April 1-4, 2020

Apr 01 01:10 Democrats ignore the Wuhan pandemic to pursue impeachment
Apr 01 15:04 A victory for optimism?

Apr 02 09:48 Ordinary death vs. extraordinary death
Apr 02 10:55 Susan Rice, communist apologist
Apr 02 16:14 Pelosi's 'bipartisan' Coronavirus Oversight Committee

Apr 03 09:00 Schumer vs. President Trump
Apr 03 14:32 Democrats flunk Federalism 101

Apr 04 11:26 Main Street Marshall Plan
Apr 04 23:23 Mark Warner's disgusting despotism

Prior Months: Jan Feb Mar

Prior Years: 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

Democrats ignore the Wuhan pandemic to pursue impeachment

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell took time in this article to compliment Sen. Tom Cotton, (R-AR), for spotting the first case of COVID-19. Later in the article, they highlight a tweet by John Ashbrook, who is described as a "former McConnell aide." Specifically, the article said "Former McConnell aide John Ashbrook also pointed this out Tuesday, stating that the pandemic is believed to have hit the United States the same day that House Democrats marched articles of impeachment to the Senate after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi held off on moving forward on impeachment for weeks."

Whether Democrats like it or not, the truth is that the Democrats' impeachment march happened on January 15,2020, the same date as the CDC's confirmation of the first case of COVID-19 in the US. The truth is that Democrats were focused on impeaching President Trump from the middle of November, 2019, through early February, 2020. That's harsh but that's reality.

That isn't the harshest news, though. I wrote in this post that the House Homeland Security Committee held 3 hearings on the COVID-19 virus. The first hearing was on March 4, 2020. The third hearing was held on March 11. That means the committee of jurisdiction waited almost 2 months to hold a hearing on a deadly virus. It isn't entirely the committee chairman's fault.

The House and Senate stop in their tracks while trying a president for impeachment. That means we can only blame Chairman Thompson for wasting the second month to hold a hearing. Imagine what could've happened if we had serious people running the House and Senate. First, we wouldn't have seen a tweet like this:


It's time to return serious people to chairing committees. We can't handle the partisan political hacks chairing House committees any longer. By comparison, Sen. Tom Cotton spoke out about the COVID-19 virus early:

On January 22, one day before the Chinese government began a quarantine of Wuhan to contain the spread of the virus, the Arkansas senator sent a letter to Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar encouraging the Trump administration to consider banning travel between China and the United States and warning that the Communist regime could be covering up how dangerous the disease really was. That same day, he amplified his warnings on Twitter and in an appearance on the radio program of Fox & Friends host Brian Kilmeade.

Not every politician was distracted. Sen. Cotton paid attention. Meanwhile, idiots like Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler battled to see who got more time in front of the camera.

It's time to run both of these idiots out of Congress. They're a total waste of time.

Posted Wednesday, April 1, 2020 1:10 AM

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A victory for optimism?

This NY Times article represents a definite victory for optimism in the fight against the Wuhan Virus. The article opens by saying "The malaria drug hydroxychloroquine helped to speed the recovery of a small number of patients who were mildly ill from the coronavirus, doctors in China reported this week. Cough, fever and pneumonia went away faster, and the disease seemed less likely to turn severe in people who received hydroxychloroquine than in a comparison group not given the drug."

A paragraph later in the article, it quoted "Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University", as saying "It's going to send a ripple of excitement out through the treating community." This isn't a silver bullet treatment that will cure badly ill patients. This isn't as important as prevention and mitigation strategies like social distancing and washing your hands.

What it represents is another bullet to use against this virus. That, in turn, represents another glimmer of optimism in this fight. We still need to fight this fight smart but optimism is important in keeping our spirits high during the fight.

On another front, it's important that the FDA is cutting through tons of red tape to speed products to market:
[Video no longer available]

Posted Wednesday, April 1, 2020 3:04 PM

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Ordinary death vs. extraordinary death

Ordinary Death vs. Extra Ordinary Death
A Minnesota Perspective on the Covid-19 Outbreak
By John W. Palmer, Ph.D.
Death and taxes are often mentioned as the only things certain in life. Another common statement is that no one ever gets out of this life alive. Death is something people do not usually dwell upon and those who frequently dwell upon death are often considered unbalanced. These past two months, our state and nation have obsessed on a virus associated with death. While that has been going on the ordinary death that surrounds us has continued to happen. I do not write this to minimize the threat to people's health that COVID-19 presents. I write this to put COVID-19 death into perspective with the leading cause of death that individually and in total kill many if not overwhelming people the covid-19.
In a typical year about 44,500 Minnesotans die. These deaths often can be prevented or delayed by engaging in specific behaviors. Unlike the current bug du jour, these ordinary causes of death do not receive much public attention and as a result they continue to cut lives short. One of the causes of death that does not get captured in our census of death is the role fear plays. Dr. Marc Siegel's book False Alarm: The Truth About The Epidemic of Fear provides insights into how fear leads to health problems and often is used to manipulate behavior. For a glimpse into this excellent book go to https://www.amazon.com/False-Alarm-Truth-about-Epidemic-ebook/dp/B00DNL355U/ ref=sr_1_3? crid=2SACHBGM8GKPW&dchild=1&keywords=false+alarm&qid=1585752693&s=books&spre? x=False%2Caps%2C177&sr=1-3 As I read the book during the last few days and experienced the COVID-19 phenomena, I couldn't help but wonder if this is just another bug du jour to be added to Siegel's narrative. Only time will tell the truths of the COVID-19 outbreak.
What will be true are the predictable side-effects of the stay-at-home and constant urging of social distancing and good personal hygiene since we know less travel will mean less vehicle crashes and less work-related injury. It is also known that increases in good personal hygiene will mean less spread of bacterial and viral infections. It is possible that more lives will be saved by the side effects of the COVID-19 public health efforts than the principal target of COVID -19 related death.
The following Death by Leading Causes table which follows summarizes death in Minnesota and the leading causes of death in Minnesota. The total Minnesota Coved-19 deaths will not be known until year end but based on the mid-point of the range of COVID -19 deaths in the USA currently projected (120,000), it is hard to believe Minnesota's (1.7% of US population) share of these project deaths (2039) would place COVID -19 in the top five leading cause of death in Minnesota.
Another way to look at the relationship between covid-19 and leading causes of death is to examine covid-19 deaths occurring during the last two months (see table titled February and March) with the typical deaths in a 2-month time period. The typical deaths over a two-month time period exceed the COVID-19 deaths in the last two months by a factor of over 600. Each of the top four leading causes of death also exceed COVID-19 deaths. Cancer deaths exceed COVID-19 deaths by a factor over 130 with Heart Disease deaths exceeding COVID-19 by a factor of 115 and Alzheimer and unintentional injury death both exceed COVID-19 death by over 35.


Two final comparisons of COVID-19 deaths which are interesting are the comparison of February 2020 motor vehicles deaths and Influenza deaths. All three of these censuses of cause of death occurred over a period of one month so these comparisons are over a similar time frame and does not use an estimate of monthly death. A total of 56 Influenza deaths happened in March of 2020 and 21 motor vehicle fatalities happen in February of this year. Influenza deaths exceed COVID-19 deaths by a factor of 4 and motor vehicle deaths by a factor of 1.75 (see the next two tables). Since the mitigation strategies for COVID-19 also will impact on influenza (virus spread in the same way) and motor vehicle fatalities (less driving will lead to less fatalities) it will be interesting to see what happens to motor vehicle and influenza related death.


I set out to put COVID-19 death into perspective with the leading cause of death that individually and in total kill many if not overwhelming numbers of people than COVID-19.

My hope is that as we face the impact of COVID-19 we do not lose site of the need to address the leading causes of death. With rare exception these cause of death all have potential of significant reductions in the number of deaths each year. Just as COVID-19 can be mitigated by shifting human behavior, each of the leading causes of death can also be mitigated by changing human behavior. Things like wearing protective equipment, washing hands and doing sensible things like staying home when you are sick all can reduce the chance of bad things happening and enhance the quality of life if people learn the importance of primary prevention. Unfortunately, our society has ignored, to a great extent, things which cause ordinary death. Hopefully, a positive side effect of COVID-19 can be renewed interest in primary prevention of the leading causes of death. We can't eliminate death but we can take actions to delay its appearance. Perhaps, if in addition to the daily posting of COVID-19 cases and death, everyone will start to post the ongoing count for the ordinary deaths.

Posted Thursday, April 2, 2020 9:48 AM

Comment 1 by Patrick at 03-Apr-20 07:01 AM
well written John. Thanks for the tip on Dr. Siegel's book "False Alarm: The Truth about the Epidemic of Fear". I hope he comes out with a 2020 or 2021 edition with a chapter(s) on the Covid-19 situation.

Susan Rice, communist apologist

Susan Rice apparently sees her post-Obama administration role as being an apologist for the Communist Chinese Party , aka the CCP. It should frighten Americans that she was President Obama's National Security Adviser during his entire second term.

Appearing on Andrea Mitchell's show on MSDNC yesterday, Rice said "the Trump administration's description of the coronavirus as the 'Wuhan virus' is unacceptable and undermines global cooperation." That's interesting since China hasn't exactly cooperated with the Western Hemisphere, especially in terms of telling us that a lethal virus had started in Wuhan.

The truth is that the Chinese still aren't helping in terms of information. They insist that things are fine but they've just cancelled their professional basketball season. Is that proof that things are just fine? I don't think so.

Rice added "It doesn't serve us well, it doesn't serve the objective of squelching the virus globally, to brand in nationalistic, or xenophobic, or racist terms. We all have to work together..."

Tell that to the CCP. They're the ones cooking the books. They're the ones that just re-opened the wet markets where this plague started. Check out how Rice defends the CCP and criticizes Secretary of State Pompeo in this interview:
[Video no longer available]

Rice's first implication here is that the need for cooperation means it is wrong to criticize China in any regard over the virus, even though the Chinese Communist Party's deception led to its catastrophic mishandling of the virus in the outbreak's earliest stages. You know, when the virus might just have been stopped from becoming a global pandemic.

This is the Obama administration's appeasement strategy in action. China shouldn't be criticized for igniting this pandemic. To say that is racist. This is the Democrats' typical play. When backed into a corner, which Democrats frequently are, they start shouting 'Racist' at the top of their voices. It's gotten to the point where people simply ignore them.


Posted Thursday, April 2, 2020 10:55 AM

Comment 1 by Chad Q at 03-Apr-20 07:59 PM
So are they going to stop referring to the Spanish flu as the Spanish flu? German measles? ect.? These jackwagons aren't serious about anything and are more afraid of hurting someone's feeling than finding a cure. Is it any wonder why the US floundered under Obama?

Pelosi's 'bipartisan' Coronavirus Oversight Committee

This morning, Nancy Pelosi announced the creation of "the House Select Committee on the Coronavirus Crisis. This committee will be chaired by Majority Whip Jim Clyburn. In her statement, Pelosi said "That is why I am announcing the formation of a special bipartisan oversight panel." That's news to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. That isn't the only thing that's suspicious about this committee.

A huge amount of activity will theoretically happen in the next 2 weeks. According to Ed Morrissey's post, "Pelosi won't have the House return until April 20, almost three weeks from now." In her statement, Pelosi quoted President Truman as saying "I knew that after the First World War there'd been a hundred and sixteen investigating committees after the fact, and I felt that one committee before the fact would prevent a lot of waste and maybe even save some lives , and that's the way it worked out."

If the House isn't in session until after a huge portion of the funds have been disbursed, why is Pelosi talking about "one committee before the fact" preventing lots of waste? That's like putting the fire department on furlough while they're trying to prevent arsonists' attacks. Apparently, there's a different motive:



Pelosi has a daily briefing already, but this would certainly afford an opportunity for the House to counter-program against Trump. They'd have to stay in town to do it, though.

Posted Thursday, April 2, 2020 4:14 PM

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Schumer vs. President Trump

It's clear that Sen. Schumer's finest-honed talent is pulling terrible PR stunts. That 'talent' was on full display Thursday when Sen. Schumer sent this letter to President Trump. In the letter, Sen. Schumer said "As the coronavirus spreads rapidly into every corner of our nation and its grim toll grows more severe with each passing day, the tardiness and inadequacy of this Administration's response to this crisis grows more painfully evident. Well-documented shortages of protective equipment, tests and medical supplies are now beyond acute in my home state of New York and other hard-hit areas, and similar shortages are expected soon in other parts of the country."

Later in the letter, Sen. Schumer wrote "It is long past time for your administration to designate a senior military officer to fix this urgent problem. This officer should be given full authority under the Defense Production Act (DPA) to complete and rapidly implement a plan for the increased production, procurement and distribution of critically-needed medical devices and equipment." It didn't take long for President Trump to respond in typical fashion:


Here's President Trump's letter response to Sen. Schumer:


Schumer is an idiot for getting into a fight with a world-class counter-puncher.

Posted Friday, April 3, 2020 9:00 AM

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Democrats flunk Federalism 101

Apparently, Democrats think that the federal government is responsible for everything. That's what you'd think if you just listened to Rep. Katharine Clark , a Democrat from Massachusetts. According to the article, Rep. Clark is quoted as saying "This is not how it is supposed to work. What we need is a coordinated federal system."

The text of the Tenth Amendment states "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." Nowhere in the US Constitution does it talk about the executive branch to do the governors' job. Each governor is expected to prepare for health crises. That includes stockpiling medical supplies like personal protection equipment, aka PPEs, ventilators, N95 masks, etc.

That also requires them to put in place plans on who does what when a crisis overwhelms the system. This is done in conjunction with the legislature so the best ideas become the official plan. After a crisis overwhelms a state, having a plan intact eliminates the confusion and speeds up the response because everything is laid out on an organizational chart.

Part of Sen. Schumer's criticism of President Trump should actually be directed at Gov. Cuomo. Gov. Cuomo should've stockpiled ventilators after the H1N1 crisis. A wise administrator would've gotten out ahead of the situation. Nowhere in this article does Sen. Schumer talk about what Gov. Cuomo should do, though he spent plenty of time talking about what the federal government should be doing.

Sen. Schumer sent a letter to President Trump telling President Trump to put a senior military person in charge of supply chains. Here's how President Trump responded to Sen. Schumer's cheap shot:
[Video no longer available]
Rear Admiral John Polowczyk is a professional by anyone's estimation. Here's just a smattering of information from his website:

Rear Adm. John Polowczyk is a native of Manhasset, Long Island, New York. He graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1987 with a Bachelor of Science in engineering. He holds a Master of Science in Contract and Acquisition Management from the Naval Postgraduate School and a Master of Science in National Resource Strategy from the National Defense University Industrial College of the Armed Forces. He also completed an executive education program at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth.

I mean, he just has an advanced degree from an Ivy League school. He doesn't sound qualified to me. (I'm just kidding.)

It's best to think of this as asking which level of government handles which part of the crisis best. Once that's figured out, federalism becomes simple.

Posted Friday, April 3, 2020 2:32 PM

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Main Street Marshall Plan

After reading this article , it's safe to say that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is fired up about what he calls an "all-American Marshall Plan for Main Street", aka the "Paycheck Protection Program." Before getting into the program, Leader McCarthy talked about his background:

Before entering politics, I opened a small deli in my hometown of Bakersfield, California. Two lessons always stuck with me: 1) You're the first to work, last to leave, and last to get paid, and 2) your employees are your greatest resource. I know from personal experience that small businesses create meaningful opportunities for entrepreneurs, satisfying work for employees, and personalized service for local communities. But I also know how difficult it is to run a small business, even in the best of times.

Leader McCarthy wasn't a high-powered small businessman but he walked tons of miles in a small businessman's shoes so he knows what it's like.

Republican leaders worked with a handful of good-faith Senate Democrats (remember that House Democrats were on vacation that week) to put this package together. When Pelosi returned from vacation, she tried pushing her ideological wish list into the Paycheck Protection Program. Apparently, her highest priority wasn't getting small businesses health. It was in lighting up a legislative Christmas tree with things like the Green New Deal, taking the voting system away from states and telling corporations who could be on their boards. That's just a handful of Pelosi's wish list.

With this program, businesses with fewer than 500 employees (including startups, sole proprietors, and the self-employed) will receive 100% federally guaranteed loans for eight weeks. If the loan is used to pay employees, rent, or utilities, or rehire employees who were laid off due to the virus, it is forgiven.

Loans will be available as early as Friday, thanks to the Trump administration's quick actions. They will run from February 15 to June 30. Small businesses won't need to navigate government bureaucracy to access these historic loans. Instead, they can work with any lender backed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Similarly, farmers can work with their trusted farm credit institutions to secure loans.

This is what a man who is committed to America looks like:
[Video no longer available]
This is what a career politician looks like:


The man fighting for Main Street wants the U.S. to succeed. The career politician simply wants more political power. That's the choice this November: Main Street winning vs. the Swamp winning. That isn't a difficult decision for thoughtful Americans.

Posted Saturday, April 4, 2020 11:26 AM

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Mark Warner's disgusting despotism

Friday night, President Trump fired Michael Atkinson, the man who talked with the faux whistleblower who lied about President Trump's call with Ukraine's President, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the Intelligence Committee's vice chairman' said "In the midst of a national emergency, it is unconscionable that the president is once again attempting to undermine the integrity of the intelligence community by firing yet another : intelligence official simply for doing his job. The work of the intelligence community has never been about loyalty to a single individual; it's about keeping us all safe from those who wish to do our country harm. We should all be deeply disturbed by ongoing attempts to politicize the nation's intelligence agencies."

Shame on Sen. Warner for saying that Atkinson did his job. He didn't do anything of the sort. I wrote here about the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act, aka the ICWPA. Specifically, I quoted the things required to submit a complaint:

In order to submit an ICWPA complaint the following elements must be met:

Eligible Originator: Only applies to employees (civilian, military or contractor) assigned to the four DoD intelligence agencies (DIA, NSA, NRO, and NGA). Does not apply to activities of the military services, combatant commands, or Office of Secretary of Defense.


Notice that the President isn't covered by the ICWPA. The military, with the exception of the DIA, isn't covered by the ICWPA, either. It only "applies to employees (civilian, military or contractor) assigned to the four DoD intelligence agencies (DIA, NSA, NRO, and NGA)."

Based on the written law, it's fair to say that Mr. Atkinson stepped far outside the boundaries of the ICWPA. Apparently, Mr. Atkinson helped a snitch get the president impeached based on hearsay testimony or less. I'd love hearing Sen. Warner explain how he thinks that's an example of Atkinson "doing his job." That'll require some linguistic gymnastics.

Naturally, Chairman Adam Schiff immediately responded to the news:


As I highlighted earlier in this post, the alleged snitch didn't "expose presidential wrongdoing." The transcript proves that the allegations against President Trump were BS. When an IG betrays the trust of our Commander-in-Chief while the C-in-C is acting within his authority, that IG should get terminated immediately. This is the entire transcript . I triple-dog dare Sen. Warner or Chairman Schiff to show me anything in that transcript violates the law. I'd bet the proverbial ranch that neither of these gentlemen could highlight a law that was broken.

I don't doubt that these men think that what President Trump did was wrong. That's irrelevant, though, because impeachment is reserved for "Treason, Briber or other high crimes and misdemeanors." The president can only be removed from office if 67 senators vote to convict him. Madison, Hamilton and Jefferson established a high bar to assure that a handful of partisans wouldn't attempt to railroad an unpopular president from office. That's what this snitch, Chairman Schiff and Sen. Warner tried doing, though. That's the definition of disgusting.

Posted Saturday, April 4, 2020 11:23 PM

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