These are my observations and opinions from my select news of the day.
REOPENING THE ECONOMY, a negative view from the left. When I saw the headline in the left-leaning website, Vox, over the headline, ”I’ve read the plans to reopen the economy. They’re scary,” I noticed it was written by Vox’s co-founder, Ezra Klein, a former Washington Post muckraker, and thought, ‘how would he have seen the plans.’
“The plans” he read didn’t emanate from the White House. Instead, he was referring to plans developed by three think tanks, the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute (AEI), the left-leaning Center for American Progress (CAP), Harvard’s Safra Center for Ethics, and Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Romer.
President Trump indicated that he was forming an economy-focused task force to examine a process whereby the country can be safely reopened as quickly as possible. Select members of the virus task force will participate.
The new task force may consist of a number of outsiders, possibly think tank representatives, but for Klein to assume that the content of those plans will become part of Trump’s plan, and, worse, to scare the bejesus out of you is typical of the left.
“There is no normal for the foreseeable future,” he opens. We know that “normal” isn’t possible until there’s a vaccine.
Assuming the reopening depends on the curve being visibly flattened, all three of the plans he reviewed feature a relaxation – “but does not end – social distancing.” In addition, he states that testing will be done on a mass scale.
So far, it’s what I would expect going forward. However, he then saw in the CAP and Harvard plans for a digital pandemic surveillance state, in which virtually every American downloads an app to their phone (what about those who don’t have an iPhone?) that geotracks our movements, so if we come in contact with anyone who later is found to have Covid-19, you can be alerted and a period of social quarantine can begin.
Klein writes that Apple and Google jointly announced a project to embed voluntary contact tracing functionality in their phones, and make the data interoperable across IOS and Android. Recent polling shows that 70 percent Republicans and 46 percent Democrats strongly oppose using cellphone data to enforce quarantine orders.
“The technological and political obstacles are massive,” Klein concedes, “the U.S. is a very different country, with a more mistrustful, individualistic culture” than Singapore and South Korea where such surveillance has been used. As you can imagine, the George Soros-funded CAP has the most onerous requirements.
Romer’s proposal calls for mass testing, but as Klein states, “it is hard to imagine a testing effort of this scale”- 22 million tests per day.
As expected, the AEI proposal is middle-of-the-road approach. While it sees some form of contact tracing, it does not envision a digital panopticon.
“Who is going to spearhead the effort,” Klein asks. “Who is trusted enough, in this country in this moment, to shape this?” He obviously doesn’t believe that’s the president. “Will Trump have the stomach to push the country back into quarantine after he’s lifted social distancing guidelines,” Klein wonders. Who says social distancing will be lifted?
Klein indicates that he doesn’t want anyone to mistake his negative views of the plans as surrendering to the disease. “I care about my privacy, but not nearly as much as I care about my mother,” as he fears that public health will take a backseat to the economy.
“Imagine you’re the president of the United States in an election year. Which of these futures, with all its costs and risks and pain, would you want to try and sell the American public?” Klein poses.
With the president stating that reopening the nation will be the “biggest decision in his life,” Kramerontheright has to believe the proposition is weighing heavily on his mind, and he will be listening to a host of experts of both the health and business.
PONDER THIS – With all of the deaths from the virus in New York City, David Burge tweeted @iowahawkblog: “By the way, great call on that 20-year campaign to promote high density urban living and public transportation, smart people.”
DID YOU NOTICE that the stock market had its best week in 46 years? “A few weeks ago,” as Rick Moran of PJ Media points out, “stocks lost $10 trillion in value and earning were expected to be in the toilet. So, why did stocks add $3 trillion value this week?” Investors can’t explain it.
“That doesn’t mean that the market’s upward trajectory will continue indefinitely. There are bound to be additional shocks to the system causing dips and valleys,” says Moran. “But this, too, shall pass. Recovery is assured – as long as Democrats are kept out of power and their notions of ‘fairness’ and ‘income equality’ are shelved.”
IT MADE ME FEEL GOOD – “My own view is that evidence shows that we’re not dealing with just mistakes or sloppiness, there was something far more troubling here; and we’re going to get to the bottom of it. And if people broke the law, and we can establish that with the evidence, they will be prosecuted,” said Attorney General Bill Barr referencing the FISA abuse during his interview with Laura Ingraham on Fox News Channel last week.
MORE ON VOTER FRAUD – On April 9, 2020 I wrote that I was sure Democrats lay awake nights thinking about ways to cheat at the ballot box, especially with their scheme to harvest ballots, by allowing political operatives, usually union leaders, to collect and deliver to polling stations endless numbers of absentee ballots.
And it’s the Democrats and the media, working hand-in-hand, that declare voter fraud doesn’t exist.
I decided to touch the subject because of the media outcry over President Trump’s remarks about the “dishonesty going on with mail-in voting” in reference the election in Wisconsin. CNN reported that the president “opened a new front on his campaign of lies about voter fraud.” And a The New York Times headline read, “Trump Is Pushing a False Argument on Vote-by-Mail Fraud.”
John Fund, who writes for National Review, has done investigative work on voter fraud I have been following for years. Space does not allow me to tell you about his findings across the nation, but if you are interested, you might want to look for his book, “Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy.”
I recall his account of a 22-year-old white man who, in 2012, was able to obtain the ballot of then Attorney General Eric Holder, a 61-year-old black man, who obviously bore no resemblance. Ironically, Holder is a staunch opponent of voter-ID laws.
Although the statement that “Absentee ballots remain the largest source of potential voter fraud,” applies today, that quote was published in the conclusion of a bipartisan report of the Commission on Federal Election Reform in … wait for it … 2005, according to an op-ed by John R. Lott Jr. in Saturday’s Wall Street Journal. I found it interesting that former President Jimmy Carter co-chaired the commission with former Secretary of State James Baker III.
With elections in various states being interrupted by the virus outbreak, talk of voting exclusively by mail has again surfaced. We cannot allow that to happen. In a future blog I will write about this danger.
May God continue to bless the United States of America.
