FLASHBACK: Gov. Andrew Cuomo: ‘We’re not going to make America great again; it was never that great.’

Just a reminder. America’s ruling class doesn’t think much of the country it rules. Which explains rather a lot. Don’t let them rule it anymore.

HMM: Memo Claims Your Stimulus Check May Not Arrive Until August.

THE POLICE AREN’T THERE TO PROTECT US FROM THEM, THEY’RE THERE TO PROTECT THEM FROM US: In my neighborhood, there’s a guy wandering around stealing bikes. People even have him on video. The Knoxville Police say that they aren’t responding to theft reports because of the pandemic. A neighbor asks: “Are they responding to thieves being shot?”

THE ATLANTIC ADVANCES A SHOCKING POSSIBILITY: Consider the Possibility That Trump Is Right About China: Critics are letting their disdain for the president blind them to geopolitical realities.

Far from discrediting Trump’s point of view, the COVID-19 crisis reveals what his strategy asserted: that the world is a competitive arena in which great power rivals like China seek advantage, that the state remains the irreplaceable agent of international power and effective action, that international institutions have limited capacity to transform the behavior and preferences of states.

China, America’s most powerful rival, has played a particularly harmful role in the current crisis, which began on its soil. Initially, that country’s lack of transparency prevented prompt action that might have contained the virus. In Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak, Chinese officials initially punished citizens for “spreading rumors” about the disease. The lab in Shanghai that first published the genome of the virus on open platforms was shut down the next day for “rectification,” as the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported in February. Apparently at the behest of officials at the Wuhan health commission, news reports indicate, visiting teams of experts from elsewhere in China were prevented from speaking freely to doctors in the infectious-disease wards. Some experts had suspected human-to-human transmission, but their inquiries were rebuffed. “They didn’t tell us the truth,” one team member said of the local authorities, “and from what we now know of the real situation then, they were lying” to us.

Now China’s propagandists are competing to create a narrative that obscures the origins of the crisis and that blames the United States for the virus. This irresponsible behavior and lack of transparency revealed what Trump’s National Security Strategy had identified early on: that “contrary to our hopes, China expanded its power at the expense of others.” Instead of becoming a “responsible stakeholder”—a term George W. Bush’s administration used to describe the role it hoped Beijing would play following China’s entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001—the Chinese Communist Party used the advantages of WTO membership to advance a political and economic system at odds with America’s free and open society. Previous National Security Strategy documents had tiptoed around China’s adversarial conduct, as if calling out that country as a competitor—as the 2017 document unequivocally did—was somehow impolite.

China has a lot of influence within our ruling class. And with our press, much of which rushes to advance its narratives.

COLLUSION: Dem Rep Spreads Chinese Propaganda While Blaming Coronavirus Deaths on Trump.

An Illinois Democrat who accused President Donald Trump of killing Americans by lying to the public about the coronavirus also spread pro-China misinformation about the deadly disease during a townhall with constituents.

As COVID-19 spreads across the nation, Rep. Sean Casten (D., Ill.) has repeatedly attempted to blame Trump and Republicans for the death toll, accusing them of spreading fatal misinformation about the pandemic. Casten himself, however, has misinformed the public about China’s role in the pandemic. When one of his constituents asked about the early Chinese response to the outbreak at a March 21 electronic town hall, the congressman refused to talk about the regime’s coverup of the virus. Instead, he incorrectly said that China had successfully isolated the outbreak in Wuhan.

“China, to their credit, once they realize they had a problem, shut down the entire province that this was in and they seem to have largely isolated the cases in China,” Casten said. “We have missed that window in the United States.”

In reality, however, China has failed to isolate the cases in the province of Wuhan, the origin of the illness. The virus has spread to nearly every part of the country, killing thousands in distant provinces such as Guangdong and Zhejiang. And while China’s self-reported data indicate the worst has passed, reports of funeral homes overflowing with urns have led critics to believe that the regime is grossly underreporting the impact of the pandemic. One media report, for instance, estimates China’s coronavirus deaths are in the tens of thousands, as opposed to the officially reported count of 3,308.

“A *single mortuary* in Wuhan reportedly ordered more urns in two days than the Chinese Communist Party has reported total deaths in the whole country,” tweeted Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) on March 29. “I’m sure you’re shocked by evidence of Chinese lies.”

During his townhall, a constituent asked Casten why China did not react sooner during the early days of the pandemic. In response, the Illinois congressman said the origin of the outbreak was irrelevant since “viruses don’t know borders.”

“The best estimate is that it did move into people from the wet market of China,” Casten said. “But once that virus was out there, it’s sort of trivial that it came from China.”

In reality, China significantly exacerbated the coronavirus outbreak by initially downplaying its danger in state media outlets and punishing whistleblowers, doctors, and journalists who tried to collect accurate information about the disease. The delayed Chinese response to the outbreak—which only started in late January, more than a month since patient zero—has cost lives: One study found that if China started its response three weeks earlier, there would have been 95 percent fewer cases.

Casten’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Casten also asserted the United States shut down its pandemic response team in the National Security Council, a false claim repeated by many Democrats and mainstream media outlets. Trump merely consolidated several redundant teams, including those tasked with the pandemic response, into one office while retaining much of their original staff, according to Tim Morrison, who previously led the consolidated office.

Uh huh. Why are Democratic members of Congress covering up for the Chinese government’s misbehavior?

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: AUSSIE BEATDOWN: Tim Blair Delivers An Old-Fashioned Fisking to the Chinese Propaganda Apparat, And It’s Brutal.

Excerpt:

The Daily Telegraph this week received a letter from the Australian Consulate General of the People’s Republic of China, who took gentle issue with our excellent coverage of the coronavirus crisis.

Following is a point-by-point response to the Consulate General and China’s communist dictatorship:

Recently the Daily Telegraph has published a number of reports and opinions about China’s response to COVID-19 that are full of ignorance, prejudice and arrogance.

If a state-owned newspaper in China received this kind of complaint, subsequent days would involve journalists waking up in prison with their organs harvested.

Tracing the origin of the virus is a scientific issue that requires professional, science-based assessment.

Sure it does. How professional and science-based was the claim published on March 12 by China’s foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian that “it might be US Army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan”?

The origin of the virus is still undetermined, and the World Health Organization has named the novel coronavirus “COVID-19”.

The World Health Organisation also appointed Zimbabwean murderer Robert Mugabe as its Goodwill Ambassador and declared on March 2 that the “stigma” of the coronavirus “is more dangerous than the virus itself”.

The World Health Organisation does a lot of stupid stuff.

So what is the real motive behind your attempt to repeatedly link the virus to China and even stating that the novel coronavirus was “made in China”?

Our motive is accuracy. That’s why we don’t link the virus to Bognor Regis or state that it was “made in Panama”.

The people of Wuhan made a huge effort and personal sacrifice to stop the spread of the epidemic.

Wuhan’s Dr Li Wenliang indeed made a huge effort to warn people about the coronavirus outbreak. Then, as the New York Times reported: “In early January, he was called in by both medical officials and the police, and forced to sign a statement denouncing his warning as an unfounded and illegal rumor.”

And now he’s dead, so that’s “personal sacrifice” covered as well.

Nevertheless, in order to capture attention and gain more internet hits, you called Wuhan the “Zombieland” and Wuhan seafood market the “bat market”. How low can you go?

In the civilised world, “Bradman bats and bats and bats” is a famous newspaper banner:

In Wuhan, it’s the name of a restaurant.

The effectiveness of China’s epidemic prevention and control has fully underlined the people-centred philosophy of the Communist Party of China and the strong advantages of the Chinese system.

In 2018, Amnesty International reported that China executed more citizens than the rest of the world combined.

Please tell us more about your “people-centred philosophy” and how many bullets it requires.

More at the link.

THE STORM BEFORE THE CALM: Surgeon General Warns That This Week Will Be ‘Our Pearl Harbor’ Moment as Virus Deaths Will Spike.

WHEN THIS IS OVER, WE SHOULD LEAVE THE SUSPENDED REGULATIONS SUSPENDED: Coronavirus Puts Counterproductive Regulations Into Perspective: Many regulations serve little to no public purpose.

ON THIS DAY IN 1841, TYLER, TOO, BECAME PRESIDENT … SORT OF: President William Henry Harrison died only 31 days into his term, making him the first President to die in office. Two days later, Vice President John Tyler was sworn into office. Here’s the Constitutional quirk: In those days, the Constitution simply said that in case of the President’s death “the Powers and Duties of the said office” “shall devolve upon the Vice President.” It didn’t say that the Vice President BECOMES the President. Tyler, however, took the position that he WAS then the President. While many people disagreed at the time, his action set the precedent. It wasn’t until the 25^th Amendment, ratified in 1967, that it was made clear that the Vice President actually becomes the President upon the death, resignation or removal of the President.