Escape from New York 2020? Could the city be increasingly shut off from the rest of the country?

 

 Article by Harry Siegel in "The New York Daily News":

I hear birds in the morning now, except when sirens drown them out.

And, in my own isolation, I keep coming back to how isolated New Yorkers are, here at the center of the world. That all of us, other than Bronxites, live on islands.

Brooklynites, for that matter, have no direct exit from New York. We can get to Manhattan or Queens or Staten Island from here, but not out of the city.

I’d been thinking about this even before Trump talked Saturday about quarantining the tristate area, as National Guardsmen in Florida were dispatched to the airports by Gov. Ron DeSantis — who hasn’t got around to closing the beaches that were packed during Spring Break — to collect information from each passenger on every flight arriving from New York to share with local authorities. And as Rhode Island is stopping cars with N.Y. plates at the border and registering New Yorkers at airports, train stations and bus stops so Guardsmen can check on them in their homes in the state.

Gov. Cuomo, meantime, told members of the Guard here on Friday that “this is not going to be a short deployment…This is a rescue mission that you’re on (and) we’re not going to be able to save everyone. And what’s even more cruel is this enemy doesn’t attack the strongest of us. It attacks the weakest of us. It attacks our most vulnerable.”

He concluded: “We go out there today and we kick coronavirus’ ass.”

Governors have been left more or less on their own to navigate their virus responses as our buck-passing president now plans to divide the country into “high risk, medium risk or low risk” areas as part of his wing-and-a-prayer plan to have Americans “resume their normal economic, social and religious lives” in time for Easter and, of course, his reelection hopes.

I have a sinking feeling that Donald Trump, who was talking about the “Chinese Flu” a week ago, may be talking about the “New York Flu” by the time we reach its anticipated apex here in about three weeks.

And the idea of internal borders, something America has never really seen, looms like a dragon on the legend covering these uncharted waters.

I can’t imagine Cuomo ever doing that, and Trump doesn’t have that power according to the rules as we’ve known them, so I stopped and called a New Yorker well versed in executive power who I’d hoped would tell me this was a ridiculous concern, that of course Trump’s not going to build a wall around his old home and make Cuomo pay for it.

But that’s not quite what the person said. Theoretically, they noted, NYC, the epicenter of the American outbreak, would be one of the easiest cities in the U.S. to cut off because it’s geographically isolated, geologically isolated. The water controls the flow of the people.

Manhattan’s first link to the mainland were the old Hudson & Manhattan tubes (now PATH) in 1908, followed by Penn Station in 1910, the Holland Tunnel in 1927 and the George Washington Bridge in 1931. The direct line to America is relatively new, and easily reversed.

Today, there are just six ways to drive across the Hudson from the city: Three bridges in Staten Island, plus the G.W. and the Lincoln and Hudson tunnels.

So, the person went on, thinking out loud:

You’d close the airports, easy. Close the trains, easy. That leaves vehicular traffic. There’s no way it’s foolproof, but you’d station checkpoints at the places that go west. People would try to go north and make their way around; good luck with that.

These things happen incrementally, they creep up, the person concluded. You’re taking temperatures at the airport. Then the airports are closed. Once the airports are closed, the rest of the dominoes can fall.

A certain former resident can always get to Trump Tower and back by helicopter if he needs to.

For the rest of us, who the hell knows?

https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-life-death-frozen-city-20200328-v6aaubchc5ernllaeb2et67kba-story.html 

Ventilator costing less than $300 developed by Rice University and Metric Technologies

 
 Article by Mike Williams from Rice University Office of Public Affairs:

Rice University and Canadian global health design firm Metric Technologies have developed an automated bag valve mask ventilation unit that can be built for less than $300 worth of parts and help patients in treatment for COVID-19. The collaboration expects to share the plans for the ventilator by making them freely available online to anyone in the world.

Faculty and students went into overdrive several weeks ago when requests began pouring into the university seeking plans for an early prototype developed in 2019 by Rice engineering seniors.

That now-alumni team of Madison Nasteff, Carolina De Santiago, Aravind Sundaramraj, Natalie Dickman, Tim Nonet and Karen Vasquez Ruiz, calling themselves Take a Breather, designed and built a programmable device able to squeeze a bag valve mask. These masks are typically carried by emergency medical personnel to help get air into the lungs of people having difficulty breathing on their own. But the masks are difficult to squeeze by hand for more than a few minutes at a time.
  
Dr. Rohith Malya, an assistant professor of emergency medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, an adjunct assistant professor of bioengineering at Rice and associate of the Rice 360° Institute for Global Health and a principal at Metric Technologies, recognized the need to automate the masks not only for emergencies where hospital ventilators are in short supply but also for developing nations where such equipment is not available at all.

The first criterion certainly applies now, with a global shortage of ventilators threatening the population as the novel coronavirus spreads.

Rice administrators, staff and students gathered to see how quickly they could develop a more robust prototype built primarily of 3D-printed and laser-cut parts. Their solution, designed and prototyped within a week, is a reconfiguration of the original rack-and-pinion device and designed to be not only medical grade, but also inexpensive enough to be considered disposable.

The small team worked in the Brown School of Engineering’s Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen (OEDK), where the original project came together last spring. The OEDK is usually hopping at this time of year as Rice senior engineering students race to finish their capstone design requirements. With students hunkered down and taking their classes online, the facility provided a quiet refuge for the ApolloBVM team as it worked around the clock to build the device.

The Department of Defense is one of the groups interested in ApolloBVM. The U.S. Navy invited several institutions to submit proposals to develop a low-cost, mechanical ventilation support system that can be rapidly produced with widely available resources.

“This is as simple as it can get, with all readily available parts,” said Danny Blacker, the OEDK’s engineering design supervisor.

The prototype uses an Arduino board to facilitate programming that allows users to adjust the rate of air delivery to the lungs of patients depending on their conditions, but the team expects a custom integrated circuit will eventually be available to replace the board at a lower cost. The device will also employ feedback sensors that help fine-tune the flow of air to the lungs, as well as motors of the same type that power 3D printers for hours on end.

In its documentation, the team characterizes ApolloBVM as a “high-acuity limited-operability (HALO) ventilator solution with an a priori design to produce volume- and pressure-cycled ventilation that includes positive end-expiratory pressure and the inclusion of enriched oxygen sources.”

Malya inspired the Rice project two years ago after seeing families try to keep critically ill loved ones at the Kwai River Christian Hospital in Thailand alive by bag-ventilating them for hours on end. He expects the new ApolloBVM to serve that purpose eventually, but the need is now worldwide.

“This is a clinician-informed end-to-end design that repurposes the existing BVM global inventory toward widespread and safe access to mechanical ventilation,” Malya said, noting that more than 100 million bag valve masks are manufactured around the world each year.

“The immediate goal is a device that works well enough to keep noncritical COVID-19 patients stable and frees up larger ventilators for more critical patients,” added Amy Kavalewitz, executive director of the OEDK.

Malya said the name is a tribute to Rice’s history with NASA and President John F. Kennedy’s famous speech kicking off the nation’s efforts to go to the moon.

“This project appeals to our ingenuity, it’s a Rice-based project and it’s for all of humanity,” he said. “And we’re on an urgent timescale. We decided to throw it all on the table and see how far we go.”

Up-to-date details about the project, dubbed the ApolloBVM, and its progress are available here:
 http://oedk.rice.edu/apollobvm/ 

https://news.rice.edu/2020/03/27/ventilator-costing-less-than-300-developed-by-rice-university-and-metric-technologies-2/

President Trump delivers remarks ahead of USNS Comfort departure for NY

Why is the Media Exempt from....

by Daniel Greenfield for FrontPageMag

Why is the Media Exempt from Coronavirus Business Shutdowns?

Is sticking microphones in front of senior citizens not a public health hazard?

March 27, 2020

"You're actually sitting too close," President Trump remarked at a press briefing. "Really, we should probably get rid of about 75, 80 percent of you.”

Trump was only partly joking.

The White House Correspondents Association had asked its members to sit one seat apart at press briefings, but at a time when most businesses have been shut down even when they offer far more space to customers and employees, the sight of crowded press briefings is still surreally hypocritical.

Governor Jared Polis delivered his press briefing on social distancing surrounded by a huddle of other Colorado officials, including a sign language translator, and tightly packed reporters facing him. That’s not unusual. Governors and mayors have announced the shutdown of countless businesses for the sake of social distancing in the same format that is the opposite of social distancing.

The exemption for the media from coronavirus rules extends beyond these strange scenes.

When Governor Andrew Cuomo issued an order effectively shutting down most New York non-essential businesses, the list of essential organizations exempted from the order included hospitals, power plants, pharmacies, farms, banks, supermarkets, and the media. One of these items is not like the others.

The essential businesses provide necessary services that allow people to function. That’s not the media.

The question of what is an “essential business” is the difference between employment or unemployment, staying in business or going bankrupt, for millions of Americans. It’s a weighty financial and moral question that the media has entirely evaded by cutting in line and relying on its privilege.

A generation ago it might have been argued that the media provides important updates, but in the age of Twitter and handheld access to any website, the idea that the public is dependent on the media to stay informed about coronavirus health and safety information, or any other emergency issue, is silly.

If the authorities really need to alert the percentage of the population that uses radio and television, but not the internet, there’s always the Emergency Broadcasting System.

Forget the press conferences: those are bad enough and ought to go the way of phrenology and the buggy whip. But much of what the media does is either whip up panic from its offices or dispatch reporters to interview people. None of that accords with the requirements of social distancing.

When movie and television productions have been shut down because they’re an unsafe environment, why is crowding talking heads behind a desk and twenty times their number of crew into a studio okay?

Why is dispatching reporters to stick microphones in front of senior citizens at a Trader Joe’s or the emergency room of a hospital considered healthy or safe, rather than a public health hazard?

The media should be properly classified as entertainment and deemed non-essential. Aside from exploitative coronavirus coverage, much of what the media does is entertain, albeit badly, with celebrity gossip, scandals, shaming, cooking tips, viral videos, crossword puzzles, and anything that keeps it afloat.

None of that is essential.

And yet the Colorado Press Association dispatched a letter to Governor Polis demanding "assurances that the news reporting operations will continue to be an essential part of emergency personnel."

Firefighters, police officers, paramedics, and reporters. Pick one that doesn’t belong in that category.

No one who drives a car off a snowy embankment into freezing waters looks upward hoping to see a camera and microphone, instead of a red jumpsuit or a blue uniform with a silver badge. If you’re not saving lives, you’re not emergency personnel. Smearing your political opponents is not an emergency.

The Florida Press Association wrote to Governor DeSantis pleading with him to exempt the media from "business shutdowns or shelter-in-place programs within Florida" because the media is "'essential' to public health and welfare."

A gym does far more for public health than every single media outlet combined. And we’re closing the gyms.

The FPA claimed that "media organizations are essential businesses to remain open during the COVID-19 crisis in order to continue to inform the public about their health, safety and welfare and convey accurate, reliable and critical information at a time of great need."

The media is many things: a source of accurate and reliable information isn’t one of them.

Any business that simply posts CDC advisories on its premises can do it better. Every platform is already embedding the same coronavirus advisories about social distancing and washing your hands.

But, mostly, the media has gotten its way.

Governor Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania claimed that he was closing all “non-life sustaining” businesses and designated the media a "life-sustaining" business.

Whose life does the media sustain except, vampirically, its own?

Los Angeles County's order treats "newspapers, magazines, television, radio, podcasts" as being on a par with truckers, dentists, and police officers. (And since this is California, "cannabis dispensaries".) As did San Francisco, though beyond the media, it also took care to designate bicycle repair shops and cannabis dispensaries as essential businesses. This has been the template across California.

But who decided that the media is an essential business and why?

It’s not a First Amendment issue. Not when churches and synagogues have been shuttered. San Jose ordered a firearms store to shut down, deeming it a non-essential business. A firearms dealer is in the business of enabling the Second Amendment rights of people on a much broader scale than a newspaper is in the business of enabling the First Amendment rights of anyone except its employees.

San Jose’s definition of essential, which encompasses marijuana and media, but not guns, shows that the issue is not an objective one of need, but of values. And values are based on tribal feelings.

The CDC had warned that smoking and using marijuana increases coronavirus risks for younger people. Health advisories had warned drug users against sharing drug paraphernalia because it can spread the coronavirus. But San Jose chose to protect marijuana stores because it likes pot and hates guns.

California and New York’s governments really like the media even though it poses a health risk.

As the rolling shutdowns continue, the ultimate debate over the privileges of the media may be weighed by the White House. And the lobbying campaign is underway.

The Chamber of Commerce listed the media on its proposed roll of essential services in its letter to President Trump. The letter asks him to include the media on the list of federal exemptions.

Such decisions often end up being made by advisors and bureaucrats. This should not be one of them.

The media should not benefit from an exemption that it has done nothing to earn. Instead of serving a constructive function, it has whipped up panic, spread fear and doubt, sought out scapegoats, and behaved irresponsibly at every turn because it served its financial and ideological agendas. The last thing America needs is for hardworking people to be forced out of a job while the media gets a free pass.

It’s unjust and unfair for small businesses to have to shut their doors, while CNN goes on with business as usual. It’s wrong for the average American to be told he’s non-essential, but that Jim Acosta is.

President Trump should trash the media’s demand for an exemption from shutdown rules. And people should begin asking some tough questions about why they’re out of a job while the media swarms press briefings, sticks microphones in front of health care workers and children, and isn’t held accountable.

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.

Trump Administration Developing New Guidelines for Next Phase in War Against COVID-19

Debra Heine for American Greatness

President Trump on Thursday laid out his plan for the next phase in the war against the coronavirus pandemic that has killed over 1,000 Americans and crushed the booming economy.

The Trump administration issued new guidelines for state and local governments to use when making decisions about “maintaining, increasing or relaxing social distancing and other mitigation measures” for COVID-19.

In a letter to U.S. governors, the president said that his administration would be easing nationwide guidelines meant to stem the spread of the disease and working on new guidelines to rate counties by risk of virus spread.

While states and municipalities will still have the authority to set whatever restrictions they deem necessary, the president has made clear that he is anxious to to see U.S. businesses reopen.

During his press briefing on Tuesday, Trump said he would love to open the country back up by Easter.

White House counselor Kellyanne Conway said the president, by setting the Easter goal, was trying to give people “hope.”

“I think, Easter, the president was giving people a lot of hope and basically telling us it won’t last forever, and we’ll see what happens over time,” she told reporters Thursday.

“Every day that we stay out it gets harder to bring it back very quickly,” Trump said during his Thursday press conference.

White House health advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said Thursday that once the country “turns that corner” and the spread of the coronavirus  has been reduced, we “can start thinking about getting back to some degree of normality.”

Trump stressed that Americans will still need to practice social distancing “even when we’re open and fully operational,” just not to the same extent “because you still have to lead a life.”

President @realDonaldTrump: When we open back up, we will still be Social Distancing pic.twitter.com/wAWjiFTGEd

— Team Trump (Text TRUMP to 88022) (@TeamTrump) March 26, 2020

The Benefits of a Free Society during Pandemics

Per Bylund for Mises

The Benefits of a Free Society during Pandemics

In this time of crisis, many exclaim how impressed they are by the “swift and decisive” actions by the Chinese regime. Instead of recognizing the abhorrent disrespect for human life, the Chinese response is put forth as an exemplar for combatting a pandemic.

These hailers conveniently forget the many weeks of silencing and censorship that preceded the brutal shutting down of the city of Wuhan and the whole Hubei province. They also turn a blind eye to the nature of hierarchy and bureaucracy, pretending what is needed to choose proper action is simply power and that access to accurate, reliable information is of little concern.

The calls for a strongman solution are misguided at best, but have been used to paint the picture of freedom as being impotent. As per the strongman delusion, libertarianism would seem to lack exactly what is needed for “swiftly and decisively” dealing with a pandemic—centralized power.

A Free Society Is Not a Free-for-All

There is no question that locking (and even welding) people into their homes should limit the spread of a contagious virus compared to having people moving freely about and spreading the disease. Similarly, stopping air travel should limit the spread as compared to carrying on flying as if nothing happened.

But those are, in fact, two extremes neither of which applies in a libertarian society. The former extreme is based on centralized authoritarian power over people’s lives and property, which is rather obviously incompatible with freedom. This is, of course, the strongman critique of freedom: its lack of such power.

But the same is true also for the latter extreme, which presumes that any society has significant public property and limitations to the rights of owners of private property. Neither could be the case in a libertarian society. Under private property, you do not automatically have the right to enter someone’s store or walk on their sidewalk just like you don’t have a right to enter their home as you see fit. While you are typically welcome to enter a store – the store owner wants you to consider purchasing their goods for sale—your entry is on their terms.

As they are in control, they are also responsible for what they allow to happen. This is why even today private stores and malls, just like private communities, typically have their own security (despite the state police monopoly). They are liable if they welcome anyone without restrictions, and thereby subject others to potential harm. This includes welcoming without restrictions carriers of a deadly virus.

We saw this oft-overlooked fact in action, to a limited extent, as airlines suspended flights to affected areas before being grounded by government decree. Why? Because they do not want to risk the health of their employees and customers—for which they would be held liable. In a libertarian society, there is no right to use another’s property but also no limitation to the owner’s responsibility for what happens with their (explicit or implicit) approval.

This is, of course, not a perfect solution that completely does away with all problems, including detaining a virus before it starts to spread. But there are no perfect solutions. The point is that a libertarian society is not like the status quo plus or minus some regulation or state agency. The libertarian ‘normal’ is very different from what we have gotten used to under the state.

The fact is neither of the extremes assumed by strongman proponents applies in a free society. Yes, it would lack authoritarian power, but it is also not a free-for-all where everyone’s wish somehow trumps property rights.

The Problem with One-Size-Fits-All

But surely the lack of authoritarian power must mean freedom is impotent in dealing with large threats? No, this is another strongman illusion that does not actually follow. It simply isn’t the case that centralization is a solution. To instate a central power means adopting a one-size-fits-all approach, but there are more problems of centralization: it makes us more vulnerable and our responses less appropriate.

Most would agree that a one-size-fits-all approach would in fact be a good fit for very few, just like a one-size sweater would be a poor fit on practically everyone wearing it. Conditions are different in different places, which means each place would have a different best response.

We actually saw this in the coronavirus outbreak, where governors adopted different policies for their respective states. It makes sense for them to do this, because the states are very different and were also differently affected by the virus. While far from perfect, this shows that even career politicians recognize that a centralized solution isn’t appropriate. If they truly believed in one-size-fits-all they would have adopted the same policy. But they didn’t, because the situations were different.

Information about what works and what doesn’t, and important differences between locales and populations, is lost as information is aggregated and statistics are produced to guide centralized decisions. This is Hayek’s famous argument about the dispersed, tacit knowledge that guides our actions but cannot guide the central planner.

Decentralization and Flexibility Make Systems More Resilient

But a centralized solution also makes us more vulnerable. An example might illustrate this. Consider the difference between a structured, centralized national defense and an armed populace. Switzerland is the popular example of the latter, but this is not a unique idea. For examples, Sweden’s defense comprises both a traditionally structured military and the Home Guard. While you can rather easily cripple the military by taking out a couple of their bases, the decentralized and dispersed forces of the Home Guard are almost impossible to wipe out.

What does this have to do with a virus pandemic? It illustrates the false promises of centralization, which is a costly and inadequate solution that in fact makes a society more vulnerable. The same argument applies whether it is the national defense, centralized education, or the monopoly of the CDC. A centralized command structure offers only a false sense of security.

Libertarian society is exactly the decentralized structure that our present society is lacking. Rather than a pyramid with information selected and repackaged on its way up and orders issued from the top, it would be a collaborative network of individuals and neighborhoods. A neighborhood affected by an outbreak could quickly and easily choose to contain the virus, perhaps in collaboration with adjacent neighborhoods. Others could choose to temporarily quarantine themselves to not get infected.

There would also be little reason for them to not share information. While the Chinese apparently believed they didn’t have to do anything, other than silencing whistleblowers, a government is typically not held responsible for its failures. It’s the other way around: a government agency that fails in its task is not punished, but instead offered larger budgets and more discretion.

In rather stark contrast, a libertarian neighborhood that chooses to suppress vital information about an outbreak could (and would) be held liable for the harm caused to others. They face the same mechanism as the private store owner, who would be liable if s/he welcomes those knowingly carrying a virus to enter the premises and infect other customers. It is thus in their interest not to hide the fact, as is the government modus operandi, but to share the information and get in front of the problem.

None of what is appropriate action during an outbreak or pandemic requires central command. The downsides of centralization in fact make matters worse and is what made us vulnerable to begin with. The many calls for increased centralization, and their outright dismissal of libertarianism and freedom as "impotent," are fundamentally confused. Rather than being reasonable and rational, these outcries are emotional and contrary to fact. They are but symptoms of the strongman ideology.

Per Bylund is assistant professor of entrepreneurship & Records-Johnston Professor of Free Enterprise in the School of Entrepreneurship at Oklahoma State University. Website: PerBylund.com.

‘Sanctuary’ Cities That Rejected Federal Law Are Now Pleading For Federal Help

Tristan Justice reporting for The Federalist

Localities that declared themselves “Sanctuary Cities” to reject federal law and coordination in order to harbor illegal immigrants are now begging for federal help in the face of the Wuhan virus pandemic.

New York City, which has become the epicenter of the Wuhan virus outbreak in the United States, is seeing a surging case load overwhelm its hospitals. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security warned Thursday that the situation has become so dire the city’s morgues are reaching capacity. Hospitals are stretched thin with dwindling supplies as New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and the state’s governor Andrew Cuomo plead for resources from the feds, all while skirting immigration laws as a sanctuary state and city.

Last week, Mayor de Blasio urged President Donald Trump to dispatch the military as the cases began to surge, but simultaneously taking the crisis opportunity to criticize the president.

“The fate of New York City rests in the hands of one. He is a New Yorker. And right now, he is betraying the city he comes from,” de Blasio said, never mind that the mayor’s own lackluster response likely exacerbated the problem by encouraging New Yorkers to go to the movies and hesitating to close schools as the virus was blowing up.

De Blasio demanded 15,000 ventilators, 3 million N95 masks, 50 surgical masks, and 25 million surgical gowns, coveralls, and pairs of gloves in addition to mobilizing the military.

Gov. Cuomo made a similar request on Tuesday, calling on federal help to supply the state 30,000 ventilators from the national stockpile of medical supplies which only has little more than half that number in storage.

So far, the federal government has largely tried to adequately respond to the pleas for help with the available resources on hand, as it reasonably should.

Facing a shortage of equipment on hand himself, Trump on Thursday questioned Cuomo’s need for the 30,000 ventilators requested but has still pledged a fourth of the entire stockpile to be sent to the Empire State. On Tuesday, Vice President Mike Pence announced that 4,000 ventilators would be shipped to New York hospitals. Trump has also said the federal government is sending other supplies such as N95 respirators, surgical masks, face shields, coveralls and gloves, though the amount have come up short of the mayor and governor’s requests and some equipment has become expired while in reserve.

New York is not alone in crying out for federal assistance. Cities and states across the country are beginning to see a spike in cases that threaten to bring their own health care institutions under siege and are depending on federal assistance to come though, all while resisting the same government’s duty to enforce immigration law.

On Tuesday, the Pentagon also announced it would be deploying three Army field hospitals to both New York and Washington state, both of which are declared sanctuary states that refuse state agencies from complying with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Other sanctuary states and cities including California have been granted presidential approval for “Major Disaster Declarations” that will open the door for new federal assistance to pour into states heavily impacted.

The federal government has pulled seemingly every lever to come to the rescue. Trump invoked the Stafford Act and the Defense Production Act to free up additional emergency funds and push the private sector into producing necessary medical equipment needed to combat the outbreak.

Congress meanwhile, has passed several spending packages to confront the epidemic and the economic fallout to follow including a $2 trillion bipartisan stimulus bill that passed the Senate and is expected to pass the House on Friday with the president’s blessing.

If states and cities are so eager to accept assistance from the federal government to combat the crisis, as they should, will they finally allow the feds to conduct federal immigration law?

Trump fires back at Michigan’s Whitmer, claims Dem governor ‘doesn’t have a clue’

Article by Dom Calicchio in "Fox News":

President Trump took aim at Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on Friday night, claiming in a Twitter message that the Democrat was “way in over her head” amid the coronavirus outbreak and “doesn’t have a clue.”

As of late Friday, Michigan had more than 2,200 confirmed cases of the virus, ranking fifth in the nation, and had seen at least 43 deaths. On Friday, Trump approved a disaster declaration for the state, ordering federal assistance to support state and local efforts.

“I love Michigan, one of the reasons we are doing such a GREAT job for them during this horrible Pandemic,” the president wrote. “Yet your Governor, Gretchen “Half” Whitmer is way in over her head, she doesn’t have a clue. Likes blaming everyone for her own ineptitude! #MAGA”

Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump

I love Michigan, one of the reasons we are doing such a GREAT job for them during this horrible Pandemic. Yet your Governor, Gretchen “Half” Whitmer is way in over her head, she doesn’t have a clue. Likes blaming everyone for her own ineptitude!



The Twitter message followed Whitmer’s accusations Friday that medical-supply vendors were being told “not to send stuff here to Michigan” – and her insinuation that the alleged orders were coming from the Trump administration.

It also followed the 48-year-old first-term governor's previous complaint that Michigan wasn’t receiving “clear directives and guidance” from Washington for handling the outbreak.

Earlier Friday, Trump told reporters during a White House news briefing that he advised Vice President Mike Pence – leader of the president’s Coronavirus Task Force – against communicating with Whitmer, claiming she was among a small group of governors who weren’t being “appreciative” of the Trump administration’s virus response efforts.

“I say, Mike … don’t call the woman in Michigan. I say, if they don’t treat you right, don’t call,” Trump told reporters.

The remark followed previous comments the president made Thursday during an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity.

“We've had a big problem with the young, a woman governor,” Trump said. “You know who I'm talking about, from Michigan. We don't like to see the complaints.”

That Thursday remark from Trump drew a Twitter response from Whitmer.

"Hi, my name is Gretchen Whitmer, and that governor is me," Whitmer wrote.

"I've asked repeatedly and respectfully for help. We need it. No more political attacks, just PPEs, ventilators, N95 masks, test kits. You said you stand with Michigan -- prove it."

Governor Gretchen Whitmer ✔ @GovWhitmer

Hi, my name is Gretchen Whitmer, and that governor is me

I've asked repeatedly and respectfully for help. We need it. No more political attacks, just PPEs, ventilators, N95 masks, test kits. You said you stand with Michigan — prove it.



Whitmer aired more concerns Friday during an interview with Detroit radio station WWJ-AM, according to Crain’s Detroit Business.

"When the federal government told us that we needed to go it ourselves, we started procuring every item we could get our hands on," Whitmer told WWJ. "What I've gotten back is that vendors with whom we had contracts are now being told not to send stuff here to Michigan. It's really concerning.”

Whitmer then doubled down on her claim during an appearance on CNN, Crain’s reported.

"We've entered into a number of contracts and as we are getting closer to the date when shipments are supposed to come in, they're getting canceled or they're getting delayed," Whitmer said. "We've been told they're going first to the federal government.”

Earlier in the week, Whitmer complained that Michigan wasn’t receiving “clear directives and guidance from the federal government” on how to handle the crisis.

“Frankly, a patchwork strategy of each state doing what they can, we’re going to do it if we need to, but it would be nice to have a national strategy," she said, according to MLive.

Whitmer claimed that if the Trump administration had focused on the pandemic sooner, Michigan and the U.S. would "be in a stronger position right now."

"Lives will be lost because we weren't prepared," she said.

Also on Friday, President Trump signed a more than $2 trillion legislative package intended to provide extensive relief to workers and businesses as they deal with the coronavirus outbreak. 

In addition, the president named his trade adviser, Peter Navarro, to direct implementation of the Defense Production Act, which gives the president the authority to direct manufacturers to produce medical supplies such as ventilators.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-fires-back-at-michigans-whitmer-claims-dem-governor-doesnt-have-a-clue

The FDA Is Still Undermining...

Tho Bishop at Fee

The FDA Is Still Undermining 

Coronavirus Response Efforts

From the beginning of the battle against the coronavirus, the FDA has slowed American medical companies' ability to respond at full capacity.

Friday, March 27, 2020

For many Americans, the FDA has taken on a sort of mystique as the gold standard of medical guidance—similar to the emotional connection many Britons feel for the National Health Service (NHS). Unfortunately, both of these government bureaucracies actively undermine the healthcare systems of their nation. As the continuing coronavirus places a larger microscope on the agency’s actions, hopefully more are waking up to the costs inherent to their management.

From the beginning of this battle, the FDA has slowed American medical companies' ability to respond at full capacity.

For example, it was FDA regulations that significantly slowed the creation of testing kits in the early days of the crisis. While the CDC’s government labs were creating fatally flawed COVID-19 tests, private labs were desperately trying to receive waivers to ramp up their own efforts. On February 24, the US Association of Public Health Laboratories made desperate appeals to get into the game. Although the FDA tweaked its rule five days later to allow labs to begin testing kits (though it still barred their active use without approval), it wasn’t until March 16 that the FDA finally removed its grasp on the private sector and allowed labs get approval through state agencies.

The impact was immediate:

Source: Twitter, @noahopinion.

In the words of Balaji S. Srinivasan, a Peter Theil-ally who interviewed with the administration in 2017 to lead the agency, “FDA’s initial delay set the US back six weeks, blinding us to the scale of the epidemic, and turning a containable epidemic into a crisis.”

While the FDA has taken its foot off the hose of testing production, it continues to restrict their uses. Earlier this week, the FDA took the position that their policy changes will not apply to at-home testing. This decision has forced labs that have developed and produced such products to shutdown distribution that was already underway. The bureaucratic freeze on testing forces Americans into hospitals, clinics, and other testing centers. As Srinivasan notes, this decision openly promotes greater spread:

This is not the only example this week of the FDA undermining recovery efforts. Recently Elon Musk acquired a stock of a 1,000 respirators. Unfortunately on Monday, the shipment ended up being stalled at LAX by none other than the FDA.

With the focus now on treatments and preventative measures, the FDA continues to be an anchor dragging down the ability of the American private sector to innovate our way out of a crisis.

Trump has famously pushed a mix of antimalaria medicine and Z-Packs as a potential treatment. Although the media have tried to attack the president for offering unqualified medical advice, his medical advice has been supported by studies in countries outside the FDA’s restrictive regime. As the Wall Street Journal reports:

A more recent French study used the drug in combination with azithromycin. Most Americans know azithromycin as the brand name Zithromax Z-Pak, prescribed for upper respiratory infections. The Z-Pak alone doesn’t appear to help fight Covid-19, and the findings of combination treatment are preliminary.

But researchers in France treated a small number of patients with both hydroxychloroquine and a Z-Pak, and 100% of them were cured by day six of treatment. Compare that with 57.1% of patients treated with hydroxychloroquine alone, and 12.5% of patients who received neither.

This is not the first time that FDA red tape has allowed Europe to lead in health treatment. The overbearing American regulations have even pushed US athletes overseas for rehab treatments and other basic health needs.

As the Trump administration continues to indicate that they are pushing away from a total-lockdown approach to the virus and toward opening the American economy back up, breaking down the American bureaucratic machine is going to be vital to minimizing the already catastrophic damage done.

Hopefully, a silver lining of this current crisis will be an American awakening to what has long been clear: the costs of the FDA bureaucracy is a far greater public health risk than any of the advantages that it claims to provide. It’s past time to scrap the agency altogether.

This Mises Institute article was republished with permission.

Macron says France is there for Italy, Europe must not be ‘selfish’

March 28, 2020
PARIS (Reuters) – French President Emmanuel Macron sought on Saturday to win over Italians, saying in an interview with Italy’s leading newspapers that France was there to help and Italians should be wary of talk about aid from China or Russia to fight the coronavirus.
Macron also called for stronger budget solidarity in Europe.
“France is alongside Italy,” Macron said in a interview to Italian newspapers La Repubblica, Corriere della Sera, and La Stampa.
“There is a lot of talk about Chinese or Russian aid, but why don’t we say that France and Germany have delivered 2 million masks and tens of thousands gowns to Italy?” Macron said.
“It is not sufficient, but this is just a start and we must not let ourselves be intoxicated with what our international partners and competitors say”.
Italy, one of the countries worst-hit by the virus worldwide, was sharply critical of France and Germany after they initially declined to provide face masks and other equipment to help handle the outbreak.
Rome turned instead for help to China, which sent an airplane full of masks and ventilators bearing “Forza Italia” stickers with small Chinese and Italian flags – and leaving a powerful impression on Italians.
“Europe must feel proud and strong, because it is. But it must indeed go much further. This is why I defend budget solidarity in the management of this crisis and of its consequences,” Macron added.
 “What worries me is the illness of every man for himself: if we do not show solidarity, Italy, Spain or others would be able to say to their European partners: where have you been when we were at the front? I do not want this selfish and divided Europe”

https://www.oann.com/macron-says-france-is-there-for-italy-europe-must-not-be-selfish/

MI Dem Governor Threatens Licenses of Doctors Who Prescribe Hydroxychloroquine to Treat Coronavirus

Michigan Democrat Governor Threatens Licenses of Doctors and Pharmacists Who Prescribe Hydroxychloroquine to Treat Coronavirus

Governor Gretchen Whitmer from the Michigan Directorate has threatened to turn the eye of the state upon any doctor or pharmacist who would attempt to prescribe chloroquine to treat their patients suffering from coronavirus.  Medical licenses may need to be revoked.

The agency’s March 24 letter warns physicians and pharmacists of professional consequences for the prescribing of hydroxychloroquine (and chloroquine). Beyond the rational recommendation against hoarding, the letter includes threats of “administrative action” against the licenses of doctors that prescribe hydroxychloroquine.

MICHIGAN – Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs warns that prescribing hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine for treatment of COVID-19 ‘without further proof of efficacy’ may be investigated for administrative action; reaction from Dr. Jeff Colyer, former Kansas governor. (video)

It should be remembered that comrade Whitmer was selected by the party apparatchik to deliver the State of the Union rebuttal on behalf of the DNC’s totalitarian interests.  Heir Whitmer’s foreboding warnings are in the interest of the State comrades.

However, in defiance of the dictates from governing officials intent on increasing the body count to retain narrative favorable to the state, several independent medical communities have gone rogue.

Studies have shown significant reduction in viral loads and symptom improvement when combining these medications in COVID-19 patients. Though these studies do not prove efficacy, the results were so promising the authors of the most famous study concluded:

“We therefore recommend that COVID-19 patients be treated with hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin to cure their infection and to limit the transmission of the virus to other people in order to curb the spread of COVID-19 in the world.”

Elsewhere in Normalville…

Additionally, it is certainly interesting that Bayer gave the US Government 3,000,000 Chloroquine tablets.  According to the reports at the time 750,000 doses went to NY, the rest were never discussed (whereabouts unknown).  [LINK]

Why would Bayer provide U.S. authorities 3 million tablets of a medication if there was no curative value to the distribution?  Think about it…

But wait…  Even more recently, Novartis stated they have 50,000,000 doses on hand with another 80,000,000 doses to be ready by May.  [LINK]  Why would giant pharmaceutical companies produce and distribute 130 million doses of a medication for potential treatment if there was no basis it?

Something doesn’t add up….

The orange-man-bad media are shouting that Chloroquine is unsafe while Dr. Fauci says it needs more study.  If there is no curative value why produce 130,000,000 doses of Hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19 treatment?

Comrade Suspiciouski remains distant, yet suspicious…