Trump Economist Rips Pharmaceutical Lobbyists for Opposing ‘Buy American’ Order

Contributing Writer
-
0

‘Big Pharma and its well-heeled Swamp Creatures need to stop being such a divisive element in American politics…’

White House Economist Peter Navarro Rips Big Pharma for Opposing ‘Buy American’ Order
Peter Navarro / IMAGE: Fox News via Youtube

(Michael Barnes, Liberty Headlines) White House economic advisor Peter Navarro has had enough of Big Pharma and its efforts to side with China over the interests of the United States.

Navarro blasted pharmaceutical companies and their armies of Washington, D.C. lobbyists in an exchange with the Epoch Times on Thursday.

“America is more than up to that task, and Big Pharma and its well-heeled Swamp Creatures need to stop being such a divisive element in American politics,” he said.

At issue is the pharmaceutical industry’s objection to the Trump administration’s “Buy American” executive order that aims to reduce dependence on China for critical prescription drugs, and vital medical equipment and supplies.

Navarro—who currently serves as the assistant to the president, and director of trade and manufacturing policy—has been working on the “Buy American” order for weeks. The policy is designed to protect U.S. national security and promote both jobs and economic demand.

But Big Pharma is having none of it. A letter signed by 40 different pharmaceutical companies, lobbying firms and related organizations has already made its way to Trump’s desk.

The letter warns that the administration’s plan could harm the fight against the Wuhan coronavirus that’s currently ravaging New York City and other areas of the country.

In the interview, Navarro scoffed at the idea.

“That’s a Big Pharma red herring designed to preserve its offshore oligopoly at the expense of American citizens,” he said.

In truth, the “Buy American” order wouldn’t have time to be implemented until after the Wuhan virus pandemic likely subsides.

Other prominent figures, like Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., have also called for bringing home medical supply chains, especially from China.

“We cannot trust China to continue to manufacture our pharmaceuticals, things like antibiotics, penicillin, ibuprofen, acetaminophen, to say nothing of dozens of other basic pharmaceutical ingredients,” Cotton said last week after the Chinese Communist Party threatened to impose pharmaceutical export controls over vital drugs and plunge the U.S. into “the mighty sea of coronavirus.”

Navarro is determined to reduce these types of threats. But his main obstacle isn’t the Chinese government, it’s the American pharmaceutical industry.

“If this crisis teaches us anything at all, it is that we cannot rely on Big Pharma, which is renown already for its price gouging, to provide America with the medicines and medical supplies we urgently need from its offshored production during the China virus crisis,” Navarro said.

U.S. Companies Justify Trump's Rejection to Nationalize & Rally to Fight Virus

Joshua Paladino
-
0

‘We would be honored to donate our facility…’

Trump Rejects Nationalization; American Companies Step Up to Make Medical Supplies
Mike Lindell/IMAGE: YouTube

(Joshua Paladino, Liberty Headlines) Democrats and media personalities demanded that President Donald Trump marshall the federal government’s power to force companies to respond to the Wuhan virus pandemic, but American companies, by their own initiative, are meeting the challenge.
A medical device company in Denver, North Carolina usually manufactures transplant supplies, but they have switched to making ventilators amid the rise in COVID-19 patients who need breathing support, WCNC reported.
“It’s been all hands on deck 24/7, there’s not been a lot of sleep,” Sherif Gabriel, CEO of BioMed Innovations, said. “Seven days ago we realized that the core technology in our profusion system could be utilized to make a highly efficient low-cost ventilator and ideally help COVID-19 patients.”
Company officials said they have developed a prototype, which they will construct with the help of local organizations — including a NASCAR team — but they are waiting on the FDA to approve the model.
There are only 46 ventilators in the surrounding three counties of Chester, York, and Lancaster, but BioMed Innovations will make 1,000 ventilators per week starting in the next few weeks.
Gabriel said the team is “thrilled to make such a contribution.”
Major manufacturers, including Ford, GM, and Tesla, have all stepped up to make ventilators and personal protective equipment, such as face masks, for hospital workers and COVID-19 patients, The Verge reported.
Ford is partnering with 3M to produce “powered air-purifying respirator” (PAPR) masks and General Electric to produce ventilators.
General Motors is working with Ventec Life Systems to create ventilators.
Tesla bought 1,000 ventilators from China’s stockpile and sent them to California.
In New York, a menswear company has shifted production to make personal protective equipment for healthcare workers at a loss to the company, Fox News reported.
“In a matter of days, we built a prototype of the surgical curtain supplied to us by Rochester General [Hospital] and, within a week, had delivered the first 10,000. We’re ramping up to hopefully produce 300,000 as quickly as we can,” CEO Stephen Granovksy said Friday on “Fox and Friends.”
Granovsky said he hopes the federal government will come through with higher payments on future orders.
“We desperately need a buyer that is either statewide or even better, national, that can coordinate not only proven prototypes but providing the budget because, let’s face it, American manufacturing is more expensive than the traditional Chinese manufacturing that this industry is used to,” he said.
Back in North Carolina, a Charlotte information technology company called Cloverhound is creating a telehealth platform for a New York hospital system, WSOC-TV reported.
The online portal will allow doctors to remotely conduct triage and scheduling.

“Emergency rooms are completely swamped,” Cloverhound CEO Chad Stachowicz said. “Before you would come into the hospital, if you have questions, if they can triage over video live. Another big part of this is allowing the normal operations of the hospital not involved with COVID-19 to continue to treat patients normally but do that remotely so there is less possibility of spread.”
Gun manufacturer Remington, located in Ilion, New York, shut down operations last Friday due to Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s executive order, but the comapny said it can reopen to manufacture medical supplies, The Democrat and Chronicle reported.

“The Remington plant in Ilion now has approximately one million square feet of unused and available manufacturing space,” CEO Ken D’Arcy said in a letter to Cuomo and Trump on March 23. “We would be honored to donate our facility to the production of ventilators, surgical masks, hospital beds or any other products mission-critical to the war on coronavirus.”

D’Arcy said “ventilators are essential to winning this new kind of war and Remington stands ready to enlist in wartime production.”
Cuomo said the sate needs 30,000 ventilators but has only 7,000 on hand.
Yet, Remington has not yet received the go ahead to begin production.
MyPillow Founder and CEO Mike Lindell announced that he is shifting 75 percent of his company’s capacity to manufacturing face masks.
“We have capacity to make a lot of things at big rates and we’re going to be going hopefully from 10,000 units a day to 50,000 units a day in a very short period of time,” he said, according to FOX 9 of Minneapolis-St. Paul.
Mattress company Eclipse International will make 38,000 masks and provide them free of charge to a hospital in New Brunswick, New Jersey, Fox News reported.
“I’m not trying to sell masks,” President and CEO Stuart Carlitz said. “Whether it’s a dollar apiece or four dollars apiece, that’s not going to change my business. I’m going to donate the masks.”

Congress’s Relief Package Includes $11 Billion for International Orgs

Contributing Author
-
0

‘This bill … shouldn’t be stuffed full of Nancy Pelosi’s pork…’

(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) Congress’s $2-trillion relief package, which the House passed on Friday, includes several provisions that have little to do with the coronavirus.

One such provision allocates $11 billion to three international development groups: the African Development Fund (AFD), the African Development Bank (AfDB), and the International Development Association (IDA).

The ADF and AfDB are organizations that deal with poverty in Africa, which means they have absolutely nothing to do with the U.S. or the coronavirus. And the IDA is a subsidiary of the World Bank that doles out funding to Third-World countries, according to Fox News.

But under the relief package, the AfDB will receive more than $7 billion, the ADF will receive $513 million, and the IDA will receive more than $3 billion.

These kinds of irrelevant, unnecessary expenses led Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., to attempt, unsuccessfully, to force a roll-call vote on the stimulus package.

“This bill … shouldn’t be stuffed full of Nancy Pelosi’s pork—including $25 million for the Kennedy Center, grants,” Massie said in a statement. “For the National Endowment for the Humanities and Arts, and millions more other measures that have no direct relation to the Coronavirus Pandemic.”

The inclusion of funds for international organization is a result of the Center for Global Development’s plea for additional funding, according to Fox News. The concern is that the coronavirus could surge worldwide if poorer countries are not given the resources to prevent its spread right now.

“[T]o put it bluntly, the United States will not be safe from this pandemic until the world is safe from this pandemic—without widespread access to a vaccine or countermeasures, cases rebound quickly when quarantines are lifted as has been shown in Singapore and Hong Kong this week,”  the CGD said in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

NY Gov. Cuomo Second-Guesses Himself after Sowing Mass Panic, Shutdowns

Ben Sellers
-
0

‘If you rethought that or had time to analyze that public health strategy, I don’t know that you would say quarantine everyone…’

1
Andrew Cuomo / IMAGE: MSNBC via Youtube

(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) After hammering in the critical shortages of medical equipment, self-wrought by the state of New York‘s reckless spending prior to the coronavirus, Gov. Andrew Cuomo is now second-guessing the wisdom of bringing the entire economy to an indefinite standstill during the crisis.

Despite the requisite quarantine efforts implemented by leaders like Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, the state has become the epicenter of recent outbreaks.

That hasn’t stopped Cuomo, whose ubiquitous media presence and amplified attacks on President Donald Trump during the crisis are being seen by many as a signal of possible political ambitions.

He admitted Thursday that the left-driven panic response was “probably not the best public strategy,” either for the economy or for the broader health outlook, reported Fox News.

“What we did was we closed everything down,” Cuomo said. “That was our public health strategy. Just close everything, all businesses, old workers, young people, old people, short people, tall people. Every school closed, everything.”

As a result, the formerly bullish economy plummeted and shuttered businesses now see grim prospects for survival, effectively creating a second crisis that could adversely impact an even broader swath of the public.

“If you rethought that or had time to analyze that public health strategy, I don’t know that you would say quarantine everyone,” Cuomo said.

“I don’t even know that that was the best public health policy,” he continued. “Young people then quarantined with older people was probably not the best public health strategy because the younger people could have been exposing the older people to an infection.”

Some speculate that a gradual, controlled exposure to the virus among healthy, non-vulnerable populations may be key to its ultimate neutralization, much like the “parties” thrown for childhood diseases like chickenpox.

Only about 20 percent of those who contract the highly contagious respiratory virus face serious symptoms, with the vast majority being those above age 65 or with a prior immunity condition. Only a small portion of those who contract it ultimately die.

By contrast to the recent coronavirus response, the 2009 H1N1 “swine flu” outbreak during the first year of Barack Obama’s presidency did not result in mass quarantines even though the at-risk population for it was considerably younger, with older 65+ demographics less vulnerable—possibly due to prior exposure.

Obama declared a public health crisis shortly after the April 2009 outbreak, but he did not declare it a national emergency until October, by which time an estimated 5,000 had died. More than 12,400 Americans died from it over the course of a year before the virus eventually evolved on its own.

Cuomo admitted that the economic outlook of the coronavirus response—including skyrocketing unemployment claims and ballooning federal debt—was a “terrible, frightening feeling for everyone.”

Unlike the virus, the constriction of the economy may not self-resolve over time. As with the recession of the Bush and Obama eras, employers forced to reduce staff during the crisis—who survive the initial devastation by recalibrating their business models in more efficient ways—could choose not to rehire afterward.

Similarly, during the Great Depression of the 1930s, consumers learned to change their habits and became more frugal due to supply shortages.

“This is going to form a new generation and transform who we are,” Cuomo acknowledged.

Cuomo and many other blue-state executives who have made attacks on Trump part of their staple rhetorical diet are now treading a tenuous line as they turn to the federal government to solve their ballooning emergency shortages.

Cuomo’s latest concession, like others he has made, seems to embrace Trump’s recent statements encouraging the country to return to work by Easter—an overly rosy projection according to many so-called experts in the media and federal bureaucracy who see greater personal benefit in milking the disaster.

“We have to do both,” Cuomo said of the need to balance the competing health and economic needs.

The comments came alongside Cuomo’s criticism that New York’s share of the $2-trillion economic stimulus package approved by the Senate and awaiting House passage didn’t go nearly far enough in boosting New York.

It remained unclear whether the governor may turn to the private sector should the federal support fail to resolve his economic shortfall. Several left-wing mega-billionaires, such as media mogul Michael Bloomberg, recent presidential candidate; and hedge-fund investor George Soros, a relentless open-borders advocate, maintain a base of operations in New York that is likely to be impacted.

PolitiFact ‘Fact-Check’ Misleads in Defense of Gov. Cuomo in Ventilator Fiasco

Contributing Writer
-
0

‘Trump’s statement is inaccurate. We rate it False…’

Cuomo Says Trump is Punishing New York for Being Too Blue
Andrew Cuomo and Donald Trump/AP Photos

(Michael Barnes, Liberty Headlines) When news that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo failed to buy lifesaving breathing ventilators reached President Donald Trump, the native New Yorker scolded Cuomo during a national television interview.

“He should’ve ordered the ventilators. He had a choice; he had a chance,” Trump told Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer on Tuesday. “New York Governor Cuomo rejected buying recommended 16,000 ventilators in 2015 for a pandemic, and established death panels and lotteries instead.”

New York City is now engulfed in contagious Wuhan virus infections and leads the nation in positive cases and deaths.

Cuomo, a Democrat, has repeatedly said New York needs thousands more ventilators to deal with the crisis. The same day as Trump’s remarks, Cuomo pegged the number at 30,000 ventilators and said only the federal government could deliver them.

That didn’t stop Cuomo from ramping-up criticism of the president in spite of the vast federal resources New York has received at Trump’s behest. In response, Trump reiterated Cuomo’s malfeasance during the Fox interview: “He had a chance to buy 16,000 ventilators at a very low price and he turned it down.”

But the liberal fact-checking website PolitiFact took offense at Trump’s assertion and tried to disprove it.

“Trump’s statement is inaccurate. We rate it False,” PolitiFact concluded.

Trump referred to a 2015 report conducted by a state task force and the New York Department of Health. Among many findings, the report cited a critical shortage of 16,000 ventilators that would be needed during a severe influenza-like pandemic. The 266-page report, titled “Ventilator Allocation Guidelines,” also outlined procedures for rationing access to the breathing devices if the state’s ventilator supply remained insufficient.

Politifact Rates Bogus Russia Claim True AND False
Photo by Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com (CC)

PolitiFact, however, cast aspersions on Trump’s comments by stating that he “appeared to be reading, word-for-word, a March 22 headline on the Gateway Pundit, a conservative website.”

But the article in question is based on information from Betsy McCaughey, a former New York lieutenant governor and Republican. McCaughey’s analysis of Cuomo’s performance regarding the ventilator fiasco has been widely published.

“Cuomo could have purchased the additional 16,000 needed ventilators for $36,000 apiece or a total of $576 million in 2015,” she wrote in a syndicated commentary this week. “It’s a lot of money but less than the $750 million he threw away on a boondoggle ‘Buffalo Billion’ solar panel factory.”

While acknowledging that Cuomo didn’t buy the 16,000 ventilators, PolitiFact defaulted to word games by basing its conclusion on the fact that the 2015 state government report didn’t expressly recommend the purchase, though it was self-evident. It only identified the critical shortage and was silent on the price of the equipment.

“The report does not indicate that the state had the funds to buy 16,000 additional ventilators ‘at a very low price,’ as Trump said. It also does not say that the task force recommended to the governor buying 16,000, or that he turned down that suggestion,” wrote PolitiFact.

The fact-checking analysis mirrors comments made by Cuomo’s communications director, who parsed the terms “advised” and “recommended.”

“This was a five-year-old advisory task force report, which never recommended the state procure ventilators — it merely referenced that New York wouldn’t be equipped with enough ventilators for a 1918 flu pandemic,” Dani Lever told PolitiFact.

PolitiFact also took issue with the notion of “death panels,” which it attributed to Sarah Palin when referencing Obamacare in 2009.

Death panels was the term used to describe committees and officials that decide who receives lifesaving treatment and who is denied access to care in rationing situations, whether created by health care policy or an equipment shortage.

PolitiFact emphatically rejected that the report included death panels, but again played word games when explaining that state health officials “acknowledge that in case of ventilator shortage, hospitals would need to make difficult decisions about what patients would get access to the available ventilators in order to save the most lives.”

Cuomo has been praised by many Democrats for alleged great leadership during the Wuhan virus crisis and he’s even been rumored to serve as a unifying presidential candidate if Democrats have a brokered convention.

Trump doesn’t necessarily think states like New York need as many ventilators as they’re asking for, but that’s beside the point regarding Cuomo, he said.

“I’m not blaming him,” said Trump. “But he shouldn’t be talking about us.”

“We’re building him four hospitals. We’re building him four medical centers. “We’re working very, very hard for the people of New York. Then, I watch him on some show and he’s complaining.”

As Trump’s Approval Grows, Dems Worry Biden Can’t Compete

Contributing Author
-
0

‘It’s the perfect cocktail of s**tstorm…’

1
Joe Biden and Donald Trump / IMAGES via Youtube

(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) Democrats are growing increasingly nervous about presidential candidate Joe Biden’s ability to compete with President Donald Trump as the nation turns its attention to the coronavirus pandemic and away from November’s general election.

Trump is the public face of the federal government’s response to the coronavirus outbreak, and though the country remains largely divided on how he’s handled COVID-19, Trump’s approval ratings are beginning to grown in key Midwestern states Biden depends upon.

Trump polled ahead of Biden in both Ohio and Pennsylvania, and he is now in a dead heat with Biden in Wisconsin, while he still trails slightly behind the former vice president in Michigan, according to researchers at Ohio Northern University.

Meanwhile, Biden has struggled to provide a coherent Democratic response to the coronavirus, and has been content to let Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi dictate the party’s actions.

“It’s the perfect cocktail of s**tstorm,” one Democratic strategist told The Hill. “A pandemic no one expected, a horrible president at the helm, and a repeat of the 2016 primary with a candidate doing damage to his own party. No one wants to be the a**hole that sounds the alarm, but it’s pretty bad.”

A developing story likely to do further harm to Biden’s efforts emerged after Tara Reade, a former Biden staffer who had expressed support for Biden’s primary rival, Bernie Sanders, came forward with public rape accusations against him.

Given the front-runner’s additional history of making damaging flubs and concerns over his possible cognitive decline, Biden has little choice but to sit on the sidelines, according to Democratic strategist Joe Payne, who worked on Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign.

“In a normal campaign year and under normal circumstances, Joe Biden right now would be the spokesperson for the Democratic Party,” Payne said. “But this is no normal time, and the Democratic nomination process seems frozen in place.”

However, Biden has used this lack of normalcy to his advantage. He said this week that he will not be participating in the remaining Democratic debates against Sanders. “My focus is just dealing with this crisis right now,” Biden claimed.

“I think we’ve had enough debate,” Biden said. “I think we should get on with this.”

Sen. Rick Scott Says There’s Plenty Wrong with the Coronavirus Relief Bill

Contributing Writer
-
0

‘Many provisions in this bill that are antithetical to everything I believe in, but we’re facing a crisis and this is the only option to get immediate help…’

Former Governor Rick Scott: Florida Welcomes NYC Residents Fleeing High Taxes
Rick Scott/IMAGE: CNBC via YouTube

(Michael Barnes, Liberty Headlines) Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., bit the bullet and voted for a bloated, pork-filled rescue package late Wednesday to ease the pain of the coronavirus pandemic, but not before blasting its many flaws.

“Many provisions in this bill that are antithetical to everything I believe in, but we’re facing a crisis and this is the only option to get immediate help to small businesses and unemployed workers,” the freshman GOP senator said in a statement Thursday.

“We know that Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi tried to stuff this bill with their liberal pet-projects that have nothing to do with this crisis, proving once again that Democrats should never be in charge of anything,” Scott added.

Many of the worst Democratic leadership proposals were beaten back by Senate Republicans and President Donald Trump, though plenty remain. Scott also said he has “significant reservations” about the structure of the stimulus package that ultimately passed the Senate 96-0.

Scott took issue with sending taxpayer-funded checks to people who still have jobs and are receiving employer paychecks. He also said that people who don’t need the government support might save it, which doesn’t help the economy. And if good Samaritans try to help struggling local businesses, it may be too late.

“Many of the places they might be tempted to help stimulate are businesses that the government has shut down,” he said.

Then, there’s the cost.

“The price tag on this bill is staggering,” said Scott. “We should not fool ourselves into thinking this is something we can afford.”

The $2-trillion stimulus is equivalent to half of annual federal spending and amounts to $6,000 in new debt for every man, woman and child in the country.

Scott asserted that Congress must begin cutting federal spending after the coronavirus pandemic subsides by at least the $2 trillion lawmakers are trying to spend this week, although the House still needed to approve the Senate bill on Friday.

The Senate had reached a bipartisan agreement on a $1.2 trillion spending package last week but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., blew up that bill and issued her own 1,440-page rescue package that was stuffed with progressive wish-list items that had nothing to do with the national coronavirus emergency.

Pelosi tried to upend the American election system in favor of Democrats by including mandatory early voting changes across the entire country and universal ballot harvesting—a highly controversial tactic used to flip GOP House seats in Southern California in 2018.

She further attempted to make federal agencies increase usage of “minority banks,” boost a laundry list of “diversity” initiatives and pass an extraordinary amount of “green” special-interest giveaways.

Those items all failed. But Sen. Scott ripped the special interest projects that did make the cut.

Some of those items include:

  • $75 million for the National Endowment of the Arts
  • $75 million for the National Endowment of the Humanities
  • $50 million for the Institute of Museum and Library Sciences
  • $25 million for the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts
  • $25 million for salary increases for the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives.

Another proposal undermines decades of private-sector progress against labor-union excesses. The bill includes a mandatory provision that requires businesses with 500-10,000 employees to stay “neutral” during union organizing efforts if they take any stimulus support funds.

Bernie's Own Staffers Say He's Losing Because He Ignores Black People

Joshua Paladino
-
0

‘In the African–American culture, nonverbal communication and body language is huge….’

State of the Union compromise greatness 2
Sen. Bernie Sanders / IMAGE: Screenshot via Yahoo News

(Joshua Paladino, Liberty Headlines) In a Washington Post article, Sen. Bernie Sanders‘s campaign officials said that the democratic socialist—who, in late February, looked poised to glide to the Democratic Party presidential nomination—fell so far behind former Vice President Joe Biden because he ignored black Americans.
Coming off two primary victories in New Hampshire and Nevada, as well as a virtual tie in Iowa, Sanders was confident, but staff members in South Carolina were wary about the campaign’s future.
“I knew that our campaign had not done the work it needed to do,” Donald Gilliard, South Carolina’s deputy state political director, said.
He worried that Sanders’s campaign was excessively “geared toward white progressives,” and that he was not appealing to black Americans.
Mal Hyman, a Sanders surrogate in South Carolina, feared the same problem.
“We knew we were vulnerable,” he said.
Before the South Carolina primary on Feb. 29, the Democratic Party establishment, which had been hesitant to throw their support before the ailing vice president, suddenly flooded Biden’s campaign with endorsements.
The full-scale campaign to defeat Sanders succeeded, and he lost South Carolina by 28 points.
While Sanders’s campaign focuses on class conflict—millionaires and billionaires versus the people—Biden focused more on America’s racial divide.
A South Carolina representative who worked for Sanders’s campaign said the senator’s mannerisms may have turned away black voters.
“I think the distinguishing attitude for Sanders, that you didn’t see associated with Biden, was an angry white man,” Ivory Thigpen said. “In the African–American culture, nonverbal communication and body language is huge.”
Nina Turner, a national co-chair for the Sanders campaign, said Biden’s popularity allowed him to direct more of his campaign’s attention to South Carolina, while Sanders had to build support throughout the country.
Thigpen suggested that Sanders’s campaign simply failed to grasp the how overwhelming the support among African American voters would be for Biden.
“It kind of seems like an underestimation,” he said. “Not only of how important the African–American vote was, but how much it was going to be a bellwether and an indicator to other African–American populations in other states.”

Wa. Gov. Jay Inslee Spent $1.1 Billion on Orcas Instead of Ventilators

Contributing Writer
-
0

‘Deciding who will receive access to mechanical ventilation will often determine who lives and who dies…’

Washington State Gov. Jay Inslee Sees Climate Change as His Path to the White House
Jay Inslee / IMAGE: ABC News via Youtube

(Michael Barnes, Liberty Headlines) Washington Gov. Jay Inslee could have purchased thousands of life-saving breathing ventilators after a 2013 report cited critical shortages, but the liberal Democrat chose other priorities instead—like spending $1.1 billion on orcas.

Now, state residents are at risk of rationed care and hospitals may soon organize “ethics” panels to decide who receives access to the artificial breathing devices, and who dies.

Washington was the first state to see double-digit fatalities from the Wuhan virus when 35 nursing home residents perished earlier this month at the Life Care Center in Kirkland, a Kings County suburb of Seattle.

Washington currently ranks second to New York in the number of coronavirus deaths per state with 130, and with 2,585 reported infections as of Thursday 1 p.m. the ventilator shortage is a massive concern.

But it’s not new.

In 2013, the year Inslee was first elected governor, Seattle and Kings County public health officials issued a report titled “Pandemic Influenza Response Plan.”

The report estimated that a moderate pandemic in Kings County, the state’s most populous county, would cause nearly 65,000 hospital patients and require roughly 400 ventilators. A worst-case scenario would involve more than 740,000 patients and 4,500 ventilators.

What’s more, Inslee knew coming into office that the state’s lack of ventilators would be catastrophe during a severe respiratory disease outbreak like the coronavirus.

A 2011 report in the journal Health Care Analysis stated, “In a severe influenza pandemic, hospitals will likely experience serious and widespread shortages of patient pulmonary ventilators and of staff qualified to operate them.”

“Deciding who will receive access to mechanical ventilation will often determine who lives and who dies,” the report continued.

But Inslee did not invest in ventilators during his seven years as the state government’s chief executive, instead he pushed for billions of taxpayer dollars for climate change-related projects, among other progressive items.

In 2018, Inslee led the charge for $1.1 billion to support orcas, commonly known as killer whales. He launched an orca task force, called for increased taxes, and issued a partial ban on whale watching. He also included a number of new climate change initiatives in his proposed budget that would be paid from a 20 percent total budget increase.

Intensive care ventilators, however, did not make the cut. They cost around $16,000.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has similarly failed to secure ventilators after being informed of a critical shortage in 2015. Cuomo, like Inslee, opted instead to prioritize countless billions of taxpayer-funded projects to appease his Democratic supporters.

Inslee has built his political career around environmentalism and climate change. He ran for president in the current election cycle as a single-issue climate change candidate, but he dropped out in August 2019 after only five months in the Democratic primary race.

Inslee notably called President Donald Trump a “white nationalist” during a second-tier debate.

Unfortunately, ignoring repeated warnings about the lack of life-saving devices has put Kings County and Washington state residents in a terrifying position. More terrifying is the rank incompetence of Inslee’s administration

“We do not know how many ventilators are in the state,” Danielle Koenig, a spokeswoman for the Washington State Department of Health, told the Tacoma News Tribune.

Pompeo Demands G-7 Leaders Hold China Accountable For Wuhan Virus

Contributing Author
-
0

‘The Chinese Communist Party poses a substantial threat to our health and way of life, as the Wuhan virus outbreak clearly has demonstrated…’

Pompeo Warns Russians over Venezuelan Troop Buildup
Mike Pompeo / IMAGE: CBS This Morning via Youtube

(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is pushing other world leaders to refer to the coronavirus as the “Wuhan virus” to hold China accountable for its spread and subsequent cover-up of the disease.

The G-7 leaders have not yet reached a joint statement on COVID-19 because Pompeo, with President Donald Trump’s backing, will not allow China to continue blaming the rest of the world for its failure to contain the coronavirus and inform other countries about the threat the virus posed.

Other member states, however, have rejected the term “Wuhan virus,” according to the German magazine Der Spiegel.

“We’ve wanted to work with the Chinese Communist Party throughout this crisis—this crisis that began in Wuhan, China,” Pompeo said in a statement.

“We tried, you’ll remember, from the opening days to get our scientists, our experts on the ground there so that we could begin to assist in the global response to what began there in China, but we weren’t able to do that. The Chinese Communist Party wouldn’t permit that to happen,” he said.

China’s Communist government has attempted to blame the U.S. for the coronavirus’s origination and attacked Pompeo for harboring “sinister” motives against China. The term “Wuhan virus” is an attempt to “stigmatize China and discredit China’s efforts in an attempt to divert attention and shift responsibilities,” said China’s foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang.

Shuang’s shameless propaganda will not be tolerated, said Pompeo.

“The Chinese Communist Party poses a substantial threat to our health and way of life, as the Wuhan virus outbreak clearly has demonstrated,” Pompeo said.

Democrats, however, are aiding China’s misinformation campaign by accusing Pompeo, Trump and other Republicans of promoting “racism” toward Asian Americans by referring to the coronavirus as the “Wuhan virus.”

Conservatives have rightly pointed out that the term is factual because it refers to the region in which it originated, just like many other diseases, such as the Swine flu, Lyme disease, West Nile virus, Spanish flu, etc.

1...3,7093,7103,711...3,814Page 3,710 of 3,814