GOVERNMENT TRANSPARENCY DEEMED ‘NON-ESSENTIAL’ BY CHICAGO: Don’t bother submitting Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to the local authorities in The Windy City. Mayor Lori Lightfoot claimed not to know this automated response is now going to all FOIA requests: “Freedom of Information Act responses have been deemed a non-essential city operation and are being temporarily suspended until further notice,” according to Governing.

ACT OF JOURNALISM COMMITTED ON CAPITOL HILL: Which of these presidents disbanded the National Security Council’s anti-pandemic section, Donald Trump, Barack Obama or George W. Bush? How about all three of them!

Credit Roll Call’s Rachel Oswald with doing the research, interviewing key players, asking them pointed questions, and then presenting the results in a straightforward, no-nonsense fashion. Here’s the summary paragraph:

“But a variety of longtime experts in disaster response who spoke to CQ Roll Call warn that the country risks missing some of the lessons from what is the largest public health crisis in a century if opprobrium is heaped solely at Trump’s feet. Rather, they say, there is blame to be shared, going back decades through multiple presidencies and on both sides of the political aisle.”

Other than a perfunctory paean to Pelosi’s pandemic commission near the end, Oswald keeps it balanced and informative. It’s called “journalism” and the nation needs a huge revival of it. I just hope Oswald’s career doesn’t suffer for having done this excellent piece.

Compare Oswald’s work with this Establishment agit-prop from The Washington Post, pushing the Trump-pushing-risky-drug and Trump-White House-divisions-widen narratives.

“IS CHINA GROUND ZERO FOR A FUTURE PANDEMIC?” That was the headline in the November 2017 edition of Smithsonian Magazine. The lead photo is a wet market in China. Clearly, Trump is late to this fact pattern.

HT: Jim Geraghty, The Morning Jolt, “All Signs Point to China.”

IT’S EASTER WEEK AND NO, JESUS IS NOT A FAIRY TALE: The “Jesus is just another child’s story, like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny” claim will be repeated in the mainstream media this week. But what if it’s wrong?

ESSENTIAL READING ON DEMOCRATS’ ANTI-TRUMP CORONAVIRUS CHRONOLOGY: Attorney Par Excellence Cleta Mitchell lays it out, excruciating (for Pelosi, et. al.) gaps and all:

“If Pelosi believes the president should have done something at the beginning, when exactly does she think was the ‘beginning’? Was it during the impeachment proceedings that Pelosi instigated? Should Pelosi bear some responsibility for what she perceives as the president’s failure to focus on the coronavirus back in January?

“The single most important step taken by President Trump was his closing of U.S. travel with China, which happened on Jan. 31, something the president reminds us at every briefing.

“He’s right, but what he doesn’t say is he made that decision at a time the CDC was assuring us the risk to America was low, the WHO was covering for China, Democrats were trying to impeach the president, and Biden was attacking the decision as xenophobic.”

PEOPLE PRAYING PANDEMIC PASSES: Pew pronouncement.

WHAT’S THIS, LIBERALS BUYING FIREARMS? Bearing Arms’ Cam Edwards reports those crowds at gun dealers aren’t made up entirely of heat-packing GOPers.

NEW GOLDEN RULE – HE WHO HAS THE ANTIBIOTICS MAKES THE RULES: Jan Jekielek interviews  Rosemary Gibson, author of “China Rx: Exposing the Risks of America’s Dependence on China for Medicine” in The Epoch Times’ “American Thought Leaders” interview series. Here’s a sample from an important and much-needed interview:

“We’re so dependent that we can’t even make antibiotics anymore in the United States. That began in the early 2000s, when the United States opened up free trade with China. And the last penicillin plant shut down. The last vitamin C plant shut down.

“And that happened because China undercut other companies on price and kept prices low for a long time. These are illegal trade practices. And that’s how we lost our penicillin capability and the production of generic antibiotics. We’ve got to think about ways that we can bring our manufacturing back home. Not all of it, but some of it, to assure our national health security.”

The promise of globalism was that mutual interdependence would prevent concentrations of power that produce political and economic abuses. Gibson makes clear that China didn’t get the message and neither did American political leaders in either major party.

U.S. NAVAL WAR COLLEGE WAR-GAMED A PANDEMIC: It was last year and involved 50 experts responding in ways that were eerily like what has been happening in the real-world in 2020, according to military.com.

“Called Urban Outbreak 2019, the war game involved 50 experts who spent two days coordinating response, containment and messaging efforts around the notional pandemic. Some of the conclusions, such as the way forced mass quarantine can backfire and trigger additional disease spread, and how the mortality rate is better than the overall number of disease cases in assessing the scale of an outbreak — have been proved out through the response to the novel coronavirus.”

OK, LET’S GET THIS ONE OUT OF THE WAY BEFORE PALM SUNDAY: Easter is coming, so expect to hear in the mainstream media and cable entertainment channels objections to the Resurrection among the intellectualoids, one of the most common being that Jesus didn’t really die on the cross. He escaped and fled to India or Japan (and no, that’s not an April Fools Day joke, there are people who actually believe it).

One of three big reasons that’s beyond far-fetched, according to retired LA detective and cold-case expert J. Warner Wallace, is that Roman executioners knew dead bodies when they saw them. Something to think about as Americans mark the holiday for the first time ever while staying at home.

ALL THE NEWS THAT FITS THE NARRATIVE: Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) explains the lengths to which The New York Times will go to deny President Donald Trump was illegally targeted by elements of the Obama administration using the intelligence community, the Department of Justice and the FBI.

THE HISTORY OF SOAP: Now that we’re all washing our hands repeatedly throughout the day, check out The History Guy’s account of how we got soap. Did you know archeologists discovered a recipe for soap in the ruins of ancient Babylon, circa 2200 BC? BTW, is The History Guy Tucker Carlson’s older brother?

SOME MUCH-NEEDED CORONAVIRUS CONTEXT: I meant to post this earlier today but just realized I didn’t. It’s a big dose of context about where America is in the coronavirus pandemic, courtesy of the crew at Issues & Insights. These guys know their stuff.

NEED SOME GOOD NEWS? John Krasinski of “The Office” has got you covered. This might be the start of something really positive amid the coronavirus pandemic.

IRANIANS DYING IN DROVES FROM COVID-19 BUT AYATOLLAH PROSPERS: What’s wrong with this picture?

GEORGE CREEL IS ALIVE AND WELL IN TODAY’S MEDIA: Never heard of Creel? James Carville has and he loves Woodrow Wilson’s fascistic Committee on Public Information, which progressive journalist Creel ran. Nothing good can come of this.

COMRADE DEBLASIO TEARS UP FIRST AMENDMENT IN NYC: Religious congregations are warned that failing to heed his orders could result in their buildings being permanently shuttered:

https://youtu.be/Qpt2OBqQVns

TRIBUTE TO A GREAT MAN AMERICA WILL MISS: I covered Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) for years and I grieve his passing. 

MOLLIE HEMINGWAY TAKES JOE SCARBOROUGH (AND OTHER ‘JOURNALISTS’) APART: This is like the unstoppable meeting the unmovable (or at least he thought he was until Mollie showed up).

NO, THE ‘DEPLORABLES’ RELIGION IS NOT AT WAR WITH SCIENCE: It’s a common accusation from liberals, secular and otherwise, against conservative evangelicals, especially those in the South, that they “are opposed to science.” It’s not true now and in fact, as historian Michael Keas demonstrates, it wasn’t true at the outset of the Scientific Revolution.

$400 MILLION BONANZA FOR ‘DEMOCRACY REFORM’ MOVEMENT: A small piece of the $2 trillion coronavirus relief bill but potentially a huge step toward nationalizing elections.

CORONAVIRUS BILL TEXT AND TITLE-BY-TITLE SUMMARY: Go here for the complete bill text. Go here for the title-by-title summary. Prediction: Lots of “gems” buried in this bill won’t be discovered for months.

AMERICA NEEDS THESE FIVE PARADIGM SHIFTS ASAP: See especially points four and five. If Republican leaders don’t figure this out soon …

SOME MUCH-NEEDED COMMON SENSE ON REMOTE VOTING BY CONGRESS: Here’s why a virtual Congress creates more problems than it solves.

TOOMEY DETAILS NEW CORONAVIRUS RELIEF PACKAGE: It’s still nearly $2 trillion, but the Pennsylvania GOPer says it provides much more in terms of loan leverage to aid small and big business, plus $1,200 checks for individuals, more for married families.