Four previous directors of the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention accused President Donald Trump of politicizing the agency and botching the U.S. pandemic response.
Tom Frieden, Jeffrey Koplan, David Satcher, and Richard Besser, who altogether ran the CDC for about 15 years, slammed Trump in a joint op-ed published Tuesday in <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/07/14/cdc-directors-trump-politics/">The Washington Post</a>. The former directors argued that Trump had failed the U.S. in part because case numbers are higher across the country than those reported by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
“As America begins the formidable task of getting our kids back to school and all of us back to work safely amid a pandemic that is only getting worse, public health experts face two opponents: covid-19, but also political leaders and others attempting to undermine the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,” the public health experts began, referencing the Trump administration’s push to reopen schools in the fall. “As the debate last week around reopening schools more safely showed, these repeated efforts to subvert sound public health guidelines introduce chaos and uncertainty while unnecessarily putting lives at risk.”
The former directors went on to tout China’s reported cases relative to the United States. The coronavirus originated in the Chinese city of Wuhan and spread globally to nations unprepared to face such a disease in large part because the CCP initially hid the outbreak. The Chinese government <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/heres-a-timeline-of-the-coronavirus-outbreak-and-chinas-coverup">allowed</a> an estimated 5 million people to leave Wuhan before shutting down the city.
“China, using the same mitigation tools available to us and with a far larger population, has had just a tiny fraction of the 3.1 million cases reported here. The United States now has more cases and deaths than any other country and the sixth-highest rate of any large country in the world — and we are gaining on the other five. The United States is home to a quarter of the world’s reported coronavirus infections and deaths, despite being home to only 4.4 percent of the global population,” the former CDC directors wrote.
The U.S. intelligence officials have reportedly <a href="https://dw-site-dev.dailywire.com/news/breaking-u-s-intelligence-tells-trump-that-china-intentionally-lied-about-coronavirus-outbreak-report-says">warned</a> the White House that China is intentionally underreporting the virus’s spread and fatality rate. Based on the evidence, Trump has <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-death-rate-from-coronavirus-in-china-far-higher-than-the-u-s">said</a> China&#8217;s death toll from the disease is “far higher” than that of the United States.
The former directors also asserted that the pandemic in the U.S. is worsening as “willful disregard for public health guidelines” leads “to a sharp rise in infections and deaths.” It remains unclear what data the group is referring to. Total positive cases in the United States are rising as the disease spreads in the South and West. Weekly deaths from the disease in the U.S. continue to fall, however.
As noted by the <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/covidview/index.html">CDC</a>:
<blockquote>Based on death certificate data, the percentage of deaths attributed to pneumonia, influenza or COVID-19 (PIC) decreased from 6.9% during week 26 to 5.5% during week 27, representing the eleventh week of a declining percentage of deaths due to PIC. The percentage is currently below the epidemic threshold but will likely change as more death certificates are processed, particularly for recent weeks.</blockquote>

President Trump

Former CDC Directors Bash Trump Over Virus Response, Says U.S. Is Failing Compared To China

China

Coronavirus

Washington Post

A Washington Post editor said Monday that the Texas Rangers team name &#8220;must go.&#8221;
On the same day that the National Football League&#8217;s Washington Redskins announced it would do away with its 93-year-old team name, Global Opinions editor Karen Attiah said that the Major League Baseball team must deal with &#8220;the violent and racist implications of its name.&#8221;
&#8220;To know the full history of the Texas Rangers is to understand that the team’s name is not so far off from being called the Texas Klansmen,&#8221; Attiah wrote in an <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/07/13/texas-rangers-team-name-must-go/">op-ed</a> for the liberal newspaper.
Attiah, who grew up in Dallas, reminisced about going to Rangers games with her father as a child, but said at the time she didn&#8217;t know the Rangers &#8220;were a cruel, racist force when it came to the nonwhites who inhabited the beautiful and untamed Texas territory.&#8221;
The Texas Rangers were unofficially created by Stephen F. Austin in 1823 as a statewide investigative law enforcement agency, headquartered in the capital of Austin. The Rangers stopped the assassination of President William Howard Taft and pursued such outlaws as Bonnie and Clyde. More than 120 have died in the line of duty.
Attiah, who said she is part of a Ghanaian immigrant family and calls herself a &#8220;black Texan,&#8221; said &#8220;the first job of the Rangers &#8230; was to clear the land of Indian for white settlers.&#8221;
<blockquote>That was just the start. The Rangers oppressed black people, helping capture runaway slaves trying to escape to Mexico; in the aftermath of the Civil War, they killed free blacks with impunity. “The negroes here need killing,” a Ranger wrote in a local newspaper in 1877, after Rangers fired on a party of black former Buffalo soldiers, killing four of them and a 4-year-old girl. A jury would later find that the black soldiers “came to their death while resisting officers in the discharge of their duty,” an unsettling echo of the justification for modern-day police killings.</blockquote>
The editor cited a new book, “Cult of Glory: The Bold and Brutal History of the Texas Rangers,” in which author Doug J. Swanson wrote, “In service to Anglo civilization’s slow march, they functioned as executioners. Their job was to seize and hold Texas for the white man.”
The Post writer isn&#8217;t the first to call for the Texas Rangers to change their name. After a Chicago Tribune piece last month, the team made a statement.
“While we may have originally taken our name from the law enforcement agency, since 1971 the Texas Rangers Baseball Club has forged its own, independent identity,” said the team statement. “The Texas Rangers Baseball Club stands for equality. We condemn racism, bigotry, and discrimination in all forms.
“To help bring about meaningful change, we are committed to listening to and supporting our communities of color. &#8230; We go forward committed to do even more, with a renewed promise that the Texas Rangers name will represent solutions and hope for a better future for our communities,&#8221; said the team.
The Daily Wire is one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Texas Rangers Summer Workouts

Washington Post Editor Says Texas Rangers’ ‘Violent And Racist’ Name ‘Must Go’

Baseball

Texas

Washington Redskins

The July 6 Washington Post carried a typically colorful headline on top of the Style section. &#8220;A binder full of bombast: Kayleigh McEnany plays her boss and his base with derisive news briefing walk-offs.&#8221;
Media reporter Paul Farhi wrote McEnany&#8217;s &#8220;would-be smackdowns seemed so orchestrated&#8221; they only lacked some kind of musical flourish, like the opening witticisms that lead into the theme song on the crime drama &#8220;CSI: Miami.&#8221;
McEnany flourished again later that day, noting: &#8220;I was asked probably 12 questions about the Confederate flag. This President is focused on action. I&#8217;m a little dismayed that I didn&#8217;t receive one question on the deaths that we got in this country this weekend.&#8221; She wasn&#8217;t asked &#8220;about New York City shootings doubling for the third straight week, and over the last seven days shooting skyrocket by 142%.&#8221; Reporters groaned and protested.
For analysis of this tactic, Farhi turned to Ryan Lizza, the chief Washington correspondent of Politico. Lizza said these mic drops create delight for Trump and &#8220;the universe of Trump-friendly websites&#8221; who turn these commentaries into clips &#8220;for the MAGA-sphere.&#8221; That&#8217;s true. McEnany&#8217;s commentaries are great clickbait for people who want to see arrogant reporters get a dose of their own medicine.
But is Lizza really an objective observer? He then claimed: &#8220;We used to have this quaint idea that the press secretary wasn&#8217;t just a mouthpiece for the president, that half of the job was serving the press and the public. &#8230; That model is gone now. Now it&#8217;s almost pure theater, and (she&#8217;s serving) the negative partisanship that drives all else.&#8221;
Lizza isn&#8217;t being honest, because he represents &#8220;pure theater&#8221; and &#8220;negative partisanship&#8221; from the other side of the exchange. On May 26, he asked McEnany this beanball question repeatedly: &#8220;We&#8217;re about to cross the 100,000 dead American milestone &#8230; on Election Day, what does the White House view the number of dead Americans where you can say that you successfully defeated this pandemic? Is there a number?&#8221;
Recently, Lizza asked her facetiously, &#8220;Does President Trump believe that it was a good thing that the South lost the Civil War?&#8221;
Lizza&#8217;s live-in girlfriend, Olivia Nuzzi of New York Magazine, beat him to the sleazy punch when she asked Trump on April 27, &#8220;If an American president loses more Americans over the course of six weeks than died in the entirety of the Vietnam War, does he deserve to be reelected?&#8221;
This kind of question is performance art. It&#8217;s a look-at-me spectacle, a Jim Acosta bump and grind. There&#8217;s nothing &#8220;quaint&#8221; about it.
Farhi closed out this article with the expertise of Jennifer Mercieca, described merely as &#8220;an associate professor at Texas A&amp;M who specializes in rhetoric and public affairs.&#8221; McEnany&#8217;s &#8220;leave-taking behavior&#8221; points to &#8220;how adversarial the relationship between the press secretary and the press is at present,&#8221; she says. &#8220;The abrupt ending signals a lack of respect for the press, especially after she has berated their reporting.&#8221;
The Post didn&#8217;t note that Mercieca has a brand-new book about Trump called &#8220;Demagogue for President.&#8221; Its dust cover promises she will show, as one review reads, &#8220;how a bombastic pitchman emerged as America&#8217;s authoritarian PT Barnum, using nothing more than his weaponized words to transform a polarized and dispirited nation into his own reality TV show.&#8221;
This would seem to signal a lack of respect for the president — or the ringmaster/dictator, in her overactive imagination. This book sounds like quite a &#8220;binder full of bombast.&#8221; But The Washington Post is pretending that political bombast is a one-way street &#8230; like no one ever reads its front page.
Tim Graham is director of media analysis at the Media Research Center and executive editor of the blog NewsBusters.org. To find out more about Tim Graham, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Kayleigh McEnany

GRAHAM: The Press Secretary Puts Down Bombastic Reporters

Donald Trump

Media Bias

On Sunday evening, the Global Opinions editor for The Washington Post tweeted “white women are lucky that we are just calling them ‘Karen&#8217;s’. And not calling for revenge.”
Karen Attiah wrote in a since-deleted tweet, “The lies &amp; tears of White women hath wrought: —The 1921 Tulsa Massacre — Murder of Emmet Till — Exclusion of Black women from feminist movements — 53% of white women voting for Trump. White women are lucky that we are just calling them &#8216;Karen&#8217;s&#8217;. And not calling for revenge.”
<div class="image"><img class="alignnone wp-image-124349" src="https://editorial.dailywire.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Screen-Shot-2020-06-28-at-11.07.10-PM-1.png" alt="" width="600" height="266" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/06/Screen-Shot-2020-06-28-at-11.07.10-PM-1.png 1192w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/06/Screen-Shot-2020-06-28-at-11.07.10-PM-1-300x133.png 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/06/Screen-Shot-2020-06-28-at-11.07.10-PM-1-1024x454.png 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/06/Screen-Shot-2020-06-28-at-11.07.10-PM-1-768x340.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" /></div>
She added later: “This is not patience and strength. It&#8217;s the result of knowing the price of resistance, and that much blood would be spilled. We must get away from the idea that enduring abuse is admirable.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
this is not patience and strength. It&#39;s the result of knowing the price of resistance, and that much blood would be spilled. 
We must get away from the idea that enduring abuse is admirable.
&mdash; Karen Attiah (@KarenAttiah) <a href="https://twitter.com/KarenAttiah/status/1277358185179987968?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 28, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Four minutes after that, she tweeted, “I&#8217;m just saying. Be happy we are calling for equality. And not actual revenge.&#8221;
<div class="image"><img class="alignnone wp-image-124350" src="https://editorial.dailywire.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Screen-Shot-2020-06-28-at-11.07.22-PM-1.png" alt="" width="600" height="349" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/06/Screen-Shot-2020-06-28-at-11.07.22-PM-1.png 1182w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/06/Screen-Shot-2020-06-28-at-11.07.22-PM-1-300x175.png 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/06/Screen-Shot-2020-06-28-at-11.07.22-PM-1-990x576.png 990w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/06/Screen-Shot-2020-06-28-at-11.07.22-PM-1-768x447.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" /></div>
Prior to those three tweets, Attiah explained: “But here’s the real thing about ‘Karen’ memes. The dark side to handwringing about how ‘Karen’ hurts white women’s feelings is that it is a distraction from how everyday white women uphold white supremacy through violence, aggression and the weaponizing of their gender.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
But here’s the real thing about “Karen” memes. 
The dark side to handwringing about how Karen” hurts white women’s feelings is that it is a distraction from how everyday white women uphold white supremacy through violence, aggression, and the weaponzing of their gender.
&mdash; Karen Attiah (@KarenAttiah) <a href="https://twitter.com/KarenAttiah/status/1277337462231236616?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 28, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Attiah has <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/28/karen-memes-jokes-arent-sexist-or-racist-let-karen-explain/?arc404=true">described</a> the use of the name “Karen” to belittle people this way:
<blockquote>In the past several years, “Karen” has come to represent a certain archetype of middle-aged white female privilege — or the new n-word, depending on whom you ask. Yup, “Karen” is the new black …Becky and Karen memes and jokes should be understood in this context, part of a long tradition to use humor to try to cope with the realities of white privilege and anti-blackness.</blockquote>
An article published on the site <a href="https://www.bitchmedia.org/article/very-online/the-karen-meme-isnt-a-slur-its-a-social-critique">bitchmedia</a> surmised that using the name “Karen” as a pejorative arose from the &#8220;custom (also largely based in social media) of giving white women nicknames that reference their specific brand of racism.” The article continued, “In current contexts, white women’s power is translated into that of a Karen; Black women know that Karens have always walked among us.”
&#8220;Because Karen is white, she faces few meaningful repercussions,&#8221; Robin Abcarian of the The Los Angeles Times <a href="https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-05-23/column-karen-meme-white-women-behaving-badly">wrote</a> in a May 23 column. &#8220;Embarrassing videos posted on social media is usually as bad as it gets for Karen. This is the subversive genius of the meme. It’s not especially vicious, but with luck it causes all the Karens out there to examine the way they move through the world. The Karen meme exists for the amusement of those who take pleasure in watching the privileged take themselves down. It is observational, darkly funny and racially pointed: We see your privilege, even if you don’t.&#8221;
<a href="https://www.insider.com/karen-meme-origin-the-history-of-calling-women-karen-white-2020-5">Business Insider</a> added, &#8220;The &#8216;Karen&#8217; meme, which has become so ubiquitous it&#8217;s been <a href="https://twitter.com/Schultzzie/status/1190067795121229825?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1190067795121229825&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.vox.com%2F2020%2F2%2F5%2F21079162%2Fkaren-name-insult-meme-manager" data-analytics-module="body_link" data-analytics-post-depth="20">used as a Halloween costume</a>, burst onto the scene in the last couple of years to describe white women who were perceived as acting entitled in public. Now, it&#8217;s used as a moniker for any white woman who&#8217;s thought to be acting inappropriately, rudely, or in an entitled fashion.&#8221;
 The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

WaPo Editor: White Women ‘Lucky’ We’re ‘Not Calling For Revenge’

Race

An &#8220;analysis&#8221; in The Washington Post this week apparently sought to discredit a claim by President Donald Trump about violence in Democrat-controlled cities and ended up proving him correct.
The Post noted that Trump has sought to portray Democrats as soft on crime as part of his re-election strategy and pointed out the following quote from Trump on Wednesday: “You hear about certain places like Chicago and you hear about what’s going on in Detroit and other — other cities, all Democrat run. Every one of them is Democrat run. Twenty out of 20. The 20 worst, the 20 most dangerous are Democrat run.”
The Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/06/25/trump-keeps-claiming-that-most-dangerous-cities-america-are-all-run-by-democrats-they-arent/">reported</a>:
<blockquote>It’s not clear how Trump is defining “most dangerous” in this context. So let’s look at two related sets of data compiled by the FBI: most violent crime and most violent crime per capita.
The most recent data to that effect is from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report covering the first half of 2019. The cities with the most violent crimes are many of the most populous cities in the country, as you might expect. Those with the highest rates of violent crime are from a range of different states.</blockquote>
The Post then included a graphic (featured below) in their report that showed that overall 17 out of the top 20 cities with the most violent crime have Democrat mayors, while two have independent mayors, and one has a Republican mayor.
The graphic also showed that per capita, Democrats controlled 19 out of the top 20 most violent cities with independents controlling one and Republicans controlling none.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
For tweet embedding purposes, here is the graph cited in The Washington Post&#39;s report titled: “Trump keeps claiming that the most dangerous cities in America are all run by Democrats. They aren’t.” <a href="https://t.co/FeAskhbnDM">pic.twitter.com/FeAskhbnDM</a>
&mdash; Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) <a href="https://twitter.com/RealSaavedra/status/1276885830083043329?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 27, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;Trump would no doubt shrug at that detail, decrying as &#8216;fake news&#8217; the revelation that his assertion was only slightly wrong,&#8221; Washington Post blogger Philip Bump wrote. &#8220;And, in fairness, it actually doesn’t matter that four of the 32 cities listed above have non-Democratic mayors — because it doesn’t really matter that the other mayors are Democrats.&#8221;
Violence has surged in major cities across the U.S. in recent weeks — including in <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-shreds-chicago-mayor-lori-lightfoot-in-letter-over-chicago-violence-lightfoot-snaps-on-twitter">Chicago</a>, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/16/us/new-york-city-crime/index.html">New York City</a>, and <a href="https://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2020/06/09/lapd-crime-homicides-up-250-percent/">Los Angeles</a> just to name a few — as far-left activists have demonized law enforcement officials and called for defunding police departments in response to the death of George Floyd.
Violent rioters have also plagued streets across the U.S. in recent days as they try to destroy statues and monuments.
The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-trump-signs-executive-order-protecting-monuments-barr-creates-task-force-to-tackle-extremists-includes-antifa">reported</a>:
<blockquote>In recent days, extremists have destroyed statues of former Presidents <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-rioters-burn-american-flag-on-fire-on-top-of-george-washington-statue-tear-it-down">George Washington</a>, <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/us/portland-protesters-tear-down-racist-statue-thomas-jefferson">Thomas Jefferson</a>, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/rioters-in-california-tear-down-statue-of-ulysses-s-grant-he-defeated-the-confederacy-devastated-kkk">Ulysses S. Grant</a>, and attempted to destroy the statue of former President <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-rioters-near-white-house-try-to-tear-down-presidential-statue-set-up-black-house-autonomous-zone">Andrew Jackson</a> before being stopped by law enforcement.
Statues of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-rioters-tear-down-statue-of-francis-scott-key-he-wrote-the-star-spangled-banner">the man who wrote “The Star-Spangled Banner,”</a> <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-rioters-in-california-tear-down-religious-statue-of-father-junipero-serra">a notable person from the Catholic church</a>, and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/memorial-dedicated-to-holocaust-survivors-toppled-at-cemetery-in-california">a Holocaust memorial</a> have also been destroyed in recent days.</blockquote>
Trump <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-trump-signs-executive-order-protecting-monuments-barr-creates-task-force-to-tackle-extremists-includes-antifa">signed</a> an executive order yesterday that protects monuments while Attorney General William Barr created a new task force to go after violent anti-government extremists.
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Trump

Washington Post ‘Analysis’ Tries To Debunk Trump Claim On Violent Democrat Cities. It Proves Him Right.

Democrats

Violence

The Washington Post is defending its 3,000-word article about a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/washington-post-gets-random-woman-fired-for-satirical-halloween-costume-from-two-years-ago-backlash-ensues">random woman</a>, 54, who attended a Post editorial cartoonists’ 2018 Halloween party dressed as Meghan Kelly in blackface. The woman (who will not be named by The Daily Wire) was fired from her employer after she told them about the costume incident, and that The Washington Post was writing a story on it. 
Even though the woman was confronted at the party, left in humiliation, and apologized to the host the next day, The Post decided to run an investigation nearly two years later after Lexie Gruber — one of the party guests who confronted the woman — decided to seek news coverage for it.
&#8220;Employees of The Washington Post, including a prominent host, were involved in this incident, which impelled us to tell the story ourselves thoroughly and accurately while allowing all involved to have their say,&#8221; a spokesperson for The Washington Post told <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/media/washington-post-halloween-costume-cancel-culture-defense">Fox News</a> in a statement. &#8220;The piece conveys with nuance and sensitivity the complex, emotionally fraught circumstances that unfolded at the party attended by media figures only two years ago where an individual in blackface was not told promptly to leave.&#8221;
“America&#8217;s grappling with racism has entered a phase in which people who once felt they should keep quiet are now raising their voices in public. The story is a microcosm of what the country is going through right now,” said the spokesperson. 
Gruber, who claims to have been harassed by the woman at the party, emailed The Washington Post about her experience at the party, in addition to emailing the host of the party, who she never even met, asking him to reveal the identity of the woman. 
The host initially told Gruber he didn’t know who she was talking about, but later acknowledged that the woman was a friend of his, but that he wouldn’t give over her name. Gruber responded: “Hiding her name is a deliberate act of white privilege and cowardice, not friendship.”
Lyric Prince, a friend of Gruber who confronted the woman at the party, told the Post she isn’t interested in an apology, but wanted the party host to condemn his friend in public: “I want people who read this story to say to themselves, ‘I cannot excuse my friend’s bad behavior because it does reflect on me if I say nothing.’ ”
When the host offered to connect Gruber with the woman, who he indicated “wanted a chance to explain and apologize,” Gruber declined, saying that she wasn’t “comfortable reaching out to a woman who publicly harassed me and my friend — simply because we are not white.”
The story, however, doesn’t present clear evidence that Gruber and her friend were harassed at the party. 
The news agency reported that Prince approached the woman and told her she looked “horrible” as a way of “clapping back” at the costume without directly addressing it. The woman, who has reportedly talked to a therapist over her shame about the costume, claims she nervously laughed off the remarks after Prince “told me that I was ugly and had wrinkles.” 
Gruber then approached the woman to explain the degrading history of blackface, later recalling that “there wasn’t a single person in that party who didn’t hear me when I spoke.” Gruber and Prince left the party after the interaction, as did the woman, who said she herself was crying when she left. 
Prince told the Post that she has sought therapy over the incident: “I felt threatened and physically and emotionally exposed. . . . I felt powerless in a way that I never want to feel again.” The woman told the Post she wants an opportunity to apologize to Gruber, the person who brought the incident to the news agency’s attention. 
“With this story, they’ll get the public humiliation they want, but it won’t foster any real dialogue between us. I wish they would talk to me. I made a mistake, and I understand now that when black people make a mistake, they can get killed,” said the woman. 
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Popcorn on table at a Halloween party

Washington Post Defends Story Dragging Random Woman Into Public Sphere Over Halloween Costume

Cancel culture

Halloween

The mainstream media has apparently learned nothing from the reckoning it faced after Justine Sacco, a random woman with barely 100 Twitter followers, was fired from her job for tweeting about AIDS and being white.
The media – and people on social media – still seem to enjoy the power trip they get from getting a random person fired. The latest example comes from The Washington Post, where two reporters wrote 3,000-plus words about a woman who was not previously a public figure who wore blackface two years ago at a Post cartoonist’s party.
The woman whose life has been upended (who will not be named by The Daily Wire) attended Post editorial cartoonist Tom Tole’s Halloween party, where political elites and others gather each year, many dressed in politically relevant costumes. For example, in 2018, the Post reported, Dana Milbank dressed as Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who had just been confirmed a couple weeks earlier. Milbank made a satirical reference to Kavanaugh by wearing a “beer-dispensing device on his head.”
As is often the case, someone thought they were making a satirical reference but instead fell flat. One woman at the party dressed as Megyn Kelly in blackface, following the then-NBC host’s statements about wearing blackface. The woman was trying to mock Kelly, but two other women at the party confronted her then and have apparently been stewing about the incident ever since. They have now been rewarded by being featured in the Post’s article about the incident from two years, which has been dredged up in the wake of race riots across the country. One of the two women first emailed Toles – whom she had never met – telling him how offended she was that a guest at his party dressed that way.
“In 2018, I attended a Halloween party at your home,” the woman wrote. “I understand that you are not responsible for the behavior of your guests, but at the party, a woman was in Blackface. She harassed me and my friend — the only two women of color — and it was clear she made her ‘costume’ with racist intent.”
The woman then asked for Toles’ help in identifying the woman and emailed the Post to get them to cover the incident – which it obviously obliged.
The other offended woman said she didn’t want an apology (read: she wanted to destroy the woman who wore the costume), and she wanted Toles to atone for the incident.
The costumed woman was apparently run out of the party in tears, so it’s not like she wasn’t made aware of her mistake. She had already been punished and was embarrassed and regretful of her costume choice. But that wasn’t enough for the two women who convinced the Post to punish this woman further – two years after the fact.
The woman has now been fired from her job. One partygoer told the Post that reopening the incident would “be too much of a punishment.” The Post did it anyway.
People on Twitter shot back at the Post. Reason reporter Elizabeth Nolan Brown tweeted: “If you’re an adult who is ‘physically &amp; emotionally’ threatened by an offensive Halloween constume [sic] and still scarred by it 2 years later— get help y’all. That’s not on anyone but you.”
Katie Herzog tweeted in jest: “BREAKING: Woman No One Has Ever Heard of Commits Microagression Two Years Ago.”
Others pointed out that the woman being ostracized is a liberal who vehemently opposes President Donald Trump, but that isn’t enough to save her in today’s current climate, where being offended gets people media attention.
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Halloween party

Washington Post Gets Random Woman Fired For Satirical Halloween Costume From Two Years Ago, Backlash Ensues.

Microaggressions

Amid all the anti-police rhetoric consuming the country right now, The Washington Post&#8217;s Alyssa Rosenberg added to the mix by <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/06/04/shut-down-all-police-movies-tv-shows-now/?arc404=true">calling for an end </a>to all police shows on television: CSI, Law &amp; Order, Blue Bloods, Criminal Minds, etc.
According to Rosenberg, canceling cop shows would be the best way for the entertainment industry to put their money where their mouth is when issuing statements about race relations and police brutality.
“There’s no question that it would be costly for networks and studios to walk away from the police genre entirely,” Rosenberg writes, as reported by <a href="https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/culture/matt-philbin/2020/06/05/genre-gone-washpost-says-cancel-cop-shows">Newsbusters</a>. “Canceling Dick Wolf’s ‘Chicago’ franchise of shows would wipe out an entire night of NBC’s prime-time programming; dropping ‘Law &amp; Order: Special Victims Unit’ and a planned spinoff would cut even further into the lineup.”
Rosenberg goes on to write how Hollywood and police departments have been collaborating on projects throughout the years, leading the industry to whitewash police shootings and valorize the police.
&#8220;For a century, Hollywood <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/opinions/2016/10/24/how-police-censorship-shaped-hollywood/">has been collaborating</a> with police departments, telling stories that <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/opinions/2016/10/26/in-pop-culture-there-are-no-bad-police-shootings/">whitewash police shootings</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/opinions/2016/10/27/the-drug-wars-most-enthusiastic-recruit-hollywood/">valorizing an action-hero style of policing</a> over the harder, less dramatic work of building relationships with <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/opinions/2016/10/25/how-pop-cultures-cops-turned-on-their-communities/">the communities cops are meant to serve and protect</a>,&#8221; she writes. &#8220;There’s a reason for that beyond a reactionary streak hiding below the industry’s surface liberalism.&#8221;
&#8220;Purely from a dramatic perspective, crime makes a story seem consequential, investigating crime generates action, and solving crime provides for a morally and emotionally satisfying conclusion,&#8221; she added.
Rosenberg takes aim specifically at the reality show &#8220;Cops,&#8221; which for years has been blamed for allegedly pushing racist stereotypes that make people fear black and brown criminals. As Newsbusters noted, however, &#8220;Cops&#8221; creator Michael Langley <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/tv-executives-admit-taped-interviews-193116">previously admitted</a> to favoring the exhibition of white criminals over black criminals.
Going forward with this new form of programming, Rosenberg states that audiences are going to have to accept watching a new kind of cop show.
&#8220;Say writers made a commitment not to exaggerate the performance of police,&#8221; she writes. &#8220;Audiences would have to be retrained to watch, for example, a version of &#8216;Special Victims Unit&#8217; where the characters <a href="https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2018/crime-in-the-u.s.-2018/topic-pages/clearances">cleared only 33.4 percent of rape cases</a>, or to accept that in almost 40 percent of murders and manslaughters, no suspect is arrested. If storytelling focused on less-dramatic but more-common crimes such as burglary and motor-vehicle theft, the stakes would shrink — along with <a href="https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2018/crime-in-the-u.s.-2018/topic-pages/clearance-browse-by/national-data">the case-clearance rate</a>.&#8221;
As riots and protests have gripped the nation, anti-police rhetoric has gone way beyond the bipartisan call for police training reform. The far-left activist organization Black Lives Matter recently joined the hashtag <a href="https://blacklivesmatter.com/defundthepolice/">#DefundThePolice</a> and issued a list of demands.
“We call for an end to the systemic racism that allows this culture of corruption to go unchecked and our lives to be taken,” said the organization. “We call for a national defunding of police. We demand investment in our communities and the resources to ensure Black people not only survive, but thrive. If you’re with us, add your name to the petition right now and help us spread the word.”
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Blue Bloods

Washington Post Op-Ed: Cancel All Cop Shows

Police

On Thursday, with the help of The Washington Post and using the Chinese-owned social media platform TikTok, former Vice President Joe Biden, who has harshly criticized President Trump for not wearing a mask on occasion,  starred in a video instructing others to wear a mask in public, even if they were not around other people. That triggered the Trump campaign to fire back with a reminder that Biden had apparently violated his own instructions no more than two days ago.
The video shows Dave Jorgenson, whose <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/davetjorgenson">LinkedIn profile</a> states that he is a “Producer/Writer &#8211; Creative Video at The Washington Post,” walking his dog when a message comes through the earphones for his cell phone. Biden’s voice can be heard saying, “Hello, folks; it’s Joe Biden and you’re listening to ‘Here’s The Deal.’ Dave, what the hell?”
As Jorgenson holds the phone showing Biden’s face with a mock game show screen reading, “Here’s The Deal w Joe Biden,” Biden’s voice continues, “I told you to wear your mask outside.”
Jorgenson, looking around and looking bewildered, asks, “Mr. Vice President?”
The phone then shows Biden as he responds, “Yeah, Dave. It’s me.”
Jorgenson, still looking around: “How are you doing this?”
Biden: &#8220;You need to wear your mask outside. I don’t care if you’re just walking your dog.”
Jorgenson, donning a mask: “Is that better?”
Biden: &#8220;He’s never gonna learn.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Washington Post is now creating de facto campaign ads for Joe Biden (featuring unnecessary guidance regarding masks outside when you’re by yourself).
Interesting strategy. <a href="https://t.co/tJi11XpcmW">https://t.co/tJi11XpcmW</a>
&mdash; Steve Krakauer (@SteveKrak) <a href="https://twitter.com/SteveKrak/status/1266023122710532097?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 28, 2020</a></blockquote>
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On Tuesday, Biden tweeted “Wear a mask.” As <a href="https://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/in-the-know/499925-joe-biden-does-face-mask-awareness-tiktok-with-wapo">The Hill</a> noted, &#8220;Biden was also seen wearing a mask to a Memorial Day ceremony, as his campaign attempts to show a sharp contrast between President Trump, who has been seen without one in public on multiple occasions.&#8221;
On Tuesday, Biden stated, &#8220;Presidents are supposed to lead, not engage in folly and be falsely masculine.”
Biden’s warning about wearing a mask outside even if one is alone would seem to fly in the face of Biden’s own actions, as the Trump campaign pointed out of Biden’s interview with CNN’s Dana Bash:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Joe Biden today: &quot;You need to wear your mask outside. I don&#39;t care if you&#39;re just walking your dog.&quot;
Joe Biden 2 days ago: <a href="https://t.co/eYw8hAJZin">pic.twitter.com/eYw8hAJZin</a>
&mdash; Trump War Room &#8211; Text TRUMP to 88022 &amp; get the APP (@TrumpWarRoom) <a href="https://twitter.com/TrumpWarRoom/status/1266022265788997632?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 28, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Newsbusters’ managing editor Curtis Houck <a href="https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/curtis-houck/2020/05/26/loyal-lackey-cnns-bash-goes-soft-biden-helps-him-push-conspiracy">pilloried the softball interview</a>, writing:
<blockquote>Naturally, Trump-hating and fear-loving CNN served Tuesday as Joe Biden’s first in-person interview since the coronavirus pandemic began and, right on cue, chief political correspondent Dana Bash fulfilled her role as a real-life Bashful, liberal foot solider, and citizen of Zuckerville. Between softball questions and assisting Biden in touting anti-Trump conspiracy theories, it was mission accomplished.
Of course, Bash refused to ask about Tara Reade or the refusal from the University of Delaware to release any of Biden’s Senate papers that could provide the public more information on what was internally written at the time of Reade’s allegations. So much for journalism.</blockquote>
In the interview, Bash stirred the pot, saying, “But wearing a mask has become a cultural and political flashpoint. The President is involved in that, even stoking that.”
Biden replied, “Sure, he is and look, he&#8217;s stoking deaths. That&#8217;s not going to increase the likelihood that people are going to be better off.”
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Former Vice President Biden Virtual Address As Group Launches $10 Million In Ads

Biden Joins WaPo To Release Video Warning To Wear Masks. Trump Campaign Reminds Biden Of Something.

Face Mask

Joe Biden

TikTok

Trump campaign

A newly released list of declassified names of former Obama officials shows that former Vice President Joe Biden submitted a request to unmask then-incoming national security adviser Michael Flynn on the same day that The Washington Post revealed Flynn&#8217;s identity.
The <a href="https://www.grassley.senate.gov/sites/default/files/2020-05-13%20ODNI%20to%20CEG%20RHJ%20%28Unmasking%29.pdf">list</a> showed that Biden requested to &#8220;unmask the identity of former National Security Adviser, Lieutenant General Michael T. Flynn (USA-Ret)&#8221; on January 12, 2017.
That same day, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius published Flynn&#8217;s identity, revealing that he was unmasked in response to a phone call that he had with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak on December 29, 2016.
Ignatius <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-did-obama-dawdle-on-russias-hacking/2017/01/12/75f878a0-d90c-11e6-9a36-1d296534b31e_story.html">wrote</a>:
<blockquote>According to a senior U.S. government official, Flynn phoned Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak several times on Dec. 29, the day the Obama administration announced the expulsion of 35 Russian officials as well as other measures in retaliation for the hacking. What did Flynn say, and did it undercut the U.S. sanctions? The Logan Act (though never enforced) bars U.S. citizens from correspondence intending to influence a foreign government about “disputes” with the United States. Was its spirit violated? The Trump campaign didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.</blockquote>
The list of names that was declassified and released on Wednesday by two U.S. Senators notes that &#8220;while the principals are identified below, we cannot confirm they saw the unmasked information.&#8221;
Fox News <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/gowdy-presses-comey-to-unmask-the-unmasker" rel="noopener">reported</a> in 2017 that the disclosing of Flynn’s identity to the media could be “a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison” because “rules state that if an American with Constitutional protections is collaterally caught in such surveillance, his or her identity must be protected.”
The list also included &#8221; then-FBI Director James Comey, then-CIA Director John Brennan, then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and Obama&#8217;s then-chief of staff Denis McDonough,&#8221; Fox News <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/grenell-releases-list-of-officials-who-sought-to-unmask-flynn-biden-comey-obama-intel-chiefs-among-them">reported</a>. &#8220;The day McDonough requested the information is the same day as an Oval Office meeting that has drawn scrutiny in the wake of the Flynn developments. The meeting included Obama, Biden, Clapper, Brennan, Comey, then-National Security Adviser Susan Rice and then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates.&#8221;
The revelation that Biden requested the unmasking of Flynn appears to contradict statements that he made earlier this week on ABC&#8217;s &#8220;Good Morning America&#8221; when he was asked what he knew about the Obama administration&#8217;s moves against Flynn.
“I know nothing about those moves to investigate Michael Flynn,” Biden claimed. “This is all about diversion. This is the game this guy plays all the time. The country is in crisis. We’re in an economic crisis, we’re in a health crisis. We’re in real trouble. He should stop trying to always divert attention from the real concerns of the American people.&#8221;
Biden was then called out by George Stephanopoulos over his suspicious claim as Stephanopoulos noted that Biden was at a meeting with Obama and other top administration officials when they discussed what was going on with Flynn.
Biden then changed his answer, saying &#8220;I was aware that there was, that they had asked for an investigation but that&#8217;s all I know about it.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Asked if DOJ was justified in dropping charges against Michael Flynn <a href="https://twitter.com/JoeBiden?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@JoeBiden</a> tells <a href="https://twitter.com/GStephanopoulos?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@GStephanopoulos</a>: &quot;I think there&#39;s nothing there&#8230;but it&#39;s not a surprise that, in fact, the Justice Dept. decided anybody who was an ally of the president didn&#39;t do anything wrong ever anyway&quot; <a href="https://t.co/eSHX96xScG">pic.twitter.com/eSHX96xScG</a>
&mdash; Good Morning America (@GMA) <a href="https://twitter.com/GMA/status/1260180689443487746?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 12, 2020</a></blockquote>
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The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Nevada Senate Debate

Biden Requested Unmasking Flynn On Same Day That Flynn’s Name Was Released By Media, According To Declassified Docs

2020 Election

Michael Flynn

Acting Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Richard Grenell slammed The Washington Post on Monday over a report that claimed that President Donald Trump was presented with numerous warnings from U.S. intelligence agencies in January and February about the coronavirus outbreak in China.
The report claimed that the warnings were contained in the President’s Daily Brief (PDB), a classified document that contains sensitive information about the greatest threats and world events.
&#8220;But the alarms appear to have failed to register with the president, who routinely skips reading the PDB and has at times shown little patience even for the oral summary he now takes two or three times per week, according to the officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss classified material,&#8221; The Washington Post reported. &#8220;The frequency with which the coronavirus was mentioned in the PDB has not been previously reported, and U.S. officials said it reflected a level of attention comparable to periods when analysts have been tracking active terrorism threats, overseas conflicts or other rapidly developing security issues.&#8221;
Grenell, whose office is responsible for the PDB, told The Washington Post that their report was not true.
&#8220;This isn’t true,&#8221; Grenell tweeted. &#8220;And we told you this before you wrote. And you put the DNI denial of your premise in paragraph 9.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
This isn’t true. And we told you this before you wrote. And you put the DNI denial of your premise in paragraph 9. <a href="https://t.co/kVYJvGxL0r">https://t.co/kVYJvGxL0r</a>
&mdash; Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) <a href="https://twitter.com/RichardGrenell/status/1254935693085888514?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 28, 2020</a></blockquote>
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U.S. officials have repeatedly had to refute false reporting on the matter dating back to the first week in April when ABC News <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/intelligence-report-warned-coronavirus-crisis-early-november-sources/story?id=70031273">reported</a>:
<blockquote>As far back as late November, U.S. intelligence officials were warning that a contagion was sweeping through China’s Wuhan region, changing the patterns of life and business and posing a threat to the population, according to four sources briefed on the secret reporting.
Concerns about what is now known to be the novel coronavirus pandemic were detailed in a November intelligence report by the military’s National Center for Medical Intelligence (NCMI), according to two officials familiar with the document’s contents.</blockquote>
Several hours later, the U.S. military responded to the report by stating that it was false.
Official <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/abc-publishes-damaging-report-on-trump-coronavirus-response-military-official-shreds-it">statement</a> by Colonel (Dr.) R. Shane Day, Director, National Center for Medical Intelligence, Defense Intelligence Agency:
<blockquote>As a matter of practice the National Center for Medical Intelligence does not comment publicly on specific intelligence matters. However, in the interest of transparency during the current public health crisis, we can confirm that media reporting about the existence/release of a National Center for Medical Intelligence Coronavirus-related product/assessment in November of 2019 is not correct. No such NCMI product exists.</blockquote>
CNN later re-aggregated the false report, to which the Office of the DNI responded on Twitter, &#8220;As we told CNN earlier today, this story contains inaccurate information.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
As we told CNN earlier today, this story contains inaccurate information. <a href="https://t.co/cFb2q1Cvr4">https://t.co/cFb2q1Cvr4</a>
&mdash; Office of the DNI (@ODNIgov) <a href="https://twitter.com/ODNIgov/status/1248397329515741184?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 9, 2020</a></blockquote>
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This is a developing news story, refresh the page for updates.
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">subscriber</a>.

GERMANY-US-POLITICS-JUNGE-UNION-YOUTH-CONGRESS

Washington Post Publishes Damning Report On Trump Admin. DNI Ric Grenell Debunks It.

Richard Grenell

A bombshell report from The Washington Post on Tuesday revealed that U.S. officials sounded the alarm about the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) back in 2018 over safety concerns as the lab researched coronaviruses from bats.
&#8220;In January 2018, the U.S. Embassy in Beijing took the unusual step of repeatedly sending U.S. science diplomats to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), which had in 2015 become China’s first laboratory to achieve the highest level of international bioresearch safety (known as BSL-4),&#8221; The Washington Post&#8217;s Josh Rogin <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/14/state-department-cables-warned-safety-issues-wuhan-lab-studying-bat-coronaviruses/">reported</a> Tuesday. &#8220;What the U.S. officials learned during their visits concerned them so much that they dispatched two diplomatic cables categorized as Sensitive But Unclassified back to Washington.&#8221;
&#8220;The cables warned about safety and management weaknesses at the WIV lab and proposed more attention and help,&#8221; The Post added. &#8220;The first cable, which I obtained, also warns that the lab’s work on bat coronaviruses and their potential human transmission represented a risk of a new SARS-like pandemic.&#8221;
The January 2018 cable stated that the U.S. officials who had repeatedly visited the lab “noted the new lab ha[d] a serious shortage of appropriately trained technicians and investigators needed to safely operate this high-containment laboratory.”
“Most importantly, the researchers also showed that various SARS-like coronaviruses can interact with ACE2, the human receptor identified for SARS-coronavirus,&#8221; the cable continued. &#8220;This finding strongly suggests that SARS-like coronaviruses from bats can be transmitted to humans to cause SARS-like diseases. From a public health perspective, this makes the continued surveillance of SARS-like coronaviruses in bats and study of the animal-human interface critical to future emerging coronavirus outbreak prediction and prevention.”
The report noted that there is no proof and no one credible is suggesting that the coronavirus was “engineered,” but that is not the same thing as saying that it did not come from a lab. The lab was researching coronaviruses from bats and it appears as though there is a possibility that it escaped the lab.
&#8220;There are similar concerns about the nearby Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention lab, which operates at biosecurity level 2, a level significantly less secure than the level-4 standard claimed by the Wuhan Insititute of Virology lab, said [Xiao Qiang, a research scientist at the School of Information at the University of California at Berkeley],&#8221; the Post added. &#8220;That’s important because the Chinese government still refuses to answer basic questions about the origin of the novel coronavirus while suppressing any attempts to examine whether either lab was involved.&#8221;
A U.S. official told the Post that the cables were &#8220;a warning shot&#8221; and that the U.S. officials who visited the lab &#8220;were begging people to pay attention to what was going on.&#8221;
The Post noted that &#8220;many national security officials&#8221; in the  Trump administration suspect that the coronavirus escaped one of the two aforementioned labs, which are both located very close in proximity to the wet market that the outbreak had been tied to. U.S. officials had also noticed problems at the WIV in 2014 and 2015.
“The idea that it was just a totally natural occurrence is circumstantial,&#8221; a U.S. official told The Post. &#8220;The evidence it leaked from the lab is circumstantial. Right now, the ledger on the side of it leaking from the lab is packed with bullet points and there’s almost nothing on the other side.”
The Post noted that the timeline of events that unfolded in China, along with factual realities on the ground in Wuhan, do not add credence to the notion that the coronavirus came from a wet market.
The Post points to the fact that one of the first patients who was identified as reportedly having the virus did not have any connection to the wet market &#8220;nor did more than one-third of the cases in the first large cluster.&#8221;
The Post also added an important fact to this entire story: The market did not sell bats.
General Mark A. Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, addressed the report during a press conference on Tuesday, saying, “It should be no surprise that we have taken a keen interest in that and we’ve had a lot of intelligence take a hard look at that.”
&#8220;And I would just say at this point it’s inconclusive although the weight of evidence seems to indicate natural,&#8221; Milley continued. &#8220;But we don’t know for certain.”
In a tweet, Rogin responded to Milley&#8217;s remarks, writing, &#8220;There’s a gap in the intel. That’s largely because the Chinese government has censored and suppressed all evidence related to the lab. Also, many senior officials disagree with Milley and believe the lab origin is much more likely than the seafood market story.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
There’s a gap in the intel. That’s largely because the Chinese government has censored and suppressed all evidence related to the lab. Also, many senior officials disagree with Milley and believe the lab origin is much more likely than the seafood market story. <a href="https://t.co/gbt2cvVqvA">https://t.co/gbt2cvVqvA</a>
&mdash; Josh Rogin (@joshrogin) <a href="https://twitter.com/joshrogin/status/1250148859839426562?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 14, 2020</a></blockquote>
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CHINA-HUBEI-WUHAN-NCP-LABORATORY (CN)

U.S. Officials Raised Alarm About Wuhan Lab Researching Bat Coronaviruses In 2018; Military Investigating

According to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/trump-reopen-us-economy/2020/04/09/10d42b4a-7a7b-11ea-9bee-c5bf9d2e3288_story.html">The Washington Post</a>&#8216;s sources, President Trump has been pushing &#8220;behind closed doors&#8221; to &#8220;reopen much of the country next month,&#8221; an effort the Post notes has some health experts sounding the alarm out of fear of a possible &#8220;resurgence&#8221; of COVID-19.
&#8220;Behind closed doors, President Trump — concerned with the sagging economy — has sought a strategy for resuming business activity by May 1, according to people familiar with the discussions,&#8221; the Post reported Thursday.
&#8220;In phone calls with outside advisers, Trump has even floated trying to reopen much of the country before the end of this month, when the current federal recommendations to avoid social gatherings and work from home expire, the people said,&#8221; the Post reports. &#8220;Trump regularly looks at unemployment and stock market numbers, complaining that they are hurting his presidency and reelection prospects, the people said.&#8221;
While the Post is relying on its unnamed sources about what Trump is doing behind the scenes, what he is doing in public is clear enough: He has repeatedly expressed a desire to reopen the country as quickly as is safely possible, based on the advice of the nation&#8217;s top health experts who are informing the Coronavirus Task Force.
As <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/fauci-were-on-track-for-more-normal-summer-mnuchin-likely-to-begin-reopening-in-may">The Daily Wire</a> reported, one of the key members of that task force, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation&#8217;s leading infectious disease expert and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CBS on Thursday that because of the “very good job” the nation is doing on social distancing measures, it is now “very likely” that by the end of the 30-day nationwide lockdown, we will be taking important steps toward “normalization” and, by summer, will have taken “many steps in that direction.”
Later that day, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who is reportedly a member of a newly formed economy-focused task force, made a similar comment, saying we are on track to begin reopening the U.S. economy in May.
&#8220;When you say get back to ‘normal,’ it’s not going to be a light switch that you turn on and off. It’s going to be differential and gradual depending upon where you are and where the burden of infection is,&#8221; Fauci told &#8220;CBS This Morning&#8221; Thursday. “But the bottom line of it all is, that what we see looking forward, it is very likely that we will progress toward the steps toward normalization as we get to the end of this 30 days. And I think that’s going to be a good time to look and see how quickly can we make that move to try and normalize. But hopefully, and hopefully, by the time we get to the summer, we will have taken many steps in that direction.”
In an interview with Jim Cramer on CNBC&#8217;s “Squawk on the Street,” Mnuchin said he could see the country beginning to reopen in May. “I think as soon as the president feels comfortable with the medical issues,” said the Treasury secretary, noting that the Trump administration is doing “everything necessary” to help American businesses be “open for business” and “have the liquidity that they need to operate their business in the interim.”
In its report on Trump&#8217;s push to reopen the economy sooner rather than later, the Post stresses that health experts are warning about the potentially &#8220;disastrous&#8221; consequences of easing restrictions prematurely, &#8220;because U.S. leaders have not built up the capacity for alternatives to stay-at-home orders — such as the mass testing, large-scale contact tracing and targeted quarantines that have been used in other countries to suppress the virus.&#8221;
A particularly influential model in the nation&#8217;s response, the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IMHE) model, which recently twice-downgraded its fatality projections by August from around 94,000 to 82,000 then down again to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/white-house-coronavirus-model-gets-updated-second-time-in-four-days-downgrading-deaths-hospitalizations-again">60,000</a>, assumes widespread &#8220;lockdown&#8221;-type measures until the end of May, the Post notes.
So far, about <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/unemployment-claims-top-6-million-for-second-straight-week-even-higher-than-predicted">17 million</a> Americans have filed for unemployment as a result of the widespread lockdowns.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/nyt-calls-out-de-blasio-cuomo-for-coronavirus-failures-readers-thanks-for-finally-saying-something">NYT Calls Out De Blasio, Cuomo For Coronavirus Failures; Readers: Thanks For Finally Saying Something</a>

Report: Trump Pushing ‘Behind Closed Doors’ To Reopen Much Of U.S. Next Month

Anthony Fauci

Economy

Steve Mnuchin

On Wednesday, for an <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/08/sitting-throne-skulls-mitch-mcconnell-confirms-his-8999th-judge/">opinion piece in The Washington Post</a> that satirized Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his intent to fill judicial vacancies up to and including the Supreme Court during the coronavirus crisis, writer Alexandra Petri inadvertently contributed to McConnell’s towering image by snidely referring to him as sitting “on a throne of skulls.”
Petri began by setting the stage:
<blockquote>Will Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) keep confirming judges in this time of pandemic? “We will go back to judges,” he said <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/490358-mcconnell-hits-brakes-on-next-economic-stimulus-package">in an interview</a>. “My motto for the rest of the year is leave no vacancy behind.”</blockquote>
Then, what Petri must have viewed as scintillating satire:
<blockquote>The whole landscape was barren, and the fires burned everywhere. And in the smoldering remains of the Senate, Mitch McConnell sat on a throne of skulls making preparations to confirm his 8,999th judge. Mitch McConnell would leave no vacancy behind.</blockquote>
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Opinion: Sitting on a throne of skulls, Mitch McConnell confirms his 8,999th judge <a href="https://t.co/6IWfpBDIR6">https://t.co/6IWfpBDIR6</a>
&mdash; The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) <a href="https://twitter.com/washingtonpost/status/1248038688921194498?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 9, 2020</a></blockquote>
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What is truly hilarious about this is that McConnell will undoubtedly seize this new image of his rock-solid gamesmanship and make political hay out of it. He has already appropriated the title of &#8220;Grim Reaper” bestowed on him by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
At the end of February, speaking with Fox News, McConnell laid down the law with a tough, forceful statement asserting that he would not permit the Democrats to turn America into a socialist country, making it doubly clear by gleefully reiterating that he was the “Grim Reaper.”
McConnell stated:
<blockquote>Whether it’s Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, the nominee for president on the Democratic side is going to be on a path to try to turn America into a socialist country. We’re not going to let that happen. Donald Trump is still in the White House, and as long as I am Majority Leader of the Senate I get to set the agenda. That’s why I call myself the Grim Reaper. We will not have the Green New Deal and we will not have Medicare-For-None as long as I am Majority Leader of the Senate.</blockquote>
In 2019, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) had <a href="https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2019/06/14/mitch-mcconnell-grim-reaper-socialist-agenda-serfaty-dnt-lead-vpx.cnn">stated</a>, “Leader McConnell, the Grim Reaper, is creating this graveyard.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi echoed, “Leader McConnell seems to take great pride in calling himself the Grim Reaper … it’s part of the pride he takes as leader of the Senate.”
McConnell replied, &#8220;She&#8217;s got it right. For the first time in my memory, I&#8217;m going to agree with Nancy Pelosi. I am indeed the grim reaper when it comes to the socialist agenda that they&#8217;ve been ginning up over in the House with overwhelming Democratic support and sending it over to America, things that would turn us into a country we&#8217;ve never been.&#8221;
McConnell did relish the nickname; he even sold T-shirts on his campaign website with the moniker. The T-shirts were emblazoned, “So think of me as the Grim Reaper, the guy who is going to make sure that socialism doesn’t land on the president’s desk.” The website stated, “Get Your Official Grim Reaper for $35 and join Team Mitch today!”
In April 2019, during his reelection campaign, McConnell <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/video/mcconnell-says-he-will-be-grim-reaper-to-democrats-legislation-63796293974">told an audience in Kentucky</a>, “Are we still gonna be a competitive place? Are we still gonna be the kind of place where you realize your ambitions and your energy but if you aren’t able to do that there are still ways to lead a rewarding life? Or are we going to turn this into a socialist country? Don’t assume it cannot happen. It’ll all be in the hands, I think, of the voters of this country next year. If you share my view, and I hope you do, that that’s not what we want America to be like in the future, let me tell you this: If I’m still the Majority Leader of the Senate, think of me as the Grim Reaper. None of that stuff is gonna pass. None of it.”

Congress Works Toward Finalizing Coronavirus Stimulus Bill

WaPo Mocks McConnell With Ruthless Image. You Just Know He’ll Use It.

McConnell

Way back in January, when Democrats only cared about removing President Donald Trump from office, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) was <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/while-democrats-pushed-impeachment-one-republican-senator-sounded-alarm-on-coronavirus">sounding the alarm</a> on the coronavirus, which at that time appeared contained to China.
Cotton kept asking questions about whether China was telling the truth about how the coronavirus outbreak originated.
“We don’t know where it originated, and we have to get to the bottom of that,” Cotton said on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” back in mid-February “We also know that just a few miles away from that food market is China’s only biosafety level 4 super laboratory that researches human infectious diseases.”
Cotton went on to acknowledge that the U.S. needs more information about how the disease originated in China.
“Now, we don’t have evidence that this disease originated there, but because of China’s duplicity and dishonesty from the beginning, we need to at least ask the question to see what the evidence says,” Cotton said. “And China right now is not giving any evidence on that question at all.”
The Washington Post and other media outlets “<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/media-claims-tom-cotton-coronavirus-claims-debunked-fail-to-debunk-what-he-actually-said">fact checked</a>” Cotton’s statements, except they fact checked something Cotton never said. The Post’s fact check consisted of talking to a chemical biology professor at Rutgers University who said, “There’s absolutely nothing in the genome sequence of this virus that indicates the virus was engineered.”
Another professor said it was “highly unlikely” the virus infected the general population due to an accident at China’s super lab, but then also said it was wrong to suggest China intentionally released the disease – again, something Cotton didn’t say.
Cotton responded to the “fact checkers” by saying he didn’t say the coronavirus was bioengineered. He then listed four hypotheses – not theories – about how the virus originated and again said China needed to provide more information. The four hypotheses were: 1) The virus came from natural causes, 2) it was accidentally released from the lab, 3) it was bio-engineered and accidentally released, and 4) it was bio-engineered and deliberately released. He said the third and fourth hypotheses were the least likely. He also listed these after so-called fact checkers claimed he suggested China deliberately released a bioweapon into the world.
Now, in early April, Post columnist David Ignatius <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/how-did-covid-19-begin-its-initial-origin-story-is-shaky/2020/04/02/1475d488-7521-11ea-87da-77a8136c1a6d_story.html">begrudgingly accepts</a> that maybe Cotton was right to suggest the coronavirus was accidentally released from the lab that studies the coronavirus. Of course, Ignatius couldn’t say Cotton was right, and instead downplayed Cotton’s early talk of an accidental release by claiming “Cotton’s earlier loose talk about bioweapons set off a furor, back when he first raised it in late January and called the outbreak ‘<a href="https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2020/jan/31/cotton-steps-away-from-trial-to-deal-wi/?news">worse than Chernobyl</a>.’”
Ignatius also worked in a dig at President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for referring to the coronavirus as the “Chinese virus” and “Wuhan virus,” even though major media outlets – <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/02/07/what-iowa-disaster-wuhan-virus-have-common/">including the Post</a> – were using those terms until the Chinese Communist Party said it was racist to use them.
Ignatius then said “China dished wild, irresponsible allegations of its own,” even though he provided no evidence the U.S. also dished “wild, irresponsible allegations.”
Still, Ignatius finally admitted that “the initial ‘origin story’ — that the virus was spread by people who ate contaminated animals at the <a href="https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/wuhans-huanan-seafood-market-may-not-be-ground-zero-of-the-covid19-pandemic/">Huanan Seafood Market</a> in Wuhan — is shaky.” He then spoke to the same Rutgers professor from the Post’s earlier fact check who now acknowledged that “the first human infection could have occurred as a natural accident.”
More from Ignatius:
<blockquote>Ebright described a December video from the Wuhan CDC that shows staffers “collecting bat coronaviruses with inadequate [personal protective equipment] and unsafe operational practices.” Separately, I reviewed two Chinese articles, from 2017 and 2019, describing the heroics of Wuhan CDC researcher Tian Junhua, who while capturing bats in a cave “forgot to take protective measures” so that “bat urine dripped from the top of his head like raindrops.”
And then there’s the Chinese study that was curiously withdrawn. In February, a site called ResearchGate published a brief article by Botao Xiao and Lei Xiao from Guangzhou’s South China University of Technology. “In addition to origins of natural recombination and intermediate host, the killer coronavirus probably originated from a laboratory in Wuhan. Safety level may need to be reinforced in high risk biohazardous laboratories,” the <a href="https://img-prod.tgcom24.mediaset.it/images/2020/02/16/114720192-5eb8307f-017c-4075-a697-348628da0204.pdf">article </a>concluded. Botao Xiao <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/coronavirus-epidemic-draws-scrutiny-to-labs-handling-deadly-pathogens-11583349777">told </a>the Wall Street Journal in February that he had withdrawn the paper because it “was not supported by direct proofs.”</blockquote>
Yet the Post refused to accept Cotton may have been right to suggest the virus came from that lab that was just down the street from the epicenter of the virus. Instead it used the opportunity to paint the Arkansas senator as a conspiracy theorist.

Tom Cotton

Washington Post Now Admits Maybe Tom Cotton Was Right To Suspect Coronavirus Outbreak Originated in Chinese Lab

A new analysis from Washington Post Beijing bureau chief Anna Fifield suggests that the real number of people who have died from the coronavirus in Wuhan, China, where the virus originated, is more than 16 times higher than the number reported by communist China.
The Washington Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/chinese-families-should-be-sweeping-graves-now-but-thousands-still-havent-buried-their-dead/2020/04/03/5a6daa50-7234-11ea-ad9b-254ec99993bc_story.html">reported</a>:
<blockquote>The coronavirus pandemic ravaging the globe officially claimed 2,563 lives in Wuhan, where it began in a market that sold exotic animals for consumption. But evidence emerging from the city as it stirs from its two-month hibernation suggests the real death toll is exponentially higher. &#8230;
Using photos posted online, social media sleuths have estimated that Wuhan funeral homes had returned 3,500 urns a day since March 23. That would imply a death toll in Wuhan of about 42,000 — or 16 times the official number. Another widely shared calculation, based on Wuhan’s 84 furnaces running nonstop and each cremation taking an hour, put the death toll at 46,800.</blockquote>
The analysis from The Washington Post comes after Bloomberg News reported this week that U.S. intelligence officials have presented President Donald Trump with a highly classified report that confirmed that China lied about the extent of the outbreak.
“China’s public reporting on cases and deaths is intentionally incomplete,” Bloomberg News <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-01/china-concealed-extent-of-virus-outbreak-u-s-intelligence-says">reported</a>, according to three U.S. officials that it spoke to. “Two of the officials said the report concludes that China’s numbers are fake.”
Vice President Mike Pence told CNN this week: “The reality is that we could have been better off if China had been more forthcoming. What appears evident now is that long before the world learned in December that China was dealing with this, and maybe as much as a month earlier than that, that the outbreak was real in China.”
White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx also indicated this week that China&#8217;s lying about the extent of the outbreak harmed the rest of the world.
“When you talk about could we have known something different, you know, I think all of us, I was overseas when this happened in Africa and I think when you look at the China data originally, and you said, there’s 80 million people, or 20 million people in Wuhan and 80 million people in Hubei, and they come up with the number of 50,000, you start thinking of this more like SARS than you do this kind of global pandemic,” Birx said.
Birx said that when U.S. officials looked at the data from China during the first days of the outbreak that she did not think that it would be a global pandemic based on the data that China provided.
“So, I think the medical community interpreted the Chinese data as this was serious, but smaller than anyone expected because I think probably we were missing a significant amount of the data” from China, Birx added.
Communist China also has a history of lying about epidemic outbreaks that originate within its borders.
The New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/21/world/the-sars-epidemic-epidemic-china-admits-underreporting-its-sars-cases.html">reported</a> on the SARS outbreak in April 2003:
<blockquote>In a rare public admission of failure, if not deception, the Chinese government disclosed today that cases of a dangerous new respiratory disease were many times higher than previously reported, and stripped two top officials of their power.
…
Admitting to the existence of more than 200 previously undisclosed SARS patients in military hospitals, the official, Deputy Health Minister Gao Qiang, said that as of Friday Beijing had 339 confirmed cases of SARS and an additional 402 suspected cases.
Ten days ago, Health Minister Zhang Wenkang said there were only 22 confirmed SARS cases in Beijing. Last Wednesday, the World Health Organization caused a stir here by estimating that there could be as many as 100 to 200 cases.</blockquote>
This report has been updated to include additional information.

CHINA-BEIJING-LEADERS-TREE PLANTING (CN)

Washington Post: ‘Evidence’ Coming Out Of Wuhan Suggests Real Death Toll Over 40,000

With the help of the Food and Drug Administration, which has fast-tracked the effort, the state of New York is trying out potential treatments for people who have contracted COVID-19. Under the direction of Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the state is testing out three medications — hydroxychloroquine, chloroquine and azithromycin — combinations of which have produced promising results for those infected by coronavirus, which President Trump has repeatedly highlighted in public statements.
<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/03/26/trump-keeps-touting-an-unproven-coronavirus-treatment-its-now-being-tested-thousands-new-york/">The Washington Post</a>, which, like many other left-leaning mainstream outlets has criticized Trump for &#8220;overhyping&#8221; the medications as a potential treatment for the virus, reported Thursday on New York&#8217;s treatment effort, which the paper describes as a &#8220;human experiment&#8221; involving potentially thousands of patients that is &#8220;moving at unprecedented speed and scale.&#8221;
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&#8220;New York will use three medications — hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine in combination with the antibiotic azithromycin — contributed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Amneal Pharmaceuticals,&#8221; the paper reports, citing state officials. &#8220;The first wave of patients will receive hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin.&#8221;
The study&#8217;s findings will contribute to a federally coordinated &#8220;observational&#8221; trial, which will compare the treatment method with a placebo. &#8220;In addition to mortality and overall recovery, the study will measure patients’ overall viral load, duration on a ventilator and number of days in the hospital,&#8221; the Times explains.
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The Food and Drug Administration has moved with &#8220;uncommon speed&#8221; to authorize New York’s distribution of the drugs through hospitals, the Post notes. While experts say such an effort would usually take up to nine months, the timeline &#8220;has been compressed into three days,&#8221; the paper reports.
The Post repeatedly underscores that the treatment has not yet been proven to be effective by officials and highlights &#8220;concerns&#8221; among health experts about the Trump and Cuomo-promoted medications, which sometimes have dangerous side effects, like &#8220;fatal heart arrhythmia and vision loss.&#8221; The Post&#8217;s editorial board has accused Trump of causing &#8220;<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/wapo-editors-lash-out-at-trump-for-spreading-false-hope-about-curing-virus">damage</a>&#8221; by pointing to the treatment as a potential &#8220;cure.&#8221; The paper&#8217;s new report suggests Trump, and to a lesser extent Cuomo, may be guilty of &#8220;raising false hopes in the American public&#8221; and &#8220;contribut[ing] to runs on supply and hoarding&#8221; of the drugs.
But the Republican president and the Democratic governor appear to agree that the promise of the much-needed treatment trumps concerns about &#8220;overhyping.&#8221;
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While the Post appears to remain skeptical about the &#8220;human experiment,&#8221; some in the health industry are praising the rapidity of the federal and state-coordinated action.  “I have never seen anything like this. It is amazing how the country and everybody can pull together and come up with quick, innovative ways to try to attack it,” said Northwell Health Chief Pharmacy Officer Onisis Stefas, the paper reports. “Everybody’s questioning it, and that’s why these studies need to be done to confirm it. There aren’t a lot of other options out there.”
Along with the urgency of testing out the potential treatment, Trump and Cuomo also appear to be aligning on the question of how long to maintain mandated lockdowns, with the governor recently questioning the effectiveness of mass quarantines.
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“We closed everything down. That was our public health strategy,” Cuomo <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/cuomo-questions-quarantine-probably-not-the-best-public-health-strategy">said</a> Thursday. “If you re-thought that or had time to analyze that public health strategy, I don’t know that you would say ‘Quarantine everyone.’”
“I don’t even know that that was the best public health policy,” he said. “Young people then quarantined with older people, [it] was probably not the best public health strategy. The younger people could have been exposing the older people to an infection.”
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Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/harvard-researchers-one-long-lockdown-is-not-the-right-approach">Harvard Researchers: One Long Lockdown Is Not The Right Approach</a>
Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly cited the New York Times as the source of the new report rather than the Washington Post.
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‘Unprecedented’: NY Begins Use Of Potential COVID-19 Treatments Fast-Tracked By Trump

Andrew Cuomo

New York

President Trump&#8217;s poll numbers are on the rise as a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/gallup-trump-approval-spikes-majority-of-americans-approve-of-his-handling-of-crisis">strong majority</a> of Americans now approve of his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Amid the crisis, Trump has increasingly shifted away from his trademark opponent-attacking mode to taking on the role as the nation&#8217;s &#8220;encourager-in-chief,&#8221; likely part of the reason public opinion of his handling of the job has improved.
Right on cue, the editorial board of The Washington Post published an editorial Wednesday warning the paper&#8217;s readers that some of the hope Trump has been offering the nation is actually &#8220;false&#8221; and doing great &#8220;damage.&#8221;
&#8220;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/trump-is-spreading-false-hope-for-a-virus-cure--and-thats-not-the-only-damage/2020/03/25/587b26d8-6ec3-11ea-b148-e4ce3fbd85b5_story.html?utm_campaign=wp_opinions&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_source=twitter">Trump is spreading false hope for a virus cure — and that’s not the only damage</a>,&#8221; declared the headline of the Post&#8217;s editorial published Wednesday. That &#8220;false hope,&#8221; the Post says, is Trump&#8217;s comments about a potential treatment for COVID-19 involving the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine.
The Post offers some background on why many (including Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo) have looked to hydroxychloroquine as a potential treatment for coronavirus:
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During the first two weeks of March, 20 patients suffering from the new <a class="contextual_link" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/02/28/what-you-need-know-about-coronavirus/?tid=lk_inline_manual_1&amp;itid=lk_inline_manual_1" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">coronavirus</a> at a hospital in Marseille, France, participated in a preliminary <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0924857920300996?via%3Dihub">study </a>to see if the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine had any effect on the disease, in some cases combined with an antibiotic, <a href="https://www.drugs.com/azithromycin.html">azithromycin</a>. Sixteen people who didn’t get the drugs were enlisted as controls. After six days, the study found that 57.1 percent of patients who got hydroxychloroquine were cured, and 100 percent of those who got both drugs were cleared of the virus — compared to only 12.5 percent of the control group. Soon after it was published, this result was <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1241367239900778501">advertised</a> by President Trump as “a real chance to be one of the biggest game changers in the history of medicine.”
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&#8220;Not so fast,&#8221; writes the Post&#8217;s snarky editorial board. &#8220;Such success does not usually occur overnight. Widespread testing for drug safety and efficacy is essential. The French result does not mean this <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/03/25/chloroquine-coronavirus-toxic-malaria/?tid=lk_inline_manual_2&amp;itid=lk_inline_manual_2">drug </a>is ready for use against the coronavirus, nor should a world ridden with anxiety about pandemic illness and death rest its hopes on this <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-25/hydroxychloroquine-no-better-than-regular-covid-19-care-in-study">unproven possibility</a>. There may be a &#8216;wonder&#8217; drug at the end of the rainbow, but we are not there yet.&#8221;
To fully know if the drug combination is an effective treatment, the Post explains, &#8220;controlled <a href="https://www.drugwatch.com/fda/clinical-trials/">clinical trials</a> would be required before a drug is approved by the Food and Drug Administration: Phase 1 to determine overall safety and dosage; Phase 2 (about 100 people) to see if effective and safe compared with other compounds; Phase 3 (a large group) to test efficacy and side effects.&#8221;
But hasn&#8217;t hydroxychloroquine already been approved for treatment of malaria? Yes, the Post notes, but it hasn&#8217;t been approved for use on coronavirus. &#8220;Scientists are still <a href="https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/03/20/chloroquine-past-and-present">arguing </a>over how the drug attacks the malaria parasite. No one is sure how it might work against viruses,&#8221; the editorial board notes. &#8220;Besides, there are potentially serious <a href="https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/drugsatfda_docs/label/2017/006002s044lbl.pdf">side effects</a>: irreversible retinal damage and cardiac failure in some patients.&#8221;
But just because the treatment hasn&#8217;t been adequately tested and officially approved, is it necessarily a &#8220;false hope&#8221; that is doing &#8220;damage&#8221;? The Post insists it is, blaming Trump&#8217;s &#8220;overhyping&#8221; of the potential treatment for &#8220;hoarding of hydroxychloroquine and diverted supplies from people with other maladies who need it.&#8221; The only true cure, the Post says, is going to be a vaccine.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/gallup-trump-approval-spikes-majority-of-americans-approve-of-his-handling-of-crisis">Trump Approval Spikes, Strong Majority Of Americans Approve Of His Handling Of Crisis</a>
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The Washington Post

WaPo Editors Lash Out At Trump: His ‘False Hope’ About Curing Virus Causing ‘Damage’

On Tuesday, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/business/media/china-expels-american-journalists.html">The New York Times</a> reported that the Chinese government announced that it would revoke the press credentials of American journalists for major news outlets while demanding that the media outlets for which the journalists worked tell the Chinese government what they were doing. The news outlets included The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, the Voice of America and Time magazine.
The Times wrote, “China instructed American journalists ‘whose press credentials are due to expire before the end of 2020’ to ‘notify the Department of Information of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs within four calendar days starting from today and hand back their press cards within ten calendar days.’” The government also said the journalists “will not be allowed to continue working as journalists in the People’s Republic of China, including its Hong Kong and Macao Special Administrative Regions.”
A Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman said the decisions “are entirely necessary and reciprocal countermeasures that China is compelled to take in response to the unreasonable oppression the Chinese media organizations experience in the U.S. They are legitimate and justified self-defense in every sense. What the U.S. has done is exclusively targeting Chinese media organizations, and hence driven by a Cold War mentality and ideological bias.”
The move by the Chinese government is the latest salvo in the battle between the Trump administration and China. On Feb. 18, the Trump administration declared that employees of Xinhua, CGTN, China Radio, China Daily and The People’s Daily, the major Chinese news outlets, were government operatives. On February 19, China announced it was expelling three members of The Wall Street Journal; TIME noted, “Beijing blamed the expulsions on an editorial headline that called China the ‘sick man of Asia,’ but the expelled reporters had also written hard-hitting investigative stories about alleged human rights violations in Xinjiang, where Beijing has been detaining members of the Muslim Uighur minority in camps, and alleged abuses of power by Chinese leaders.”
The Trump administration <a href="https://time.com/5794166/the-trump-administration-has-put-new-restrictions-on-chinese-journalists-in-the-u-s-will-it-work/">cut the number of Chinese nationals</a> working for China’s state-run media outlets in the U.S. by almost 50% on March 2. On March 3, Hua Chunying, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, wrote on Twitter, “Now the U.S. has kicked off the game, let’s play.” China then demanded an apology for the Wall Street Journal article.
As the Times reports, the Foreign Correspondents’ Club has stated that China has increased its targeting of journalists, writing, “Chinese authorities are using visas as weapons against the foreign press like never before, expanding their deployment of a longtime intimidation tactic as working conditions for foreign journalists in China severely deteriorated in 2019.”
<a href="https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/17/report-china-clamps-down-further-on-dissent-as-it-expels-journalists-from-nyt-wsj-and-wapo/">TechCrunch</a> noted:
<blockquote>China’s suppression of external dissent is also being mirrored with regard to its own citizens. While there was a bit of an open window for discussion as the government attempted to <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51409801">moderate blowback over its response to the novel coronavirus pandemic</a>, internet censors <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/16/business/china-coronavirus-internet-police.html">according to The New York Times</a> are now once again clamping down hard on negative conversations and adding additional reinforcements to police online discussions</blockquote>
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Chinese Foreign Ministry resumes offline briefings in Beijing

China Expels Journalists From Major American Media Outlets

New York Times

Wall Street Journal

Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post says more Republicans than Democrats will die of coronavirus.
Now, she&#8217;s not a doctor and she does not play one on TV, but she&#8217;s got her theory.
&#8220;There is a particular cruelty/irony that it is their core viewers, the Republican older viewers, who are the most at risk,&#8221; she said, according to a transcript by <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2020/03/15/jennifer_rubin_more_republicans_than_democrats_will_die_of_coronavirus_because_right_wing_media_is_downplaying_threat.html">Real Clear Politics</a>.
<blockquote>Rubin: And when you think about it, which party immediately canceled all of their rallies? Which party immediately started having their political figures really portray and use their lies as an example? It was the Democrats.
So, I hate to put it this way, but there will be less Democrat deaths because there will be less mass gatherings, there will be less opportunities for people to congregate and share this horrible disease. So it is really a very short-sighted strategy.
But, I think now the name of the game is how do they get back on Planet Earth. And part of the way that I think that they are doing it is down the memory hole. He jumped right on this right away because of all this planning that we’re doing so well, which is head-spinning for the rest of us who watched him for weeks say this was a hoax. But this is how they do it at Fox News. Suddenly, he’s been the most pro-active president… The toughest on it.
And so they will contort themselves to get in line and get in sync. And, you know, we’re always saying but, but, but, pointing to the past. They don’t. They simply move with the flow. Every day is a new day. Every day is a new storyline, and they will stick with it.
I think the problem will be what happens unfortunately if we start to follow that Italian model where we have mass casualties, and our lives are not disrupted for a week or two, but we’re talking months. And that is going to be some serious stuff. And I don’t know if their brainwashing is so strong as to carry on and make excuses for Trump during that. But this will be some serious stuff.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Jennifer Rubin says that more Republicans will die of coronavirus than Democrats because President Trump and right-wing media have downplayed the threat <a href="https://t.co/wmzMMPc3qZ">pic.twitter.com/wmzMMPc3qZ</a>
&mdash; Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) <a href="https://twitter.com/DailyCaller/status/1239323346128572422?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 15, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Meghan McCain, a co-host on &#8220;The View,&#8221; blasted Rubin, tweeting: &#8220;This is ghoulish and craven, even by Jennifer Rubin standards. Why does anyone feel the agency to politicize pain and possible death? It is GODLESS.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
This is ghoulish and craven, even by Jennifer Rubin standards. Why does anyone feel the agency to politicize pain and possible death? It is GODLESS. <a href="https://t.co/q9cp7oQn5V">https://t.co/q9cp7oQn5V</a>
&mdash; Meghan McCain (@MeghanMcCain) <a href="https://twitter.com/MeghanMcCain/status/1239300472411955203?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 15, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The Washington Post describes Rubin, who once was touted as a “conservative” author of the paper’s blog “Right Turn,” as an “opinion writer reporting from a center-right perspective.”
But in 2018, the American Principles Project sent a letter to the Post signed by 37 top conservative leaders to urge the paper to stop promoting Rubin as a “conservative” and to instead hire a columnist who could “eloquently and effectively” defend the policies of President Trump and his party.
“We, of course, respect the right of The Washington Post to employ whatever writers it pleases — even Jennifer Rubin. However, we ask for the sake of intellectual honesty that the Post cease to identify her as in any way ‘conservative,&#8217;” the conservative leaders wrote. “Given the Post’s standing as an important platform for political opinion in our nation’s capital, we also respectfully request that you consider hiring a voice who can eloquently and effectively defend the positions held by our President, his party, and the millions of voters who elected him. We would be happy to provide recommendations.”

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