So, anyone tell me when the demoncraps haven’t been a bunch of clowns running amok?


Democrat Clownshow: Sisolak, Whitmer Reverse Course on Hydroxychloroquine

Send in the clowns. There ought to be clowns. – Last week, two craven political hack governors – Steve Sisolak in Nevada and the detestable Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan – made the indefensible decision to deny their citizens the right to be treated with hydroxychloroquine for the Wuhan Virus. On Sunday, the FDA issued an emergency authorization to doctors to use that cheap, highly-effective drug across the United States.

Today, the two circus clown Governors reversed their stupid edicts, now allowing those who contract the Virus in their states to be treated with the drugs. Better late than never.

From a report on Sisolak from JustTheNews.com:

Nevada Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak has now decided to allow malaria drugs hydroxychloroquine and chloroquin to be prescribed for the impatient treatment coronavirus patients, a spokesperson on Tuesday.

Sisolak previously endorsed restrictions on the use of hydroxychloroquine and chloroquin as the Trump administration touted its potential effectiveness in treating coronavirus.

Influential Republicans such as Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) have criticized Sisolak for his state’s handling of the drugs, which on Monday received emergency Food and Drug Administration approval for treating coronavirus patients.

From a report on Whitmer by the Detroit Metro Times:

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer drew fire from some on the right after the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (LARA) sent a letter last week threatening “administrative action” against doctors who prescribed two experimental drugs that could potentially help coronavirus patients.

The Whitmer administration has since removed the language threatening doctors from the letter and is now asking the federal government to send shipments of the drugs, Bridge magazine reports. The Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency authorization for the antimalarial drugs hydroxychloroquine sulfate and chloroquine phosphate on Saturday.

Conservatives including Charlie Kirk and Rudy Guiliani accused Whitmer of risking lives to oppose President Donald Trump. In recent weeks, Whitmer and Trump have been sparring on national television over federal aid for Michigan, while Trump has touted the drugs’ potential in treating COVID-19.

Note that the despicable Whitmer is not only reversing her ban, but now begging the federal government to ship her quantities of the drug. Hey, maybe she tested positive herself – that would par for the course for this insufferable clown.

These people make me sick. They are among the worst people in our entire society.

That is all.

Amazingly, there are other interesting things happening in the U.S.


IG Horowitz Releases Audit Showing Massive FBI Malfeasance Regarding FISA Procedures

Color me shocked, just shocked, to learn that the FBI under James Comey was a totally corrupt dumpster fire that couldn’t follow even the most basic protocols to protect civil liberties.

Inspector General Horowitz has released a new audit in which he went back and looked at a random sample of 25 past FISA applications to see if the Woods procedures were followed.

To summarize his findings, no, no they weren’t.

The report goes on to find that, in every single one of the applications looked at, they all contained errors or unsupported evidence. Further, four of the applications didn’t have a Woods file at all, which is a clear breach of the regulations.

Of course, after years of obfuscation and detail, the mainstream media are rushing to report this because it gives them a new talking point.

Get ready for a deluge of “see, they weren’t just targeting Trump!” talking points because that’s what the takeaway will be here. It won’t be that the FBI is a dumpster fire of corruption and incompetence, nor that Carter Page was clearly targeted on another level compared to the errors found in these other applications. Instead, they’ll take this news and try muddy the waters in order to push the partisan narrative that nothing out of the ordinary happened to the Trump campaign.

It is what it is. It’s unlikely anyone will ever pay a price for all that went on under Comey’s tenure as FBI Director. In the absence of any DOJ action, Congress doesn’t have the guts to shut down or heavily reform the FISA program, with many Republicans lobbying for yet another rubber stamp.

The deep state will remain alive and well.

Don’t the authorities have better things to do with their time right now?
I’ll take ‘Apparently Not’ for $500, Alex


Seattle Police Chief Tells People To Call 911 If They Hear ‘Racist Name-Calling.’

Seattle’s top cop may want to get her priorities straightened out. In the midst of the global COVID-19 pandemic, Police Chief Carmen Best used her most recent “chief’s brief” update on the coronavirus crisis to urge residents to dial 911 if they are the victims of racist name-calling.

It’s a time-wasting imperative—and one that’s at odds with the First Amendment.

In her briefing, Best called upon the expertise of a former local news anchor, Lori Matsukawa.

“Hate crimes have no place in our community,” said Matsukawa. “We are all trying to deal with the COVID-19 public health crisis together. If you are a victim of a hate crime or hate-based harassment, please call 911.”

“We will document and investigate every reported hate crime,” Best continued. “Even racist name-calling should be reported to police. If you aren’t sure if a hate crime occurred, call 911. We are here to help.”

This is unhelpful guidance that conflates two completely different things. A hate crime takes place when a person, motivated by animus, engages in criminal activity against a protected class. Importantly, the underlying action has to be criminal in nature: vandalism, assault, etc. Mere speech is not generally criminal, except in a few special cases (true threats of violence, for instance). Racist speech could be an element of a hate crime conviction, but engaging in racist speech is not itself a criminal action. In fact, hateful speech is clearly protected under the First Amendment, according to Supreme Court precedent.

Telling people to report racist name-calling to the police is thus bad advice. At best, it’s wasting police officers’ time. But it can actually lead to far worse consequences: Inviting the police to intervene in speech-based disputes between people is a recipe for disaster. Teachers, counselors, and parents, for instance, could reasonably interpret Best’s remarks as an obligation for them to call the cops on kids who use derogatory language. Over-criminalization of teenage misbehavior in schools is one result of the mindset that people—even kids—causing each other offense ought to be a matter for the police to handle.

In any case, it does not inspire confidence when Seattle’s top law enforcement authority uses her crisis platform to blur the important distinction between hate crimes and hateful speech. (Seattle PD did not respond to request for comment.)

A ‘reverse drive-by’.
Of course, my estimate is that all parties involved were up to no good.


Gunman Critically Hurt After Men He Was Shooting At Return Fire

A 47-year-old man is in critical condition after he was shot multiple times after he allegedly fired shots at two men on Chicago’s Southwest Side on Sunday afternoon.

According to Chicago police, two men, ages 29 and 21, were driving in the 7900 block of South Knox Avenue in the city’s Scottsdale neighborhood on Sunday evening when another man pulled out a gun and began shooting at their car.

Both men then pulled out their own weapons, striking the 47-year-old man multiple times.

The man was shot in the abdomen, right torso and right leg, and was taken to Christ Hospital in critical condition, police said.

Neither of the men in the vehicle was hurt in the shooting.

 

They may be coming to realize that Trump was right all along.


The Coronavirus Is Becoming A Public Relations Disaster For China.

It was only a matter of time before the coronavirus pandemic started to show a rupture in Western relations with China. Today, the market got some of the first hints of a rising probability of “decoupling”.

Evidence came today in the form of two BBC reports, one of the U.K. government of Boris Johnson (who has COVID-19 now) saying there would be ramifications for China failing to share how they stopped the virus from spreading. One such punishment was getting rid of Huawei in their 5G program.

Over the weekend, the Daily Mail reported that the Johnson team doubted China’s SARS-CoV-2 infection count, which totals around 81,000, saying they were probably off by a factor of 40.

The wide spreading disease throughout Europe is turning people off to China in leadership positions who, only a few months ago, were fine with Beijing and thought the U.S. trade war with China was just Trump being Trump………

That determination by the Department of Homeland Security that the firearms business’s – nationwide – are ‘essential’ must really be galling.


L.A. County sheriff (again) reverses closure order for gun stores

Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva announced Monday that he would no longer order or recommend that gun stores be closed as part of the county’s “safer at home” order.

The reversal was the second time Villanueva announced businesses dealing in firearms and ammunition may reopen, after he twice ordered them to close since last Tuesday.

He said the move was prompted by memorandum issued by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on Saturday that designated workers supporting the firearms and ammunition industry to be “essential infrastructure” workers.

“Based on further input from the federal government, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department will not order or recommend closure of businesses that sell or repair firearms or sell ammunition,” Villanueva said in a written statement.

The sheriff said that while the Department of Homeland Security guideline was an advisory only, “…nonetheless, the federal memorandum is persuasive given the its national scope.”

The department will monitor for unsanitary conditions and improper social distancing practices at all businesses, then report unlawful conditions to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office for review, Villanueva said.

“Regardless of whether a business sells groceries, gasoline, firearms, or any other product or service, we encourage them to abide by all health and safety measure in place,” he added.

The National Rifle Association and three other Second Amendment advocacy groups sued the Sheriff’s Department over Villanueva’s most recent order for gun stores to close on Thursday.

The businesses had just reopened after Villanueva ordered them closed on Tuesday, but he faced objections from the county’s top attorney.

Go look in a mirror and you will see who your real ‘First Responder’ is.


Coronavirus Clobbers Cops and Suddenly Second is First Fallback

Reports are surfacing in several jurisdictions about the number of police officers testing positive for Coronavirus, underscoring the importance of the Second Amendment among people who might have been indifferent about the right to keep and bear arms…until now.

Over the weekend, TIME magazine reported that “about 700 New Jersey police officers have tested positive for the coronavirus.” Acting State Police Supt. Col. Patrick Callahan said more than 700 officers have been quarantined at home.

However, the Philadelphia Inquirer subsequently reported that Callahan had “overstated” the number. The newspaper noted that “while 1,272 officers had been ‘quarantined,’ the actual number of those testing positive was 163. In addition, it said that 1,435 officers were ‘out for other reasons,’ but did not elaborate.”

The Sun reported Monday “Almost 5,000 (New York) cops are currently out sick as the coronavirus crisis continues to ravage New York with fears looming of disorder on the streets. The number of police officers out sick on Sunday amounts to nearly 14 per cent of the 36,000-strong force.”

The Associated Press reported “More than a fifth of Detroit’s police force is quarantined; two officers have died from coronavirus and at least 39 have tested positive, including the chief of police.”
The story also revealed “Nearly 690 officers and civilian employees at police departments and sheriff’s offices around the country have tested positive for COVID-19, according to an Associated Press survey of over 40 law enforcement agencies, mostly in major cities. The number of those in isolation as they await test results is far higher in many places.”

Altogether, these reports reinforce the argument made over the weekend by Alan Gottlieb, founder and executive vice president of the Second Amendment Foundation, which has filed a lawsuit in New Jersey to reopen gun shops and shooting ranges. He says the same principle applies nationwide, where police manpower shortages might translate to problems for the public, despite official insistence they have things under control.

“This is exactly why the Foundation lawsuit to force New Jersey to re-open gun stores during this emergency is so important,” Gottlieb said. “People need to be able to obtain the means of self-defense in times such as these. This is why the right to keep and bear arms is essential.

“The Second Amendment wasn’t written for duck hunters,” Gottlieb added. “The right to keep and bear arms is enshrined in the Constitution to assure every citizen has the means to defend himself or herself when help may not arrive in time, or maybe not arrive at all.”

Since the COVID-19 outbreak began more than two weeks ago, anecdotal reports of citizens rushing to gun stores to purchase firearms and ammunition have surfaced, suggesting many people were buying guns for the first time. The Second Amendment in essence became their first fallback.

Alarming to gun owners from one coast to the other has been the widespread shut downs of police agency services including fingerprinting for concealed carry license or permit applications. Some agencies are accepting renewals only, deciding to suspend new permit applications. This has already resulted in one lawsuit in North Carolina, filed by SAF, the Firearms Policy Coalition and Grass Roots North Carolina.

Several other lawsuits are under consideration, Gottlieb hinted in a telephone conversation late last week.

Pandemic Exposes Dangers of So-Called “Universal” Background Checks

As the COVID-19 pandemic makes its way across the country, Americans are getting an important lesson in the dangers of placing a prior restraint on the exercise of a constitutional right. The vast increase in those seeking protection in the Second Amendment during this period of uncertainty has caused the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) and Point of Contact State background check systems to buckle. Worse, some jurisdictions that have criminalized the private transfer of firearms have also shut down access to gun stores or their state criminal background check system. This lethal combination of misguided policies has made it impossible for millions of Americans to acquire, or even borrow or lend, firearms during this moment of crisis.

In peddling so-called “universal” background checks, anti-gun activists and politicians claim such checks are instant, and therefore don’t encumber Second Amendment rights. For instance, according to Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) firearm background checks take about 90 seconds.

Gun owners know that for many law-abiding individuals NICS checks, let alone point of contact state checks, have never been instant. In the 2018 NICS Operations Report, ​the FBI noted that 30 percent of all NICS checks were not “instant determinations.” The document explained that 20 percent of all checks required some additional analysis to complete, while 10 percent were delayed for further research. The problem overwhelmingly burdened law-abiding gun buyers, as only 1.21 percent of all checks resulted in a denial.

The simple facts outlined in the annual NICS Operations Report have not been enough to shame gun control advocates into dropping their “background checks are instant” talking point. However, the recent experience with firearms background checks during the COVID-19 outbreak should be enough to put their false claim to rest for good.

On March 17, the National Shooting Sports Foundation summarized the state of NICS in a message to federal firearms licensees (gun dealers). NSSF explained,

According to NICS, there are delays in the system due to an astronomical volume of transactions over the last several days. While much of the NICS System is automated and yields an immediate “proceed” or “deny” determination, transactions that result in a delayed status require the work of NICS examiners to investigate whether the transaction should be approved or not. With daily volumes roughly double that of last year, the NICS team is unable to begin investigations on all delays within three business days, creating a backlog in the delayed checks.

Colorado, a state that criminalized private firearm transfers in 2013, is a Point of Contact State where the Colorado Bureau of Investigation is tasked with performing firearms background checks. According to the CBI, as of March 24, background checks were taking four days. According to a report from the Reno Gazette, in Nevada, a state that criminalized private firearm transfers in 2019, “the onslaught of background check requests has made it virtually impossible to get through on the state’s Point of Contact Firearms Unit phone line.​”​ Due to these states’ prohibitions on private firearms transfers, the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding residents are at the mercy of an overwhelmed government bureaucracy.

The situation is even graver in jurisdictions that, through a combination of laws that criminalize the private transfer of firearms and virus-induced shutdowns, have foreclosed the Second Amendment right to acquire a firearm.

On March 21, the New Jersey State Police issued the following message to Federal Firearms Licensees.

On Saturday, March 21, 2020, Governor Phil Murphy announced he is putting New Jersey in lockdown to combat the spread of coronavirus. Per Executive Order 107, he is ordering the residents of New Jersey to stay home, directing all non-essential retail businesses closed to the public. At this time, the order includes New Jersey Firearms State Licensed Dealers. The New Jersey State Police NICS Unit is directing the vendor of the NICS Online Application (NICUSA) to turn off the NICS Online Services for submitting NICS transactions by eliminating the “Request Form” button, effective 9:00 pm EST, Saturday, March 21, 2020. You will still have the ability to view the message board and the status of previously submitted transactions. This “Request Form” feature will remain off until further order by Governor Murphy.

New Jersey is a Point of Contact state where the New Jersey State Police are tasked with performing all firearm background checks.

In order to acquire a rifle or a shotgun in New Jersey a prospective owner must obtain a Firearms Purchase Identification Card. N.J.S.A. 2C:58-3d. requires that a background check be conducted before an FPIC is issued.

Likewise, in order to acquire a handgun, a prospective owner must obtain a Permit to Purchase a Handgun (PPH). The PPH is also issued pursuant to a background check.

Up until 2018, an FPIC or PPH holder could acquire a firearm from another private individual without further government interference. The logic being that the FPIC or PPH holder had already been thoroughly vetted by the government.

However, on June 13, 2018, Gov. Murphy signed A2757. This legislation added a background check requirement for every firearm transfer on top of the existing licensing requirements.

Therefore, with the March 21 change in state police procedure, New Jerseyans are not able to acquire firearms.

The situation is similar in Washington. In 2014, the state has criminalized the private transfer of firearms. RCWA 9.41.113​ requires that parties to a firearms transfer “shall complete the sale or transfer through a licensed dealer” pursuant to a background check.

On March 23, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D) issued an order closing all “non-essential” businesses due to the threat of the Wuhan virus. The shutdown included firearms dealers. The governor’s closure order, coupled with existing Washington background check law has made it so Washingtonians cannot acquire or transfer firearms during this crisis.

It should be noted that New Jersey and Washington’s laws do not just require background checks on all firearm sales, but also on other types of firearm transfers. Under both state’s laws, a gun owner could not lend their friend or neighbor a firearm for protection during this time of crisis without first conducting a background check.

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the dangers inherent in laws that require government permission in order to exercise a constitutional right. Such laws make law-abiding Americans dependent upon the government’s ability and willingness to grant such permission – something many governments have been unable to ensure. This crisis has shown that Americans cannot trust the government to act as a gatekeeper on their fundamental rights. Therefore, Americans must jealously guard their right to privately transfer firearms without government interference.​

Goodbye, Green New Deal

After a couple of weeks of great economic sacrifice, it’s already proving hard for Americans to take. No one will sign up for a lifetime of it.

What will happen next with the coronavirus epidemic is unknown, but it seems certain to claim one very high-profile victim: the so-called Green New Deal.

Good riddance.

The current crisis in the U.S. economy is, in miniature but concentrated form, precisely what the Left has in mind in response to climate change: shutting down large sectors of the domestic and global economies through official writ, social pressure, and indirect means, in response to a crisis with potentially devastating and wide-ranging consequences for human life and human flourishing.

What is under way right now in response to the epidemic is in substance much like the Green New Deal and lesser versions of the same climate-change agenda: massive new government spending, political control of critical industries, emergency protocols modeled on wartime practice, etc.

But the characters of the two crises are basically different.

Set aside, for the moment, any reservations you might have about the coronavirus-emergency regime, and set aside your views on climate change, too, whatever they may be. Instead, ask yourself this: If Americans are this resistant to paying a large economic price to enable measures meant to prevent a public-health catastrophe in the here and now — one that threatens the lives of people they know and love — then how much less likely are they to bear not weeks or months but decades of disruption and economic dislocation and a permanently diminished standard of living in order to prevent possibly severe consequences to people in Bangladesh or Indonesia 80 or 100 years from now?

For years, we’ve been hearing, “This is climate change” and “That is climate change,” every time there’s a flood or a storm. If that’s the fact, then climate change is, relatively speaking, manageable. There is no way Americans—or people around the world—are going to agree to endure anything like the current economic downturn in order to prevent problems of that nature.

“Oh, but we’ll find them jobs in the new green economy!” comes the response. “It’ll be a net positive!” As though petroleum engineers were lumps of labor that could be reshaped at will by a committee of lawyers in Washington, if only we gave them the power. Nobody is buying that. Not many people are that stupid.

Those spring-break clowns down in Florida and the “coronavirus party” doofuses in Kentucky are We the People, too, and if they are not willing to spend a couple of weeks watching Netflix to save grandma’s life — or their own lives — then do you really think they’re going to take an economic bullet over the prospect of losing 3 percent of world economic output a century from now to global-warming-mitigation costs?

What we are seeing right now is what it looks like when Washington tries to steer the economy. There are times when that is necessary, and this is one of those times. But emergencies do not last forever, and emergency measures should be, by nature, temporary. The attraction of the climate-change crusade is that it creates a permanent state of emergency. The Left wants very much to convince Americans that climate change presents an emergency of the same kind requiring the same “moral equivalent of war” worldwide mobilization.

A couple of months of this is going to be very hard to take. Nobody is signing up for a lifetime of it.

MAKE AMERICA AUTARKIC AGAIN

Domestic supply chains, not global ones, will save us.

The past year has seen America’s industrial and consumer supply chains threatened by two critical events: the rise of Huawei as a Chinese state-backed telecoms giant, and the outbreak of the coronavirus (also originating in China). These two threats have laid bare the unsettling fact that the American economy has become so heavily globalized that we are unable to ensure consistent and safe supply of everything from pharmaceuticals to consumer electronics.

For decades Americans have enjoyed access to cheap goods, due in large part to the fact that we’ve outsourced our industrial and supply capacity to cheap, overseas markets like China and Vietnam. The free traders, roosting in their D.C. think tanks and on Wall Street, worry that the U.S.-China trade war is uprooting our supply chains and that Huawei (shown to have deep connections to the Chinese intelligence apparatus) is only a theoretical threat. They tell us that we must come to terms with China’s rise, that there is no other way. But what if there was?
My critics will more than likely dismiss this idea either insane or reckless. But throughout the late 19th and 20th century, it was a policy that led to prosperity and self-sufficiency. I’m talking about autarky. In our over-globalized world, a policy of total autarky is infeasible. But a degree of autarky should be recognized as self-evidently in America’s national interest.

 Autarky, for those unfamiliar, was an economic and industrial policy of self-reliance wherein a nation need not rely on international trade for its economic survival. This is not to say that said nation rejected international trade or isolated itself from the global economic order, rather that it merely could survive on its own if necessary.
 Though it has a long history, the concept of autarky saw a flourishing in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. In the early days of the American republic, Alexander Hamilton advocated for a limited measure of autarky. Hamiltonian autarky—or industrial self-reliance—aimed to protect weak American industries from foreign manipulation by the likes Great Britain and France. Today, we must look to protect what remains of American industry from the manipulations of state-backed industrial sectors in China.

Other proponents of industrial self-reliance ranged from European left-syndicalists to the interwar fascist governments in Italy, Spain, and Portugal. In this regard, French philosopher Georges Sorel proved profoundly influential.
While some might try to paint industrial self-reliance as an idea rooted in contemporary leftist (though not liberal) thought, there remains a great tradition of autarky in Hamiltonian conservatism and the Prussian economics of the German-American Friedrich List, among others.

When Hamilton said, “Industry is increased, commodities are multiplied, agriculture and manufacturers flourish: and herein consists the true wealth and prosperity of a state” he certainly wasn’t advocating for the United States to become economically reliant on foreign powers. Rather, he was envisioning a strong and independent nation that could stand on its own in the world.
The Threat is Real

For the most part, one would assume that the United States could easily adopt some degree of autarky, and maybe so. However, recent events suggest otherwise.
The FDA has expressed serious concerns that the outbreak of the coronavirus threatens U.S. pharmaceutical supply chains—as a great deal of our drugs are manufactured not in America but in China. The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission’s 2019 report, submitted to congress, warned that China had become the world’s largest pharmaceutical ingredient producer and, with state backing, was looking to accelerate the growth of its pharmaceutical industry as a part of its current 13-Year Plan. Most disturbingly, the report notes:

As a result of U.S. dependence on Chinese supply and the lack of effective health and safety regulation of Chinese producers, the American public, including its armed forces, are at risk of exposure to contaminated and dangerous medicines. Should Beijing opt to use U.S. dependence on China as an economic weapon and cut supplies of critical drugs, it would have a serious effect on the health of U.S. consumers.

The FDA, in a similar report to Congress, has laid out a plan for the U.S. to achieve some level of independence from China when it comes to pharmaceutical manufacturing and production:

…FDA believes that advanced manufacturing technologies could enable U.S.-based pharmaceutical manufacturing to regain its competitiveness with China and other foreign countries, and potentially ensure a stable supply of drugs critical to the health of U.S. patients. Advanced manufacturing is a collective term for new medical product manufacturing technologies that can improve drug quality, address shortages of medicines, and speed time-to-market.

We’ve seen, albeit most likely temporary, adoptions of autarky in response to the coronavirus already. New York state has begun the manufacture of its own hand sanitizer, as it is cheaper than purchasing it via the global economy.

The New York Post editorial board rightly ran an editorial calling for the restoration of pharmaceutical manufacturing in Puerto Rico—once the backbone of the American drug industry. The editorial, I suspect much to the chagrin of free traders, puts it bluntly:

About 90 percent of the active ingredients (manufactured “precursors”) used by US drugmakers now come from China. With that country’s factories largely shut down by the outbreak, America’s pharmaceutical supplies are at risk even as the virus hits here. The Food and Drug Administration fears a shortage of widely used generic drugs.

Moving to ensure some domestic capacity for future crises is a no-brainer. And boosting Puerto Rico, now struggling with a debt crisis plus hurricane and earthquake damage, should be one, too.

Besides the threat of global supply chain shutdowns because of disease outbreaks like coronavirus, there is the grave concern that the equipment and products we are purchasing from overseas could be used against us in both peacetime and times of war.

As China’s telecom giant, Huawei is without a doubt an instrument of the Chinese political and military state. Huawei employees have been linked to Chinese military and intelligence agencies. Huawei’s Silicon Valley office has been credibly accused of stealing trade secrets from the American technology company Cisco Systems.
Even more concerning is that U.S. allies like Great Britain appear to be set on moving forward with the use of Huawei technology, threatening our mutual intelligence and security agreements. And this dangerous behavior isn’t just limited to Huawei. Chinese companies have routinely engaged in intellectual property theft and other illegal tactics—both to gain a competitive edge and to undermine U.S. interests.

Taking Back the Reins
But pursuing autarky among the pharmaceutical industry and technology sectors is just a small—albeit critical—part of what should be a greater pursuit of American economic self-reliance. Coupled with the adoption of sound industrial policy, like that advocated by Oren Cass and Senator Marco Rubio, autarky could help foster a burgeoning policy of social corporatism in America—returning us to an era of self-reliance and industrial strength.

In his most recent piece, Cass notes that sound industrial policy has allowed nations like Germany and Japan to retain strong manufacturing sectors. Cass also emphasizes the pivotal importance of manufacturing, not just for the economy, but for American communities:

When communities lose manufacturing—which is not the only form of tradeable production, but certainly the primary one—they begin to “export need.” You see this across America, in the dilapidated shopping centers that still have sparkling occupational therapy offices. They are literally the exporters for those towns, exporting to the nation’s taxpayers the care of local residents on disability. That’s how the community attracts resources. This might look fine in the aggregate consumption data, but we should not consider such outcomes equal, or acceptable.

Finally, manufacturing is unique for the complexity of its supply chains and the interaction between innovation and production. One of the most infuriating face-palms of modern economics is the two-step that goes like this: First, wave away concern as other countries with aggressive industrial policies…attract our critical supply chains overseas, explaining that it doesn’t matter where things get made. Second, wait for people to ask “why can’t we make this or that here,” and explain that of course we can’t because all of the supply chains and expertise are entrenched elsewhere. It’s enough to make one slam one’s head into the podium.

It should be also noted that to varying degrees these countries have at times—though perhaps not permanently—implemented autarky.

Critics, namely neoliberal internationalists and free-trade libertarians, will assuredly wail and gnash their teeth about the bounty of cheap consumer goods we have “won” from free trade, but to that I would caution: The United States risks becoming its own special category of the “sick man”—an obese has-been that sinks into a recliner and stuffs its face with cheap consumer goods provided by its global rivals, looking back woefully on its glory days. But it is not yet too late.
We can still set forth on a bold new path. Yes, it will require a retooling of how we view the world and ourselves, and the adoption of old ideas for a new future. But there is hope. Through sound industrial policy, through government research and development aimed at once again sparking innovation, and through degrees of autarky, we can wrest our global supply chains from the grips of our global competitors and reignite America’s industrial capacity for the 21st Century.

Globalism, which assumes there are no differences between cultures and that totalitarian states are as trustworthy as free ones, is a luxury.
It is a luxury of those wealthy enough that they can afford to ignore reality.  In the past those that wealthy were few and far between. For a very short time, the West could afford to be that stupid. Not any more.

The Cluebat is a harsh teacher.


Europe Wasn’t Ready for Coronavirus. It May Never Fully Recover.

On November 28th, 2019, the European Union officially and solemnly declared the “climate emergency,” in a ceremony presided over by the would-be 17-year-old prophet Greta Thunberg. Today, almost four months later, in the midst of a real emergency, the only thing that remains official and solemn in that declaration is its ridiculousness. That, and the no-holds-barred death match between the Union’s partners to seize containers of respirators and face masks destined for other countries in order to save their own. “The European Union either gets this health crisis right, or it will be dead,” I heard the former president of the European Parliament, Antonio Tajani, say the day before yesterday. At the moment, the European Union seems to be MIA, along with the “climate emergency.” Each day that passes, the hope of finding it alive diminishes………

The reactions of politicians in Europe reflect the bewilderment of those who were living in the Matrix and have just been awakened………

Europe, whose nations had staked everything on an all-powerful state that could protect its citizens from all evil, has been cruelly disappointed. The future is uncertain. But what is certain is that death and poverty are two words that will stay with us for a long time. Europeans now miss having competent governments, cohesive civil societies, responsible economic administrations, and citizens capable of giving their lives for others — that is to say, citizens with values. The same values that were deliberately excluded in the European Constitution in order to please the extreme left-wing secularists.


Italians burn EU flag, vow to leave EU over EU’s lousy coronavirus response.

France Issues Rallying Calls to ‘Buy French’ as Coronavirus Erodes EU Single Market.

 

Italy and France are now prescribing hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine as treatments for coronavirus patients.

We’ve been talking about anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine for about three weeks now. However, U.S. health agencies like FDA and CDA, are still very cautious about the effectiveness and safety of the two drugs due to small trial size and lack of sufficient data.

In France, the government caved to pressure from renowned Dr. Didier Raoult, who led the new additional study on 80 patients, results show a combination of Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromycin to be effective in treating COVID-19. Dr Didier Raoult, a professor of infectious diseases who works at La Timone hospital in Marseille, then declared in a video on YouTube that chloroquine was a cure for Covid-19 and should be used immediately.

Dr. Raoult reportedly walked out of the scientific advisory committee advising the government after allegations that the government was being influenced by the big pharmaceutical companies which wanted to block hydroxychloroquine because it was cheap, being out of patent.

In another report, France now allows drug chloroquine to be given to coronavirus patients with extreme case of the disease. Health Minister Olivier Veran said on Monday, “The anti-malarial drug chloroquine can be administered in France to patients suffering from the severest forms of the coronavirus but only under strict supervision.” Veran also cautioned: “The high council recommends not to use this treatment… with the exception of grave cases, hospitalized, on the basis of a decision taken by doctors and under strict surveillance.”

Italian government also announced on Friday that hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine could be used to treat all coronavirus patients. Italian government also said the payment will be paid for entirely by the Italian national healthcare system. Yesterday, we also reported that Hungary, the United Kingdom and India, have all banned export of the anti-malarial drugs to explore the usage in treating coronavirus patients in their respective countries.


HHS accepts donations of medicine to Strategic National Stockpile as possible treatments for COVID-19 patients
FDA issues emergency use authorization for donated hydroxychloroquine sulfate, chloroquine phosphate

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) today accepted 30 million doses of hydroxychloroquine sulfate donated by Sandoz, the Novartis generics and biosimilars division, and one million doses of chloroquine phosphate donated by Bayer Pharmaceuticals, for possible use in treating patients hospitalized with COVID-19 or for use in clinical trials. These and other companies may donate additional doses, and companies have ramped up production to provide additional supplies of the medication to the commercial market.

“President Trump is taking every possible step to protect Americans from the coronavirus and provide them with hope,” said HHS Secretary Alex Azar. “Scientists in America and around the world have identified multiple potential therapeutics for COVID-19, including chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine. The President’s bold leadership and the hard work of FDA and HHS’s Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response have succeeded in securing this large donation of medicine. We’ll continue working around the clock to get American patients access to therapeutics that may help them battle COVID-19, while building the evidence to evaluate which options are effective.”

HHS’ Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) worked with colleagues within HHS, the companies, the Department of State, and the Department of Homeland Security to secure the donated shipments. Given the importance of understanding the efficacy of these medications for the treatment and prevention of COVID-19, federal agencies, such as the National Institutes of Health and ASPR’s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), are working together to plan clinical trials.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) to BARDA to allow hydroxychloroquine sulfate and chloroquine phosphate products donated to the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) to be distributed and prescribed by doctors to hospitalized teen and adult patients with COVID-19, as appropriate, when a clinical trial is not available or feasible.

The EUA requires that fact sheets that provide important information about using chloroquine phosphate and hydroxychloroquine sulfate in treating COVID-19 be made available to health care providers and patients, including the known risks and drug interactions.

The SNS, managed by ASPR, will work with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to ship donated doses to states. The SNS does not regularly stock either drug.

Hydroxychloroquine sulfate and chloroquine phosphate are oral prescription drugs approved to treat malaria and other diseases. Although there are no currently approved treatments for COVID-19, both drugs have shown activity in laboratory studies against coronaviruses, including SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19). Anecdotal reports suggest that these drugs may offer some benefit in the treatment of hospitalized COVID-19 patients. Clinical trials are needed to provide scientific evidence that these treatments are effective……….

 

Not all that long ago these types were having conniptions about people who were using the wrong ‘gender pronoun’.
A real crisis apparently brings things into a clearer perspective, and from the überproggie New Yorker magazine, no less.


Choose Your Weapon

As shoppers stock up for a potential Armageddon, an Oregon gun store has sold out of ARs and .308 rifles, many of which went to first-time liberal buyers.

There was no complimentary hand sanitizer for the concerned customers of Gorge Guns, in Hood River, Oregon, on a recent Friday. Erika Bales, the shop’s twenty-nine-year-old owner, wasn’t worried about the virus. “I figure, just let nature take its course,” she said. Her customers were less nonchalant. Bales, who had a neat manicure and a number of tattoos, said that, days earlier, people had begun realizing that “everyone’s buying things and everything’s gonna be gone.” The resulting rush was, for her, unprecedented. She was out of ARs and .308 rifles. A few shotguns remained, and she told shoppers that they could saw them off, to a legal length. “Obama didn’t even bring in these numbers,” Bales said.

At noon, a woman in her sixties came in. She wore plastic gloves and had a scarf wrapped around her face, and she traced a wide arc around the only other non-employee in the store. “I’ve been doing this since the beginning of March,” she said, referring to her protective gear. “I don’t feel sick at all. I’m self-quarantining.” She left her house only for essential activities. This was one. “I’m buying a gun,” she said. “I can’t believe it.”

She went on, “My son was a little upset about it.” (He preferred his bow and arrow.) “I’m old and I live alone, and we don’t know if there’s going to be civil unrest. The world is not the same.” She added, “It didn’t have to be this way.” Unlike many of the shop’s regulars, she was no fan of Trump: “He’s a divider all the way. First he said, ‘Five people have died, big deal.’ Now he’s saying, ‘I always knew it’d be dangerous.’ ” Talk turned to Portland. “It’s a ghost town,” a young woman said. Her name was Rosemary, and she was helping Bales out, since the restaurant where she waited tables had closed.

“I don’t like to go in cities anymore, anyway,” the customer said.

“But these rumors about them putting this country in full lockdown are inaccurate,” Rosemary said. “It’s a scare tactic. It’s not like all of a sudden we’re gonna wake up one day and everyone is sick and the whole world is ending.”

“I don’t know,” the customer said. “The exponential growth is happening.”

“If anything, we’re definitely repopulating, if nobody is at work,” Rosemary said cheerily. “We won’t have a shortage of humans, that’s for sure.”

Bales helped her customer choose a weapon. (“Pick three,” the customer told her.) As Bales rummaged around, the customer said, “I’m going to have a soldier train me. A friend of my son’s.” Bales returned with the first option. “A .22 Mag,” she said. “Holds thirty rounds.”

The customer peered at the gun.

“It’s a Kel-Tec PMR-30,” Bales said.

“I like the color of it,” the customer said. “It’s not black.” She picked it up. “It feels good. And it’s got a safety. I’m going to take this one. You’ve got ammo for it, right?” Bales nodded and noted a few of the gun’s features. “As long as you’re accurate, it’ll do damage,” she said.

“This is just going to be for close range,” the customer said. “In my house. If it happens.” (Asked what “it” was, she said, “In two months, if the cities are starving, they’re gonna come out. And I understand that.”) Bales piled boxes of ammunition on the counter. “I’ll take them all,” the customer said. She ducked outside to get her wallet from the car.

“I think she’s a liberal,” Bales said, once the door closed. “There’s so many coming in. First-time-gun-owner liberals. I’ve probably seen ten this week. It’s so funny, because I hope it just turns them on to liking the Second Amendment. I mean, the Constitution was created for a reason. To protect us.”

The customer returned. The bill was nearly seven hundred dollars, including electronic ear protection and sixteen boxes of bullets. She could come back and pick up the gun once her digital background check cleared. The customer asked, “If I don’t get approved, what happens?”

“You already got approved,” Bales said, glancing at a computer, with some surprise.

“O.K.! Can I take it?”

“Yeah. Some people go through fast.”

The new gun owner asked if there was a shooting range nearby. She asked if she needed a concealed-carry permit. She asked how to carry the gun out. “I can’t believe this!” she said, stepping into the world with her brand-new gun.

There is No Emergency Shutdown of the Second Amendment

Give someone power if you want to see their character. Unfortunately, the usual characters have revealed themselves during the Wuhan virus epidemic. Government officials asked citizens to limit their contact with others in order to slow the spread of the virus. Some government officials went well beyond that. They closed roads, released jail inmates, refused to arrest or prosecute suspects, closed gun stores, and refused to process firearms applications. It is precisely during such an emergency that we need government officials to stay within their authority.. and not one inch beyond.

Lots of us wanted a firearm after we saw criminals released from jail and law enforcement refuse to respond to calls. We increased the rate of firearms sales up to four fold, and up to eight fold for sales of ammunition. The instant background check system run by the FBI was overwhelmed. State agencies added weeks of delays to complete a firearms transfer..if the state bothered to process the applications at all.

The sheriff of Los Angeles County, CA told stores to close. The mayor of LA said they would shut off water and power to stores that stayed open. The county council, the lawyer who advises LA county officials, told the sheriff not to close gun stores or he would face lawsuits. The sheriff rescinded and then reinstated his order to close stores. As predicted, he was sued by four human rights organizations within hours. Sheriffs in Pennsylvania and New York said they would not process concealed carry firearm applications. Officials in New Jersey and Illinois simply stopped processing the permits required to purchase a firearm.. and they were sued.

The order to close gun shops and the refusal to process state required firearms paperwork is a significant confession on the part of these law enforcement officials. They are saying that they are more important than you are, that they should have guns and you shouldn’t. Many of these government officials were quickly sued for violation of civil rights under color of law. Government officials don’t have the power to suspend the constitution and violate civil rights. They exceeded their authority.

Idaho took the Wuhan crisis to heart and expanded the segment of people who have a right to carry concealed without a permit. Called “permitless carry”, that right only applied to state residents. Soon in Idaho, permitless carry applies to all legal US residents who may legally possess a firearm. Sensible government officials also extended the expiration dates for concealed carry permits just as they had for existing drivers licenses that could not be renewed during the quarantine. If only all government officials were that smart.

The lesson is clear. If it is too dangerous for a government official too to sit at their desk and process paperwork, then it is a state of emergency. The state has admitted that it can not fulfill its obligations to honest citizens. Under those emergency conditions, permits should not be required for citizens with a clean criminal record to own, transfer, or carry a firearm. We’ve used that same relief valve during hurricanes, wildfires and earthquakes when civil government ceases to exist. Your rights and your safety take precedence over the convenience of a bureaucrat.

That lesson sounds obvious, but some politicians are blinded by their bigotry against honest citizens protecting themselves. Now we know the officials who don’t trust us, and in whom we should not place our trust. We gave them power, and they revealed the shortcomings in their character.

N.J. POLICE TEST POSITIVE, QUARANTINED; ‘WHY WE SUED TO OPEN GUN STORES’: SAF

BELLEVUE, WA — Published reports that some 700 New Jersey police officers have tested positive for the coronavirus and are quarantined underscores the importance of the Second Amendment Foundation’s lawsuit to require the state to open gun stores, the group said today.

“This is exactly why the Foundation lawsuit to force New Jersey to re-open gun stores during this emergency is so important,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “People need to be able to obtain the means of self-defense in times such as these. This is why the right to keep and bear arms is essential.”

The revelation by acting State Police Superintendent Col. Patrick Callahan came Saturday during a daily press briefing on the COVID-19 outbreak.

“This stunning report should surprise nobody,” Gottlieb said, “because police interact daily with scores, if not hundreds of people. It would defy odds if none became infected, and assurances by the authorities that they still have the manpower to respond to emergencies don’t mean much to people when crimes are happening right now and police are several minutes, or longer, away.

“Gov. Phil Murphy needs to understand the Second Amendment wasn’t written for duck hunters,” he observed. “The right to keep and bear arms is enshrined in the Constitution to assure every citizen has the means to defend himself or herself when help may not arrive in time, or maybe not arrive at all.

“We’re praying for the quick recovery of all those stricken Garden State police officers,” Gottlieb said, “and hoping for the safety and good health of all men and women in law enforcement. But in the meantime, we will press our lawsuit to assure that all citizens can defend themselves and their families during this time of crisis.

“Phil Murphy has around-the-clock protection,” Gottlieb noted, “but average citizens do not enjoy that luxury. The governor needs to lift his closure order now, and we will press our lawsuit to make sure he does.”

Hmm. This one nearly slipped by me. I gotta do a better job of keeping my eyes peeled closer to home.


Shooting in Newton County deemed self-defense

STARK CITY, Mo. — A 36-year-old man was being treated for gunshot wounds after he allegedly attacked another man with a machete Thursday at a residence near Stark City, and the victim grabbed a rifle and shot him in self-defense.

Newton County Sheriff Chris Jennings said deputies responded to a report of a domestic disturbance on Norway Road and found Cody S. Bowman, 36, there with gunshot wounds, and Joseph Ward, 23, with an injury from having been struck in the head with a machete.

Bowman was taken to a Joplin hospital for treatment of his wounds. Assault charges were filed on him Friday, and the sheriff indicated he would be transported to the Newton County Jail once he is released from the hospital. Bowman is charged with first-degree assault, first-degree burglary and two counts of armed criminal action.

Jennings said Ward, who lives at the address, also was treated for injuries following the disturbance.

According to a probable-cause affidavit filed with the charges, Bowman was still in the yard of the residence, running water from a garden hose over gunshot wounds to his arm and hand when deputies arrived on the scene. He told the deputies that he had been shot four times. Deputies subsequently located two bullet wounds on him.

Occupants of the residence told deputies that Bowman was not supposed to be at the residence but broke some glass in a door trying to get in. Ward went outside and told Bowman to leave, and Bowman threw a machete that struck Ward in the head.

Ward told deputies that he then retrieved a .22-caliber rifle and shot Bowman twice as Bowman was coming at him with a bar that he had picked up in the driveway.

The affidavit states that deputies found a machete inside the house, where occupants said they had taken it to keep the weapon away from Bowman after he threw it. They also found five shell casings and three live rounds in the yard.

Bowman still had a large knife on his person when deputies first arrived. He was told to toss it on the ground, and he did, according to the affidavit. The document states that he was wearing a sheath for the machete on his belt.

Bowman lives near the residence where the disturbance took place. According to the affidavit, he told a deputy in January that he was no longer allowed at the residence where Ward and one of Bowman’s adopted siblings live.

The sheriff said Bowman’s motive for the assault remains under investigation.


 

Man shot during Saturday morning break-in

COLUMBIA, S.C. — According to the Richland County Sheriff’s Department, a man was shot while attempting to break into a home on Great North Road.

According to RCSD, on Saturday, March 28 around 8 a.m., deputies were called to a break-in happening on the 500 block of Great North Road.

When they arrived, they found a man in the driveway who had been shot in the upper body. He was pronounced dead at the scene, according to the report.

The homeowner told law enforcement that the man was trying to enter her home through a window and when she told him she had a gun, he threatened to come in and use it on her.

 

The Chinese gubbermint might be lying? For shame.


Report: Thousands Of Urns Shipped To Wuhan, Where The Virus Is Supposedly Under Control.

If you can’t trust a totalitarian government waging a ruthless propaganda war to tell the truth about the extent of the epidemic within its borders, who can you trust?

Add this to the growing pile of circumstantial evidence that China’s coronavirus problem isn’t as well in hand as they’d like the world to believe. They kicked out American reporters shortly before announcing that cases in Wuhan had dropped to zero, presumably to choke off the flow of accurate information about the true state of the spread. On the day that number was announced, reports to the contrary were already trickling out on social media:

On the very days when the national health authority was announcing that there were no new local infections, social media accounts in China were circulating photographs of “urgent notices” put up in residential areas announcing new cases and warning people to stay home.

EBC News, a Taiwan cable news network, broadcast two such photographs dated March 20, which is two days after China reported there were no new local Wuhan infections. One of the notices, after announcing the new cases, read: “Do not go out, or gather, wash your hands, be careful, hold on, hold on, and hold on some more.”

EBC also broadcast video of a hospital in Wuhan that it says was taken on March 19 and provided by a local Wuhan journalist. The video shows a reception area crowded with people, some of them on gurneys with IV drips, and health care workers in full protective gear, white suits, face masks and goggles.

Yesterday the Hollywood Reporter noted that more than 600 theaters across China were suddenly told to close after having recently reopened. Yesterday also brought news that some patients in Wuhan who had recovered from the disease and then tested negative later tested positive. Had they been re-infected by a different strain of COVID-19 or is China playing games with the numbers? NPR pointed out that Beijing doesn’t include those people in its official case count as “new” cases. Nor does it include asymptomatic carriers who test positive, potentially an enormous group. “Caixin, an independent Chinese news outlet, reported earlier this week that Wuhan hospitals were continuing to see new cases of asymptomatic virus carriers, citing a health official who said he had seen up to a dozen such cases a day,” per NPR.

Have asymptomatic carriers seeded a second outbreak that the government is scrambling to hide? Bear in mind, according to officials in Europe, some Chinese diagnostic tests are garbage. Even if Beijing wanted to be forthcoming about the extent of the epidemic, their own tests may have left them partially blind as to who’s sick and who isn’t.

Lotta urns flowing into Wuhan right now, says Shanghaiist:

One photo published by Caixin shows a truck loaded with 2,500 urns arriving at the Hankou Mortuary. The driver said that he had delivered the same amount to the mortuary the day before.

Another photo shows stacks of urns inside the mortuary. There were seven stacks with 500 urns in each stack, adding up to 3,500 urns.

Taken together with the new shipment, the number of urns on hand at the mortuary looks to be more than double Wuhan’s death toll…

Wuhan has seven other mortuaries. If they are all sticking to the same schedule, this adds up to more than 40,000 urns being distributed in the city over the next 10 days.

There are photos at the link. Reportedly people had to wait in line for hours to receive one, so great was the number. There are innocent possibilities for the shipment: Maybe Chinese cities are supplied with enough urns to last several months, encompassing all causes of death, even in normal times. There are also less innocent possibilities, of course. Were so many urns needed because the actual death toll in Wuhan in the first wave was much higher than the regime let on?

Or are so many urns needed because they’re afraid of how high the death toll might be in the second wave?

An interesting number from Bloomberg:

There were 56,007 cremations in Wuhan in the fourth quarter of 2019, according to data from the city’s civil affairs agency. The number of cremations was 1,583 higher than those in the fourth quarter of 2018 and 2,231 higher than the fourth quarter of 2017.

The official death toll in Wuhan from COVID-19 is 2,535. China didn’t lock down the area until late January of this year. If the height of the epidemic there didn’t come until 2020, how do we explain that unusual bump in deaths in the fourth quarter of last year — a number that would amount to more than half of the total number of deaths there from coronavirus to date?

Read this piece to see why China is so invested in its “zero” campaign. The numbers in Wuhan are a double-barreled propaganda opportunity to win a great-power competition with the U.S. Eradicating the disease domestically will be used first as proof that China’s authoritarian model is superior to the west’s in rising to great challenges and second as evidence that the virus’s spread abroad isn’t China’s fault, notwithstanding the early cover-up in Wuhan that allowed the disease to spread. If America is brought to its knees by an epidemic, well, maybe that has less to do with the severity of the illness than the weakness of America’s response. That’s the Chinese message, and why they can’t afford the world to know about a resurgence in Wuhan.