Obama Economist: 'Best' Data Ever Coming to Help TRUMP Before 2020 Election

Joshua Paladino
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‘This is my big worry…’

TRUMP: New Guidelines Imminent in Order to Reopen US Economy
Donald Trump/AP Photo

(Joshua Paladino, Liberty Headlines) Speaking to Republican and Democratic officials, Harvard economist Jason Furman, a former Obama administration official, said this year will bring “the best economic data” in American history.
Furman, who chaired the council of economic advisers from 2013 until President Donald Trump’s inauguration, made that claim in early April, when lockdowns were beginning. He was not deterred from his assessment by rising unemployment and a tanking stock market, Politico reported.
“Everyone looked puzzled and thought I had misspoken,” Furman said.
His forecast is rooted in the knowledge that the economy collapsed because of forces extrinsic to the economy—like a natural disaster—whereas the Great Depression and Great Recession both occurred because of underlying economic problems.
He said the shutdown-induced economic paralysis will mirror economic trends following similar natural disasters.
After the shutdown, he said the economy will recover “very very fast, because people go back to their original job, they get called back from furlough, you put the lights back on in your business. Given how many people were furloughed and how many businesses were closed you can get a big jump out of that. It will look like a V.”
Furman said the coming economic boom would again give Trump the right to boast about being much better positioned to oversee expanding employment and wealth.
Since then, Furman has been making this case to ruling class Democratic Party officials, and some are listening.
“This is my big worry,” an unnamed, unverified former White House official said, according to Politico.
The anonymous source said the level of concern within the Democratic Party’s leadership is “high—high, high, high, high.”
Given the disparity in states’ responses to the coronavirus, the Democratic Party seems eager to carry former Vice President Joe Biden to the White House on a message of Trump’s economic failure.
An economic boom could change all of that.
“They are very much aware of this,” an anonymous adviser to Biden said.

Whitmer’s Husband Accused of Trying to Break His Wife’s Virus Rules

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‘I am the husband to the governor, will this make a difference?’…

Republicans Decry Mich. Governor's Latest Stay-Home Order
Gretchen Whitmer/Michigan Office of the Governor via AP

(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) The owner of a Michigan dock company said Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s husband tried to use his position to get his boat back in the water before other residents, and in spite of his wife’s executive order discouraging Michiganders from traveling to the northern part of the state.

In Facebook posts that are no longer public, Tad Dowker, owner of NorthShore Dock, said Whitmer’s husband, Marc Mallory, asked him if he could get his boat out of the dock before Memorial Day weekend.

Because Whitmer’s executive order required docks and other businesses to remain closed for so long, Dowker said he had a long list of clients that he needed to work through.

“This morning, I was out working when the office called me, there was a gentleman on hold who wanted his boat in the water before the weekend,” Dowker posted on Thursday, according to the Detroit News. “Being Memorial weekend and the fact that we started working three weeks late means there is no chance this is going to happen. Well our office personnel had explained this to the man and he replied, ‘I am the husband to the governor, will this make a difference?'”

Dowker said he wasn’t aware that Mallory had stored his boat at his dock and said Mallory was respectful when he found out Dowker’s business wouldn’t be able to meet his request.

But, Mallory’s alleged request came only three days after Whitmer had loosened restrictions on northern Michigan.

And despite these relaxations, Whitmer is still forbidding other parts of the state from leaving their homes by extending her shelter-in-place order till mid-June.

“If you don’t live in these regions … think long and hard before you take a trip into them,” Whitmer said on May 18. “Don’t descend on Traverse City from all regions of the state.”

Whitmer and her husband own property about 25 minutes away from Traverse City.

State Sen. Tom Barrett, R-Charlotte, slammed Whitmer for pushing extreme policies that her own family members are unwilling to follow.

“Here is the leader of our state. … Her family is trying to cut people in line,” Barrett said.

Chicago Pastor Says Armed Officers Interrupted, Shut Down Church Service

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‘The only thing she hasn’t done yet is beat the doors down and arrest our members…’

Hot Mic Picks Up Chicago Mayor Calling Police Official a ‘Clown’
Lori Lightfoot/IMAGE: YouTube

(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot reportedly dispatched armed police officers to interrupt and break up a church service last week, according to Courtney Lewis, the pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church.

It was “like the Soviet-style KGB,” Lewis told the Todd Starnes Radio Show.

Lewis said he was in the middle of preaching his sermon when three squad cars and two unmarked cars showed up at the church’s front doors. The officers were denied entry due to Cornerstone Baptist’s safety protocol, Lewis said, but an individual in one of the unmarked cars began taking photographs of church members as they exited the building.

Several Chicago churches have begun holding services again despite Lightfoot’s attempts to shut them down.

At least three churches — Metro Praise International Church, Elim Romanian Pentecostal Church, and Philadelphia Romanian Church — were slapped with $500 fines last Sunday and told that future violations could result in a church being “declared a public health nuisance” and forcibly closed, according to Dr. Allison Arwady, the commissioner of the Chicago Department of Public Health.

“The only thing she hasn’t done yet is beat the doors down and arrest our members,” Lewis said of Lightfoot.

Lewis said Cornerstone Baptist went out of its way to comply with health officials’ social distancing guidelines, and asked U.S. Attorney John Lausch to take up the church’s case and fight against Lightfoot’s attempts to “intimidate” churches into submission.

“We are trying to follow the laws of man as much as reasonably possible but when the laws of man conflict with the laws of God I as a pastor have a duty to follow the laws of God,” Lewis wrote in a letter to Launch. “We will not be intimidated by this overhanded government bully, but we are requesting the assistance of our president and our Justice Department in correcting this grave miscarriage of the law.”

According to Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s reopening plan, churches in the state will not be allowed to hold full services until a vaccine for the coronavirus is developed.

Ilhan Omar: I Believe Tara Reade, But Will Still Vote for Joe Biden

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‘Justice can be delayed but should never be denied….’

Ilhan Omar, Bernie Bros Blame Elizabeth Warren for Bernie Sanders's Super Tuesday Losses
Ilhan Omar/Photo by Gage Skidmore (CC)

(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., said she believes Tara Reade, the former congressional staffer who accused presidential candidate Joe Biden of sexually assaulting her, but will vote for him anyway.

“I do believe Reade,” Omar told the Sunday Times. “Justice can be delayed but should never be denied.”

Omar, who endorsed and campaigned for Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said that if it was up to her Biden would not be nominated to represent the Democratic Party.

But he is also the Democrats’ best chance at beating President Trump, she said.

Reade’s allegation against Biden has been corroborated by at least four independent sources, a court document, and a television clip from the 1990s.

Despite this evidence, most Democrats continue to ignore Reade or, worse, wage a smear campaign against her.

But some of the more progressive Democrats, Omar included, have been more willing to entertain Reade’s allegation — if for no other reason than because they’ve always opposed Biden’s candidacy.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., has also said Reade’s allegation deserves a thorough investigation, because it “certainly seems as though something has happened” between Biden and Reade.

And although this is a “messy moment,” Democrats need to live up to the standard they’ve created, she said last month.

“If we want, if we again want to have integrity, you can’t say, you know—both believe women, support all of this, until it inconveniences you, until it inconveniences us,” she said during an online forum in April.

Cruz Bill Would Bar Gov’t Agencies from Aiding Hollywood’s Chinese Propaganda

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‘What message does it send that Maverick, an American icon, is apparently afraid of the Chinese communists?’

(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, wants federal agencies to stop working with Hollywood productions until Hollywood agrees to stop carrying water for China’s communist regime.

Cruz introduced his bill, called the SCRIPT Act, on Thursday. The bill would prevent federal agencies, such as the U.S. Department of Defense and NASA, from aiding Hollywood studios that allow the Chinese government to submit edits—a common practice among major studios that want to market their films to the Chinese audience.

Cruz cited the example of actor Tom Cruise’s character in the upcoming movie Top Gun: Maverick. The character’s jacket was missing Japanese and Taiwanese flags in promotional images and trailers, which critics have said was done to please Chinese censors.

“What message does it send that Maverick, an American icon, is apparently afraid of the Chinese communists?” Cruz said during a speech on the Senate floor “That’s ridiculous.”

Cruz also highlighted films such as Skyfall, Doctor Strange and Bohemian Rhapsody.

We need to be “vigilant about the Chinese government’s attempts to censor and silence elsewhere, including in our own nation,” Cruz said, adding that the SCRIPT Act should be a “wake up call” for Hollywood.

Filmmakers often work with federal agencies in order to accurately portray things like government logos, federal buildings, aircraft carriers, and various interactions.

Trump Mocks Michigan AG for Threatening Ford over Face-Mask Controversy

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‘No wonder many auto companies left Michigan, until I came along!’

(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel slammed President Donald Trump as a “petulant child” and said he is no longer welcome in the state because he removed his facial covering while touring a Ford manufacturing plant in Yipsilanti.

“The president is a petulant child who refuses to follow the rules, and I have to say, this is no joke,” Nessel told CNN on Thursday evening, claiming that Trump might directly infect plant workers with the coronavirus even though he does not have it.

Nessel also threatened to press charges against Ford for allowing the president to walk around the plant without a mask.

“We’re going to have a very serious conversation with Ford in the event that they permitted the president” to go without a mask “in violation of Whitmer’s order requiring anyone who is medically able to wear a mask in an enclosed space,” Nessel said.

“They knew exactly what the order was, and if they permitted anyone, even the president, to defy that order, I think that has serious health consequences.”

Trump did, however, wear a mask during his tour of the Yipsilanti facility. He only took it off during the public portion of the event, because he “didn’t want to give the press the pleasure of seeing it.”

Trump fired back at Nessel and blasted her for “taking her anger and stupidity out on Ford.”

“The Wacky Do Nothing Attorney General of Michigan, Dana Nessel, is viciously threatening Ford Motor Company for the fact that I inspected a Ventilator plant without a mask,” Trump said in a follow-up tweet. “Not their fault, & I did put on a mask. No wonder many auto companies left Michigan, until I came along!”

CDC Admits to Bungling COVID Test Results, Over-Hyping Infection Risk

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‘How could the CDC make that mistake? This is a mess…’

CDC Admits That It's Been Conflating Two Different COVID Tests, Artificially Boosting Positive Cases
Coronavirus / IMAGE: KHOU 11 via YouTube

(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention admitted on Thursday to combining the results from viral and antibody COVID-19 tests, even though there are significant differences between the tests.

Combining the results of these two tests reduces the accuracy of the CDC’s data, according to health officials, since the two tests reveal very different things.

Viral tests show who currently has the coronavirus, and is, therefore, actively spreading it.

Antibody tests, however, test for those who have had it in the past. It’s still unclear whether those with antibodies of COVID-19 can actively spread it, but health experts think it’s unlikely.

Adding antibody results to the viral results makes it seem like there’s a far greater number of people who are actively spreading the coronavirus, said Ashish Jha, director fo the Harvard Global Health Institute.

“How could the CDC make that mistake? This is a mess,” he told the Atlantic. “The viral testing is to understand how many people are getting infected, while antibody testing is like looking in the rearview mirror. The two tests are totally different signals.”

CDC spokeswoman Kristen Nordlund claimed the agency combined the two tests because, at first, antibody testing was not widely available, so they did not believe it would skew the results.

“Now that [antibody] testing is more widely available, the CDC is working to differentiate those tests from the viral tests and will report this information, differentiated by test type, publicly on our COVID Data Tracker website in the coming weeks,” she said in a statement.

When the CDC does differentiate between the two tests, we can expect to see a significant drop in the overall number of positive COVID-19 cases, said Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

“I suspect it will artificially lower the percent positive,” she told NPR.

Minnesota, Illinois Continue to Discriminate Against Churches in Reopening Plans

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‘To the extent that governors don’t and impinge on either civil rights or on the national commerce … then we’ll have to address that…’

Minnesota, Illinois Continue to Discriminate Against Churches in Reopening Plans
A historic church in Melrose, Minn., is torn down on May 19, 2020. / IMAGE: AM 1240 WJON via YouTube

(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) State governments continue to roll out disparate restrictions for churches, despite the fact that many are allowing businesses to reopen.

In Minnesota, Gov. Tim Walz introduced a new set of reopening policies this week that will allow restaurants to host up to 50 customers in outdoor seating.

But he continued to prevent churches from holding services with more than 10 people, regardless of the setting.

Walz said there “is not a perfect answer” when confronted about this disparity.

“I think, and I’m hearing strongly on this … I think the logic behind it … was the predictability of who’s there,” he claimed.

“But I think you could argue, ‘Boy, I see the same people every Sunday at my congregation—and, in fact, the Smiths sat in the same pew every year for 30 years, so we know exactly where they’re at and we know exactly where they are,'” Walz explained.

He maintained that his government felt “a very strong sense of urgency” to figure out how to accommodate churches.

In Chicago, meanwhile, churches were being slapped with fines for holding services in violation of Democrat Gov. J.B. Pritzker‘s shelter-in-place order. At least three churches had been fined up to $500 for holding limited services, according to the Chicago Police Department.

Illinois businesses were also being fined if they reopened too soon, but under Pritzker’s plan, businesses such as restaurants are allowed to reopen much sooner than churches.

Businesses will begin to reopen in the next few months, according to Pritzker, but churches must wait to hold full services until a vaccine is developed.

The U.S. Department of Justice has warned states and localities that pass similar disparate restrictions that the federal government will take legal action if the governments continue to needlessly restrict churches’ rights.

“To the extent that governors don’t and impinge on either civil rights or on the national commerce … then we’ll have to address that,” Attorney General Bill Barr said earlier this month.

Northern Calif. Doctors: More People Are Dying From Suicide Than COVID

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‘The numbers are unprecedented…’

Northern Calif. Doctors: More People Are Dying From Suicide Than COVID
A sign for the UC Davis Medical Center / IMAGE: ABC10 via YouTube

(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) Doctors in Northern California said they’ve seen more deaths from suicide than they have from the coronavirus throughout the shutdown.

“The numbers are unprecedented,” Dr. Michael deBoisblanc of John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek, California, told ABC 7 News.

In the past four weeks alone, deBoisblanc’s hospital has seen a “year’s worth of suicides,” he said.

Kacey Hansen, a trauma center nurse at John Muir Medical Center, said she’s seen a growing number of suicide attempts, too. And it’s becoming increasingly difficult to save all of these patients, she explained.

“What I have seen recently, I have never seen before,” Hansen said. “I have never seen so much intentional injury.”

These deaths of despair make it clear that it’s time to end the shelter-in-place orders, deBoisblanc said.

“Personally I think it’s time,” he said. “I think, originally, this order was put in place to flatten the curve and to make sure hospitals have the resources to take care of COVID patients.We have the current resources to do that and our other community health is suffering.”

The loss of community and the growing sense of isolation is affecting the mental well-being of Americans, said Tom Tamura, the executive director of the Contra Costa County Crisis Center.

“I think people have found themselves disconnected from the normal supportive networks that they have, churches and schools and book clubs, you name it,” Tamura said.

“And that, coupled with the closure of some counseling services, people were maybe in a little bit of shock,” he continued. “They were trying to weather the storm a bit, but as that isolation has grown people have come to realize this isn’t a sprint it is marathon.”

A study published in early May argued that the coronavirus shutdown could lead to at least 75,000 deaths directly caused by anxiety about the virus, job loss, or an addiction to alcohol or drugs.

California isn’t the only part of the country facing alarmingly high suicide rates. In late March, more people died of suicide in a single Tennessee county than of the coronavirus in the entire state.

Nine people committed suicide in under 48 hours in Knox County, according to Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs, while only six people in all of Tennessee died from COVID-19.

“Is what we are doing now really the best approach?” Jacobs told the Tennessee Star. “How can we respond to COVID-19 in a way that keeps our economy intact, keeps people employed, and empowers our people with a feeling of hope and optimism, not desperation and despair?”

Sen. Paul, Rep. Biggs: Fauci Wants Lockdowns 'Until There's Nothing to Reopen'

Joshua Paladino
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‘The very foundation of our medical care system has been rocked—not solely because of the virus, but also because of the response to the virus…’

Rand Paul: Congress Should Investigate Dem Senators Who Threatened to Withhold Aid From Ukraine
Rand Paul / Fox News via Youtube

(Joshua Paladino, Liberty Headlines) Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., wrote that Drs. Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx “seek to corral our freedom” and keep lockdowns in place “until there’s nothing to reopen.”
The Republican congressmen argue that the long-term negative economic, social and health effects of lockdowns and house arrest far outweigh any positive health benefits, in an op-ed for USA Today.
The libertarian Paul is in a particularly unique position to question the so-called pandemic experts’ opinions as he is, himself, a medical doctor and a coronavirus survivor.
At first, Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, pushed mandatory lockdowns in an attempt to “flatten the curve” of infections so that medical services would not be overwhelmed. These policy prescriptions were based on flawed data.
Yet, Fauci won’t back down. He said at a Senate committee hearing last week, without providing evidence, that reopening would “result in needless suffering and death.”
These doomsday predictions have not materialized in states that have begun to reopen.
Paul and Biggs said Fauci has simply ignored the “countless stories of needless suffering and death produced by Fauci’s one-size-fits-all approach to public health.”
“It’s inconvenient from a societal standpoint, from an economic standpoint to go through this,” Fauci said, failing to realizing that inconvenient has meant “deadly” in many cases.
Fauci admitted that he doesn’t “give advice about economic things” during the Senate hearing.
“I don’t get advice about anything other than public health,” he said.
But Paul and Biggs wondered whether he has considered all dimensions of the public health crisis from lockdowns.
“We are seeing hospitals and medical groups having to close because they couldn’t treat patients,” they wrote. “The very foundation of our medical care system has been rocked—not solely because of the virus, but also because of the response to the virus.”
Paul and Biggs advise a new approach that is tailored to accommodate different sections of the country: precautions for elderly people and the immunocompromised, and freedom for healthy adults and children.
“President Trump has expressed a desire to restore our economic greatness and the positives that come with it—including better public health—by opening up our communities,” they wrote. “We must forge ahead even as Fauci tries to brush away the optimism of the president and the American people.”

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