AOC Joins Conservatives to Oppose New COVID Spending Package

Ben Sellers
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‘The only folks that they have urgency around are folks like Ruth’s Chris Steak House and Shake Shack…’

Rep. Ocasio-Cortez Named 'Porker of the Year' in Online Poll
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez / IMAGE: The Late Show with Stephen Colbert via Youtube

(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) Some have suggested that politically ambitious Rep. Alexandria Ocasio–Cortez, D-NY, has recently tiptoed closer to the center by embracing the Democratic Establishment.

But on Thursday, the socialist-influenced congressional freshman appeared to make a hard-right lurch to oppose the most recent coronavirus relief bill.

Ocasio–Cortez joined five of the most vocal anti-government House conservatives in refusing to rubber-stamp the latest stimulus package, all the while bashing several beloved food chains.

“It is a joke when Republicans say that they have urgency around this bill,” Ocasio–Cortez said, according to the New York Post. “The only folks that they have urgency around are folks like Ruth’s Chris Steak House and Shake Shack.”

The nearly $500 billion package, on the heels of the $2-trillion-plus CARES Act, cleared the House 388-5 on Thursday, signaling a small but growing opposition as the two sides ready for a fifth bout.

The next debate will likely find Democrats threatening to derail another infusion of $1,200 Trump checks unless Republicans agree to help fund state and local governments dealing with issues like depleted pension funds.

More recently, the opposing parties faced a stand-off over the continued funding of the Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program, which incentivizes companies to retain workers during the health crisis rather than furlough or fire them.

House Democrats acknowledged that they had sat on the bill while attempting to use it as “leverage” for funding other priorities, including $100 billion total for hospitals and coronavirus testing.

“Some people unfortunately got laid off because of this delay,” said House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.

But the only thing more unusual than seeing the eventual bipartisan solidarity in favor of the costly spending package was the motley assortment that opposed it.

Some, such as Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Justin Amash, I-Mich. (the latter voted “present”), have been criticized by fellow conservatives for refusing to fall in line with the GOP agenda.

The libertarian Amash’s attacks on President Donald Trump after the release of the Mueller report led to his cutting ties with the party, despite having been a founding member of the conservative Freedom Caucus.

Likewise, Massie was criticized for having forced Congress back into session last month by rejecting the motion from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., for unanimous consent on the previous relief bill.

Massie said concerns about adding substantially to Pelosi’s procedural powers had spurred his opposition, more so than the bill’s massive price tag.

CO Rep. Tells Gun-Confiscating Biden-Beto Duo to 'Come and Take It'
Ken Buck / IMAGE: @RepKenBuck via Twitter

Joining Massie in opposition to the latest bill were three of the House’s most conservative and vocal pro-Trump advocates: GOP Reps. Andy Biggs of Arizona, Ken Buck of Colorado and Jody Hice of Georgia.

Finally, on the other side of the political spectrum entirely, was Ocasio–Cortez.

She criticized the Paycheck Relief Program for benefiting larger companies as well as small businesses.

“You are not trying to fix this bill for mom and pops, and we have to fight to fund hospitals [and] to fund testing,” Ocasio–Cortez said.

Her attack on specific eateries was not entirely inapropos.

According to the New York Post, the high-end steakhouse Ruth’s Chris was poised to receive a $20 million loan. And Shake Shack, a purveyor of fast-food frozen treats, had been slated for $10 million.

Both companies have now said they will return the funds.

“AOC” joined her fellow “Squad” members earlier this week in supporting a bill sponsored by Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., that would suspend all rent and mortgage payments during the health crisis.

“If you had urgency, you would legislate like rent was due on May 1 and make sure that we have rent and mortgage relief for our constituents,” she scolded her GOP adversaries.

Meanwhile, Republicans also remained diffident as to whether smaller versus larger companies should benefit from emergency funding.

Conceding that the particular program was earmarked for small businesses, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., nonetheless noted that workers at larger chains were equally vulnerable, reported the New York Post.

“[Y]ou could make an argument that if my job was lost, the size of my employer doesn’t make any difference to me. I’m out of work,” McConnell said.

“So it’s an interesting debate,” he continued. “We’re feeling our way along here, we’re trying to do the best we can to get money to our people and to our small businesses.”

Yet, Republicans waged a similar opposition to wealthy universities that had accepted millions in funding through the prior stimulus bill, ostensibly in support of remote-learning and student needs.

After facing heavy criticism from Trump and GOP members of Congress, Harvard reluctantly agreed Wednesday to return the $9 million it had received.

This week’s bill was not the first time that Ocasio–Cortez’s far-left agenda had wound up inadvertently aligning her with the Right.

Last June, at the peak of the illegal immigration crisis, she joined some fiscal conservatives in opposing House Democrats’ emergency-spending package for border security that sought to address the overcrowding of detention centers.

On at least two occasions, she and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, have discussed teaming up for anti-lobbying legislation and to make over-the-counter birth control more available.

Va. Church Sues Radical Gov. for Unconstitutional Order Blocking Religious Freedom

Contributing Author
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‘Because the church had six more people than the 10 allowed by the governor, the pastor is being criminally charged…’

Virginia Church Files Lawsuit Against Northam For Unconstitutional Order Shutting Down Religious Freedom
Pastor Kevin Wilson preaches to congregants at Lighthouse Fellowship Church / IMAGE: Facebook

(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) A Virginia church filed a federal lawsuit on Friday against Gov. Ralph Northam, alleging the Democratic governor’s “unconstitutional” shelter-in-place order violated churchgoers’ right to worship freely.

The suit, filed by Lighthouse Fellowship Church, states that a Virginia police officer abruptly entered and interrupted the church’s Palm Sunday service, on April 5, and accused the churchgoers of violating the government’s social distancing requirements.

There were only 16 people in attendance, the lawsuit states, and each person stood at least six feet from the others.

After the service, two officers handed the church’s pastor, Kevin Wilson, a summons and charged him for violating Northam’s COVID Order 55, with a penalty up to one year in jail or a fine of up to $2,500.

Lighthouse’s church members were also threatened with criminal sanctions, the lawsuit says. As a result, the church was forced to cancel its service on Easter, one of the holiest Christian holidays.

By enforcing a law that shut down the church, Northam “clearly discriminated against Lighthouse Fellowship Church, which provides essential physical, emotional, and spiritual services to the community,” said Liberty Counsel, a nonprofit legal organization representing Wilson and the church.

Unlike many other churches, Lighthouse Fellowship Church “does not have Internet and cannot flip a switch to broadcast online,” said Mat Staver, Liberty Counsel founder and chairman.

Although the church maintains a Facebook presence, it is located on the remote barrier island of Chincoteague, with fewer than 3,000 residents, meaning not all of its congregants have reliable online access.

Thus, Northam’s order did not just prevent churchgoers from physically meeting, it prevents them from worshiping at all, Staver explained.

Wilson is being punished because Northam chose an “arbitrary number” upon which to base his executive order, Staver said.

“Because the church had six more people than the 10 allowed by the governor, the pastor is being criminally charged,” Staver said.

“We must balance the First Amendment with protecting the health and welfare of people but picking an arbitrary number of 10 people for every church is not the answer,” he added.

Biden Tells Pa. Voters He Never Said He'd Kill Fracking — But He DID

Joshua Paladino
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‘I guarantee, I guarantee we are going to end fossil fuel…’

Joe Biden Changes Stance on Oil Drilling in Pennsylvania Interview
Joe Biden / IMAGE: TMJ4 News via YouTube; graphic by Liberty Headlines

(Joshua Paladino, Liberty Headlines) Former Vice President Joe Biden said recently that he would not “shut down” fracking if elected president, despite saying he would not let the oil industry “continue to drill” in March, KDKA reported.
Jon Delano of Pittsburgh’s KDKA spoke with Biden about the future of energy production in the United States and President Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus.
Delano asked Biden what his policies would be in regard to the Shell petrochemical plant and fracking industry.
“If you are are elected president, would you shut down this industry?” he asked.
“No, I would not shut down this industry,” Biden responded.
“I know our Republican friends are trying to say I said that. I said I would not do any new leases on federal lands,” he clarified.
Biden insisted that the ban would thus constitute only a small fraction of the overall drilling and exploration.
“Ninety percent of the leases are not on federal land to begin with,” he said. “I would make sure … the water is not being contaminated. But I would not shut it down, no.”
This answer raises new questions about the answers he has given during the past few months of the Democratic Party primary.
Biden has oscillated between promising an oil ban, to saying that oil should be phased out, to saying that he will not shut down the oil industry.
His comments at CNN’s March 15 Democratic Party presidential debate may clarify what he said to Delano.
He said there should be “no more—no new fracking.”
“No more drilling on federal lands. No more drilling, including offshore. No ability for the oil industry to continue to drill, period.”
As early as September 2019, Biden said, “I guarantee, I guarantee we are going to end fossil fuel.”
At a Jan. 24 campaign event in New Hampshire, a voter asked him, “But like, what about, say, stopping fracking … and stopping pipeline infrastructure?”
He responded “yes” to both questions, Americans for Tax Reform reported.
At a Feb. 8 campaign rally in New Hampshire, Biden bragged about how the Obama administration “wiped out—no more coal plants.”
In response to left-wing protesters demanding an end to fossil fuels, Biden expressed his solidarity.
“That’s OK—these guys are OK,” he said. “They want to do the same thing that I want to do, they want to phase out fossil fuels, and we’re going to phase out fossil fuels.”

A Familiar Pattern…

Biden notably admitted in a 1974 interview, during his first term as a U.S. senator, that he was willing to “prostitute” himself to the highest bidder.
“You run the risk of deciding whether or not you’re going to prostitute yourself to give the answer you know they want to hear in order to get funded to run for that office,” he told PBS.

Over the course of his five-decade career in Washington, such reversals have become something of a trademark for him, as ubiquitous as his routine gaffes and uncomfortable physical contact.
While continuing to frame himself as a “moderate” during the Democratic primaries, Biden has embraced one of the most radical leftist platforms in history, said former President Barack Obama while endorsing him.
One particularly hot topic has been Biden’s off-and-on relationship with China, which has been accused of covering up the origin and early scope of the coronavirus pandemic.
In less than two months’ time last year, between May and June, Biden flipped from downplaying the Asian superpower’s economic threat to the U.S. to fearmongering over Trump’s “dangerous” Chinese trade war.
Biden’s son Hunter, while accompanying his dad on state business during the Obama administration, was revealed to have partnered with China’s communist government in 2013 on the $1.5 billion BHR Equity Investment Fund.
He remained on the company’s board until facing pressure to step down last October. However, Chinese records as of last December continued to list him as a board member.


During a recent interview, Biden tried to swing at Trump over the president’s coronavirus response using a page from Trump’s own playbook.
“He has been so slow getting out of the gate. Talk about slow, this is slow-mo Trump,” Biden said. “I mean, everything is like it’s in slow motion. They’ve got to move. People are getting hurt badly.”
He then accused Trump of being too soft on China.
“Way back in January, I said he should step and challenge China,” Biden claimed. “They are engaging in an activity that they are not being truthful with the rest of the world about.”
When Trump restricted travel from China, the mainstream media chorus called him xenophobic.
Liberty Headlines’ Ben Sellers contributed to this report.

Stacey Abrams Shares ‘Concern’ that Biden May Snub Black Women in VP Pick

Contributing Author
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‘Women of color, particularly black women, are the strongest part of the Democratic Party…’

(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) Failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams said she is concerned that presidential candidate Joe Biden won’t choose a woman of color as his running mate.

Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, recently reaffirmed his pledge to choose a woman as his would-be vice president, but he refused to commit recently to choosing a woman of color.

This was a “slap in the face” to black women who helped to resuscitate Biden’s nearly dead campaign after early primary losses, suggested The View co-host Sunny Hostin.

“Do you think that not choosing a woman of color, a black woman actually, is a slap in the face to the black female voters who are credited, really, for reviving his candidacy?” Hostin asked Abrams.

Abrams agreed with Hostin’s characterization and said minority voters do have cause for concern.

“I appreciate the fact that he has lifted up women as being a necessary partner in this,” she continued. “But I would share your concern about not picking a woman of color because women of color, particularly black women, are the strongest part of the Democratic Party.”

Abrams’s concern likely stems from the fact that she’s long been discussed as a top contender for the job.

Stacey Abrams Defends Joe Biden: 'We Cannot Have Perfection as a Litmus Test'
Stacey Abrams / IMAGE: MSNBC via Youtube

After rebuffing Biden’s initial advances, Abrams eventually embraced the narrative, tacitly offering her de facto endorsement as Southern blacks helped catapult the former vice president back into front-runner status.

But Biden’s list of options has grown over the past few weeks, and other high-profile leftists, such as Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., have reportedly risen to the top of that list. Both represent must-win battleground states, while historically red Georgia likely remains out of play for the cash-strapped Biden campaign.

Moreover, Abrams’s lack of experience could be an issue. Due to Biden’s advanced age and apparent cognitive decline, much is riding on his selection of a viable leader with executive experience. Abrams’s highest political office was serving as the minority leader of Georgia’s state legislature.

Despite Biden’s wandering eye, though, Abrams has been aggressively campaigning for a spot on the ticket over the past few weeks.

Last week, she told Elle magazine that she would be an “excellent” running mate, and now she’s indirectly warning Biden that he needs to pick “a ticket that reflects the diversity of America.”

Houston Police Refuse to Enforce Mask Mandate by ‘Horrific’ County Leader

Contributing Author
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‘The citizens of Harris County are working hard together through this pandemic and do not need the added stress and fear of being fined or arrested for failing to wear a mask…’

Houston Police Refuse to Enforce Mask Mandate by 'Horrific' County Leader
Lina Hidalgo / IMAGE: KHOU 11 via YouTube

(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) Houston police officers said they will not enforce a county judge’s order requiring citizens to wear masks in public or face a fine and possible jail time.

The new rule, ordered by Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, requires all adults and children over the age of 10 to cover their noses and mouths when leaving their homes.

Violators could face a harsh penalty, according to the Houston Chronicle, including a fine of up to $1,000 and a maximum of 180 days in jail.

The unions representing Houston police officers and Harris County deputies, however, said law enforcement officials have no intention of enforcing Hidalgo’s mandate.

“The citizens of Harris County are working hard together through this pandemic and do not need the added stress and fear of being fined or arrested for failing to wear a mask/face covering they may not have,” David Cuevas, president of the Harris County Deputies Organization, said in a statement.

Joe Gamaldi, president of Houston’s Lodge 110 police union, agreed and said Hidalgo’s order would tear down the “bridge” Houston officers have built with their community.

Hidalgo’s “horrific” leadership deserves legal scrutiny, as well, Gamaldi added.

As a county judge, Hidalgo is not technically part of the judicial branch.

Rather, her position is the equivalent of a chairperson of a county commission.

Gamaldi said he is in contact with the Texas Attorney General’s Office “seeking an opinion on the legality of imposing a criminal penalty/fine for anyone not wearing a mask in public,” as Hidalgo has done.

But in the meantime, Gamaldi urged the officers his union represents to use discretion.

“It is clear the so-called leader of Harris County lacks any critical thinking skills,” Gamaldi said of Hidalgo. “But let me assure the public, our officers do! The last thing any of us need to do is kick our community while they are down.”

US Funded Dangerous Wuhan Lab; 52 Congress Members Want It Stopped

Contributing Writer
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‘Taxpayers’ money should not be sent to a dangerous Chinese state-run bio-agent laboratory that … is run by adversaries with a history of lab leaks…’

US Taxpayers Funded Dangerous Wuhan Lab, 52 Congress Members Want it Stopped
Wuhan Institute of Virology / IMAGE: TVB Anywhere Life via YouTube

(Michael Barnes, Liberty Headlines) U.S. taxpayers funded the dangerous Wuhan, China bio-lab where the global coronavirus pandemic is thought to have originated.

Now, 52 members of Congress are trying to make sure that “no stimulus funding is sent.”

Sen. Martha McSally, R-Ariz., and Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., are leading the congressional coalition urging House and Senate leadership to end all funding of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, including any proceeds from the $2-trillion CARES Act.

“We’re sure you agree that taxpayers’ money should not be sent to a dangerous Chinese state-run bio-agent laboratory that lacks any meaningful oversight from U.S. authorities and is run by adversaries with a history of lab leaks,” the members wrote in a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., on Wednesday.

The Wuhan Institute of Virology is the only level-4 biosafety lab, or BSL-4, facility in China. Level-4 labs are authorized to work with highly dangerous and exotic microbes and can function as dual-use laboratories for bioweapons.

Recent media reports have shown that the U.S. National Institutes of Health has been funding secretive laboratory research at the Wuhan facility for many years. Active NIH grants total $3.7 million to-date.

According to the NIH’s website, the Wuhan lab has been receiving U.S. taxpayer funding to conduct animal research.

Peer-reviewed research papers also show that NIH funding has been used in Wuhan for research involving “capturing and handling coronavirus-infected bats from the same caves [where] COVID-19 is believed to have originated,” McSally and Gaetz wrote.

In some cases, infected bats were killed and transported to the Wuhan lab for experiments, they said.

“Although President Trump has stated that his administration ‘will end that grant quickly,’ we hope to ensure that WIV will not receive federal funds in any future spending packages,” Wednesday’s letter stated.

Under the recent CARES Act, both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the NIH are slated to receive billions of dollars in new taxpayer support.

NYTimes Publisher Defends Racist Historical-Revisionism Project

Contributing Writer
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‘That the New York Times … should lead this charge is horrifying. That the errors are aimed at schoolchildren is reprehensible…’

NYTimes Publisher Defends Revisionist Racist US History Project
A.G. Sulzberger / IMAGE: CNN via YouTube

(Michael Barnes, Liberty Headlines) The publisher of the New York Times was confronted on Wednesday over the newspaper’s racist and woefully inaccurate “1619 Project.”

But instead of disavowing the credibility-shattering attempt to rewrite American history, publisher A.G. Sulzberger credited the Times with starting a “dialogue.”

“So, basically the Times said it’s OK to put out misinformation as long as it spurs a discussion?” asked Christopher Arps, a member of the Project 21 black-leadership network of the National Center for Public Policy Research.

Arps posed the question during an exchange that occurred after the paper’s annual shareholder meeting.

The confrontation was prompted when Sulzberger ducked Arps’s attempt to hold the publisher accountable for the intellectual collapse of the paper’s highly-promoted educational initiative during the meeting’s formal question-and-answer period.

“The Times has finally admitted its error,” Arps said. “Will it now go back to correct the record with the vigor with which it distorted it and ensure that schools using 1619 Project materials are not teaching falsehoods?”

The 1619 Project is a revisionist history program that puts slavery at the center of the nation’s founding. It claims that American independence was born from a rejection of British abolitionist efforts, as opposed to taxation without representation in Parliament.

The Times has heavily promoted the 1619 Project as enlightened, progressive history, and it has found receptive partners in school systems and universities across the country.

Academics and historians from across the political spectrum have rejected the 1619 Project’s premise that America was founded on slavery, and the head of the project was forced to admit error. But it continues to be taught in schools.

Sulzberger responded to Arps by saying the 1619 Project has been “widely read and praised” and that “some” critics disagree with “some of the project’s conclusions.”

“One of the things that we’ve tried hard to do throughout the Project is simply to encourage dialogue between those with different perspectives,” he said.

Unsatisfied, Arps fired back: “That the New York Times, a once-great newspaper, should lead this charge is horrifying. That the errors are aimed at schoolchildren is reprehensible.”

Cuomo to Unemployed New Yorkers: Get ‘Essential’ Job So You Won’t ‘Kill Anyone’

Contributing Author
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‘The illness is death. What is worse than death?…’

(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said that if New Yorkers are eager to get back to work during the Wuhan virus pandemic, they should find jobs that his administration has deemed “essential.”

“You want to go to work, go take a job as an essential worker. Do it tomorrow,” Cuomo said during a press briefing on Wednesday. “There are people hiring. You can get a job as an essential worker, so now you can go to work and now you are an essential worker and now you won’t kill anyone.”

Cuomo’s suggestion that citizens — working in jobs categorized among New York’s broad “essential” list — will not spread the coronavirus defies multiple reports detailing COVID-19 outbreaks in grocery stores, warehouses, and other industries that have remained open.

One man, for example, was linked to at least 70 cases in Westchester because he commuted to his “essential” job every day using mass public transit.

Cuomo, however, has refused to shut down public transit, claiming “there’s no reason to do so.”

At least 41 public transit employees have died from the coronavirus, according to the New York Times, and more than 6,000 more have fallen sick or self-quarantined.

“We’re seeing a lot of our co-workers getting sick or dying. The morale is down. It is very, very bad,” Nasar Abdurrahman, a bus operator, told the Times.

There are dozens of other businesses to which Cuomo has granted exceptions, including dog grooming facilities, building cleaning, and designing, printing, publishing, and signage companies. Apparently these workers are less likely to “kill” others than workers in other industries, according to Cuomo, by virtue of their “essential” status.

Cuomo also dismissed concerns that unemployed New Yorkers won’t be able to pay their bills on time.

“You will be paid!” Cuomo insisted. “We are talking about a couple of days of lag, and they will get that the date of unemployment.”

Citizens (and President Trump) protesting shelter-in-place orders across the country have made the point that the cure can’t be worse than the problem.

“These are regular people who are not getting a paycheck and they’re saying that they don’t have time to wait for all of this testing and they need to get back to work in order to feed their families,” a local reporter told Cuomo during the press conference.

Cuomo responded and said that the only thing New Yorkers should be worried about right now is “death.”

“The illness is death,” he said, “What is worse than death?”

Economic failure is not as big of a problem as the coronavirus, Cuomo added.

“It doesn’t equal death,” he said. “Economic hardship, yes, very bad, not death.”

Cuomo has struggled to provide consistent messaging throughout this public health crisis. Last month, he demanded that the Trump administration send New York 40,000 ventilators. Trump refused, arguing that Cuomo’s number was far beyond what the state needed. Sure enough, Cuomo announced last week that he’d be donating ventilators to other states.

The governor also said last week that the U.S. Navy’s massive medical ship, the USNS Comfort, is no longer needed, since hospitalizations continue to decrease. Cuomo then turned around and said that New York will be unable to open until the Trump administration provides more testing.

“This is a very big issue,” Cuomo said.

Alleged COVID Drug ‘Whistleblower’ Hires Blasey Ford’s Dem Activist Attorneys

Ben Sellers
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‘I am speaking out because to combat this deadly virus, science—not politics or cronyism—has to lead the way…’

Rick Bright / IMAGE: MSNBC via YouTube

(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) The attorneys who helped coordinate a politically motivated rape hoax that divided the nation are now representing a demoted government scientist who claims he was a whistleblower about hydroxychloroquine.

Rick Bright, former director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, had been leading the Department of Health and Human Service‘s attempted development of a coronavirus vaccine, reported the Washington Examiner.

Even though that made him a prime target in the widely-panned bureaucratic response to the pandemic crisis, Bright insisted that he was punished for attempting to block hydroxychloroquine from being used to treat the coronavirus.

President Donald Trump was an early advocate of the prospective treatment after mounting anecdotal evidence from COVID patients pointed to its potentially life-saving effects.

Noting there was little downside to the drug—already on the market for treating maladies like malaria and lupus—Trump urged the Food and Drug Administration to streamline its approval for the new coronavirus and to make it readily available.

However, anti-Trump resistance activists such as Bright quickly pounced with a sustained attack, deriding the treatment as dangerous and unproven.

“Rushing blindly towards unproven drugs can be disastrous and result in countless more deaths,” Bright said in a statement released by his attorneys. “Science, in service to the health and safety of the American people, must always trump politics.”

Another Partisan Smear

In the wake of his removal as BARDA director, Bright was reassigned to a different position with the National Institutes of Health, but he nonetheless claimed “retaliation” was the motive and demanded an inspector general’s probe under whistleblower-protection laws.

“I believe this transfer was in response to my insistence that the government invest the billions of dollars allocated by Congress to address the COVID-19 pandemic into safe and scientifically vetted solutions, and not in drugs, vaccines and other technologies that lack scientific merit,” Bright said.

“I am speaking out because to combat this deadly virus, science—not politics or cronyism—has to lead the way,” he added.

Sadly, Bright’s condemnation of politically motivated attacks was belied by his choice to retain Katz, Marshall & Banks for legal representation.

Debra Katz / IMAGE: CNN via YouTube

The firm notoriously represented Christine Blasey Ford, whose uncorroborated rape claims threatened to derail the 2018 confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Lead attorneys Debra Katz and Lisa Banks—who represented Blasey Ford ostensibly for free—maintain deep ties to partisan Democrats like Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

Feinstein, in turn, was embroiled in a recent insider-trading scandal for dumping millions of dollars worth of stock after a Senate briefing on the coronavirus in January.

Moreover, she has strong financial and personal links to China, which has been accused of covering up information surrounding the origin and scope of the coronavirus.

The activist attorneys have also hosted Democratic fundraisers; and Katz, who subsequently admitted that Blasey Ford’s actions were based on opposition to Kavanaugh’s abortion stance, has publicly celebrated the baseless smearing of his name.

“Elections have consequences, but he will always have an asterisk next to his name,” Katz said at an April 2019 feminist conference.

A Familiar Playbook

Similar to the coordinated left-wing attack on Kavanaugh and House Democrats’ recent Ukraine conspiracy to impeach Trump under the auspices of an orchestrated whistleblower complaint, Bright’s attack failed to pass the smell test for many political analysts.

Mitchell Report Reveals Many Holes in Ford's So-Called Credible Testimony 1
Christine Blasey Ford/IMAGE: screenshot via Fox News

American Greatness noted that the new claims seemed to be relying on the same playbook of misdirection that partisan activists have deployed in the past.

The claims, once again, offered a thin veneer to conceal the true motives of undermining Trump by drawing out the ongoing health crisis with maximum pain and suffering in the prelude to the November presidential election.

“Now the resistance media and Democrats are rooting against a possible treatment for the virus because they want our country to stay shut down, sick and panicked and also because the President has repeatedly said he is hopeful that this drug might work to save people,” said American Greatness.

“Ask yourself how deranged it is to hope for the failure of a life-saving treatment ONLY BECAUSE the president has indicated his optimism,” it continued. “It’s sick. These people are sick.”

Already, several sources had begun poking holes in Bright’s claims, noting that he had advocated for HHS’s acquisition of the drug previously and that his dismissal had, in fact, been a year in the making, according to Politico.

Trump urged the media to apply more skepticism and restraint in its coverage than it had in some of the previous partisan smear campaigns, maintaining that he had no part in the personnel decision involving Bright.

“I never heard of him,” Trump said. “The guy says he was pushed out of a job—maybe he was, maybe he wasn’t. You’d have to hear the other side.”

‘Study’ that Fake News Used to Attack Trump-Touted COVID Drug is Flawed

Ben Sellers
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‘This was… Not a large study…’

(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) Left-wing attempts to discredit President Donald Trump’s highly touted coronavirus treatment faced new setbacks after a widely circulated recent “study” from a veterans hospital that claimed to debunk it raised several red flags.

While the efficacy and potential downsides to the hydroxychloroquine treatment (in combination with other drugs) continue to be studied and debated, proponents who have successfully used it have built a strong case on anecdotal evidence.

But partisan, anti-Trump resisters, including members of the federal bureaucracy’s scientific community, have pushed back brutally at Trump’s usurpation of their authority during the national emergency, according to the Gateway Pundit.

In one instance, left-wing activists deliberately poisoned themselves with aquarium cleaner as part of an effort to spread misinformation in the media that would discredit the president.

More recently, media outlets hyped a retrospective analysis of 368 patients at a VA hospital that claimed hydroxychloroquine treatments offered no benefit and resulted in an increased death rate.

However, several flaws in the study were apparent upon further scrutiny.

Among them was the lack of randomization, which signaled that those receiving the treatment as a last resort may already have been in their final stages and predisposed to the dire outcome.

The VA itself released a statement acknowledging that the study “doesn’t adjust for patients’ clinical status.”

The study’s small and unreliable sample size also left some wondering why Trump-bashers were so ready to cite it as definitive proof that Trump had blood on his hands.

Furthermore, at least two of the study’s authors also acknowledged competing interests—including University of Virginia researcher Jayakrishna Ambati, who has filed his own patent for an “unrelated” COVID treatment.

Co-researcher S. Scott Sutton, a University of South Carolina pharmacologist, has received research grants from Gilead Sciences, which is currently developing the competing drug remdesivir for approved COVID treatment.

Remdesivir has been touted by the World Health Organization as the “only one … that we think may have real efficacy,” according to CNN. Gilead is currently conducting health trials on it in China.

The VA study also contradicted several others that weighed in favor of the treatment, including replicated clinical trials involving more than 1,000 patients by French epidemiologist Didier Raoult, which found 91 percent effectiveness.

Fox News’s The Ingraham Angle tore into the fake news reports for rushing to conclusions without digging deeper.

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