Monday was a big day for our country. The second round of the small-business loan program began yesterday, and four states are starting to reopen their economies.

As this happens, some on the left and in the media are demanding that the country stay closed until it’s completely safe — that is, until the coronavirus is eradicated, and nobody is at risk of being infected or dying.

They’re also saying that President Trump and others who want to reopen the economy care more about the stock market than human life. It’s time for clear thinking to combat this demagoguery.

Maybe it’s time to remind ourselves that life is never safe. It is never “risk free.” It has always involved risk. Every decision in life involves risk, and responsible leaders must manage those risks to try to minimize their impact.

There is a risk, as we reopen the economy, that we will see an uptick in coronavirus cases. But there’s just as great a risk that if we stay closed many businesses, large and small, will be destroyed. That risk grows with every passing day, as does the very real possibility of social unrest.

When people start going back to work, there will be a risk that we’ll see a huge jump in traffic fatalities. And those wrestling with depression, anxiety, and loneliness are at grave risk by being forced to stay in their homes deprived of human contact.

Life wasn’t safe on September 10, 2001, the day before terrorists killed 3,000 Americans. Life is full of risk and uncertainty. But indefinitely shutting down the country is one risk we should not accept.

Gates Defends China

Microsoft founder and billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates went on CNN Sunday to defend China’s behavior in the COVID-19 pandemic. Consider this exchange with Fareed Zakaria:

ZAKARIA: “How would you respond to the charge that the Chinese covered this up, they essentially deceived the rest of the world, and as a result, they should be held in some way responsible for this?”

GATES: “Well, I don’t think that’s a timely thing because it doesn’t affect how we act today. China did a lot of things right at the beginning. Like any country where a virus first shows up, they can look back and see where they missed some things.”

This is the globalist mindset in all its glory. China did a lot of things right? Really? If you’re looking at the pandemic from the standpoint of being a dictatorship, I guess that’s what looks good to you. 

Let’s run through this again for Mr. Gates’s benefit.

• The virus didn’t just “show up” in China. There is growing concern about the safety of Chinese biological labs and mounting evidence that the coronavirus leaked from a Chinese lab.

• Chinese doctors who warned of the virus were arrested, silenced, and punished.

• Beijing censored social media, removing any references to Wuhan and viruses.

• Even when China realized how bad the outbreak was, it was slow to restrict travel and bitterly complained about travel bans other nations imposed on China.

• China lied to the World Health Organization.

• Beijing refused help from the United States.

• China hoarded medical supplies and threatened to cut us off from vital drugs.

• China continues to censor research on the virus.

• China is spreading disinformation about the virus on social media.

• Dr. Deborah Birx said that China’s lack of transparency hindered global efforts to respond to the pandemic.

What about any of this suggests China did things right?

As White House Trade Adviser Peter Navarro put it, “This is a war. It’s a war that China started by spawning the virus, by hiding the virus, by hoarding personal protective equipment during the time it hid the virus.”

As we go forward, being able to confront communist China and being able to prevail against communist China is going to be much more difficult than it was to prevail over the Soviet Union. 

Unlike the Soviet Union, there are powerful people, like Bill Gates, and powerful institutions, like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and many American universities, that feel an affinity for communist China and who will defend it. They need to be exposed and defeated.

Tehran’s Threat

Last week we told you about Iran’s launch of a military satellite. Here’s how Secretary of State Mike Pompeo explained this serious development:

This week’s launch of a military satellite by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, makes clear what we have said all along: Iran’s space program is neither peaceful nor entirely civilian…

This satellite launch vehicle and others launched before it incorporate technologies identical to, and interchangeable with, ballistic missiles, including longer-range systems such as intercontinental ballistic missiles ICBMs… All peace-loving nations must reject Iran’s development of ballistic-missile capable technologies, and join together to constrain Iran’s dangerous missile programs.

Air Force Gen. John Hyten added that Iran’s new missile “has the ability to threaten our neighbors and allies, and we want to make sure they can never threaten the United States." 

Some on the left have seemingly encouraged the tyrants of Tehran to just wait until Trump, Pence, and Pompeo are gone. Even as more evidence has emerged of Iran’s nuclear cheating, Joe Biden appears eager to appease the ayatollah’s radical regime. Just imagine that. 

The Media’s Liberal Bias

As I have often written, media bias is more than just how the left spins a story. It’s often what the left-wing media refuses to tell you. And the saga of Tara Reade is a perfect example of the media’s bias, something other women like Kathleen Willey and Juanita Broaddrick know all too well.

As you may know, Reade has accused Joe Biden of assaulting her during the early 1990s. She went public weeks ago, and since then Biden has been interviewed a dozen times. Yet no one has asked him about her accusations. It’s remarkable how the major networks simply won’t report the story. What happened to "believe all women”? 

Christine Blasey Ford almost destroyed a Supreme Court nominee. There was not a talking head in America who wasn’t uttering her name a dozen times a day during Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing. 

The pro-abortion feminist forces behind Ford were able to bring thousands of people to Washington, DC, holding a rolling riot based on her charges. Hundreds of people were arrested. Senators were physically harassed and worse.

No one, including Ford, could present any evidence that she ever met Brett Kavanaugh. No one came forward to support her claims. In fact, her best friend at the time seriously doubts her story. And the media amplified every charge against Kavanaugh, even the most absurd and outrageous.

Tara Reade worked in Biden’s office. For unexplained reasons, she was dismissed. Late last week, clips emerged of Reade’s mother calling into Larry King's CNN show in 1993, saying that her daughter lost her job working for a very prominent senator. 

The left-wing media establishment and its big-tech allies are not only refusing to cover the story, they are working to make it vanish. That clip has disappeared from Google Play, flushed down the proverbial “memory hole.”