Columnist.
How easy is it to help your community in the crisis? Just pop your trunk! North of Dallas in Coppell, Texas, Pastor Tim Holland and his wife, Abigail, were praying for ways to join the virus relief efforts without making anyone sick. Suddenly, the idea came to them. A drive-up, drive-out approach that's helping to put food on the table in dozens of homes across the area.
Staying home can be tough, but it's nothing like the nightmare our health care workers are experiencing. For thousands of brave men and women across country, their office is no longer a hospital or ER — it's a combat zone.
If Chinese officials weren't fans of the American media before, they are now. After weeks of taking all the heat for the coronavirus, the communist regime will be relieved to know that, according to the New York Times, they aren't to blame for this global pandemic. Evangelicals are.
It was almost dusk when they pulled into the hospital parking lot, flashers on. For Midland, it had been a sobering few days. Like other parts of Texas, the first wave of virus patients hit this week — leaving doctors and nurses alone to face the grim realities. Knowing their health care workers were probably exhausted and now isolated from their families, the tight-knit community had an idea: a car prayer chain, outside Midland Memorial Hospital.
Louisianans are a tough bunch. They've ridden out hurricanes, bailed out floods, and rebuilt every time. Now, they're facing a much harsher test: a disaster no one can predict. "It's like preparing for an invisible hurricane," one nurse said. "But we don't know when landfall will be." What they do know is that no matter how prepared they are, it's not enough. Not this time.
Some people won't know the name Li Wenliang. Nor will they have a chance to thank him. He died in China on February 7th of the plague he warned was coming. The Wuhan ophthalmologist was just 34 when his heart stopped, a husband and father — with another baby on the way. "He wasn't an idealistic whistleblower. He was not a dissident. He wasn't even political," one reporter mourned. "He was simply a doctor doing his job." And for that, China silenced him. Permanently.
If there's one thing the coronavirus has taught us, it's that people deal with a crisis like this in extremes. They either blow off the warnings and party on beaches or they operate in complete fear and paranoia — refusing to step out of their homes. Are we making too much of the threat — or is it real?
There's hardly a busier, more burdened man in America right now than President Trump. And yet on Friday, when he heard that Vice President Mike Pence was about to jump on an FRC conference call with 700 pastors, he asked if he could join. Hearing his voice was a surprise, even to me — but hearing his earnest desire to stand with the faith leaders of America in crisis certainly wasn't.
Because China kept the world in the dark about its outbreak, tens of thousands of people are dead.
If there were ever a time America should be grateful for its businessman-in-chief, it's now. The Left can say what it wants about Donald Trump, but the majority of people staring down this crisis have to take great comfort in the fact that the man at the helm was built to protect this economy. Even today, as the Senate dives into a third wave of relief, his expertise could very well make all the difference.
"We're going big." Those were the president's words heading into a Senate debate over the latest coronavirus response. In Congress, where the bills are changing faster than the infection map, the White House is racing to strike the right balance between protecting America's economy — and helping yours. Unfortunately, fiscal matters aren't the only concern as liberals echo what Rahm Emanuel, the former chief of staff for Barack Obama, said, "You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.
While lots of Americans are hunkered down at home, the U.S. Senate is holed up in its offices — waiting for a crack at the House's coronavirus bill. And while there's a lot of uncertainty about what's actually in the package, Republican leaders won't have to contend with at least one thing: abortion funding.
Congress's coronavirus bill was supposed to be about saving lives -- not taking them! But tell that to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who doesn't seem to mind exploiting a global tragedy to help out her pals at Planned Parenthood.
After three miscarriages, the news hit Kelly hard. She and her husband had tried for years to have a baby — so when her fourth pregnancy tested positive for Down syndrome, they were shattered. Since Kelly was adamant about having their son, she hoped the doctors would give them some helpful advice. Instead, she says, they horrified her with worst-case scenarios. It's almost "like you're given a death sentence." When they got home later that day, she cried for hours.
They were on their way to a wedding — her wedding. Chatting away in the car, surrounded by her two best friends, Martha's mind was probably on last-minute details, the ceremony, the excitement of seeing everyone again.
Ben Baker is used to getting pushback. A conservative in the Missouri statehouse, he's been on the wrong side of the fringe Left before. But nothing compares to this. The dad of four is getting death threats at his office, violent messages on his phone — all for trying to give parents a say on Drag Queen Story Hour.
Joshua Payne-Elliott had worked at Cathedral High for 13 years. He knew the rules. So when the social studies teacher married another man, he knew he was putting his Catholic employer in an impossible situation.
Are your shoes keeping thousands of China's Uyghurs locked away in factories, working like slaves? What about your cell phone or laptop? Based on the reports flying out of Xinjiang, a lot of Americans are walking around in high-tops stitched together by some of the most oppressed people on earth. And thanks to China's quiet partnership with Nike, Apple, Gap, Samsung, Sketchers, and others, nobody ever knew.
At the end of last year, the Senate passed a bill that suddenly feels very ironic: the Security for Supreme Court Justices Act. With the country so divided, both parties seemed concerned the justices didn't have enough protection. Four months later, who could have dreamed the people they needed protection from *were the Senate's own members*?
