Here are my observations and opinions from my select news of the day.
ANOTHER VOICE ON OPENING our economy came from Kentucky’s Republican Sen. Rand Paul, of whom I am frequently in disagreement, but share his views here:
“We have no money. We have no rainy-day account. We have no savings account. The three trillion we’ve already passed out is imaginary money.
“It’s being borrowed, basically from China. So, the irony is, we got the virus from China, and now we’re going to be more dependent by borrowing more money from China.
“If we let people have commerce, if we let them trade, if you take them out from house arrest, our economy will recover.”
BUT THE LOONEY LEFT, led by Democrat Senators Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders and Ed Markey, is proposing legislation – the Monthly Economic Crisis Support Act – that would send a monthly $2,000 check to people who make less than $120,000. Married couples, who file jointly would receive $4,000, and $2,000 for each child up to three.
There’s more … The payments would be retroactive to March and last until three months after the Health and Human Services Department declares the public health emergency over. That could be a year or more away. The people would have no job to return to because the businesses that employed them will no longer exist.
There’s still more … The legislation would bar debt collectors from taking the payments – for rent, house and car payments, insurance?
The payments would go to people regardless of whether they have a Social Security number or filed taxes last year.
DEMOCRATS, THE PARTY OF THE WORKERS? Not with ideas like this. Instead, they are providing another disincentive to work and assigning them to the welfare rolls.
THE ECONOMIC LOCKDOWN CATASROPHE is the headline on an editorial by the Wall Street Journal editorial board. Reflecting on its March 19, 2020 piece, “Rethinking the Coronavirus Shutdown, of which the elite media was highly critical, their insight is worthy of reading.
“Well, after Friday’s horrific jobs report, how do you like the shutdown now?” they asked in the lead paragraph. “Much of the media continue to treat the economic destruction as a sideshow and present a false choice between saving lives and jobs. But this is the fastest jobs collapse in modern history.”
To the average reporter, who is in his or her twenties, with little or no education in economics, they probably think the Grand Canyon is that Great Depression they hear about. Those impressive unemployment statistics and news of wage increases are distant memories to these shallow minds.
But that’s okay with Democrats, who see this as way to defeat President Trump in November. “Democrat leaders want to keep the economy sedated,” the board believes.
“It is important to stress that the strict lockdowns were a government policy choice. The damage is done, and our focus isn’t one of recriminations. The issue is what to do now, and the public is wise enough to know that public health can’t be sustained without a healthy economy.
“Americans can see the destruction all around them. They know the virus will be with us for a long time unless there’s a vaccine, so we have to learn to live with it and have a functioning economy.
“Most Americans are smart enough to know they need to take precautions and social distance, and businesses have no incentive to endanger their employees.
The Journal doesn’t see it as a tradeoff between lives and livelihood, but a goal to protect both as much as possible. “But for heaven’s sake reopen the economy so we don’t consign millions to years of poverty,” the board concludes.
CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS? – Arizona’s Gov. Doug Ducey said a survey indicated that 30 percent of the people preferred to stay sheltered until a vaccine is available. Unbelievable.
ELECTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES – When President Trump reminds you of the two judges he named to the Supreme Court, the 133 he has named to U. S. District Courts, 50 to Courts of Appeals and two to the U.S. Court of International Trade, it’s imperative that you understand why. He has a record of appointing men and women who will uphold the constitution and not legislate from the bench.
JUDGE MOYE WITH FRIEND (gatewaypundit)
THERE ARE SOME JUDGESHIPS, however, that appear on ballots across the nation. Be honest. How often have you gazed at a long list of judges with no knowledge of their records?
Voters in Texas will now have the opportunity to turn 14th District Court Judge Eric Moye out of office in November for his recent jailing, with a $7,000 fine, of Dallas salon owner Shelly Luther for opening her business that was under state restriction to remain closed.
Judge Moye condemned Luther’s defiance as “selfish,” charging her with “putting your own interests ahead of the community in which you live,” and demanded that she apologize, which she refused to do.
In fact, she opened her facility to aid the stylists who rent space from her.
Texas Gove. Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton viewed the punishment as “outrageous,” suggesting that a $50 fine might have been more appropriate.
Moye, a lifelong Democrat, has been involved in a number of controversial cases.
Hopefully, when Texas voters gaze through the list of judges on their ballots, they will recall his legislating from the bench.
DEATH BY COIVID-19 – I have recently written about deaths that are being recorded as Covid-19 deaths, regardless of the preexisting health problems. My concern is that they falsely inflate the number of those dying from the virus.
On April 27, 2020, I wrote of Doctors Dan Erickson and Artin Massihi, who opposed the lockdown. “Lockdown versus non-lockdown did not produce a statistically different number of deaths,” said Erickson. “That is the bottom line.”
The doctors reached their position after reviewing available data and in conversations with their colleagues around the country. Their colleagues in emergency medicine found it odd that that they are being pressured to add a diagnosis of Covid-19 on records.
While researching this issue, I read how funeral directors are reporting deaths falsely attributed to the virus in a piece by Megan Fox in PJ Media. New York funeral directors expressed their concern that coronavirus deaths are being inflated and every death in New York City is being recorded as a Covid-19 death with or without testing to confirm.
“To me,” said Joseph Antioco of Schafer Funeral Home, “all you’re doing is padding the statistics. You’re making the death rate for New York City a lot higher than it should be.” They are seeing more requests for autopsies.
One nursing home on Long Island assumed all of its patients were positive without testing. One individual asked if a man had Covid-19? She was told, “Well, no, it was a failure thrive.”
THEN THERE’S THIS – Minnesota State Sen. Scott Jensen, a family physician, who told Fox’s Laura Ingraham that he feared that the number of Covid-19 deaths may be inflated. “Right now, Medicare has determined that if you have a Covid-19 admission to the hospital, you’ll get $13,000,” said Jensen. “If that patient goes on a ventilator, you get $39,000, three times as much.
“Nobody can tell me after 35 years in the world of medicine that sometimes those kinds of things impact on what we do,” Jensen said as he reminded that “anytime health care intersects with dollars, it gets awkward.”
The Kaiser Family Foundation confirmed that the average Medicare payment for respiratory infections and inflammations was $13,297, and more severe hospitalization requiring a ventilator support for greater than 96 hours was $40,218.
May God continue to bless the United States of America.
