eschewed the nasty personal attacks. Pundits on some networks and cable outlets opined that Biden seemed “more presidential.” I disagree. Is it presidential to call the president of the United States before a worldwide audience, a clown, a liar, or a racist? I think not. Yet Wallace never once reproached Biden about his conduct.

Biden stumbled, mumbled, and bumbled his way through the debate while Trump appeared strong and energetic in his responses to Biden’s insults and Wallace’s poisonous barbs.

Did Trump often interrupt Biden? Yes, he did. But you have to ask yourself why? Biden made obviously inaccurate statements about Trump and his administration, which Wallace allowed to stand with nary a demurral. Trump is a scrapper, a harsh and brash New Yorker who gives as much as he gets during an argument. That’s his style and I don’t see him changing anytime soon.

Finally, there is the question of who won. Who won? Nobody. Not Trump, not Biden, not Wallace or Fox News. The entire nasty melee masquerading as a debate was big bust. I am still wiping the mud off my TV screen. Like a lot of folks, I don’t think I learned much about either man or his ideas going forward. There was a lot of talk about the past and very little about what each man is going to do if he is in the White House after January 20, 2021.

Those are some of my impressions. Now, for another assessment, take a look at E. P. Unum’s commentary.

TRUMP-BIDEN RINGSIDE

By E. P. Unum

           Well, Round One of the Trump Biden Debates is in the books and it is time to go to the scorecards.

On the surface, that would seem to be a difficult task given all of the interruptions and heated arguments out forth. But, as in most fights, scoring will largely be determined by the number of effective blows landed by each contestant. In the case of Round One of the Trump-Biden Debates, when you sift through the dust and the smoke and the interruptions, the clear winner by a wide margin was President Donald Trump.

Let me explain my scorecard based on facts, not conjecture or suppositions:

I do not care who you are, or who you think you are, you do not call the President of the United States a “liar” or a “clown” nor do you act like a tough street hood and tell him to “shut up”. For someone who accuses President Trump of not being “Presidential” (whatever that means) these remarks on a national stage, with millions of people watching from around the country and indeed the world can hardly be considered “Presidential”.
Joe Biden refusing to respond to questions about packing the Supreme Court is not at all what you would expect from someone seeking to be the leader of the free world.
Joe Biden calling Antifa an “idea” is ridiculous on its face. Antifa is a well-organized communist group with origins dating back to the fall of the Weimer Republic in Germany in the 1930s. They have been filmed handing out weapons in our cities to burn and loot businesses and create turmoil with the objective of achieving transformative change to American society and government. They are a radical group and Joe Biden shaking his head saying “not true”, “not true” is not a sign of leadership. He gave the impression that he really is unaware of what is going on in our country.
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With respect to the issue of Law and Order, Joe Biden could not respond to questions posed to him about why he would not even say the words “law and order” and could not name a single law and order organization who has endorsed him. Shame on Chris Wallace for pressing a ridiculous question posed to President Trump about whether he would denounce “white supremacist groups”. President Trump has denounced such groups numerous times and that is a fact.
I was astounded that there was no discussion whatsoever about the major peace accords reached between Israel and Arab nations in the Middle East and the fact that no such accords were ever reached in eight years of the Obama-Biden Administration.
Joe Biden continuously referred to President Trump as a liar. That is really rich. He is a man who has been caught in more lies and exaggerations, plagiarism, and insults directed at people than anyone I have ever seen. His entire life is built on lies and falsehoods.
Joe Biden flat out lied when he claimed that he and President Obama was responsible for the success our nation’s economy reached under President Trump.
If you listened carefully to the question posed by Chris Wallace about racism in America, Biden said that there was indeed “systemic racism” in America. But if that is the case, when did it start? Joe Biden has been in government for forty-seven years and served under Barack Obama, a black President. Why didn’t he address this issue then? Where has he been for forty-seven years?
On the issue of the economy, Biden clearly indicated that “he represents the Democratic Party and what he says is the Party’s policy”. He denied steadfastly that there was no agreement signed between himself and the Bernie Sanders led coalition. Those are bald-faced lies. There are indeed numerous letters of agreement, and in particular, support for the “Green New Deal” although Biden calls it by another name. That plan calls for $100 Trillion in spending…money we do not have….and which will not generate economic returns.
But there is much more. Biden reaffirmed that he will raise taxes on Americans to the tune of $4.0 Trillion next year; that he will “on day one of his Administration, repeal all of the Trump tax cuts”; that he will increase taxes on corporations, on stock market gains, on 401-K plans….and he is going to do all this in a period where people are struggling to make ends meet and find jobs. How does this make any sense? Biden said it clearly.
But no one in the media today is speaking about this. And when he rambled on about the programs he intended to launch, he spoke glowingly and great pride that his plan called for retrofitting 40 million buildings across America to make them more efficient and emit fewer gasses into the environment. He intends to build 500,000 electric charging stations on our highways so that electric cars can be charged on their travels. I listened carefully to this and asked myself…..at what cost? And where is the economic benefit to us? Biden clearly wants to drastically reduce the use of fossil fuels but has he thought about where all this electricity is going to come from?
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Finally, on the subject of economics, Biden exclaimed that his plan of increased taxes will magically create an additional $1.0 Trillion in wealth. I have spent over forty-five years in finance in the private sector and as a college professor. I would like to review those assumptions and calculations because I am scratching my head as to who “the well known financial executives and economists on Wall Street” Biden mentioned in his remarks endorsed his plan.
Chris Wallace asked Joe Biden why he has not spoken out against the violence that is so rampant at many of our major cities, virtually all of them democratically controlled. His response is “Hey, here’s the deal, I am not in government anymore, I am not in office….he’s the guy who needs to take action”. That was a well-rehearsed defection but was also a “non-response”. When pressed by Chris Wallace about why Biden did not call governors or mayors to try to get them to take action, Biden responded again that “he is not in office”. In other words….” it’s not my job”. But it somehow it is his job to criticize and second guess the President. Not a good picture because the view is always much different from the cheap seats.

So, on balance, there were an awful lot of compelling issues that surfaced in Round One, and while the pundits and newspapers have called this debate “an embarrassment for the country” I have a very different perspective. Yes, I would have liked fewer interruptions and arguments but the substance was extremely informative, and once you get past the fog of conflict, the points made by President Trump were significant.

 

 

 

Can America’s News Media Be Salvaged?

For the past three and a half years I, along with millions of other Americans, have watched the mainstream news media essentially self-destruct in their obsession to remove Donald Trump from the White House.

I saw glimmers of this kind of mania when George W. Bush was president from 2000 to 2008. But the fixation was nowhere near the level it has been since 2016 when Donald Trump flummoxed the know-it-all eggheads who pass for pundits on television and cable networks—not to mention at once esteemed newspapers such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, and the Los Angeles Times.

According to a recent Gallup poll only 29 percent of the public trust the news media today, contrasted to the 76 percent who trusted the media in 1970 when I joined the Chicago Tribune. As a result, establishment pundits and reporters have lost most of the moral authority and journalistic credibility they once had.

For two years as the Mueller investigation of collusion and obstruction of justice by the Trump campaign snaked its way into the collective national consciousness, I witnessed purportedly “objective” reporters blather on about Trump’s guilt without displaying a single shred of evidence to back up those claims.

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                                                             Robert Mueller

I have seen congressmen like Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell “guarantee” that Trump not only colluded with the Russians, he was actually working for them and was guilty of treason. Others, such as former CIA Director John Brennan and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, echoed those charges as paid political contributors to CNN.

Where was the evidence? There wasn’t any, as the Mueller probe proved.

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                                                                                                             Adam “Shifty” Schiff

Meanwhile, reporters and pundits behaved like brainless bobble-heads, agreeing with every negative statement made about President Trump without doing the most fundamental reporting.

Where were the probing questions? Where was the healthy skepticism that all reporters used to have built into their DNA? Where were the concepts of fairness, balance, and impartiality? Where was the honesty, the integrity, the decency?

Sadly, none of these things were anywhere to be found.

Why? Because the media, unlike they were when I became a reporter in the early 1970s, have fallen victim to media groupthink. The result is a compliant media in which zombie-like reporters adhere to the approved paradigm. Those that don’t are, through dint of social and administrative forces, barred or banished.

The result of this media groupthink is reporting that continually commits bias of omission—that is, facts or information which may conflict or disprove an approved orthodoxy, are conveniently omitted from stories. This is selective reporting. It taints how events and stories are reported and presented.

It also engenders inaccurate and false reporting–or as Donald Trump calls it, “fake news.” Think about Nicholas Sandmann, the Covington Catholic High School teenager wearing a red MAGA cap, who was pilloried by the news media for his interaction with Native American activist Nathan Phillips at the National Mall in Washington D.C. in January 2019. Just about every news outlet in the country fiercely condemned the 16-year-old for “attacking” Phillips and uttering “racist” and “offensive” comments.

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            Nicholas Sandmann & Nathan Philips

In fact, Sandmann did none of those things. He simply stood his ground and tried to diffuse the situation. CNN and the Washington Post were hit with $275 million and $250 million libel suits. CNN settled with Sandmann in January and the Post settled with him this past July. The details of the settlements were not disclosed.

The Sandmann incident demonstrates that rather than attempting to report the news without prejudice, the media seem to regard themselves as agents of positive change within the culture, direct from their groupthink perspective. Therefore, any lie, no matter how big or small is okay if it will denigrate Trump supporters and bring Democrats back to power.

Have you ever wondered why liberals and Democrats can run afoul of decency and the law with impunity, while the media demand that Republicans and conservatives respond to perceived misconduct and transgression by resigning, apologizing, and, if the media hit the jackpot, testifying to a special counsel, and then going to jail?

I have. All the time. And it makes me sick to see the news media refusing to perform its “watchdog” role evenhandedly.

Not only does it make me sick, but it also makes me ashamed—ashamed to tell anybody I meet that I am a former journalist for fear they will give me that piteous and doleful look as if to say: “Uh huh. . .one of those!”

Yes, I am “one of those.” But I can still look back on my body of work with pride and without shame. During my 27-year career, I worked assiduously to keep my personal opinions, my biases, and my predispositions out of my stories.

I wonder how many reporters today will be able to do the same when they finally hang up their reporters’ notebooks and tape recorders? Not many, I wager.

Whatever happened to such bedrock democratic principles as equal protection under the law, the First Amendment, and innocent until proven guilty?  At this point, these underlying constitutional tenets seem like little more than quaint bygone concepts as far as our media are concerned.

As a result, our national culture, not to mention our national discourse and our media, are aligned with liberals, socialists, and Democrats who loathe Republicans and conservatives.

When was the last time YOU watched or listened to a composed, reasoned, and articulate debate about an issue without one side fulminating, talking over, or shouting at the other? Can you recall such an occasion in the last four years?

Me neither.

Our public discourse has devolved into the verbal equivalent of a UFC mixed martial arts competition with social media and mainstream news organizations acting as corrupt referees who are making sure the guy in the left corner always wins. That means you can forget about enjoying a settled, unruffled culture until Democrats, liberals, and foolish socialists regain total control of the government.

When he was 81 years-old, founding father Benjamin Franklin (yes, AOC, an old white guy!) once told a woman that the United States was “a Republic, if you can keep it.”

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                                                                          Ben Franklin

“If you can keep it,” are the operative words. The fact is, we may already have damaged our republic beyond repair by the silencing of dissent through despotic control of information and the instantaneous social thrashing of the non-compliant.

I worry that by embracing “groupthink” and discouraging independent thought on college campuses; by fostering a news media that deceives its citizens; and by electing dumb people to Congress who are ignorant of our history and our political systems, we are dooming the republic that Ben Franklin helped create.

So, I find myself asking the question again: Can America’s news media be salvaged?

I’m not holding my breath.

Will “Hiden” Biden Survive the First Debate?

Today, I am reprinting a column by J. B. Shurk who raises the question of whether or not Joe Biden will survive his first debate with Donald Trump. It’s a valid inquiry, given Biden’s bumbling, stumbling, grumbling answers to the pre-approved whiffle-ball questions a compliant press has lobbed at him when he even agrees to take a swing at answering them. As J.B. Shurk suggests, debate #1 next Tuesday could be a prime-time massacre.

Will “Hiden” Biden Survive the First Debate?

By J.B. Shurk

The first presidential debate is next Tuesday, and I don’t see Biden surviving.  His campaign has been playing “hide the Crypt-Keeper” since spring, occasionally proving to the public that he’s still ticking by having him tussle with a teleprompter while “objective journalists” participate in make-believe interviews.

Biden’s cognitive decline is now so steep that he begins reading pre-written answers to pre-written questions, forgets what he’s doing halfway through, and settles for stringing syllables together that sound English-y in a non–native speaker sort of way.  He is a man forever in search of a thought but finding none, while the press corps propping up his campaign pretends otherwise.

All I hear when Old Joe speaks is Grampa Simpson saying, “If I’m not back at the home by nine, they declare me legally dead and collect my insurance.”  That might be his best excuse for getting out of the debate in Cleveland.  If America sees the real “Sundown” Joe after dusk, this race is over.

Don’t do it, Joe!  Getting murdered on national television is no way to end a 47-year career as a Washington welcome mat.  It would be better to concede the contest right now than to endure the beating coming your way.  Even if he plays nice, President Trump is going to smack you around so viciously that you’ll forget that China’s Xi is your real daddy.

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You’ll leave the debate stage looking more charred than a Kenosha business after a BLM “peaceful protest.”  Better to get in the ring with UFC fighter Colby Covington and endure his beating than take what President Trump has on tap.  Run, Joe, run!  You don’t want what’s coming.

With only days remaining to find a good place to hide, though, Slow Joe sure does sound as though he’s gonna show.  Isn’t that why his campaign has been airing him out lately and dragging him from one painted circle in desolate isolation to the next while he struggles through limited remarks before running away from handpicked reporters who ask only flattering “yes or no” questions?

We haven’t seen this much energy from the Biden campaign since Jill chose Kamala to be her running mate.  There’s been speculation for months that the basement-dwelling, hair-sniffing groper would never submit himself for examination next to President Trump where the nation could so easily judge the president’s vitality against Biden’s rigor mortis.  Standing side by side, President Trump will appear to have sucked the life right from Biden’s Washington establishment corpse.  But here we are only days away from Round One of Trump vs. Chump, and Team Grope still hasn’t thrown in the towel.

I can think of only three explanations:

FIRST: Hidin’ Biden is about to announce the mother of all dog-ate-my-homework excuses for not showing up. The smart money was always on some last-minute demand that Joe be surrounded by Candy Crowley–like “fact-checkers” to interrupt President Trump’s answers with Ministry of Truth real-time spin.

(It’s amazing that having 99% of “journalists” actively working on their behalf still isn’t sufficient for the Democrats to win this election; in their minds, a fair debate requires President Trump to go up against his opponent, the moderator, and a team of Democrat political operatives posing as reporters all at once while he’s busy bringing peace to the Middle East.)

But now the more likely subterfuge would take advantage of Justice Ginsburg’s passing.  If the Biden campaign releases a statement in the next few days claiming that Joe refuses to debate unless President Trump agrees to hold off on nominating a new Supreme Court justice, the press will be absolutely giddy.  How brave!  And smart!  What a real leader!  The grifters at the Lincoln Project will be beside themselves.  Ol’ Hidin’ can run away from the coming beating under the cover of Justice Ginsburg’s funerary procession, and Jake Tapper and Chris Wallace will applaud his cowardice.  It will be just like when Obama prostrated himself before Iran and called it courage, so it would be nothing new for Joe.

SECOND: Perhaps the Democrats don’t expect their Trojan horse candidate to survive the first debate, either.  There’s no faster path toward swapping Kamala Harris for the Washington relic with a segregationist past than to push Old Joe’s body past its natural limits.  Obama’s former sidekick can sacrifice himself on the altar of diversity by ensuring that Obama’s preferred candidate is crowned queen before voting has really begun.

Kamala was always the candidate of the deep-pocketed money class, the Hollywood glams, and the “new guard” Obama loyalists running the DNC, but she failed so spectacularly during the campaign that she was forced to bow out of the race two months before the Iowa caucuses.  Now the power behind the Democrat curtain can turn one of last year’s biggest losers into the official nominee just by riding Old Joe Biden to his grave.

For the Democrats, everything’s for the “greater good,” right?  From their point of view, what could possibly be better than juicing Ol’ Sundown with one of “Dr. Feelgood’s” magic concoctions of steroids and amphetamines that sends him up the debate stage in such euphoria that he hardly notices when his heart explodes?

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There’s a reason President Trump keeps bringing up the possibility of a drug test for Joe before next Tuesday.  Joe Biden on speed doesn’t make his incoherence suddenly comprehensible.  It pushes him right to death’s door and leaves Kamala Harris, a woman who has proven she will say and do anything for power, one ballot-harvested election away from the Oval Office.

THIRD: Hidin’ Biden and the Democrats may actually believe that Joe can beat President Trump mano-a-mano.  That seems crazy, but then again, it seemed crazy six months ago when the Democrats decided to run for election by looting small businesses, beating up strangers, and burning American cities to the ground.  Never underestimate the power of the Democrats’ “reality distortion field” to convince them that real, everyday Americans are behind their radical agenda to rip up the Constitution, topple the Washington Monument, and usher in a Marxist utopia that rules over the heartland for a thousand years.

Every step of the way, the Democrats have underestimated Donald Trump.  They expected Hillary to destroy him with ease.  They expected the Mueller-Weissmann special counsel inquisition to save Washington from the voters’ reckoning.  They expected President Trump to cower from their use of the CIA and FBI to remove him from office.

They expected his use of tariffs against China and his realignment of power in Asia to backfire against him.  They expected his push for Middle East peace to fail.  They expected his moves to strengthen our relationship with Poland and other Central European countries to achieve nothing.  They expected his pro-American economic growth policies, strong defense of America’s heritage, and bold support for the unborn to somehow turn off black and Hispanic Americans.  Every step of the way, they’ve miscalculated.

So maybe they’re really about to send Joe Biden into his own bloodbath at the hands of President Trump this Tuesday, and they really are too stupid to know what’s about to happen.  One way or another, come September 29, it’s lights out for Sundown Joe.

J.B. Shurk is a columnist for the Federalist and the American Thinker.