Obama Administration

After the Swedish government chose not to shut down the country in response to the Wuhan virus empidemic our friend David Franke took a deep dive into the mortality statistics for Sweden and other European countries and made a shocking discovery: mortality per million during this epidemic may be driven more by cultural differences attributable to mass immigration from the Middle East and Africa than it is by government lockdown policies.

As an explanation of how the Chinese Communists understand warfare “Made in China” stands on its own as an excellent primer on the subject, but our interest is in Clare Lopez’s report as the best short explanation available of how the 2019-nCoV came into existence and how the Communist Chinese weaponized the pandemic against the West.

The conservative leaders of the Conservative Action Project, led by President Reagan’s Attorney General Edwin Meese III and CAP Chairman Alfred S. Regnery, have released an open letter to President Trump urging him to adjourn Congress and use his recess appointment power fill key positions that have been left vacant in his administration through congressional inaction and obstruction.

Clearly, the imposition of tyrannical collective rules are only acceptable to those with high levels of fear; prohibiting skateboarding, forbidding solo motorboating and “non-essential” advertising are rightly losing the support of millions of Americans who are already ignoring them as unscientific, irrational and in many cases unconstitutional. What is needed to get us back to "normal" is for each of us to take responsibility for our own safety and manage our fears accordingly.

Many would be gun buyers have found popular guns, such as the AR-15, to be as scarce as toilet paper. This temporary demand-based shortage of AR-15s has prompted many Americans to take the practical and perfectly legal (in most jurisdictions) alternative of building their own AR-platform rifle. Follow us in Part 2, Step 3 of our project as we complete our lower receiver to exercise our Second Amendment rights and ward off cabin fever by building an AR-15.

Today there is widespread skepticism about the statistical projections of the coronavirus epidemiological models, even when we confine ourselves to the statistics about deaths, which are the most verifiable.  Maybe not on MSNBC and most of CNN, but then they live in their own universe.  There is evidence, however, that our political and financial establishments are becoming alarmed that we have crippled the economy on the basis of nonsense.

Democrats have (as usual) quickly identified the messages necessary to extract the maximum political utility out of the COVID-19 epidemic and the associated panic. If conservatives want to avoid having this panic turn into an opportunity for Progressives to move our politics and culture further to the Left, then we must take seriously the lessons of the Frontier Center’s "Progressive Patriotism" study.

Conservative patience with the extra-constitutional Wuhan virus lockdowns finally reached the breaking point on Easter, when elected officials across the country chose to use the alleged epidemic as an excuse to trample on religious liberty. Now conservatives, led by Attorney General William Barr, and conservative religious liberty organizations First Liberty Institute and Liberty Counsel are fighting back.

Many would be gun buyers have found popular guns, such as the AR-15, to be as scarce as toilet paper. This temporary demand-based shortage of AR-15s has prompted many Americans to take the practical and perfectly legal (in most jurisdictions) alternative of building their own AR-platform rifle. Follow us in Part 2, Step 2 of our project as we assemble the fire control group to exercise our Second Amendment rights and ward off cabin fever by building an AR-15.

We thought that the Republican Party was the Party of constitutional limits on government, but the panic created by the COVID-19 “epidemic” and the extra-constitutional actions of Republican public officials, such as Indiana’s Governor Eric Holcomb, have revealed that the urge to tyranny is not bound by political affiliation and in the end can only be constrained by the fidelity to the Constitution of individual office holders, such as Texas’ Governor Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton.

The Heritage Foundation,  the nation's premier conservative think tank, yesterday announced that it is convening a National Coronavirus Recovery Committee bringing together experts in medicine, economics, government, business, and human behavior to advise the White House, Congress and state and local governments as they chart a way forward from the economic, healthcare and human consequences of the COVID-19 epidemic. To follow the work of the Committee or submit ideas to it go to https://medium.com/coronavirus-commission.

Back on January 11, 2017, before he was even inaugurated, then-President-elect Donald Trump laid out his ambitions for the US pharma industry. He called for reversing the trend of the past decade – which was to outsource manufacturing overseas -- and a return to domestic production. Trump was right of course, but Congress, more intent on destroying his presidency than helping America, failed to act on legislation that might have helped and the industry has remained focused on reducing costs.

Is anyone else tired of government by “experts” and ready for a return to government of the people, by the people and for the people? We certainly are. Fortunately, there appears to be some prospect of lifting that burden, because next to the sniveling snowflakes of the White House press corps and the much-reviled hoarders of toilet paper, no other class of Americans has lost more credibility with their fellow citizens than the now completely discredited “experts” on epidemiology.

It’s not that Democrats are uniquely incompetent, it is that they politicize everything. And in their imagined socialist paradise, only the goods doled-out by the State are “essential,” so banning the sale of books or supplies that might help make one self-sufficient are natural first steps in narrowing that circle of liberty down to what the State deems to be life’s bare necessities.

Not only are some legislators questioning the level of executive-overreach involved in blanket stay-at-home orders, but some sheriffs and police departments are refusing to enforce them, citing constitutional and administrative difficulties.This is not Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia where you are asked for your papers, said Franklin County (Maine) Sheriff Scott Nichols.

Yesterday, Chris Wallace had U.S. Surgeon General Vice Admiral Jerome Adams on and hectored him about why no national stay-at-home order has been issued. We urge CHQ readers to call the White House, the comment line is (202-456-1111) please politely explain to the assistant taking the call that you think President Trump is doing a great job handling the coronavirus panic and that it would be a huge error to issue an extra-constitutional nationwide stay-at-home order.

Three things now moving rapidly below the surface of American politics and culture should alert conservatives to the extreme danger now facing the United States and the future of constitutional government. Millions who had never had it so good on New Years Day 2020 are now desperate about how to pay their rent or mortgage, where next week’s groceries will come from and how to pay April’s bills.

Many would be gun buyers have found popular guns, such as the AR-15, to be as scarce as toilet paper. This temporary demand-based shortage of AR-15s has prompted many Americans to take the practical and perfectly legal (in most jurisdictions) alternative of building their own AR-platform rifle. Follow us in Part 2 of our project as we ward off cabin fever and exercise our Second Amendment rights by building an AR-15.

Democrat Governors Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan and Steve Sisolak of Nevada decided to dunk on President Trump by banning the drugs hydroxychloroquine sulfate and chloroquine phosphate after Trump touted early studies demonstrating their efficacy against the COVID-19 virus. Then the Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency authorization for the drugs to treat COVID-19 and now Sisolak and Whitmer are singing a different tune.

Many would be gun buyers have found popular guns, such as the AR-15, to be as scarce as toilet paper. This temporary demand-based shortage of AR-15s has prompted many Americans to take the practical and perfectly legal (in most jurisdictions) alternative of building their own AR-platform rifle. Follow us as we ward off cabin fever and exercise our Second Amendment rights by building an AR-15.