Dems Borrow Trouble With Loan Stunt
Forget the economy. Democrats want to make political hay. Despite Twitter feeds full of concern for the American worker, liberal leaders are making it quite clear that it is not the American worker or family they want to help its their political cronies.
Forget the economy. Democrats want to make political hay. Despite Twitter feeds full of concern for the American worker, liberal leaders are making it quite clear that it is not the American worker or family they want to help its their political cronies. Two weeks after working with Republicans to push out small business relief, the Paycheck Protection Program has run dry. Unfortunately, so has the Democrats’ compassion. And there’s no telling when — or if — it’ll return.
He said “please” twice. “To my Democratic colleagues,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) implored, “please, please do not block emergency aid you don’t even oppose, just because you want something more.” But his appeal fell on deaf ears. Without Senator Chuck Schumer’s (D-N.Y.) cooperation, there was nothing the chamber could do but go home — leaving small businesses, which employs about 47 percent of the workforce, and their employees in a real lurch.
By Thursday of this week, the popular loan forgiveness program that Congress kicked off last week was already out of cash. Both sides knew this would happen, considering how strapped small businesses are during the virus. What they didn’t know was what a stink Democrats would raise about reauthorizing it. “Here we have a successful program that’s already got bipartisan support — negotiated by good members from both sides of the political aisle,” Senator Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) explained, “and all we’re doing is [trying to] keep that momentum going…” Instead, he shook his head, Democrats “just seem to want to use every moment to add [to their] politically extreme ideas.”
Even the media was aghast at the Democrats’ new demands, as editorial pages across the country blasted liberals for holding the funding hostage. “The tragedy," the New York Post pointed out, "is both sides agree on the need for the $250 billion, and Republicans are even open to the Dems’ other asks but want to wait to better assess the need…” Surely, the paper insisted, “partisanship… should take a back seat during this kind of crisis.” Especially since, as the Wall Street Journal argued, “Every minute that passes, another small business may go bust or lay off staff.”
This is a bill, by the way, that’s two pages long. It’s a clean, straightforward proposal to add more aid. “We’re not talking about making any policy changes,” McConnell said on the Senate floor. “I’m literally talking about deleting the number ‘350’[billion] and writing ‘650’ [billion] in its place.” Seventeen million Americans lost their jobs last week, Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.) fumed, and this is how Democrats respond?
Meanwhile, President Trump’s team is trying to roll out a plan to reopen the economy — acutely aware that liberals are trying to sabotage whatever economy is left. “We don’t have time for the partisan games,” he said before laying out a series of guidelines for “starting our life again.” Making it clear that this would be a staggered approach, the president told Americans that the administration would be taking it “one careful step at a time.” If the states can meet certain benchmarks — like a consistent decline in cases and hospital availability — then it will be up to them when to initiate the first wave of controlled gatherings at restaurants, theaters, sporting venue, and gyms with “strict physical distancing protocols.”
For the hardest-hit states, the return to normalcy will take a little longer. In Delaware, the Democratic governor said that they could be “weeks away from the starting line, and then you have to have 14 days of declining cases, of declining symptoms, and hospital capacity.” The worst thing anyone could do, West Virginia Governor Jim Justice agreed, is move too quickly “and then we get into a situation of people dying like flies.”
Americans share his concern. Two in three worry that the restrictions will be eased too quickly, leading to a second, more deadly outbreak. But, as Senator Cramer reassured everyone on “Washington Watch,” the president is doing the best he can to make informed decisions. “To his credit, he listens to everybody — not just [certain ones] — but to everybody… And reopening the economy in the same manner makes sense.”
“[President Trump] will always be judged by the mainstream media and people on the Left in the context of what perfection should have been — and 20/20 [hindsight]. But when you think of what’s happened day after day after day, could you look back and say, this could’ve been done better, that could’ve been done better? Yes. But I don’t know how you could have asked for more from him and from his administration than he’s provided in terms of this pandemic and getting us through it. And we’re not through it clearly, but at least I think we can see the other side.”
Originally published here.
In Wuhan, the Science Is Deafening
It was built to withstand a magnitude-7 earthquake. But can the Wuhan lab at the center of the world’s deadliest outbreak survive the storm of scrutiny? Experts aren’t so sure.
It was China’s “pride and joy.” The 2015 compound was supposed to show everyone that the communist regime could compete with the world’s scientific superpowers. Now, five years later, billions of people who had never heard of Wuhan are zeroing in on the facility that may turn out to be Ground Zero of the worst global catastrophe in a century. For months, U.S. officials had warned about the lab’s weaknesses — and, according to Fox News, raised alarms about “a serious shortage of appropriately trained technicians and investigators needed to safely operate this high-containment laboratory.” From a public health perspective, the U.S. embassy cautioned, the lab could be dangerous.
They were right. By December, China’s own scientists were dying. And when the virus finally landed on American soil, Asian expert Gordon Chang was convinced the outbreak pointed — not to a wet market — but to the lab itself. Two months later, the evidence seems to agree. “Since [February],” he told me on “Washington Watch,” “we’ve learned a lot more.” The most important thing is the research from a British medical journal that found no connections between COVID-19 and the wet market. Then, Gordon pointed out, about two weeks ago, “China started opening up its wet markets across the country… Why would they open them up if they thought there was going to be another epidemic? I think that right now we can say that the lab in Wuhan is the source of the epidemic. Beijing knows. And Beijing should tell us.”
The problem is, Gordon explained, China is worried about its reputation — which, thanks to the release of the coronavirus — is in complete tatters. “Remember, this is a P4 lab. This is the highest level of security for a biological lab. And that indicates that China has been basically incompetent in protecting [its] contents.” At one point, the lab bragged on its website about housing more than 1,500 strains of coronavirus inside. “And right now, we have seen that their protocols are terribly insufficient.”
Of course, countries like America would have more conclusive evidence if China allowed our scientists to go to Wuhan and study the virus. But Beijing refuses to let the international community in to see the lab for itself. “So we don’t have epidemiologists on site in Wuhan working with their Chinese counterparts.” If anything, Gordon shakes his head, the communist party has clamped down even further. Starting last week, Beijing demanded to see any scientific paper on the coronavirus before it can be published — which is, no doubt, another attempt to censor whatever findings point back to Chinese negligence.
And unfortunately, the World Health Organization (WHO) has been too busy carrying China’s water to demand answers. Their cooperation in this cover-up has given countries like America no reason to believe that they’ll be the watchdogs countries are paying them to be moving forward. So how do we ensure this doesn’t happen again? The answer, Gordon says, is to start isolating ourselves — no matter how difficult or controversial that might be.
“The United States, for all its power, does not have the ability to make sure that that Wuhan lab adheres to the proper protocols, which means that we really have to reduce our contacts with China to protect ourselves in the future. If you can’t reform the system, you’ve got to cut it off. And although that’s unfortunate and a lot of people don’t want to do that… we can’t afford to go through another pandemic.”
Originally published here.
Tech No: Platforms Use Virus to Shut Down Debate
Sometimes a crisis brings out the best in people — and sometimes, it only makes other problems worse. In the world of Big Tech censorship, this pandemic is turning into just another excuse for social media magnates to shut down debate. But if that doesn’t stop — and soon — they’re going to find themselves on the wrong side of increased regulations.
We just want to “stop the misinformation," Facebook claims in a new announcement about tighter scrutiny. With the help of more than "60 fact-checking organizations,” Mark Zuckerberg’s company is warning users that it will block posts that smack of conspiracy theories or unproven claims about COVID-19. Anyone who likes or engages with content that Facebook labels “harmful” will be redirected — get this — to resources from the World Health Organization, the same organization implicated in China’s coronavirus cover-up! If it’s inaccuracies they’re worried about, surely there’s a better option than an organization whose lies about the outbreak cost thousands of people their lives!
Congressman Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), who’s tried to expose Big Tech censorship on the Hill, couldn’t believe Facebook’s policy. “They’re using the World Health Organization, which is nothing but a propagandist machine for China itself. As others have said, they’ve got blood on their hands. They covered up the problem where it came from. They encouraged the travel of people from places where and to places where they created this pandemic.”
Of course, as he said, the real problem is that they’re censoring users at all. “We have to maintain a free state, free market system.” If this is supposed to be an online townhall, a marketplace of ideas, then it has to be open to everyone. Especially now, as the media is so biased against conservatives, the internet has become the place for Americans to counterbalance that.
Obviously, Facebook, Google, Twitter, and others — they’re all private companies, but they hold themselves out to be a virtual public square. You can’t lump honest people in with scammers or other hucksters. Just because their opinions are unpopular doesn’t mean they aren’t entitled to them. Take Gordon Chang, for example. On February 10, he was on “Washington Watch” making the case that the coronavirus originated in the Wuhan lab. That probably would’ve fallen under Facebook’s taboo topics. Now, two months later, the evidence suggests that it’s true.
And it’s not just coronavirus theorists they’re targeting. In Idaho, Google shut down a church video for even mentioning COVID-19, saying it violated the platform’s “Sensitive Events policy.” Christ Church appealed the decision, arguing that there was nothing controversial about “short lessons on responding faithfully” during the virus. “We are not purporting to present any medical advice or information on the virus,” one minister said. “We are simply presenting what we believe Scripture teaches in regard to how to face such crises in faith and love to our neighbor.”
Most conservatives, Louie said, don’t want more regulation. But they’re not going to stand by and watch these multi-billion-dollar companies marginalize people to further an agenda. “The best answer,” he insisted, may be “to just make them liable for censorship.” Right now, they’re immune from that liability. But if “they start having to answer some class action lawsuits on people that have been hurt by their fraud or by their lies or by their censorship. Then you’ll see more sensitivity among these Left-wing groups.”
Originally published here.
NYC Dems: ‘If You’re Christians, We Don’t Want Your Help’
Samaritan’s Purse doesn’t discriminate against any of its patients, so why are liberals discriminating against them? Hear Franklin Graham’s side of the story after New York Democrats said he wasn’t “tolerant” enough to help virus patients in his Central Park field hospital. For the exclusive interview, check out this week’s “Washington Watch.”
Originally published here.
This is a publication of the Family Research Council. Mr. Perkins is president of FRC.
