Libertarian Leanings

Kayleigh McEnany

Suggested nickname for Kayleigh McEnany:  The Assassin.  Watch this:

House Intelligence Committee Releases Transcripts

This past Thursday the House Intelligence Committee released transcripts of closed-door interviews from its probe into Russia Collusion Fantasy.  Committee chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif. has been sitting on them since November of 2018.

In a statement after making the transcripts public, Schiff said that they “show precisely what Special Counsel Robert Mueller also revealed: That the Trump campaign, and Donald Trump himself, invited illicit Russian help, made full use of that help, and then lied and obstructed the investigations in order to cover up this misconduct.”

Without reading any of the transcripts, know that they say no such thing.  If the transcripts truly did reveal what Schiff said they did, they would have been made public years ago.  Here they are:

Correspondence:

• Letter from HPSCI to Acting Director of Intelligence Richard Grenell (May 7, 2020)
• Correspondence between HPSCI and Office of Director of National Intelligence and White House (November 2018 – May 2020)

Interview Transcripts:

• Interview Transcript of Rinat Akhmetshin (November 13, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Stephen Bannon (January 16, 2018)
• Interview Transcript of Stephen Bannon (February 15, 2018)
• Interview Transcript of Andrew Brown (August 30, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Michael Caputo (July 14, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of John Carlin (July 27, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Thomas Catan (October 18, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of James Clapper (July 17, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Samuel Clovis (December 12, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Dan Coats (June 22, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Michael Cohen (October 24, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Rick Dearborn (January 17, 2018)
• Interview Transcript of Diana Denman (December 5, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Marc Elias (December 13, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Boris Ephsteyn (September 28, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Evelyn Farkas (June 26, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Peter Fritsch (October 18, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Michael Goldfarb (December 12, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Rob Goldstone (December 18, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Jeffrey Gordon (July 26, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Rhona Graff (December 22, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Shawn Henry (December 5, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Hope Hicks (February 27, 2018)
• Interview Transcript of Ike Kaveladze (November 2, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of David Kramer (December 19, 2017)
• Letter from Counsel to David Kramer to HPSCI (December 23, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of David Kramer (January 10, 2018)
• Letter from Counsel to David Kramer to HPSCI (January 5, 2018)
• Letter from Counsel to David Kramer to HPSCI (January 10, 2018)
• Interview Transcript of Jared Kushner (July 25, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Corey Lewandowski (January 17, 2018)
• Interview Transcript of Corey Lewandowski (March 8, 2018)
• Interview Transcript of Loretta Lynch (October 20, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Simona Mangiante (July 18, 2018)
• Interview Transcript of Andrew McCabe (December 19, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Mary McCord (November 1, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Alexander Nix (December 14, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Carter Page (November 2, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Brad Parscale (October 24, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Walid Phares (December 8, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of John Podesta (June 27, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of John Podesta (December 4, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Samantha Power (October 13, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Erik Prince (November 30, 2017)
• Letter from HPSCI to Department of Justice (April 30, 2019)
• Interview Transcript of Benjamin Rhodes (October 25, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Susan Rice (September 8, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Jonathan Saffron (October 12, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Anatoli Samochornov (November 28, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Felix Sater (December 20, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Keith Schiller (November 7, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Jefferson Sessions (November 30, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Roger J. Stone, Jr. (September 26, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Jake Sullivan (December 21, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Michael Sussman (December 18, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Matthew Tait (October 6, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Yared Tamene Wolde-Yohannes (August 30, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Donald Trump, Jr. (December 6, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Witness Name Redacted (December 20, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Sally Yates (November 3, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Christopher Wylie (April 25, 2018)

Reports

• House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence – Democratic Minority Views (March 26, 2018)
• House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence – Republican Report on Russian Active Measures (March 22, 2018)

Motion To Dismiss With Prejudice

The U.S. Department of Justice has moved to dismiss charges against General Michael Flynn.  PDF of the Government's 20-page motion is here.  The following excerpt captures the essence.

[P]rior to the interview, there were internal FBI discussions about whether to show Mr. Flynn the transcripts of his calls with Mr. Kislyak.⁵ In light of the fact that the FBI already had these transcripts in its possessions, Mr. Flynn’s answers would have shed no light on whether and what he communicated with Mr. Kislyak.—and those issues were immaterial to the no longer justifiably predicated counterintelligence investigation. Similarly, whether Mr. Flynn did or “did not recall” (ECF No. 1) communications already known by the FBI was assuredly not material.

Under these circumstances, the Government cannot explain, much less prove to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt, how false statements are “material” to an investigation that—as explained above—seems to have been undertaken only to elicit those very false statements and thereby criminalize Mr. Flynn.

The DOJ has been out of control for a long time.  Scooter Libby was convicted of criminal disagreement with the late Tim Russert over who heard from whom that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA.  James Comey was the Acting Attorney General who appointed his pal Patrick Fitzgerald to be the Special Prosecutor in that case.  The conviction of Arthur Andersen in a phony criminal case was eventually overturned by the Supreme Court in a unanimous decision, but only years after the company was destroyed.  The prosecutor was Andrew Weissmann, one of Mueller's Special Counsel prosecutors in the Russian Collusion Fantasy.  The conviction of Alaska Senator Ted Stevens for political corruption was obtained through the misconduct of two Justice Department prosecutors.

While political enemies were persecuted, transgressions by political allies were overlooked.  The Fast and Furious gun-running scandal and the death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, the IRS targeting of conservative political groups, and the kid glove treatment of presidential candidate Hillary Clinton for her mishandling of classified information in the email scandal are all instances where federal agencies were illegally or unethically put to work for political purposes.  In all of the cases mentioned above, no one was held accountable for their misconduct.

Maybe now they will.

This Is J. Edgar Hoover Stuff

Lindsey Graham: The legal foundation for Mueller's appointment is crumbling.

The Backfiring Case Against General Flynn

This article by James A. Gagliano, CNN analyst, assistant professor at St. John's, and retired 25-year veteran of the FBI, concludes that General Michael Flynn was railroaded for no other reason but political bias. It goes way beyond political bias in my view.

The final nail in the coffin of those who pretend political bias did not influence the FBI’s decisions in 2016 and 2017 is a text exchange between Strzok and Page on Feb. 25, 2016, discussing how to approach the Clinton interview:

Page: “One more thing: She might be our next president. The last thing you need us going in there loaded for bear. You think she’s going to remember or care that it was more DOJ than FBI?”

Strzok: “I called Bill and relayed what we discussed. He agrees.”

Compare that to Priestap's quote: “What’s our goal? Truth/Admission or get him to lie, so we can get him fired?”

This was all about the DOJ and the Intelligence Community taking it upon themselves to prevent Donald Trump from winning the 2016 election, or upon failing that, to get him turned out of office if he somehow won anyway. The crucial first step in getting Trump thrown out of office was to get rid of Flynn, Trump's newly appointed Director of National Intelligence, who would have discovered what they were up to. This is about unaccountable members of the Washington bureaucracy overturning a federal election. What's truly frightening is how they went about it with such confidence, never imagining that they would be found out.

What happened next infuriates me.

The Flynn FD-302 interview notes appear to have been manipulated by Strzok and Page. Pientka was apparently the note taker. Consistent with FBI protocols, Strzok, as a party to the interview, can certainly discuss recollections with Pientka prior to the final document being approved by both. But somehow, Page, the DOJ attorney who was not present at the interview and was not an FBI agent, was involved in the edits.

Strzok advises Page, in a newly released batch of text exchanges between the two, that he was “trying to not completely rewrite” the FD-302, “so as to save [redacted] voice.” The redacted name is most likely Pientka. Strzok wants the document to appear to be voiced by the other agent. But only after he and Page can craft the words to make Flynn appear guilty of lying to the FBI.

It's a frightening prospect to consider, what would America be, if they had gotten away with it? Are anyone's constitutional rights protected when career federal employees are entitled to monitor, frame, or entrap elected leaders with whom they disagree. They might still get away with it, sacrificing some low level fall guy while the real criminals remain untouched.

The Doctors Argue It's Time To End The Lockdown

Dr. Dan Erickson and his business partner Dr. Artin Massihi, both former emergency room physicians, co-own Accelerated Urgent Care in Bakersfield, California.  They've tested thousands of people, they've analyzed the current CDC statistical data on COVID-19, and they've come to the conclusion that it's time to end the lockdown. 

Pandemia_ opinión académica - dr Dan erickson from Jose Luis Gil Terron Lull on Vimeo.

Their message:  Quarantine the sick, not the healthy.  Open up the businesses and bring back the workers.  Re-open the hospitals and bring back the furloughed doctors.

Watch the whole thing.

Update 4/28/2020, 3:39pm:  This is not a message YouTube would like the rest of us to hear.  "This video has been removed for violating YouTube's Terms of Service," says YouTube. Whatever those might happen to be.  This new video is a slightly longer version of the previous one.  Let's see how long it will remain available for public viewing.

Update 4/28/2020, 4:05pm:  I've replaced the YouTube embedded video by another version of the same video on Vimeo.

Update 4/30/2020. 1:25pm:  The previous Vimeo video was removed. I've replaced it again.

Update 5/5/2020. 1:10pm:  These videos of Dr. Erickson keep disappearing.  And I keep finding another one.

Update 5/8/2020 10:08am:  Once again Dr. Erickson has disappeared.  Found another one, this one posted by and for our Spanish speaking friends.

Is Physical Money on the Verge of Elimination?

The following article was provided by Stefan Gleason, President of Money Metals Exchange.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The metals markets are being pulled in multiple directions simultaneously like never before. The global virus-triggered economic freeze has caused industrial demand for all commodities to crater.

At the same time, mining output is also crashing as virus fears force many mines around the world to suspend operations.

What is the “right” equilibrium price for copper, silver, gold, and other metals in an environment of such extreme and unstable supply and demand stresses? The verdict of the market changes – often dramatically – day by day.

In March, hard assets tumbled along with stocks as investors priced in increasingly dire scenarios for the economy. A double-digit contraction in U.S. GDP and double-digit spike in unemployment became inevitable after economic lockdowns spread across the country.

Now hopes are growing for the economy being able to start reopening in May and reverse some of the damage done by the draconian policies prescribed Dr. Fauci and adopted by most state governors.

Still unknowable, however, is how quickly the economy will be able to heal itself… and to what extent demand for raw materials will recover toward pre-virus levels.

The biggest wild card in all this may be the effects of unprecedented fiscal and monetary stimulus.

Already the federal budget deficit is set to explode to an all-time record over $3 trillion (likely closer to $4 trillion) and represent a greater share of the U.S. economy than at any time since World War II. Already the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet has ballooned to $6.1 trillion as central bankers furiously try to prop up everything from mortgages to junk bonds.

All this is leading toward a devaluation of the U.S. dollar. That should naturally make sound money – gold and silver – more valuable in dollar terms.

However, as we saw last month, demand destruction amidst a wrecked economy pull down precious metals prices quite suddenly – if only temporarily. Gold has since rebounded strongly to a new 8-year high while silver is regaining its footing from historically depressed levels.

Drilling Down into Supply and Demand Fundamentals

The Silver Institute had forecasted in early February – back when the economic impact of the virus was thought to be minimal outside of China – that global silver demand would rise by 3% in 2020. The Institute projected supply would nearly keep pace with 2% growth (which would be the first annual increase in five years).

Those forecasts now have to be thrown out the window. Both demand and supply are set to plummet in the near term.

On the plus side, investment demand for silver bullion products spiked last month to levels dealers had never seen before, clearing out inventories of most coins, rounds, and bars.

Bullion buying has receded from the frantic pace seen at the peak of the panic but remains strong. Safe-haven buying could remain a feature of investor psychology for many months ahead until an effective COVID-19 vaccine is widely available – and that figures to be 12-18 months out.

As for mining supply, it’s going to be a long road ahead before mines are fully operational again. Platinum and palladium production is largely offline in South Africa. Mexico’s giant Peñasquito mine, one of the country’s leading sources of gold and silver, suspended operations on Monday.

The silver supply picture is complicated by the fact that few primary silver mines exist. Most silver is produced as a byproduct of mining other metals (copper, lead, zinc, gold).

Base metals producers are shutting down. As Reuters reported, “Copper prices advanced on Tuesday, with London copper touching a four-week high, as more virus-related mining disruptions in key producing countries sparked global supply concerns.”

Best-Case and Worst-Case Scenarios

Given the extreme dynamics setting up in supply, demand, and monetary expansionism, market conditions are likely to remain volatile. We do think we have seen “peak fear” in this cycle – but not the end of uncertainty surrounding the virus and the economic damage it could continue to inflict.

In a best-case scenario, COVID-19’s spread steadily declines into the summer and the economy embarks on a V-shaped recovery. In a worst-case scenario, the virus makes a devastating resurgence in the fall, the economy locks down all over again, and markets descend back into chaos.

If the optimistic outlook prevails, then rising industrial demand for copper, silver, platinum, and palladium can be expected to drive those metals higher. Demand can recover faster than supply, which can’t simply be turned back on like a switch.

If the pessimists prevail, then all bets are off. Rounds of asset deflation will lead to accelerating hyperinflationary monetary responses. Social chaos, martial law, and possibly a postponement of elections could result.

In such a scenario, no investment could be counted on to perform well. But gold, the ultimate money, can always be counted on retain value even during the worst of times.

Stefan Gleason is President of Money Metals Exchange, the national precious metals company named 2015 "Dealer of the Year" in the United States by an independent global ratings group. A graduate of the University of Florida, Gleason is a seasoned business leader, investor, political strategist, and grassroots activist. Gleason has frequently appeared on national television networks such as CNN, FoxNews, and CNBC, and his writings have appeared in hundreds of publications such as the Wall Street Journal, Detroit News, Washington Times, and National Review.

Silence

On March 22, 2020 the New York Post published a story about a Florida man who credits hydroxychloroquine with saving his life.

Trump last week said he was instructing the FDA to fast-track testing of hydroxychloroquine and a related drug, chloroquine, as treatment for COVID-19.

Giardinieri said he contacted an infectious disease doctor about the drug.

“He gave me all the reasons why I would probably not want to try it because there are no trials, there’s no testing, it was not something that was approved,” said Giardinieri.

“And I said, ‘Look, I don’t know if I’m going to make it until the morning,’ because at that point I really thought I was coming to the end because I couldn’t breathe anymore,” Giardinieri continued.

“He agreed and authorized the use of it and 30 minutes later the nurse gave it to me.”

After about an hour after taking the pills, Giardinieri said, it felt like his heart was beating out of his chest and, about two hours later, he had another episode where he couldn’t breathe.

He says he was given Benadryl and some other drugs and that when he woke up around 4:45 a.m., it was “like nothing ever happened.”

Also on March 22, 2020 Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced that New York would begin clinical trials in which a combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin would be used in treating coronavirus patients.

As more and more cases emerge, there is a growing and desperate need to not only adequately treat, but to find a cure for COVID-19. This is true particularly in New York, which is grappling with skyrocketing coronavirus cases.

Due to the increase in numbers, New York is set to launch a clinical trial for an experimental drug treatment Tuesday, March 24. It also plans to be the nation's first state to try to heal critically ill patients using the antibodies extracted from the plasma of individuals who have recovered from the virus.

The federal government cleared the way for New York to experiment with the malaria and lupus drug hydroxychloroquine and the antibiotic Zithromax (generic name azithromycin) as a treatment for COVID-19, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said over the weekend.

On March 24, 2020 the New York Post reported that massive doses of vitamin C showed promising results when administered to patients suffering from the coronavirus in a New York test.

About 700 patients are being treated for coronavirus across the hospital network, Molinet said, but it’s unclear how many are getting the vitamin C treatment.

The vitamin C is administered in addition to such medicines as the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine, the antibiotic azithromycin, various biologics and blood thinners, Weber said.

As of Tuesday, New York hospitals have federal permission to give a cocktail of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin to desperately ill patients on a “compassionate care” basis.

There was nothing in the article to indicate how many patients were given the vitamin C, nor how many patients were given hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin.  Nor was there any information on the outcome of the hydroxychloroquine/azithromycin treatments, either in the Post or anywhere else for that matter.  It's as if there's a gag order.  I went so far as to search the NH.gov COVID-19 webpage for hydroxychloroquine, and got these results.

Since the FDA approved the use of the hydroxychloroquine/azithromycin combination for COVID-19, I've found no news articles in the mainstream media outlets with results of patient treatments.  It's been well over a week.  However, a website called Tech Startups has been publishing stories about Dr. Vladimir Zelenko of Monroe, New York who claims to have successfully treated over 600 patients with a 5-day regimen of hydroxychloroquine sulfate, zinc, and arithromycin.  Dr. Zelenko defines success as "not to die."

When Trump offered hope that these drugs could help, the New York Times quickly countered with an expert opinion piece, No, These Medicines Cannot Cure Coronavirus.  The experts went on to blame Trump for the death of an Arizona man whose wife fed him chloroquine phosphate, fish tank cleaner.  CNN blamed Trump for the hospitalization of three NIgerians who overdosed on chloroquine after they heard what Trump had to say.

HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE & AZITHROMYCIN, taken together, have a real chance to be one of the biggest game changers in the history of medicine. The FDA has moved mountains - Thank You!

That was on March 21st.  It's been over a week since treatments using the various combinations of hydroxychloroquine sulfate, zinc, and arithromycin began in the U.S.  The treatment takes five days, so there's been plenty of time to see if those treatments were not working out.  I have a hard time believing that no news is bad news.  The Times, CNN, The Washington Post, and other like oriented news outlets would on be it at the first sign of failure, saturating the news cycles with stories of how wrong, irresponsible, and dangerous Trump had been with his cheerleading.  So, why the silence?

Dr. Zelenko may have the answer.

In a new video post, Dr. Vladimir Zelenko provides important update regarding the treatment regimen. He’s also sounded warning about shortage of the Hydroxychloroquine Sulfate, Zinc and Z-Pak.

Dr. Zelenko asks people to return drugs they don't need and haven't used, so that patients who need them may get them.

In the meantime, media dreams of Trump's Katrina are on hold.

Bafflingly Silent?

In a column in Reason Magazine, Robby Soave asks the question, "Why Are the Mainstream Media Ignoring Tara Reade's Sexual Assault Accusation Against Joe Biden?"

On September 14, 2018, The New York Times reported the existence of an unverified sexual misconduct allegation against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. The story cited three people who had read a letter sent by the accuser—Christine Blasey Ford—to Sen. Diane Feinstein (D–Calif.). Ford was not interviewed for the story; indeed, she wasn't named.

Unconfirmed reports of a teenaged Kavanaugh assaulting a teenaged Ford evidently merited coverage from The Times. This prompts an obvious question: Why is the paper of record now declining to publicize a very troubling allegation against former Vice President Joe Biden?

The Times is hardly alone in this regard. The mainstream media have remained bafflingly silent about Tara Reade, a former member of then-Senator Biden's staff who claims that he sexually assaulted her in 1993.

What is so baffling?  News outlets are going broke left and right.  Find out who is propping them up.  Billionaires can lose money on media ventures if those media ventures return value in some other form.

Israel's Coronavirus Vaccine Prototype

The Jerusalem Post reports that Israel is testing a coronavirus vaccine prototype on rodents at a defense laboratory.

JERUSALEM - Israel has begun testing a COVID-19 vaccine prototype on rodents at its bio-chemical defense laboratory, a source said on Tuesday.

 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the Israel Institute for Biological Research (IIBR), in rural Ness Ziona, to join the fight against the coronavirus pandemic on Feb. 1, prompting an easing of its secrecy as it cooperates with civilian scientists and private firms.

 

 

In a statement, Netanyahu's office said IIBR director Shmuel Shapira had informed him of "significant progress" in designing a vaccine prototype and that the institute "is now preparing a model for commencing an animal trial."

 

A source familiar with IIBR activities told Reuters that trials were already under way on rodents.

Israel has reported 4,473 cases.  There have been 19 deaths

 

FDA Approves Hydroxochoroquine and Chloroquine for COVID-19

From the WSJ, An FDA Breakthrough on Treatment.

The Food and Drug Administration on Sunday green-lighted two malaria medicines that have shown some promise treating the novel coronavirus, and the emergency approvals couldn’t come soon enough. Expanding their use could bring quicker relief to patients and hospitals while allowing scientists to better assess their efficacy.

The malaria drugs hydroxychloroquine (HC) and chloroquine have been around for more than five decades, so their safety is well documented. New evidence suggests that they could also help fight the novel coronavirus, as op-eds by Dr. Jeff Colyer on these pages have reported. Both chloroquine and HC in vitro block the replication of RNA viruses like the novel coronavirus.

Dr. Vladimir Zelenko has had impressive success treating patients afflicted with the Wuhan Virus.  Of 699 patients treated with the combination of hydroxochloroquine, zinc, and azithromycin, no one died and no one had to be intubated.

Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromycin

From this morning's WSJ, An Update on the Coronavirus Treatment: Hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin continue to show results for patients.

For my entire career, I have taken a conservative approach to medicine. I don’t want to give false or premature hope. All of this is subject to further refinement as more information arrives. But likewise I can’t ignore the available evidence. This appears to be the best widely available option for treating Covid-19 and not merely easing the suffering from the disease. It would be irresponsible not to pursue this option aggressively.

The author, Dr. Jeff Colyer, is a practicing physician who served as governor of Kansas from 2018 to 2019.

Hydroxychloroquine, Zinc, Azithromycin

In a study conducted by Dr. Vladmir Zelenko, a board-certified family practitioner in New York, 699 coronavirus patients were treated with a combination of hydroxychloroquine sulfate, zinc, and azithromycin.  No patients died, no patients were intubated, and only four were hospitalized.

More Coronavirus Hoarding

It's not just toilet paper, hand sanitizer, and paper towels that have been flying off store shelves.

Updated March 24, 2020: As the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has spread across the United States, its impact can be seen in every community. Businesses and schools are closed, the stock market is exceptionally volatile, and store shelves are empty as the American public has scrambled to prepare for the worldwide pandemic and social distancing prescribed by the WHO and CDC.

While people have stockpiled toilet paper, hand sanitizer, and pantry essentials, they've also purchased ammunition at an unprecedented rate. Here at Ammo.com, our growth in sales directly correlates with the rise of COVID-19 and its spread across the country. Starting on February 23rd, sales began to increase as the search term “coronavirus” gained traction, according to Google Trends. This increase in sales has continued as follows:

• 720% increase in revenue
• 434% increase in transactions
• 334% increase in site traffic
• 27% increase in conversion rate
• 45% increase in average order value

Read the rest here.

It's Not Hysteria

Are we over reacting with our self imposed quarantine?  Well, it sure looked like hysteria as toilet paper and paper towels disappeared from store shelves with lightning speed. 

I went into Sam's Club on a weekday morning with a plan to stock up on essentials like beer in the event we had to quarantine ourselves.  I forgot the popcorn, but I remembered to pick up enough canned tuna, canned chicken, coffee, evaporated milk, and mayonnaise to last for a couple of weeks.  I'll carefully venture out on an as-needed basis to pick up fresh milk and bread.

Meanwhile Wall Street is going wild.  Somebody's gonna make a fortune, but it ain't me.  My formerly robust IRA account has lost more than 20% since the end of February, and today is shaping up to be another brutal day.  Yes, the market will come back, so in the long run I'm not worried.  Besides, I can scrape by without it.  Still, it's disheartening to see the losses pile up, even though I expect they will never be anything but paper losses.

On a somewhat brighter side Willis Eschenbach posting on Watts Up With That? thinks that things may not be so dire. The source of his optimism is the Diamond Princess cruise ship that was quarantined for weeks with a Coronavirus breakout.

We had a perfect petri-dish coronavirus disease (COVID-19) experiment with the cruise ship “Diamond Princess”. That’s the cruise ship that ended up in quarantine for a number of weeks after a number of people tested positive for the coronavirus. I got to wondering what the outcome of the experiment was.

So I dug around and found an analysis of the situation, with the catchy title

of Estimating the infection and case fatality ratio for COVID-19 using age-adjusted data from the outbreak on the Diamond Princess cruise ship (PDF), so I could see what the outcomes were.

As you might imagine, before they knew it was a problem, the epidemic raged on the ship, with infected crew members cooking and cleaning for the guests, people all eating together, close living quarters, lots of social interaction, and a generally older population. Seems like a perfect situation for an overwhelming majority of the passengers to become infected.

And despite that, some 83% (82.7% – 83.9%) of the passengers never got the disease at all … why?

Michael Levitt, said the same thing.  Levitt is an American-British-Israeli biophysicist and Nobel Prize laureate who accurately predicted that the spread of the virus in Wuhan would slow down in February.  Levitt says "the end of the pandemic is near," pointing to the Diamond Princess to reinforce his argument.

The Diamond Princess cruise ship represented the worst-case scenario in terms of disease spread, as the close confines of the ship offered optimal conditions for the virus to be passed among those aboard. The population density aboard the ship was the equivalent of trying to cram the whole Israeli population into an area 30 kilometers square. In addition, the ship had a central air conditioning and heating system, and communal dining rooms.

“Those are extremely comfortable conditions for the virus and still, only 20% were infected. It is a lot, but pretty similar to the infection rate of the common flu,” Levitt said. Based on those figures, his conclusion was that most people are simply naturally immune.

Statistics for the Diamond Princess outbreak can be found in this analysis: Estimating the infection and case fatality ratio for COVID-19 using age-adjusted data from the outbreak on the Diamond Princess cruise ship.  I decided to compare those numbers to an earlier epidemic, the 2009-2010 H1N1.  Nothing fancy, just calculated the percentages from the Diamond Princess Coronavirus numbers, applied the percentages to the U.S. population, and compared the results to the H1N1 numbers.  I compiled the following table from those statistics.

 

Diamond Princess Coronavirus Outbreak

Age	Passengers	Infected	Deaths	%Infected	%Deaths
0 - 9	16	1	0	6.25%	0.00%
10 - 19	23	5	0	21.74%	0.00%
20 - 29	347	28	0	8.07%	0.00%
30 - 39	428	34	0	7.94%	0.00%
40 - 49	334	27	0	8.08%	0.00%
50 - 59	398	59	0	14.82%	0.00%
60 - 69	923	177	0	19.18%	0.00%
70 - 79	1015	234	6	23.05%	2.56%
80 - 89	216	54	1	25.00%	1.85%
Totals	3711	619	7	16.68%	1.13%
H1N1 2010	308,745,538	60,800,000	12,469	19.69%	0.0205%
USA 2020	330,000,000	55,044,462	622,474	16.68%	1.13%

 

Seven deaths out of 3,711 doesn't seem like a lot, but actually it is.  When you compare the infection rates of H1N1 to that of the Coronavirus, 19.69% vs. 16.68%, you can see that they are roughly comparable.  However, applying the infection rate, 16.68%, and the fatality rate, 1.13%, from the Diamond Princess to the entire 2020 U.S. population, it turns out there is no comparison to the H1N1.  The Coronvirus is far more deadly with over 622,000 projected Coronavirus deaths compared to 12,469 actual H1N1 deaths. 

OK, it's not apples to apples, comparing the entire U.S. to the Diamond Princess.  Social distancing was nearly impossible on the Diamond Princess, but we are doing it as a country, and it's sure to lower the fatality rate.

When Trump began reinstating border enforcement, when he started construction of the wall on the southern border, when he imposed tariffs, when he renegotiated trade contracts, when he devised a tax policy to repatriate U.S. companies' foreign earned income, it was all with the objective of rebuilding our manufacturing capacity, and helping American workers. All of those things have put us in a position to better withstand our current Coronavirus crisis. We can wait it out.

Open border policies never made any sense before, but now they make even less sense, if that's possible.  And suddenly we make another startling discovery: Rebuilding American manufacturing capacity — for producing our own life saving drugs which are now produced in China, as an example — isn't really such a bad idea.  Things Trump has done to protect American jobs, will help to protect American lives.

The fact is, though, our concern over the Coronavirus is not hysteria.

Don't Call It The Wuhan Virus

Andrew McCarthy:  "But there is a Republican in the White House, so what was mundane yesterday is racist today."

Moreover, the president’s letter elaborates, Congress has explicitly authorized the chief executive, in an emergency, “to prevent the introduction, transmission, or spread of communicable diseases from foreign countries into the States or possessions, or from one State or possession into any other State or possession.”

Not only did history and common sense justify the administration (among others) in noting the origin of the Wuhan coronavirus. Doing so was a legal necessity if the imperative of federal support for beleaguered state governments was to be fulfilled.

Clyburn Brings Home a Winner

In his third try for the Democratic presidential nomination, Joe Biden has finally won a presidential primary, his very first. In yesterday's South Carolina Democratic primary Joe Biden came in first with 48.4% of the vote total, more than double that of the second place finisher, Bernie Sanders.

The full results are as follows:

Candidate	Votes	Percent	Delegates
Biden	255,660	48.4%	33
Sanders	105,068	19.9%	11
Steyer	59,817	11.3%
Buttigieg	43,483	8.2%
Warren	37,285	7.1%
Klobuchar	16,610	3.1%
Others	9,802	1.9%

Biden has been in public office since 1973 when he became U.S. Senator from Delaware.  Over the course of his political career he has run for president three times, first in 1988 and again in 2008, failing each time to win a single state primary election.  But in 2008 Biden hit political pay dirt when he became Barack Obama's running mate and then his Vice President.  It's extremely doubtful that Biden would have taken this third shot at the presidency had he not been Obama's Vice President. 

But, here we are.  At 77 years of age Biden is now the unlikely savior of the Democrats' 2020 election chances up and down the ticket.  Party leaders are nearly distraught that the leading candidate for their nomination is Bernie Sanders, who is actually not a Democrat. His nomination could create a devastating fracture in the Democratic party.

In the face of this looming disaster, Democratic Representative James Clyburn of South Carolina threw his weight behind Biden's candidacy and, perhaps reluctantly, gave him an endorsement. 

A major factor in Biden’s victory was the recent endorsement he earned from South Carolina Democratic Rep. James Clyburn, the House Majority Whip. Roughly a quarter of South Carolina voters polled by ABC said that Clyburn’s endorsement was a “major” factor in the choice on Saturday, but Clyburn still appeared to distance himself from the former vice president during a Saturday hit on CNN.

“We need to do some retooling in the campaign. No question about that. I did not feel free to speak out about or even deal with it inside, because I had not committed to his candidacy,” he stated. “I have now. I’m all in. And I’m not going to sit idly by and watch people mishandle his campaign.”

If the exit polling is accurate, that a quarter of South Carolina's primary voters cast ballots for Joe Biden based on Clyburn's endorsement, Biden and the Democrats may be in some real trouble going forward.

Sanders, the Independent socialist from Vermont, is still in the lead in the delegate tally for the Democratic presidential nomination.  He has been the top vote getter in Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada, and finishing second in South Carolina.

In all likelihood Biden would have won South Carolina without Clyburn's endorsement, but maybe not in so convincing a fashion.  There are hypothetical scenarios in which Biden loses, but if you simply took the number of voters estimated to have relied on Clyburn's endorsement and subtracted that number from Biden's total, he still wins.

Biden's strong showing gives leading Democrats hope.  If he gains momentum going into Super Tuesday, which is coming up in two days, Biden might continue on to lock up the nomination on the first ballot at the Democratic National Convention this summer.  A fatal rupture might then be averted.

Or not.  Sanders has not noticeably lost momentum.  Democrats have been moving left, promoting policies in education, immigration, voting rights, and taxation that aim to build a socialist leaning base.  And now after decades of supporting stealth socialism as the path to everlasting power, Democrats are faced with a real socialist who is picking off their leftmost leaning voters — and he's not even a Democrat.

Unless Biden wins convincingly this Tuesday, Democrats are heading for a showdown between the Democrats who are avowed socialists and the Democrats who pretend they are not socialists.  Bernie Sanders and the avowed socialists will likely lose that battle, and when they do there's little hope that they will kiss and make up with party leaders.  In that case the Sanders voters who don't stay home may very well cross over and vote for Trump.  If Sanders wins out, a significant block of Democrat voters might stay home rather than cast a vote for socialism. 

Whatever the outcome, the November election will be a choice between socialism, either stated or implied, and liberty.  Liberty is going to win.  The only question will be, how big?

February 28, 1993

The Waco Siege began on that date and lasted for 51 days.

The newly minted U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno was unhappy with the progress being made at Waco, and invoked (what else) the abuse of children in her pitch for a resolution to the conflict. For his part, President Clinton, who had dealt with a similar situation as Governor of Arkansas in 1985 – with The Covenant, The Sword, and The Arm of the Lord – initially urged waiting out the group. Reno, however, cited antsy agents and budgetary concerns. Ultimately, Clinton told her to do whatever she thought was best.

The FBI Hostage Rescue Team – derisively nicknamed the “Hostage Roasting Team” and which denied any evidence of child abuse – came armed with 50 caliber rifles and punched holes in the walls of the building with explosives so they could pump CS poision gas into a building with small children and infants inside. The plan was to announce to the group that there was no plan to take the house by force while slowly pumping greater amounts of CS gas inside to increase pressure on them to leave.

The fires began around noon on the final day of the standoff. The FBI maintains that they were started deliberately by the Davidians, with some survivors claiming that the FBI started the fires either intentionally or accidentally. Footage of the Davidians talking about gasoline seem to refer to them making Molotov cocktails to fight the FBI with.

Nine people left the building during the fire. The remaining people inside all died either from the fire, smoke inhalation, were buried alive by rubble or were shot. Some showed signs of death by cyanide poisoning, which would likely have been a result of the burning CS gas. All told, there were 76 deaths.

Read the rest of it here.

New Hampshire Primary Results

Some interesting but predictable results from the New Hampshire Presidential Primary Election are in the Union Leader this morning.  Democrat and Republican primary results are on this morning's front page.  The numbers I have here were last updated at 7:21 this morning.

On the Democrat side the results are as follows:

Candidate	Votes	Percent	Delegates
Sanders	73,470	25.9%	9
Buttigieg	69,216	24.4%	9
Klobuchar	55,982	19.8%	6
Warren	26,266	9.3%
Biden	23,813	8.4%
Steyer	10,138	3.6%
Gabbard	9,255	3.3%
Yang	8,023	2.8%
Others	7,277	2.6%

On the Repubican side the results are as follows:

Candidate	Votes	Percent	Delegates
Trump	120,147	85.7%	20
Weld	12,747	9.1%
Write-ins	3,511	2.5%
Maxwell	864	<1%
Walsh	844	<1%
Merrill	485	<1%
Murphy	393	<1%
Matern	258	<1%
Others	886	<1%

 

Voter registration and primary voting breakdown were as follows:

Party			Registered			Voted	Participation
Democrat			276,385*			283,440	102.55%
Republican			288,464*			140,135	48.58%
Undeclared			415,871*

* Party affiliation numbers are as of February 4, 2020.

Notice that more voters voted in the Democrat primary than there are registered Democrats in the state.  That is because undeclared voters may vote in the New Hampshire party primaries by asking for either the Democrat or Republican ballot to take with them into the voting booth.  However, undeclared primary voters must fill out a card or sign a list before leaving the polling place requesting return to undeclared status.  Otherwise they are automatically registered with the party of the ballot they've chosen to submit. 

So what do the numbers mean?  At the moment there is no way to tell how many undeclared voters participated in the election, only that thousands did.  Nor can we tell how many asked for Democrat ballots and how many asked for Republican ballots.  It's a safe bet to say that the majority of undeclared voters voted for a candidate on the Democrat ballot.  It's also a safe bet to say that participation rates among registered Democrats was high.  The turnout rate for the Democrat primary election was 102.55%  That means there was a substantial number of undeclared voters participating.

Trump winning the Republican primary was a foregone conclusion.  In fact, Republican that I am, I didn't decide to vote at all until the morning of the election.  Hell, I wasn't sure there was even going to be a Republican primary, but when I found out there would be, I went out to vote.  Turnout rate for the Republican primary was 48.21%.  If any undeclared voters turned out, I can't imagine there were a lot.

That might lead you to think that voter enthusiasm is much higher among Democrats than Republicans, but remember that votes in the Democrat primary have an impact on who gets New Hampshire's delegates.  On the Republican side Trump is a lock for the presidential nomination, so there was less urgency to voting in the Republican primary.  That means different rates of voter turnout do not necessarily reflect different levels of voter enthusiasm.

Consider these numbers tweeted by Brad Parscale, digital media director for Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. They show the political makeup of the ticket holders for Trump's rally in Manchester, New Hampshire on the night before the primary vote.

     Big Data from New Hampshire:

Big Data from New Hampshire:

✅ 52,559 Tickets

✅ 24,732 Voters Identified (41% From NH)

✅ 17% Didn’t Vote in 2016

✅ 25.4% Democrats

Thank You New Hampshire. Data Gold!

💥

— Brad Parscale - Text TRUMP to 88022 (@parscale) February 11, 2020

Several things strike me about Parscale's numbers.  The capacity of the SNHU Arena is just under 12,000, so the number of tickets given out is much higher than the number who got into the arena.  Trump estimated the crowd both inside and out at 40,000 to 50,000 people.  I haven't found any other estimates that would indicate the size of the crowd outside, but people began lining up the day before to get inside. Camping out in the cold overnight signals a high level of Trump voter enthusiasm.

Of the voters who identified themselves as registered voters, only 41% said they were from New Hampshire.  Others are reported to have traveled from Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont to attend, and some maybe even farther.  Approximately 4,200 of the registered voters said they did not vote in the 2016 election.  Parscale does not say how many were new voters and how many were registered in 2016 but did not vote. 

It's astonishing that a quarter of the tickets went to people who said they were Democrats,  But it does not strike me as farfetched.  After all, Trump flipped Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania from solidly blue when he won the presidency in 2016.  Such a large of a percentage of ticket holders is evidence of a high level of Trump enthusiasm among a particular group of Democrats, but it's hard to say how large that group is compared to the universe of Democrats.

Going only by those numbers — from the Trump rally and the New Hampshire primary — 2020 seems to be stacking up in Trump's favor.  And now the Trump campaign can begin. 

Scandals contrived by Democrats to sink Trump failed.  There is evidence that Democrat skullduggery and possible criminality went on in the construction of those scandals.  We already know from the DOJ Inspector General's report that evidence was falsified in order to get the FISA warrants that the Obama administration used for spying on the Trump campaign.  That falsification could mean that the entire basis for the Mueller investigation was illegally obtained, and if that's true, all of the charges coming out of that investigation could get tossed.  And that could be just the tip of the iceberg.

We will find out — probably in bit by bit fashion — between now and November.  He is the showman, that Trump.  So don't be surprised if it all culminates in a Republican landslide in November.

The Impulsive Trump

The Mainstream Media (MSM) reaction to the killing of Qasem Soleimani has been, if nothing else, predictable.  Trump ordered the hit on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps General when it was known he would be traveling with his entourage along the Baghdad airport access road in Iraq.  It was a decisive and devastating strike, eliminating Soleimani, four of his fellow Quds Force commanders and the head of an Iranian-backed Iraqi militia.  It occurred in Iraq, a designated war zone, after Iran-backed militias rocketed several coalition bases killing an American contractor, and after an attack on the U.S. Embassy. 

According to the MSM version of events, Trump acted impulsively, oblivious to the unpredictable and disastrous consequences that were sure to follow.  Here are a few samples:

New York Times, January 8, 2020: The Trump We Did Not Want to See

The reality of Donald Trump — an amoral narcissist with no capacity for reflection or personal growth — is evident from his decades in public life. But rather than face this, too many people have rejected the facts in front of them, choosing an illusion instead of the disturbing truth.

The past week has been a prime example of this phenomenon. On Thursday night, the United States killed Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani of Iran leader of the Islamic Republic’s Quds Force and one of the most powerful military leaders in the region.

Washington Post, January 9, 2020: Trump does not have a foreign policy. He has a series of impulses.

The problem with Trump’s foreign policy is not any specific action. The killing of Soleimani could be justified as a way to respond to Iranian provocations, but this move, like so much of Trump’s foreign policy, was impulsive, reckless, unplanned and inconsistent — and as usual, the chief impact is chaos and confusion.

Salon, January 9, 2020: Press Watch: Here's the crucial context every article on Trump and Iran should include

The decision to kill Soleimani was impulsive, inflammatory and highly unusual. Journalists must say that clearly....

There’s no evidence of a normal deliberative process.

• Trump does not pay attention to details.
• He does not display any appreciation for strategic planning
• The support system of knowledgeable, experienced people to which a president would normally turn for advice in such a circumstance does not exist.
• There is no evidence that any normal procedures were followed in this process.

Once again the media move in lockstep, ignoring that which contradicts the preconceived narrative.  But there are several things immediately evident from this strike.

First, there was good intelligence on the plans and whereabouts of Soleimani.  We knew where he was going to be and when he would be there.  Because Soleimani was taken out in the early hours of the morning, there was no collateral damage.  Recent Twitter reports say that a number of IRGC commanders have been arrested, suggesting that Iran has taken steps to find and plug an intelligence leak.

Second, the hit on Soleimani puts an exclamation point on the departure from a well worn approach to American foreign policy in the Middle East.  Over the past four decades American Middle East policy has been based on two delusions that Trump has rejected.  Caroline Glick describes them in her recent article, Donald Trump and the mythmakers.  First is the myth that allowed American presidents to evade any obligation to hold Iran accountable for the crimes of its proxies.

[W]hen Iranian "students" seized the US Embassy in Tehran in November 1979 and held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days, they placed the Carter administration in a dilemma: If President Jimmy Carter acknowledged that the "students" weren’t students, but soldiers of Iran’s dictator Ayatollah Khomeini, the US would be compelled to fight back. And Carter and his advisers didn't want to do that.

So rather than admit the truth, Carter accepted the absurd fiction spun by the regime that Khomeini was an innocent bystander who, try as he might, couldn't get a bunch of "students" in central Tehran to free the hostages.

For forty years Iran has been attacking America through proxies, and for forty years every president since Carter has gone along with the fiction that it's beyond Iran's control, and so the Iranian regime has never been held responsible.  Which brings us to the second myth, which is the one that enables the first:

The second false narrative that has formed the basis of US Middle East policy since Carter is that Israel and the so-called "occupation" are responsible for the absence of peace in the Middle East.

As long as American presidents could plausibly blame West Bank "occupation" by Israel for any of the Middle East unrest, they could ignore Iran's hand in the havoc wrought by their terrorist proxies and thus avoid uncomfortable confrontations.  Forty years of bombings and rocket attacks were only what Israel brought upon itself — or so we were all supposed to pretend.

Trump first signaled his rejection of this traditional blame-Israel posture by recognizing Jerusalem as the capitol of Israel, and then moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv.  More recently Trump has discontinued a policy that originated in the Carter administration, the one that considered Israeli settlements in the West Bank to be illegal under international law.

When Trump dropped the hammer on Soleimani, he left no doubt about where he believes Middle East unrest originates.  Trump's new policy makes crystal clear that it's the Islamic leaders in Iran who should be seriously concerned about what America might do, instead of the other way around.  Iran will be held accountable.

This represents a paradigm shift that MSM have yet to internalize.  Instead the media have chosen to indulge themselves in yet another round of projection.  It's the media, not Trump, who are unable to pay attention to details.  It's the media, not Trump, who are unable to appreciate strategic planning, particularly the strategic planning that has brought us to this moment.  America is in a much stronger position, economically and militarily, than it was when Trump took office.  Gone unnoticed is that President Trump has put himself into position where he can do what six presidents before him were unable or unwilling to do — confront Iran and its proxies.

Strange as this may sound, tax policy was the instrumental first step.  Cutting marginal income tax rates, a move that unquestionably encourages investment, provided a boost to the U.S. economy.  A more powerful boost, though only a one-timer, was in the tax treatment of corporate overseas income and the subsequent repatriation of huge sums of money back into the American economy.  However, the tax cuts that put us into uncharted territory were the dramatic reductions corporate tax rates, which instantly made U.S. corporations more competitive in the global economy.  The aim and the result of all of those cuts was a hiring binge.

Trump made it easier still for companies to hire workers by requiring that the federal agencies cut regulations.  Trump demanded that for each new federal regulation proposed, two existing regulations had to be rescinded.  In the deregulation frenzy that followed eight federal regulations have been cut for each new regulation proposed.

To the astonishment of establishment economy pundits, unemployment dropped to historic lows across all demographics.  The American economy picked up steam just as it was expected to go into recession.  Consumers were driving it as more Americans had jobs and money in their pockets.  The strong consumer driven economy made the next step possible, that of renegotiating trade deals.

Trump's tariffs became the argument that convinced America's trading partners that Trump was serious about renegotiating new deals.  Oh, the hand wringing.  According to media consensus, Trump's trade war — the result of Trump's tariffs — would be the cause of a worldwide depression.  Again, to the great surprise of mainstream pundits, the consumer driven economy easily withstood the effects of the tariffs. Trump's boast, that America could win any trade war, was borne out.  The USMCA, NAFTA's replacement, awaits Senate approval.  Phase One of a China trade deal is about to be signed.  Investor confidence as measured by the major stock market indices is at an all-time high.

The tariffs came with an unforeseen versatility.  With the border wall still uncompleted and liberal judges blocking almost every Trump effort to stem the tide of illegal immigration, the Mexican Army has stepped up to intercept the waves of bogus asylum seekers before they reach the U.S. southern border.  The threat of tariffs on Mexican goods helped to provide Mexico with the necessary incentives.  The flow of cheap illegal labor has been stemmed to a degree.  American workers get those jobs, giving further boost to our booming economy.

In the meantime, Trump has been beefing up our military, increasing defense spending. 

Finally, rescinding Obama administration energy regulations has helped to boost the already in progress fracking boom.  America is energy independent. In fact, America is the world's largest exporter of natural gas.  We don't need Middle Eastern oil.  

When General Qasem Soleimani turned up in paradise looking for his 72 virgins, back here on earth there was no spike in oil prices.  The stock market didn't hiccup.  Nothing.  Iran fired a few missiles into Iraq and issued an announcement that said to the effect, please don't respond.  Since no one was killed or injured, Trump had no need to.

MSM has ignored all of what went on for the last three years, pretending that none of it ever happened.  Impulsive Trump has no clue.  When there is no escaping from the facts — that all those things did happen — the media explain that it all came about by chance.  A series of fortunate accidents which have no bearing on foreign policy anyway.  The media's job, as they see it, is not to report the facts, but to persuade.  Facts are of secondary importance to the "truths" that have already been decided upon for the edification of the news consuming public.  For the past three years the media have seen it as their duty to select (or create) the facts that will persuade us all to believe that Trump must go.  Trump is inattentive, impulsive, unwilling to listen to the experts, and ignorant of basic foreign policy principles.  The list could go on, but in short, Trump is a threat to democracy, a threat to America, and a threat to world peace.

We are in an information war.  The media wage it by hiding, shading, and misrepresenting news that doesn't fit their preferred narrative.  It's obvious.  People can see it.  As a result, only 13% of Americans say they have "a great deal" of trust in the media.  Trump understands this and plays to media prejudices.  They want impulsive?  Trump gives them impulsive. He is our star player in the information war. He has been masterful in his use of Twitter, with an uncanny ability to goad the Mainstream Media to oppose Trump at every turn, and in the process to contradict themselves, to reveal their true colors, to defend the indefensible. That impulsive Trump.  And so the media report.  And as Americans' trust in the media slips a little further, America grows a little stronger.