Monday, March 1, 2021

Our National Faith Will Stand, Steadfast



A reminder for a friend…

Steadfast doesn’t mean when it’s easy; the term has no meaning when things are working according to our own convenient interests. Steadfast means standing strong when it’s challenging, difficult and unnerving. Just as courage is not the absence of fear, rather it is taking action despite being fearful; so too is steadfast a decision.

Often when things are disconcerting, we retreat to the place where we are comfortable. However, steadfast is unwavering despite the obstacles and difficulties. When we don’t hold the words to comfort the grieved, yet we show up and sit quietly just to eliminate loneliness, that is a steadfast commitment. When we see adversity on the face of another, and we choose to engage with our time and comfort, that is a steadfast decision.

When CTH was formed, it was a small assembly of misfits who were not fearless, but brave enough to be comfortable within our discomfort.  We knew we had to look deeply at the issues which face us. We remind ourselves that ‘truth has no agenda‘ & truth exists despite our feelings of the subject matter. The core elements of CTH are based on this principle of remaining steadfast amid the face of adversity, national, political or even personal.

The CTH armory is insightful, wise and often purposeful; but this assembly is foremost a fellowship. A steadfast decision to stand together and figure out how all of these intense subjects, issues and events interact, influence and ultimately impact our lives.

Right now our nation is facing a time of extreme trepidation. Nerves are frayed, emotions are raw and individually we find our compass spinning in a way that destabilizes us. Into this climate the originating value of our core assembly becomes critical. CTH remains steadfast & committed to the best hopes and solutions within us. We strive with purpose.

Each day for over a decade we begin with a simple prayer. We host a candle for those who need prayers and support, and we engage purposefully with the intent to cherish the value, wisdom and skills that each unique person brings to the subject matter being discussed.

My personal commitment toward that end has been to remain steadfast and unwavering in defense of this little corner of the internet. To maintain a place where facts can be discovered, truth can be unearthed and honest discussion/opinion can be afforded.

In July of this past year, it was our CTH mission to ensure that people within the institutions of our government were aware of: (a) evidence of specific corruption; and (b) our knowledge about it. It was during one of those briefing trips to DC when I recognized a serious disconnect between what the people within those institutions of government viewed as their role, and what We The People expected of them.

It was also the first time when I realized that internal corrective action was unlikely to succeed because the scale of corrupt activity was not simply based on intent, but also present because the absence of morality was metastatic throughout the system.

I’m certain there are good people in DC, but the systems surrounding them have lost their originating purpose. The central function of U.S. government is now so corrupt the institutions regard ‘We The People‘ as the problem the people within the system must protect themselves from.

I quickly recognized the solutions to our national issues were never going to come from our requests to those who operate within the institutions. However, even worse was the impact we were having on each-other due to our national frustration. It was evident within our frustration – as a nation we are losing a sense of identity, unity and fellowship.

The only people who can change that dynamic is us.

We are ‘The People’ we have been waiting for; yet, the professional political class, purposefully walled-off within this corrupt system, are also purposefully blind to our assembly. In order for the DC politicians to continue operating corrupt levers within a corrupt machine they must ignore the will of the same people they are supposed to represent.

President Trump represents ‘We The People‘, and as a consequence those within this corrupt system view his appearances with the same dismissive outlook they carry toward those who voted for him.

They want to destroy us, so they need to destroy him. They want to destroy our faith, so they need to destroy hope.  They will fail so long as we remain steadfast.

CTH (The Last Refuge) was founded upon this acceptance long before Donald Trump became president in 2016; and the actions by both wings of the UniParty congress over the past six weeks have been clear evidence of what we always knew was present.

Our current national challenge is to figure out a way to confront this dynamic and then deal with it. However, we must deal with it in a way that does not destroy the founding principles of our constitutional republic. There are many disappointments around us, but we must remain strong and purposeful with any chosen direction. Misplaced corrective action regardless of intent is neither prudent nor wise.

Above all, those who understand the larger issues must remain united and hold a sense of fellowship toward each-other if we are to overcome the challenges. The purpose of using COVID fear as a strategic weapon to achieve division is evident. Unilateral fiats can be an effective strategy deployed by those who benefit from division; we must counter this effort.

The fraud within the phrase “social distancing” not only creates distance between us but also creates a void of loneliness within the soul. Into this void of isolation, fear takes hold and becomes toxic. Thus the true value of fellowship is more important than ever.

Right now everything around us seems less focused on the pursuit of happiness and more focused on what happiness we are missing. At the heart of that anxiety is this sense of foreboding. A choking sense of fear and worry; a sense of trepidation. Faith in a loving and purposeful God is now more important than ever, embrace it – share it.

This moment in history is where each person of strength holds a higher level of influence, and we should engage in the lives of others to show that strength. Right now people around you are looking for courage, optimism and hope. If you do not provide that to your family, friends and community, you allow the alternative, despair, to take root.

Despair is the foreboding outcome of the same evil systems that create it. Recognize despair when you see it, intercept it and eliminate it when you can… AND you always can. Tend to the flickering flame of liberty & teach others, especially our youth, the skills to defend it.

Do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. We are a majority nation of liberty loving independent and free-thinking people; born under a compact to allow each to live their lives according to their own purpose. Do not abdicate the duty to protect individual liberty to anyone except yourself. Your dreams are unique to you.

Stay strong for your family…

Stay strong for your community….

Stay strong for our nation… We need each-other.

Steadfast,

Sundance

Dear Treehouse,

[…] I have been saying for some time that America is at a tipping point. Regardless of who is in apparent control of the Government (Executive, Legislative or Judiciary), there are forces at work that truly do lead to the creation of a “Uni-party.” As the underbelly of the Uni-party has been exposed, those in control have become vulnerable.

The real prospect that God-fearing, hard-working, honest Americans are beginning to see how the system has been rigged to manipulate them is upon us. Your dogged determination to lay bare the ugliness of what Washington has become is to be greatly admired.

We have lacked true leadership for too many years. This of course creates a vacuum and vacuums are dangerous because they allow false prophets to arise. People are desperate for someone to lead and say that they can restore the values that we once held dear as a nation.

Perhaps this is why your banner with the redhead staring at the gathering storm calls to me. The storm is just off the shore, building energy, waiting to crash over all of us. Yet, in the gathering darkness you have provided a light. A beacon of hope in a dismal world. A beacon which illuminates an alternative to the false choices of the Hegelian dialectic that is forced upon us all.

May God keep and protect you as you gather and collate the evidence to lay bare the ugliness that has become government, as it is now practiced, and reclaim all that makes America truly great. May the Holy Spirit guide you in your words and actions. Know that there are many that believe in what you are doing and stand ready to do their part. Remember that the darkness is always greatest before the dawn. I am confident that a new dawn is about to break.

~ A Patriot



The Big Ugly Begins, President Trump Targets the DeceptiCons ....

The Big Ugly Begins, President Trump Targets the DeceptiCons,

 Those GOPe Establishment Politicians who Need To Be Removed


During his CPAC speech President Trump named some of the DeceptiCons in congress who have blocked the MAGA agenda.  President Trump identified some of the politicians by name in both the House and Senate who need to get primaried.  WATCH:


”The Democrats don’t have grand-standers like Mitt Romney, little Ben Sasse, Richard Burr, Bill Cassidy, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Pat Toomey; and in the House, Tom Rice, South Carolina, Adam Kinzinger, Dan Newhouse, Anthony Gonzalez. That’s another beauty. Fred Upton, Jamie Herrera Butler, Peter Meyer, John Katko, David Valadeo. And of course the warmonger, a person that loves seeing our troops fighting, Liz Cheney. How about that? The good news is in her state, she’s been censured. And in her state, her poll numbers have dropped faster than any human being I’ve ever seen. So hopefully, they’ll get rid of her with the next election. Get rid of them all.”

President Trump has established the Political Action Committee that will fund primary opponents to those republicans who have failed to support the America First agenda.

Let the MAGA voters take action to remove the targeted DeceptiCons and the Big Ugly will have officially begun…


This Administration Is Already a Failure


Article by Kurt Schlichter in Townhall
 

This Administration Is Already a Failure

If you’re a Democrat, you have to be thinking about a Harris/Cheney ticket in 2024 because the * administration is a complete disaster. And not just on policy. Obama‘s administration was a policy disaster, but it was at least a competently implemented disaster. The Zombie Administration is a disaster in both form and substance.

What has this desiccated, old weirdo achieved in his six weeks of semiconsciousness in the Oval Office? Well, there’s putting tens of thousands of Americans out of jobs, including union guys who voted for him. There’s telling the American people that their kids can’t go to school because public school teachers take priority over children because of science or something. There’s another war in the Middle East. Those are kind of accomplishments, but not really good ones.

His administration had someone named “Ducklo” who was mean to women. He had another who wants to be a woman and who wants to let your little boys be surgically turned into women. And Neera Tanden’s confirmation was blocked because she was a woman and totally not because she was an inept loudmouth.

If this is normalcy, what’s a freak show look like?

Are you * voters starting to feel a bit of buyer’s remorse? Let me ask it another way. Everybody enjoying your $2,000 check? Oh well. On the upside, they impeached Trump…and failed. Again, after sucking up two weeks of the Senate’s calendar. So, what do you have to show for yourself, * voters?

Failure.

Like Humpty Dumpty’s establishment guardians’ efforts, all the media hacks can’t put Humpty Dementy back together again. They can try and sell you on how happy days are here again, but at the end of the day, you still have a diaper wrapped around your face and your kids are shipping off for another war in Whothehellcaresistan.

So, it’s basically the Trump era with fewer jobs, the same pandemic, plus a new stupid war. Maybe that’s not the kind of change his voters hoped for.

On the plus side, there are no mean tweets. On the downside, President Badfinger isn’t capable of tweeting. He’s barely capable of using the remote to find the "Matlock" marathon.

This is a failed presidency. He has done nothing. He has accomplished nothing. He is nothing, in the sense that he’s an afterthought to the whole endeavor. His job is to sign the executive orders, not to think them up or prepare them or even read them before he scrawls his X on them.

Hey Mr. President, time for your photo with your dogs. Maybe it’d be a good idea to change out of your bathroom because it’s noon.

The only way it could be worse is if Hunter Biden got back in the news and…oh, right.

They called a lid on his whole term back on January 21 and it doesn’t get lifted until Kamala Harris finishes pulling off her 25th Amendment flex.

And if I’m wrong, maybe we can circle back and point out one thing that this guy has done that has gone right. Just one thing. Even his attempt to unilaterally change the immigration laws has hit a brick wall in the form of a Trump judge who said, “Nah, you kind of have to do what the law says, it being the law and stuff.”

By the way, those kids aren’t in cages. They’re in Fun Camps. With Fun Bars and Fun Fences. The only way this could be worse is if the Asterisk Administration contracted out their operation to The Lincoln Project.

Oh man, I hope I haven’t given them any ideas.

So, Biden has managed to disappoint the Left, he was always going to disappoint the Right, and he probably disappointed his wife when he failed to call her doctor as she handed him his morning mush bowl.

This narrative of normalcy and competence is shakier than Grandpa Gropey trying to go down the stairs. It’s not gonna last. Everybody knows the guy is senile. Everybody knows the administration can’t make things happen. Everybody knows that this is a car wreck. The only person happy about it is Jimmy Carter because now he’s got a shot at being the second-worst president of the last hundred years.

With Trump, it was “Promises made, promises kept.” With Commander-in-Chief Crusty, it’s “Promises made, hey Jill, where the heck is my slipper, you macadamia twirling hardboiled eggmonger?”

And the funniest part of it all is that when Kamala Harris replaces this guy, as she will by this time next year, she’s going to do even worse because she’s even worse.

These guys are losers, and everybody knows it.

See ya in 2024, Kamala.

https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2021/03/01/this-administration-is-already-a-failure-n2585441 


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Mexico’s lockdowns fuel rise in drug-trafficking, forced prostitution

 

OAN Newsroom

UPDATED 8:07 AM PT – Monday, March 1, 2021

Human rights groups have warned thousands of Mexicans are turning to the sex industry due to economic desolation caused by COVID-19 lockdowns.

“Because of hunger and necessity, and not having any savings or income to eat or pay rent, all that pushed me back after 10 years to return to work as a sex worker,” stated an unidentified Mexican national.

According to reports, the Mexican economy has experienced a rise in unemployment and poverty, in turn, forcing thousands of men and women into sex work.

Human rights activists have stressed that economic lockdowns violate people’s right to work and provide for themselves.

“And the new ones, which are the other 40 percent, they would cry because they would say, ‘I don’t want to do this but I must bring food for my children,'” explained Elvira Madrid, director of Brigada Callejera (Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women). “The other 20 percent that shocked us even more were housewives.”

 

 According to economists, coronavirus lockdowns in Mexico gave a boost to illegal businesses such as drugs and human trafficking while legal sources of income were shut down for many citizens.

 

 

https://www.oann.com/mexicos-lockdowns-fuel-rise-in-drug-trafficking-forced-prostitution/ 

 

 


 

 

 

 

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Sarkozy: Former French president sentenced to jail for corruption

 

French ex-President Nicolas Sarkozy has been sentenced to three years in jail, two of them suspended, for corruption.

The 66-year-old was found guilty of trying to bribe a magistrate by offering him a prestigious job in return for information about a separate criminal case against Sarkozy.

He is the first former French president to receive a custodial sentence and is expected to appeal.

The judge said Sarkozy could serve a year at home with an electronic tag.

The conservative politician "knew what [he] was doing was wrong", the judge said, adding that his actions and those of his lawyer had given the public "a very bad image of justice".

The crimes were specified as influence-peddling and violation of professional secrecy.

It is a legal landmark for post-war France. The only precedent was the trial of Sarkozy's predecessor Jacques Chirac, who got a two-year suspended sentence in 2011 for having arranged bogus jobs at Paris City Hall for allies when he was Paris mayor. Chirac died in 2019.

 

 

 

Who is Sarkozy?

Nicolas Sarkozy served one five-year term as president from 2007. His adopted tough anti-immigration policies and sought to reform France's economy during a presidency overshadowed by the global financial crisis.

Critics nicknamed him "bling-bling", seeing his leadership style as too brash, celebrity-driven and hyperactive for a role steeped in tradition and grandeur.

His celebrity image was reinforced by his marriage to supermodel and singer Carla Bruni in 2008. In 2012 he lost his re-election bid to Socialist François Hollande.

 

 

 

What is the corruption case about?

Mr Sarkozy was on trial with two co-defendants, his lawyer Thierry Herzog and senior magistrate Gilbert Azibert.

The case centred on phone conversations between Sarkozy and Herzog that were taped by police in 2014.

Investigators were looking into claims that Sarkozy had accepted illicit payments from the L'Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt for his 2007 presidential campaign.

 

 

 

The prosecution convinced the court that Sarkozy and Herzog had sought to bribe Azibert with a prestigious job in Monaco in return for information about that investigation.

French media reported that Mr Sarkozy was heard telling Mr Herzog: "I'll get him promoted, I'll help him."

The phone line police tapped was a secret number set up in a fictional name, Paul Bismuth, through which Sarkozy communicated with his lawyer.

On Monday Herzog and Azibert were also sentenced to three years in jail, two of them suspended.

What other accusations is Mr Sarkozy facing?

He is due to go on trial next month over the so-called Bygmalion affair, in which he is accused of having overspent in his unsuccessful 2012 presidential campaign.

Prosecutors are also investigating claims that Sarkozy received funding for his 2007 campaign from Libya's then-leader Muammar Gaddafi.

Sarkozy has already been cleared in connection with the Bettencourt case. He had said all investigations against him were politically motivated.

Despite his legal woes he has remained popular in right-wing circles, a year away from another presidential election.

 

 


 

 

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-56237818 

Reassessing Trump and Covid



REASSESSING TRUMP AND COVID: It's hard to exaggerate the anger, criticism, and vitriol directed toward then-President Trump last year for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic. If for some reason you need a reminder, just search for "Trump" and "blood on his hands."
 
But now something interesting is happening. In the last few days, among some commentators following the COVID crisis, we're seeing the beginning of a sense of perspective about the way the Trump administration battled the virus. The bottom line is: Of course the crisis was awful, but on balance, overall, the United States handled it as well or better than many of the world's most advanced countries.

"With some exceptions (Germany, though even they have a slow vaccine rollout), the EU's pandemic handling has been worse than the US's on balance," tweeted FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver on Saturday. One could quibble with Silver's wording -- it would be more accurate to call Germany's vaccine rollout a complete mess -- but the big point is true.

Indeed, Silver was responding to a tweet from writer Matthew Yglesias, who pointed out huge problems with the entire European Union vaccine effort. "What a disaster," Yglesias said. "European leaders mostly procured AstraZeneca shots, then excessively talked it down, and now European citizens are refusing to get them, waiting instead for unavailable mRNA vaccines while unused [AstraZeneca] doses pile up."

By contrast, in the United States, President Trump pushed and cajoled and threw money at vaccine makers in the form of Operation Warp Speed. Critics scoffed at Trump's vow to have a vaccine in record time, before the end of 2020. But he did just that. "It's just breathtaking that that got done in 11 months from when we first knew about this virus," National Institutes of Health director Francis Collins told Axios last week. "It is at least five years faster than it has ever been done before."

James Hamblin, a doctor who writes on the virus for The Atlantic, tweeted, "It is honestly beyond my wildest expectations that we'd have three extremely effective vaccines a year into the pandemic."

hamblin.york_twe
tracker.york

Biden recently held a strange event to celebrate the 50 millionth dose delivered since he was inaugurated. Why not celebrate all the doses delivered -- about 66.5 million on February 25, the day of Biden's event? The subtext of the Biden event was that the effort started when he arrived. It didn't.
 
Trump clearly deserves credit for leading the effort that resulted in the speedy development of a vaccine. But the vaccine arrived in November. What about the time before that?

There's no doubt the virus has taken a terrible toll in the United States -- roughly 525,000 deaths so far. That is 1,582 deaths per million population, according to the Worldometer website. (Of course, the U.S. is a huge country, and the toll has varied from state to state -- 2,459 deaths per million in New York and 2,618 in New Jersey, versus 327 deaths per million in Vermont and 523 in Maine.) In Europe, Germany did indeed do better than the U.S. -- 842 deaths per million. But in the United Kingdom, the toll was 1,803 deaths per million; in France, 1,323; in Italy, 1,617; in Spain 1,478.

When Silver wrote that Europe's handling of the pandemic has been "worse than the US's on balance," the leftist writer Josh Marshall responded, "That seems a bit overstated. Only Italy has a higher per capita death toll out of major EU states. US death toll is almost twice that of Germany."

But that's not the only way to compare performance, Silver responded. "The per-capita death toll so far is reasonably similar between the major non-Germany EU countries and the US, especially given ambiguities in how deaths are counted," he wrote. "And our vaccine rollout is hugely better than theirs."
 
When Joe Biden ran for president, his proposal to deal with the pandemic was that he would 1) implement a national plan for the problem, and 2) encourage, if not force, Americans to wear masks and practice social distancing. But Americans were already doing that. Last October, a Centers for Disease Control study found that the "vast majority of Americans of all ages have been wearing face coverings since April," in the words of a New York Times report. That finding was "roughly in line with other polls showing that most Americans report wearing masks," the Times added. The bottom line is that Biden did not have a lot new to add to the COVID fight. It would simply take time to make progress.

And then progress happened. Starting around the ninth of January, the rolling average of daily new COVID cases began a dramatic decline. It fell day after day, through Inauguration Day and continuing until nearly the end of February, when it began to flatten. On January 9, the seven-day average of new cases was 259,571 a day, according to a New York Times compilation. On Saturday, it was 62,694. Like much else in COVID news these days, it is a good development that started under Trump and has continued under Biden. All Americans hope that it gets better and better.

yorkgraph

The point is not that Donald Trump and the United States led the world in handling the pandemic crisis. The point is that, all things considered, the U.S. slogged through an extraordinarily difficult period in a way that was roughly similar to many other advanced nations. And realizing that, it's important to remember the frenzied, hysterical, and hostile media coverage of the Trump administration during the virus's worst days. It was just that -- frenzied and hysterical and hostile. It gave Americans an unbalanced picture of what was happening. Now, perhaps, with the perspective of some time and a new president, people will be able to see that.

"The fact that America and Europe were never so very far apart in their COVID response was discernable" during Trump's time in office, the New York Times columnist Ross Douthat wrote over the weekend. Indeed it was. Perhaps that is even clearer now.


Was COVID-19 Our Neutron Bomb?

If Biden and his team get what they wish—
a neo-socialist, big government transformation—
we will enter tough times. 
But not yet and perhaps not until after 2022.


In the 1970s and 1980s, furor arose over our possible use of the “neutron bomb” that macabrely would “kill people, but not destroy property.” The logic of the perverse weapon was that on allied and friendly European ground, outnumbered defensive NATO troops might radiate and destroy invading masses of Soviet armored troops by periodic detonations of low-yield thermonuclear shells, rockets, and bombs. 

The ensuing blasts of heat would sear flesh, but would lack commensurate repercussion power to destroy most structures and buildings, and leave far smaller toxic radiation trails. In eerie Strangelovian terms, once the enemy was finished off, returning friendly troops and populations could sort their way among the mass dead to find their infrastructure intact—without “collateral” damage or fear of serious radiation sickness. 

In some ways, COVID-19 was our neutron bomb. When we reach the now politically incorrect, taboo term “herd immunity” through vaccinations and antibodies, and when the virus ceases to be a pandemic, the lethal tally may have exceeded 600,000 Americans. 

If so, the nation will have lost more countrymen than were killed in World War I and World War II combined—with thousands more suffering disabilities, from “long haul Covid” to stress and psychological impairment from losing livelihoods and lockdown cabin fever. 

Americans have additionally suffered likely over $15 trillion or so in economic damage from the lockdowns, lost labor, soaring healthcare costs, and the silent killers of substance, familial, and spousal abuse, along with missed medical procedures and surgeries, aborted K-12 schooling, depression, and suicides. It will take years and millions of hours of scholarship to tally all the losses and damage. 

Normally, such a huge human toll would be accompanied by a devastated infrastructure analogous to war-torn Europe in 1945 that took years of investment and labor to reach prewar levels of output. But instead, the virus bomb wafted in, killed hundreds of thousands, destroyed the economy, and now may be waning. 

Human Rather Than Inanimate Destruction

Yet to the naked eye, other than the economic destruction of millions of small businesses, whole industries, and enormous psychological trauma that will last for decades, physical America at least looks roughly the same after as before the virus—again, as if neutron bombs were dropped in thousands of sites that killed tens of thousands of us while sparing homes and hospitals. 

The virus devastated the aged. About eight in 10 Americans who perished from COVID-19 were over 65. Many were retired. Most suffered from comorbidities. In that regard, it was unlike our two world wars that fell heavily upon 18-30 year olds in the prime of life, robbing the economy of millions of years of future robust productivity. 

In amoral considerations of depriving a nation of productive labor and fertility, COVID’s lethal rampage through our long-term healthcare facilities was not comparable to the Meuse-Argonne or the Battle of the Bulge or Okinawa. Yet in moral terms of the preciousness of life, the virus was as bad as war, given the way thousands of unique people simply perished, many in silence and alone, many perhaps unnecessarily, as they were trapped in rest homes that admitted actively infected transfer patients, and others suffocated by a virus that for months no one knew much about. And that tragedy, too, will one day be the source of historical inquiry, as Emmy Award-winning Governor Andrew Cuomo must now fear. 

The surreal economic ramifications of this viral radiation will likely have considerable but underappreciated consequences.  

The Way Forward?

Take the likely waning of the virus. Given known positive cases of infection, those modeled to have antibodies but who were never tested when infected, and those vaccinated with at least one shot, upwards of 250 million Americans may soon have immunity. And with vaccinations slated to increase to 2 million per day with the arrival of new brands, the nation could see even more radical drops in infectiousness by mid-April. 

Warmer spring and summer weather might slow down what’s left of the virus and fuel outdoor economic recovery. Amid all the professionals’ caveats, there remains good reason for hope. Such speculations, of course, are contingent on expectations that there will be no long-term serious side effects from these radically new types of vaccination, and more infectious and perhaps lethal COVID-19 mutants will be treatable with new drugs or preventable by adaptations in existing vaccinations.

We also hope that in the near future there will not be more groundhog day rumors, even if unsubstantiated, of a mysterious gain-of-function, Level-4 lab, neutron bomb viruses. We now fear all rumors of future plagues, in serial fashion devastating our most vulnerable, and yet declared by our experts to be an accidental freak of nature—supposedly birthed in a bat cave or a wet market in China, and thus the fault of no one at all other than our own bad luck. 

The strangest thing about the origins of the virus was its Wuhan birthplace—both next to an experimental viral laboratory engaged in dangerous research and a “wet” market that allegedly served as a petri dish for exotic new viruses. Or perhaps stranger was the second phase of the Chinese Communist Party’s exegeses of the pandemic: they transmogrified from momentary contrition to braggadocio about the superior reaction to the pandemic by totalitarians to a defiant “shut up—and what are you going to do about it anyway?”

At home, we find similar paradoxes. Joe Biden has only begun to interrupt the deregulation and tax policies that sparked the historic Trump economic boom of 2017-19 prompting unemployment to reach near-record peacetime lows. It will take time for new taxes, regulations, and elements of the New Green Deal to undermine the foundations of a robust economy.

In addition, the country is currently awash in trillions of dollars in stimulus “funny money,” both allocated and unspent. After nearly a year of a large population spent in confinement, the public’s pent-up demand will be unleashed. A record level of consumer spending will likely follow by the summer. Indeed, the birthing of a recovery boom was already in progress when Donald Trump left office.

Americans for months have put off big-ticket purchases, afraid to go out to car showrooms and appliance stores—much less to book cruises and vacations. They are eager to update, improve—and spend on—their new offices and businesses at home. When they emerge from their cocoons, they will find everything from amusement parks to vacation spots wide-open and eager for discounted business from eager consumers. 

Nearly all of our productive capacity—food, fuel, and manufacturing has survived the virus—if not improved, and become more efficient in extremis, as companies like Zoom and Amazon found new ways to increase productivity. 

Given its rapid vaccination rate, and large percentages of those with likely antibodies, the United States may be among the first of the larger industrial nations to return to full production and employment. In other words, despite the tragic mass deaths unleashed by the virus, the effort to regain pre-viral levels of economic growth and production will likely become rapid—in contrast for a while to the more stagnant European Union that will take months to catch up to U.S. vaccination rates.

Some economists have compared the likely trajectory of 2021 post-viral America to the second half of 1945 and 1946 when an intact America—in contrast to devastated Europe, the Soviet Union, and Japan—experienced an economic surge. Civilians and soldiers reemerged from wartime conditions in a country untouched by war, but awash in vast deficit spending, pent up demand, and news factories and services ready to be recalibrated to serve consumer demand and population growth. 

What are the political consequences of the likely slow waning of COVID-19 and a projected return to near normality?  

Known Unknowns

Shutting down the Keystone XL pipeline, opening up the border in a time of pandemic to illegal immigration, nominating a number of big-government zealots, and institutionalizing unproductive, commissar-like wokism do not promote economic growth.

Yet natural processes are underway that Joe Biden likely will be unable to thwart immediately by his redistributionist policies. So we should imagine that the now labeled “Trump virus” will at some point sooner than later grow dormant. The “Trump quarantine” will then lift, and with it the “Trump recession.” The “Biden vaccination” will help to end the pandemic, along with the number of those previously infected with “Trump antibodies,” as the “Biden recovery” will take off, at least for a few months. 

All sorts of known unknowns follow. When will Biden’s tax hikes, new regulations, subsidized green add-ons, gas and oil curtailment, and massive accumulating debt begin to slow things down? 

Will a near $30 trillion debt growing at $2 trillion a year, with a progressive laundry list of ever more “essential” entitlements, finally lead to inflation, or stagflation, or permanent zero interest rates—or an abrupt recession, or worse?

No one knows. 

But in the political sense, Republicans might wish to prepare for an artificially inflated but robust economy that could last until late in the midterm year 2022. It will do no good to argue that Operation Warp Speed, an end to the failed New York-California blue-state lockdown model, and the remnants of the Trump economic package mostly account for the upswing. The president in power when economies tank or roar gets commensurate blame or credit.  

All the talk of a dismal Trump response to the virus will soon and reluctantly wane, as our vaccination rate, our prior national leadership in creating vaccines, and our earlier end to the pandemic will be positively compared with other nations, especially those in Europe. As a result, Biden will transmogrify from a shrill critic of what he inherited to a plagiarist of that recovery. 

If Biden and his team get what they wish—a neo-socialist, big government transformation—we will enter tough times. But not yet and perhaps not until after 2022.


Devin Nunes Disusses Capitol Fences and Expectation ‘The Dirty Cops Will Be Held Accountable’


Devin Nunes appears with Maria Bartiromo to discuss current events.  Topics include the fencing and barbed wire around the Capitol, his CPAC speech, the Durham investigation and how Stefan Halper was used to frame Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn.

Nunes continues to hold out hope that John Durham will bring charges against those within the DOJ and FBI who targeted the Trump campaign and worked with the DNC.