THERE WAS A TIME WHEN SWEDISH SOLDIERS WERE FAMED FOR THEIR INDIFFERENCE TO GRAPESHOT: Sweden tops 1,000 deaths as criticism of “herd immunity” strategy grows. “The Swedish mortality rate is almost 10 times higher than in Finland, more than four times higher than in Norway, and twice Denmark’s.”
Archive for 2020
April 14, 2020
CHINA IS TRYING TO USE THE WUHAN CORONAVIRUS TO OBTAIN GLOBAL ADVANTAGE. “The CCP has no only one concern, staying in power. That the CCP even bothers with public diplomacy has everything to do with threatening the world rather than trying to convince anyone of their position. Chinese propaganda is not about winning friends, it’s about letting all know the consequences if the CCP is not happy.”
They’re weaker than they realize. But then, so was the Kaiser, and that ended badly for everyone.
On the other hand, there’s some evidence that they’re feeling desperate.
UPDATE: Possibly related: Kudlow: ‘Pay The Moving Costs’ Of American Companies Leaving China. “The same day Japan announced that it would spend upwards of $2.2 billion to get its corporations out of China and either back home or spread throughout southeast Asia, White House National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow said the U.S. should ‘pay the moving costs’ of every American company that wants out of China.”
WELL, IT’S THE WAPO, THAT’S WHO THEY ARE, THAT’S WHAT THEY DO: Another Dishonest Smear By the Washington Post.
The entire point of the article is that the Smithfield experience proves Governor Noem was wrong not to order a mass closure of businesses.
But wait! It is obvious even to a casual reader that the Post’s attack makes no sense. The article acknowledges that the Smithfield plant had already “been deemed essential by the federal government,” so no order Noem might have issued would have applied to it in any case. The Smithfield experience had nothing to do with Noem’s policy.
One is tempted to stop there. The Post’s attempted smear obviously missed its mark. But let’s continue.
They’re not even trying anymore, really. Plus:
The point of the Post story is to convey the impression that Governor Noem’s reliance on voluntary measures, education, persuasion, and close cooperation with federal agencies, other governors, and the private sector is a failure. Strikingly absent from the Post’s hit job, however, is the bottom line: how many South Dakotans have actually succumbed to COVID-19? The answer: 6, and none have been reported within the last week. South Dakota has one of the best coronavirus records of any state, but the Post didn’t tell its readers that. It would have ruined the narrative.
Next: the Smithfield story is actually an interesting one, but the Post tells us essentially nothing about it. First of all, the Sioux Falls facility is massive. It has 3,700 employees, of whom fewer than 10% have tested positive for COVID-19. The Sioux Falls facility is one of the main pork producers in the U.S., turning out around 18 million servings of bacon, pork chops, etc., per day. You may wonder, why were so many diagnostic tests performed on employees at that plant? The answer is that Smithfield implemented an aggressive program, in partnership with two major hospital systems, whereby anyone who entered or left the facility was questioned and had his or her temperature taken. Anyone who reported having a cough, etc., or who showed an elevated temperature was tested for COVID-19.
Moreover, the Post article conveyed the impression that the Smithfield plant might become a ghost facility, closed forever due to South Dakota’s failure to elect a Democratic governor. In fact, the plant will reopen in a matter of days. During the brief time it has been closed, Smithfield has been working intensively with the Centers for Disease Control, OSHA, and others, and is implementing measures as described by the company.
The WaPo has become truly pathetic. But that’s not news.
IF YOU DECIDE TO SHELL OUT TWENTY BUCKS TO STREAM TROLLS WORLD TOUR: Don’t say I didn’t warn you how terrible it is. I don’t think I’ve ever reviewed a movie at Instapundit. But this one is so bad… And as the father of three kids ages 7 to 14, I’ve seen plenty of kids’ movies, and this is really bottom of the barrel.
OPEN THREAD: If I stay inside, I might live till Saturday.
I JUST HEARD THIS AND I’M SO SORRY: Abigail Thernstrom, R.I.P. She and her husband Stephan were tireless fighters for racial justice and American ideals; Helen and I spent several engaging evenings with them at conferences over the years. Condolences to Stephan, and to their daughter Melanie, who we hosted overnight once, a very long time ago.
SO WITH TRUMP VOWING TO CUT OFF FUNDING TO THE W.H.O. over its China-puppet status, Rob George has the perfect tweet:
UPDATE: Related, though less humorous: China’s deadly coronavirus-lie co-conspirator — the World Health Organization.
COVID-19: ELON MUSK FAILED TO DELIVER VENTILATORS TO CA. “On March 23, Gov. Gavin Newsom made a dramatic announcement: Tesla founder Elon Musk was donating over 1,000 ventilators to California. It seemed like miraculous news at a moment when the state was desperately searching for ventilators to help save critical coronavirus patients. But was it true? Newsom’s office now says Musk was supposed to deliver the ventilators directly to hospitals. So far, however, the governor’s office says no California hospital has received them.”
AT AMAZON, save in Beauty and Grooming.
HAS NEW YORK BENT THE CURVE? “On Tuesday, for the first time, New York reported a net decline in hospitalizations, although it remains to be seen whether the trend can be sustained. The number of people reported as dying from COVID-19 has also been at a plateau in recent days. But data on the share of New Yorkers who are testing positive for COVID-19 suggests that the curve has not merely flattened but probably begun to turn down. Among tests conducted Monday, April 13 (and reported on Tuesday afternoon), 34.5 percent were positive, down from a peak of 50.4 percent on Tuesday, March 31. The decline in the share of positive tests has been fairly robust across most parts of New York state, including in all five New York City’s five boroughs, although some more clearly so than others.”
UPDATE: NYC Death Toll Soars Past 10,000 in Revised Virus Count. The city has added more than 3,700 additional people who were presumed to have died of the coronavirus but had never tested positive.
(Updated and bumped.)
SO #METOO WAS BASICALLY BULLSHIT, THEN: CNN missing in action on Biden assault accuser Tara Reade’s story.
LOL, HELL NO! Chinese Consulate Asked Wisconsin State Senate to Praise CCP for ‘Sharing Key Information’ about Coronavirus, Emails Show.
Where “it never hurts to ask” collides with “desperation is a bad look.”
UPDATE (FROM THE COMMENTS): “Talk about desperation, the sudden influx of pro-China accounts on Twitter is impossible to miss. It’s probably similar on other social networks. If you didn’t think they were desperate before you couldn’t help but think so now.”
HARSH, BUT FAIR: ‘Liberal Arts Degrees’ Renamed ‘Non-Essential Worker Degrees.’
JUST THINK OF THE MEDIA AS DEMOCRATIC PARTY OPERATIVES WITH BYLINES, AND IT ALL MAKES SENSE: Why the mainstream media won’t take Tara Reade seriously.
BLOOMBERG NEWS KILLED INVESTIGATION INTO WEALTHY CHINESE COMMUNISTS: “The concern wasn’t merely that China could kick Bloomberg News out of the country but that it could take action against Mike Bloomberg’s other business interests which are the basis of his fortune…The story that Bloomberg News killed, and the reporter who wrote it, eventually made their way to the NY Times. Fincher, the reporter’s wife, wrote about Bloomberg’s attempts to silence her for the Intercept. But the whole story does make you wonder what else Bloomberg News is not reporting for fear of offending authoritarian governments.”
NEW YORK TIMES EDITOR EXCUSES PAPER’S SLOW TARA READE COVERAGE: ‘Kavanaugh Was a Running, Hot Story.’ Evidently, the current presidential race doesn’t count:
This is deeply unpersuasive. The accusations against Kavanaugh were a “running, hot story” in part because the media covered them aggressively from the outset. Reade’s story might well be running and hot if the Times treated her as it treated Christine Blasey Ford.
Case in point: In the midst of the Kavanaugh cycle, Times columnist Michelle Goldberg thanked Ford for her heroism. Here was how Goldberg described Ford’s retelling of the incident with Kavanaugh: “Her soft voice cracked as she spoke. She smiled a lot; her attempts to make everyone see how agreeable and reasonable she is were heart-rending. But she was also poised and precise, occasionally speaking as an expert—she’s a psychology professor—as well as a victim. Watching her push through her evident terror was profoundly inspiring.” The column was titled “Christine Blasey Ford’s Sacrifice.”
Goldberg has now weighed in on Reade’s allegation. The words “hero” and “sacrifice” do not appear in this column, which is titled “What To Do With Tara Reade’s Allegation Against Joe Biden?” The tone makes clear that Goldberg views Reade as an inconvenience who must be dealt with. And the villain of this story is not Biden but “those using this strange, sad story to hector feminists into pretending to a certainty they have no reason to feel.” Goldberg asserts that they are “trolling the #MeToo movement” and acting in bad faith.
I’m not so sure. Is it trolling to hold feminist activists, for whom “believe all women” is an important slogan, to their convictions? Perhaps feminist organizations—recall that Planned Parenthood and NARAL both tweeted “We still believe Julie Swetnick #BelieveSurvivors” weeks after her allegation fell apart—should have anticipated being called out for this obvious double standard.
Better call Saul: “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules,” as one of Obama and Hillary’s key influences wrote.
MY POISON’S NAMED, YOU KNOW MY BRAND, SO PLEASE MAKE MINE A DOUBLE, SAM: Excessive drinking during coronavirus lockdowns could weaken immune system, experts say.
CHRIS CUOMO DENIES VENTING ABOUT CNN, THANKS JEFF ZUCKER PERSONALLY:
CNN primetime host Christopher Cuomo bizarrely denied expressing dissatisfaction with his job during a live monologue on his radio program, claiming: “I never said it.”
During Monday’s edition of his SiriusXM show, Cuomo said he no longer enjoys what he does “professionally” and conceded to “trafficking in things that I think are ridiculous.” He also said his duties of hosting Cuomo Prime Time are not “worth my time.”
“It’s not true,” Cuomo told listeners on Tuesday of his surprising remarks, according to The Hollywood Reporter. “I never said it. I never meant it.”
“I have never been in a better position, professionally, than I am in right now. They’ve been so good. They’ve been so supportive of me in ways I could never have imagined,” Cuomo, who is under self-quarantine after contracting the Chinese coronavirus, said of CNN. “I’ve never had a group of people professionally care about me the way they have shown. I’ll never be able to repay them, but I’ll try hard to do so. I’ve never been more grateful. I’ve never been on a better team.”
Here’s video of Cuomo’s walkback of yesterday’s rant:
Unless this is “deep fake” territory, the audio certainly sounds like Cuomo made the remarks attributed to him by the Post yesterday.
