Covid-19 vs The Spanish Flu - No Contest

 The View from the Middle 

Recently, I have seen some talking heads, including Geraldo Rivera on Fox, compare Covid-19 to the Spanish Flu in 1918 and suggest that Covid-19 is now worse than that historic pandemic.  Anyone who makes this comparison is either uninformed, lying or deliberately misleading their audience. They also care more about ratings and clicks than telling the truth.  Let me share some actual truth with you so that you can refute any charlatan that tries to suggest that Covid-19 is worse than the Spanish Flu.

If you want a big dose of the truth about the Spanish Flu, I recommend that you read the book The Great Influenza, written by John Barry in 2005, well before Covid-19.  It will help you understand the massive differences between the 1918 pandemic and Covid-19.  To do a fair comparison, we must consider two adjustments to the death tolls of both pandemics.  First, we must adjust for population differences between 1918 and today.  Second, we must adjust for how the government and media handled the two pandemics.  In 1918, our government and media tried to minimize (Barry suggests they lied about) The Spanish Flu.  Today, our politicians and media are actually exaggerating the death toll of Covid-19. 

In 1918 the total population in the US was only 105 million, and The Spanish Flu supposedly killed 675,000 of our citizens.  I think that number is very conservative, and I will explain why later.  Today, the population of the US is 333 million.  Adjusting for the population difference, that 675,000 deaths in 1918 would translate to over 2.1 million deaths today.  This comparison alone demonstrates the duplicity in trying to suggest that Covid-19 is worse than the 1918 Spanish Flu, but there is more.

The treatment of these two pandemics by the government, the media and the medical community has been absolutely diametrical.  In 1918, the US government and the press intentionally tried to minimize the threat of the Spanish Flu to the public.  We were in the midst of WWI and President Wilson wanted to send troops over to Europe.  Today, the government is actually incenting hospitals to classify virtually any death as a Covid death by offering significant monetary bonuses.  Even Dr. Deborah Birx, from Trump’s original Coronavirus advisory team, suggested that the CDC death count was overstated by at least 25%.

Let me try to demonstrate the pathetic but opposite methodologies used to inform the US public of the severity of these two pandemics.  According to The Great Influenza, The Spanish Flu killed between 50 and 100 million people worldwide, and that is when the world population was only 1.8 billion.  Even using the lowest number in that range, the 675,000 reported deaths in the US would have only accounted for 1.4% of global deaths while the US represented almost 6.0% of the world’s population.  And that is for a virus the John Barry suggests may have even begun in the US, but at a minimum ravaged us as terribly as it did the rest of the world.

Today, according to CNN’s Health Webpage, Covid-19 has killed 4.7 million people around the globe.  While all these deaths are tragic, that 4.7 million is a tiny fraction of the worldwide death toll from the Spanish Flu. And that is despite the fact that the world’s population today is over four times larger than it was in 1918 (7.9 billion to be exact).  So, the 678,000 deaths in America from Covid not only places us #1 in the world, but suggests that we represent 14.4% of total global deaths, despite the fact that we now represent only 4.2% of the world’s population.

So, our government wants us to believe that in 1918, we accounted for only 1.4% of the world’s deaths from the Spanish Flu, which ravaged our country and may have even emanated from here – AND – that today we represent 14.4% of global Covid deaths, which probably originated in China.

Let me propose another theory.  We were lied to in 1918 and we are being lied to today.  Our government and media lied in 1918 to minimize the real threat that the Spanish Flu posed to our country and the world to allow us to send our troops to Europe for WWI (read the book).  And today, our government and media are lying to us in order to distract us with fear as they advance a far-left political agenda. 

For the hundredth time, however, let me reiterate that I am not suggesting that Covid-19 is not a serious disease.  And I am not saying that we should not do what we can to mitigate its spread.  However, most of what we have done (masks, social distancing, shutdowns, etc.) have not worked and are only creating more problems that we will have to confront in the years to come.  Wash your hands frequently.  Don’t go to work when you are sick, and get vaccinated if your doctor gives you the OK.  If you have already had Covid and survived, get the antibody test and then all of us need to get on with our lives.

And Finally, if you only remember one thing from this article, let it be this – 99.8% of US citizens did not die from Covid-19.  That is a fact that no one else is telling you!

Natural Immunity - Follow the Science

The View from the Middle

 

Today there is an absolute and disgusting war on the unvaccinated people in the United States.  Politicians, particularly our President, are actually condoning and even encouraging a hatred of unvaccinated people by those who have chosen to be vaccinated.  The President is even suggesting that the vaccinated people in this country should fear those who have not been vaccinated.  

For the record, I have had Covid-19 and obviously survived, and I have been vaccinated, but I do not hate nor fear the unvaccinated. I don’t fear them because I am immune.  A Johns Hopkins study has shown the fully vaccinated people are 30 times less likely to get infected than an unvaccinated person and those that do are 58% less likely to even suffer fever or chills as a result.  At some point in time, the risk of getting Covid-19 by a vaccinated person is so low that we can’t continue to disrupt the lives of everyone in America to prevent such an unlikely occurrence.  People get struck by lightning every year, but are we going to mandate that everyone in America wear human lightning rods to avoid it?

I also, for the record, don’t hate those who have chosen not to get vaccinated.  I understand that there are many reasons not to do so.  Some have religious beliefs that are inconsistent with vaccinations.  They understand the risks and are virtually no threat to me, so they have the right to make that choice.  It is still America, right?  

Then there are some that are choosing not to get the vaccine because they mistrust the government.  This seems the most likely explanation for why the black community continues to lag far behind the rest of the country in their vaccination levels.  Just a month ago, the CDC reported that only 25% of black Americans were fully vaccinated.   That was less than half the rate of white Americans.  Does this mean we should hate, scorn, exile or fear black people?  I don’t.

Finally, what percent of the unvaccinated people in the United States are resistant to getting the vaccine because they have already had Covid-19, survived and have the antibodies.  According to a huge, recent study in Israel, natural immunity provides 6 to 13 times more protection against Covid-19 than any of the vaccines. 

The CDC has reported over 40 million cases of Covid-19 where those infected survived and have natural immunity.  Add to that number the cases that presented with very mild symptoms or were asymptomatic and weren’t even tested.  Estimates bring the total of the naturally immune to 100 million people in the US alone.  What percentage of the 80 million unvaccinated are already naturally immune to this disease?  Shouldn’t the naturally immune be treated the same as the vaccinated when it comes to access to restaurants, gyms, theatres and even employment? 

Until the government starts giving us a number that includes vaccinated people plus unvaccinated but immune, it is misleading the American people and reinforcing the mistrust many have in it.  Our governments (federal, state and local) need to provide the American people with accurate information (the truth) and even direction, and then allow them to manage the risks as they see fit.

The Biden Administration’s current strategy of fear, shame, division and coercion will not work in a free America.  It will only bring out the worst in us.  This strategy will cause our people to divide into groups instead of uniting into one great country.  It will cause people to pull back instead of reaching out.  It instills hatred instead of respect, and will make us, as a country, weak instead of strong.

Arguably one of our greatest Presidents once said that, “all we have to fear is fear itself” in an effort to strengthen and unite our country, and it clearly worked.  We need that kind of strong, positive, uniting message today to unleash the ingenuity that comes with freedom and the will to constantly do what’s right.   America’s ingenuity will not only create treatments for Covid-19 to defeat this virus but it will also give us the will to defeat terrorism in all of its forms.  Without the freedom to create and the will to risk, America will slide from superpower and a force for good to just another impotent, needy nation fighting for scraps to eke out a meager existence on a global stage.

 

Let me leave you with a message from the bible in this world that seems to want to control us and diminish us through a spirit of fear.  God tells us “do not fear” but to place our trust in him:

 

Isaiah 41:10

 

So, do not fear, for I am with you;

Do not be dismayed, for I am your God.

I will strengthen you and help you; 

I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

Biden - The "BUT" Starts Here!

 The View from the Middle 

“The Buck Stops Here”!!  If Harry Truman wasn’t the first person to utter that axiom, he certainly popularized it.  He famously had a plaque with that principle inscribed on it and placed on his desk in the oval office as a reminder that he needed to take responsibility for the decisions he made.  Not surprisingly, our “Plagiarist in Chief” has recently appropriated that phrase to describe his decision-making process in Afghanistan.  Unfortunately, while it was obvious that President Biden understood how principled that maxim sounded, nobody bothered to explain what those words actually meant.  Every time he has invoked that truism, he has added a big “BUT”, and then he goes on to blame everybody but himself for the catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan.

The first person he blames after his “buck stops here” statement is Trump, which is ludicrous for three reasons.  First, Joe says he was locked into Trump’s agreement with the Taliban despite the fact that he has nixed virtually every other deal and program that Trump put in place despite the fact that they are working.  Second, Joe didn’t stick with Trump’s agreement which was conditions based and would have allowed him to move the May 31^st withdrawal to whatever date made sense for The United States.  Third, Trump’s deal was way better than the train wreck that Biden crafted.  Trump’s deal clearly pointed out that the US would NOT recognize the Taliban as a governing body in Afghanistan and required the Taliban to work with the current Afghan government to create a new intra-Afghan governing body.  Don’t take my word for it, or CNN’s or MSDNC, because they totally misrepresent it.  It is only three and a half pages long, and a link to it is provided below.  Read it for yourself.

 

https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Signed-Agreement-02292020.pdf

 

Next, President Biden blames the Afghan military for the disastrous withdrawal.  They certainly aren’t the professional fighting force that the American military is, but the Afghan security forces have lost over 30,000 men in this war.  That’s over ten times the number of American losses.  The two things that the Afghan military needed from the Americans were leadership and air support, both of which were taken from them in the dead of the night.  As the President evacuated Bagram air base without notifying the Afghan President or their military leaders it sent a chilling message to the Afghan government.  After that move the President of Afghanistan, Ashraf Ghani, and the incompetent and corrupt Afghan military leadership fled the country.  After being abandoned by the US military, the Afghan President and the Afghan military leadership, what did Joe Biden expect from the rank and file of the Afghan military.  This was as predictable as the sunrise in the morning.

Finally, the President tries to blame previous administrations for getting us into Afghanistan in the first place and keeping us there for 20 years.  This is disingenuous in at least a couple of ways.  First, the question is not how or why we went to Afghanistan, it is how we chose to get out.  Why did we withdraw in such a rushed and unorganized fashion after a 20-year presence in that country.  He also fails to remind the American people that the Obama-Biden administration was in charge for eight of those 20 years.

Unfortunately for Joe Biden, while he doesn’t understand the meaning of “The Buck Stops Here”, the American people do.  He can’t dodge his responsibility for the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan and the impact it will have on our country and the world for years to come.  Here are just a few of the universally accepted mistakes that Joe made during the cataclysmic withdrawal:

1.      He decided to withdraw our troops before he evacuated American citizens from Afghanistan.

2.    He abandoned the highly fortified airbase at Bagram, just 30 miles from Kabul, with its two runways and easily defensed position.

3.    We left $85 billion in military equipment (trucks, planes, rifles, ammunition, etc.) for the Taliban to use and or sell to promote their terroristic ideology around the world.

4.    The Taliban actually offered to give us control of the entire city of Kabul during the evacuation, but we declined that offer and decided to just control the Kabul airport.

 

I believe that the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to America’s vulnerability to terrorism.  Joe Biden might think that the war on terror is over, but the Taliban, Isis, al-Qa’ida, Boko Haram, Hamas, The Haqqani Network, Hezbollah and many other terrorist groups have not surrendered.  They still hate us and Israel and they now have an entire country to train their jihadists and to develop and launch their murderous plans.  The war is not over, it has just entered a new phase.  Hopefully, we can rise to this new challenge.  Yes, the buck does stop here, Joe, and America will not forget.

Do Masks Even Work? Follow the Science

The View from the Middle

 

In early 2020, America’s Doctor, Tony Fauci, said this about masks. “The typical mask you buy in the drug store is not really effective in keeping out (this) virus, which is small enough to pass through the material.  It might provide some slight benefit in keeping out gross droplets if someone coughs or sneezes on you.”  Notice that he used the words “might” and “slight”.  These are not scientific terms.  In fact, they are the opposite.  At best, they are speculative.  If he had ANY actual data to support those vague suggestions, he would have provided it.  But he didn’t.

In early 2021, Dr. Fauci added, “There’s no reason for people to be walking around wearing masks…It might make people feel a little bit better.  It might even block a droplet, buts it is not providing the perfect protection that people think it is.”  Despite this powerful criticism of mask wearing, we have entire states and municipalities mandating the wearing of masks, even outdoors.  Those governors and mayors are saying that they are going to put people in jail for refusing to wear something that even Tony Fauci admits doesn’t work.

Since the beginning of this pandemic, I have been searching for data that would support or repudiate the concept of mask-wearing.  The other day I found a comprehensive, scientifically supported article that looked at the 14 Randomized Controlled Trials (RCT’s) done around the world on the benefits of mask wearing.  Despite the fact that these RTC’s are uniformly regarded as the gold standard in medical research, the CDC has depended on “observational studies” that are not only of lower quality but, “also are more likely to be politicized, as they can inject the researchers’ judgement more prominently into the inquiry and lend themselves, far more than RTC’s, to finding what one wants to find.”

These 14 RTC’s provide the most reliable scientific data because they isolated mitigation techniques like mask-wearing and hand washing, but also included a control group that always did nothing.  THAT is how scientific study is supposed to work.  These 14 RTC’s were completed from 2008 to 2020 all around the world on multiple respiratory viruses.  The largest study, done in 2020 in Denmark with 4,862 participants, was done on Covid-19 and found no statistically significant difference between the results of its mask-wearing group and its control group which did not wear masks.

Here is the overall conclusion drawn from these 14 RCT’s.  “In sum, of the 14 RCT’s that have tested the effectiveness of masks in preventing the transmission of respiratory viruses, three suggest, but do not provide any statistically significant evidence…that masks might be useful. The other 11 RTC’s suggest that masks are either useless or are actually counterproductive.  Of the three studies that provided statistically significance evidence…one found that the combination of surgical masks and hand hygiene was less effective than hand hygiene alone, one found that the combination of surgical masks and hand hygiene was less effective than nothing, and one found that cloth masks were less effective than surgical masks.”

Finally, since I have noticed so many people wearing cloth masks (I estimate that 50% of the masks I see are cloth) I felt I should specifically give the results of one study that tested cloth masks against surgical masks.  That study was done in 2015 in Hanoi, Vietnam.  This RCT “found that those in cloth masks were 13 times more likely to develop an influenza-like illness than those in the surgical mask group – a statistically significant difference…The authors write that wearing a cloth mask may potentially increase the infection risk.”  And the lion-share of our children (I estimate 80%) are wearing camo or superhero or outfit coordinated cloth masks.  The data (the science) would suggest that they would be better off wearing nothing!!  

To all parents of students and school administrators and teachers, I would suggest you do what you constantly say you do – Follow the Science.  The data confirms that children under the age of 18 are far less vulnerable to this virus and its Delta variant than  older adults.  Out of the 633,000 people in the US who have died from this virus, only 361 were children under 18.  That’s only .06% (six hundredths of one percent) despite the fact that this group represents almost 25% of the US population.  And most of those mortalities were accompanied by some sort of co-morbidity.  Follow the science.  Children under 18 are at almost no risk of this virus.  Let these children and their parents make the choice to wear or not wear masks, which these studies suggest are “useless” or even “counterproductive”.  If teachers are concerned for their health, they can wear masks (which don’t work for them either) or get vaccinated.  But let our children go.

Below is a link to the entire article.  Just copy and paste it into your browser.  You’ll be more informed than 99.9% of the general public and 100% of our politicians!

https://www.city-journal.org/do-masks-work-a-review-of-the-evidence?wallit_nosession=1#.YRSMsaJRXXk.twitter

Biden, Presidency on Crutches

The View from the Middle

 

From 1933 to 1945 the United States had a President with many physical issues.  Franklin Delano Roosevelt moved around with the help of wheelchairs, braces, canes and crutches for his entire Presidency. With the help of the press at the time, most of America was not even aware of his disabilities.  But despite his many physical problems, FDR is consistently ranked by historians as one of the top three Presidents in our country’s history.  He led the country out of the deepest financial depression in our history and guided us successfully through WWII.  This was because, in spite his physical limitations, he was mentally sharp to the very end when he was taken from the earth by a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 63.  

FDR’s story demonstrates how physical issues can be overcome, even in the most challenging job in the world (arguably), as long as that person is mentally tough and capable. Joe Biden is at the opposite end of the Presidential competency spectrum from FDR.  In three months, Joe Biden will be 79 years old.  He will be 82 at the end of his first term, and would be 86 at the end of his second term if he should choose to run and win (heaven forbid).  

The one common thread between FDR and Joe Biden is that the media has protected Joe Biden throughout the campaign and has continued to do so even today.  The Presidential campaign every four years is meant to be rigorous in order to test the physical and mental toughness of the candidates.  In the 2020 Presidential campaign, Joe Biden was allowed to hide in his basement and avoid the tough questions, and that protection continues today.

In regards to the withdrawal from Afghanistan, we can debate whether we should have left Afghanistan in 2002 or if we should continue with a light military footprint for years to come.  The question that must be answered today and most likely in 2022 and 2024 is, “How well has this withdrawal been managed.”  While the chaos at the Kabul airport is getting all of the attention, there are other issues that so far are being pretty much ignored.  Why did we pull out our military before we pulled out our American citizens and Afghan friendlies?  Why did we abandon the Bagram air base without even informing the Afghan military that we were leaving?  Why did we leave $85 billion of weapons and equipment that will now be used by the Taliban to brutalize their own people and spread terrorism throughout the world?

Our lamestream media continues to cover for this President as he lies (misstates), bumbles and vacations his way through this crisis.  After taking the first week off, he has made a few prepared speeches (created by someone else) which he struggles through with one teleprompter, because he can’t handle multiple teleprompters anymore.  He then turns and hightails it out of the room without answering a single question.  Yesterday, he finally answered three pre-selected questions.  He even had to look down at prepared notes to see who he was supposed to call on and then to his notes again for the answer (because he and his staff obviously already knew what the question was).

This “chaos” in Afghanistan could not have been avoided, says the man who is now presiding over the disastrous, chaotic withdrawal.  That is a meaningless statement that neither he nor anyone else can prove and which I sincerely doubt.  And now the State Department and the Pentagon are focusing on the number of people being evacuated, and patting themselves on their backs using words like “we’re making tremendous progress” or “we’ve successfully improved (whatever)”.  This is like an arsonist taking credit for pouring some water on a fire they started.  It is also amazing that of all the people that they have evacuated, they still have no idea how many Americans have been removed or even how many Americans are in the country.  Is it because they don’t know?  My guess is that they know, but we Americans wouldn’t like the answer.  

For the good of the country, the mainstream media needs to stop covering for this President.  This is not like covering up for FDR or JFK for their physical or moral shortcomings.  This is concealing incompetence that America will suffer from for years to come.  The media must share the blame for hiding the lack of cognitive ability of this President.  He’s only seven months into his four-year term and we have crises in Afghanistan, on our southern border, with violence in our major cities and in an economy that is on the brink of collapse because our new authoritarian government cannot get out of its way.  I don’t think we can take three and a half more years of this leadership.  Of course, that may have been the plan all along.

Botched

 The View from the Middle

 

While I disagree with almost all of Joe Biden’s policies, there are three critically important areas where he has made, “unforced errors”, and that is according to senior Obama administration officials.  I disagree, for example with President Biden’s decision to abandon the Keystone Pipeline, while allowing Russia to complete its Nord Stream 2 pipeline to Germany.  I disagree with his decision to reengage with Iran, the world’s largest sponsor of terror, which included financial support and reengagement in the impotent nuclear deal.  I also disagree with rejoining the Paris Global Warming Accord, and I have published pieces that explain my positions on all of these policy decisions.  We can debate all of these strategic choices, but there are three layups (a basketball term for an easy shot) that Joe has blown that even his most sycophantic followers are beginning to question.

First, there is President Biden’s handling of our southern border.  While he can claim that he inherited this problem, the facts on the ground do not support that assertion.  In Trump’s final year we averaged about 35,000 border apprehensions per month and for all four of the Trump administration years we averaged about 40,000 per month.  This was because of policies like “Stay in Mexico”, the elimination of catch and release and Title 42 expulsions which allowed Border Control to return illegal immigrants due to exposure to covid-19.  Joe Biden decided to reverse all of those effective policies and since we have been averaging almost 200,000 apprehensions per month and we are headed for a two million apprehension year for 2021.  Plus, who knows how many people are not being apprehended.  These are called “got-aways”, and are the most dangerous illegal entries for obvious reasons.  Border Patrol is projecting that we will experience 500,000 of these “got-aways” this year.  Joe Biden could have and should have just done nothing which is what makes his handling of the border a total botch.

Next, we have the Biden Administration’s handling of the Coronavirus vaccine implementation.  Despite the fact that President Biden tried to suggest that the vaccine didn’t exist before he became President, the truth is that it was developed in record time by the Trump administration and Joe received his first shot in December of 2020.  Joe’s job was simply to get the vaccine shots into the arms of the American people.  

Joe and Kamala, in their thirst to be elected, began to sow the seeds of distrust of the vaccine way back during the Democrat primary when they both indicated that they wouldn’t trust or take a vaccine developed under the Trump administration.  Then, when they took office, they obviously had no idea what was going on.  Joe promised that he was going to get “a million shots per day” into American arms.  Then, someone on his staff reminded him that the Trump administration was already ahead of that pace before they left office.  This lack of awareness did not inspire confidence in the American people and resulted in an immediate drop in that daily vaccination rate. 

Finally, Joe could have gone on a campaign to build trust in the vaccine and thus convince the American people to get vaccinated.  He and his administration, unfortunately, chose to shame and demonize the American people who were hesitant to get vaccinated.  There has been a big miss with black Americans who, for good reason, harbor a mistrust of big government. Only about 30% of US blacks have gotten the shots compared to a 60% level for all of our citizens.  He could have given the previous administration some due credit and pursued a positive message, but he didn’t.  This could have been easy, but he blew it and dramatically missed his goal.

And now we have our withdrawal from Afghanistan.  To be fair, I’m not going to blame Joe for getting us into Afghanistan, although he was part of a unanimous vote in the Senate to fund our actions there.  I won’t even blame him for staying there beyond accomplishing our initial mission, which probably happened in 2002, even though he was Vice President for eight of the last 20 years.  There are plenty of people, Democrat and Republican alike, who can take credit for all of those mistakes.  But Joe must take full responsibility for botching the very tactical withdrawal.

Most of us are not politicians or diplomats or four-star generals, but we do have brains and some common sense.  Common sense would suggest that you should not give your enemy a firm timetable of your withdrawal with no connection to conditions on the ground.  Common sense would tell you NOT to execute that withdrawal during the peak “fighting season” of your enemy.  Common sense would suggest that you have over half of your withdrawal of equipment and personnel completed before you tell your enemy anything.  Common sense would tell you not to remove the military before you remove American citizens and Afghan collaborators.  President Biden decided to ignore all of that common-sense advice and now must own the carnage that is about to ensue.

The Taliban is going door-to-door right now to find the Afghan men who cooperated with us and they are looking for women to become their sex slaves.  The next month will be brutal in Afghanistan.  There will be blood in streets, and that will be just the beginning of the suffering and dehumanization for the women there.  The good news for Joe Biden is that the Taliban are not the most transparent people so the world will probably not see much of the savagery.

And finally, this will impact our foreign policy for years to come.  What ally will trust us in the future (think South Korea, Taiwan and Israel) and our enemies will not fear us and will see this as an opportunity to take advantage.  How many terrorists can cross our southern border over the next few months, and how much damage can they do here.

All of these were unforced errors.  That’s three layups missed in just six months.  Joe, if I were your coach, you would be benched.  

Can Government Deliver a Risk-Free Utopia?

The View from the Middle

 

Three years ago, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez said, and I am quoting here, “The world is going to end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change (now).”  I’m sure she is using that exact same quote today, but I’m going to help Ms. AOC with some fundamental math facts, because I know she’s not particularly strong academically in that area (or any other that I am aware of).  Twelve minus three is nine.  The clock is ticking, and I plan to be here in nine years to call her a liar, a fearmonger and a complete idiot.  And I don’t say that with any misogynistic venom.  I believe women can say and do stupid things just as often as men can and AOC is simply proving my point.

AOC also demonstrates a new political technique that I am calling “The Convenient Argument”.  A Convenient Argument is one that cannot be proven wrong or right and allows politicians to take credit or place blame no matter what actually happens.  I am a climate change agnostic as was the late, great Charles Krauthammer.  Is the world’s climate getting warmer?  Possibly, however given how the scientists gather that information, I actually don’t know, and I’m fairly certain that none of you do either.  Has the earth been through this kind of warming before when man’s activities could not possibly have been a contributing factor?  Absolutely, and there is plenty of scientific evidence to prove that.  

Have 100% of Al Gore’s predictions been proven wrong?  Yes.  Has 99% of climate panic drivers’ (scientists) predictions been proven wrong? Again, absolutely.  The polar bears are still here and so are the polar ice caps.  New York City is not under water nor are the Maldives (islands who are and have been only six feet above sea level).  The fact is, we should all be very skeptical of the Henny Penny, “the sky is falling” doomsdayers who are trying to take away our money and our rights TODAY by threatening global cataclysm in the distant future.  As I have said before, anyone who tells you that they know for certain what is going to happen in 100 years (the new goalpost for climate fearmongers) is lying.  And I won’t even get into the claim that “global” warming can be corrected by the United States alone.  

I’m NOT saying that we should be living irresponsible lives, trashing the environment as we prance through life.  I’m NOT saying that we shouldn’t be trying to harness renewable energy sources, particularly the sun.  But we shouldn’t be doing this in a panic, destroying entire industries and collapsing the economy of the most environmentally conscious country in the world, which is the US.  We also should not be burdening our children and grandchildren with a national debt that will crush their opportunities and severely limit their choices in the future.

Few people, if any, actually understand climate.  Even Al Gore’s chief climatologist admitted that “Climate” is so complex that it is impossible to predict.  But our politicians in Washington really don’t care about any of that.  They only care about power and their next election.  That is why climate change (or global warming, or whatever they will call it tomorrow) is such a great centerpiece for their campaigns.  If the climate cools, as it has done throughout the history of this planet, the politicians will take credit.  If it does not, they will simply blame their political enemies saying that they didn’t do enough.  No one will be able to prove any of this because it is unprovable, and I believe it’s because this is God’s plan and He has been in control all along.

The Covid-19 debate is very similar.  Few if any actually understand this virus, where it came from and how to mitigate it.  Do masks work?  Fauci said “no” before he said yes, and there is no actual data (evidence) that they do.  There is, however, evidence that they make no difference, especially in children.  Florida has done a study that compared infection rates in schools that mandated masks to schools that did not, and they found no difference.  And a study in Massachusetts found that cloth masks actually increase the likelihood of being infected.  Did shutting down the world’s economies work?  Actually, no!  Our highest infection rates and deaths have come during the world’s most stringent lockdowns and highest mask usage.

I align with the many doctors and virologists, including Dr. Dan Stock from Indiana, who believe that Dr. Fauci, the CDC and the NIH are NOT in control as they suggest.  This virus is in control.  It is doing what viruses have done since the beginning of time.  It infected everyone it could until the beginning of herd immunity challenged its existence and then it mutated in an effort to survive.  But politicians will quickly take credit for naturally occurring declines in infections and will be quick to blame naturally occurring surges on their opponents or you.  Since none of the connections between these actions and results can be proven, it is a perfect and convenient political argument.

And if you won’t march to their demands, they will try to shame you into it.  They will say that if you don’t wear a mask, etc, you want people to die, particularly children.  This is a lazy, despicable, divisive claim.  First, it suggests that infection with Covid-19 is a death sentence when we all know that 99.8% of people who contract this disease will survive.  And the survival rate is even higher for children.  While children aged 17 and under represent approximately 25% of the US population, they represent only .06% of our deaths (that's only 354 out of 610,000 total Covid deaths).  In fact, the seasonal flu is usually deadlier for children than Covid-19, but I don’t remember mask mandates in our schools for that.  The shame offensive is a shame in and of itself.  Life is full of risks.  We could bubble-wrap our kids and put them in padded rooms from birth, but even that wouldn’t guarantee this virus would not find its way into their bodies.  We need to allow people to manage life’s risks as they see fit, not as our bloated, inept, corrupt government suggests.

We need to ignore the political fearmongers.  They are no more in control of this virus than they are in control of the sun, although they will try to convince you that they are.  We need to be independent, responsible adults who can do their own risk assessments and live our lives without the heavy hand of a power-hungry government that will force its will upon us.  You certainly should wash your hands frequently and stay home from work if you have symptoms.  If you want to wear a mask, go ahead, although I personally think that most masks don’t work.  I encourage all to get the vaccine, but that is a personal decision.  If you have already had Covid-19 and recovered there is little evidence that the shots will improve your resistance.  All of this, however, is really just tinkering around the edges of this virus.  It has already proven that IT will have its way despite our best efforts, and we certainly shouldn’t be creating new ones in labs with less safety protocols than your local Subway sandwich shop.

Remember the famous despotic, autocratic, Marxist motto, “don’t let a good crisis go to waste”.  In other words, power-hungry politicians will take advantage of this and every challenge we face to take away our freedom and money with a promise of utopia, which will never come.  Resist the urge to give up your liberty at all costs.  That freedom is what has made this country the best in the world and without it we will experience a descent into poverty, chaos and strife like all of the promised utopias of the past – Russia, Cuba, China, Venezuela, and so on.