There are many fine people at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). But the agency’s record during the coronavirus ordeal raises serious questions about how much it is being driven by incompetence and ideology.

One of the reasons we were so horribly behind the curve on testing was because CDC bureaucrats insisted that we only use the test they were developing. But it turned out that the initial tests were worthless because they were contaminated. We lost valuable time because the CDC bureaucracy couldn’t do its job.

Then the CDC told us that face masks were unnecessary. But just last month, Dr. Fauci said he lied because they were trying to prevent a shortage of masks for medical professionals. That’s not the way to build trust with the public.

But what happened next is even worse. This week, the CDC announced that the mortality rate of Covid-19 is 4%. If that were true, then the entire world is the middle of an unprecedented disaster. But it is not true.

According to the latest figures, there are 3.5 million cases of Covid-19 and 137,000 deaths. That would give you a death rate of 4%, except the assumptions are wrong.

The CDC estimated three weeks ago that for every confirmed case of the coronavirus there are at least ten other people who have or have had the virus and were never identified because they were never sick enough to go to a doctor, let alone a hospital.

If we have identified 3.5 million people who have or have had the virus, based on the CDC’s own estimate three weeks ago that means 35 million Americans have or have had the virus. That means 137,000 deaths is not a 4% mortality rate but a 0.40% mortality rate. That’s about the same number as a bad flu season.

You’re left with only two possible explanations both of which are very troubling. Either CDC officials don’t talk to each other or they just decided to announce the 4% figure to scare us in order to justify more shutdowns.

Media Malpractice

We got another example Thursday of how the media are doing their best to not only stoke fear but also to distort the Trump Administration’s efforts to combat the virus.

At Thursday’s White House briefing, Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany was discussing plans for reopening schools. CNN’s Jim Acosta tweeted this summary of McEnany’s remarks:

“The White House Press Secretary on Trump’s push to reopen schools: ‘The science should not stand in the way of this.’”

That’s not at all what McEnany said. Here’s her full quote in context:

“The science should not stand in the way of this. And as Dr. Scott Atlas said — I thought this was a good quote — ‘Of course, we can [do it]. Everyone else in the … Western world, our peer nations are doing it. We are the outlier here.’

"The science is very clear on this. For instance, you look at the JAMA Pediatrics study of 46 pediatric hospitals in North America that said the risk of critical illness from COVID is far less for children than that of seasonal flu. The science is on our side here, and we encourage localities and states to just simply follow the science, open our schools.”

This is why President Trump has labeled the media “the enemy of the people.”

Jim Acosta and most of his left-wing Big Media colleagues are not trying to inform the American people. They are deliberately misinforming them, spreading progressive propaganda and disinformation.

Abusing Jefferson

In 2007, then-Congressman Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, was sworn in on Thomas Jefferson’s Koran. He said then:

“It demonstrates that from the very beginning of our country, we had people who were visionary, who were religiously tolerant, who believed that knowledge and wisdom could be gleaned from any number of sources, including the Quran.”

Former President Barack Obama has said on numerous occasions that “Islam has been woven into the fabric of our country since its founding,” and he also pointed to Jefferson’s Koran.

Sorry, Barack, but the founding fathers didn’t have Allah in mind when they drafted the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. They were inspired by the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Jesus.

The left and its radical Islamist allies have regularly used Jefferson as a club against those of us raising questions about militant Islam. We are bigots compared to that wonderfully open-minded progressive, Thomas Jefferson. Being a scholar, he wanted to study the Koran to learn what “wisdom could be gleaned” from it.

That was a lie too. Jefferson was fighting the Barbary Pirates and wanted to understand these people who were obsessed with killing everyone who wasn’t a Muslim.

The left has also claimed that Jefferson wanted a “wall of separation between church and state” because he wasn’t religious at all and didn’t want faith involved in government.

Wrong again. Jefferson didn’t want government meddling in the church. In fact, Jefferson wrote Virginia’s Statue of Religious Freedom, which served as the foundation for the First Amendment.

Not that long ago, progressives eagerly claimed Jefferson as one of their own. They were the heirs to the spirit of Thomas Jefferson. That was then.

Now Jefferson/Jackson Day dinners, once essential events of every campaign season, are being canceled. And left-wing mobs are tearing down memorials to Jefferson because he was an evil “slaver.”

Well, while we’re at it, perhaps it’s time to “cancel” the Democrat Party given its own history of racism, segregation and Jim Crow. Let’s rename the Russell Senate Office Building (which was named after a Richard Russell, a segregationist Democrat) after Hiram Revels, the first black senator, who was a Republican!

Open Sedition

Portland, Oregon, has experienced nightly rioting for six weeks now. A federal court house has been repeatedly attacked. So, the Department of Homeland Security deployed additional federal law enforcement officers to protect the building.

Now Mayor Ted Wheeler is demanding that these federal officers leave the city. But Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf isn’t backing down, saying, “That’s just not going to happen on my watch.”

Two years ago, Wheeler refused to deploy Portland police officers when a radical mob surrounded the ICE headquarters. He held a press conference instead, saying, “To all demonstrators: I urge you to keep up this effort.”

Mayor Wheeler took an oath to uphold Constitution and he’s in open rebellion against it, unwilling to protect federal officers doing their job. He should be arrested for sedition.

I don’t throw around phrases like “treason” and “sedition” lightly. But Wheeler is failing to preserve public safety and he is putting lives at risk. His actions are reminiscent of what happened in the 1850s when we were headed toward a civil war. And his actions are just as outrageous and dangerous as a governor standing in the doorway blocking a child from attending school.