Thursday, March 19, 2020
To: Friends & Supporters
From: Gary Bauer
A Useful Reminder
Many of us are going through some version of a quarantine. But, as we all know, God is not quarantined. Wherever there is pain, suffering, anxiety, and death, God is there.
While you may have a hard time finding hand sanitizer, nobody can stop you from seeking the comfort, love and grace of our Father in Heaven.
We're At War
President Trump, Vice President Pence and their entire team continue to work tirelessly to fight this medical and financial crisis. It is in its own way a "war."
In fact, Donald Trump has embraced the phrase "wartime president," and invoked additional emergency powers yesterday. No doubt he will be judged in November based in large part on how this all comes out.
David Axelrod actually fretted on CNN that if Trump continues to take charge, he could get reelected. What a world we live in when political insiders, as people are dying, worry that it might help their political enemies.
The Pentagon announced that the Navy hospital ships Comfort and Mercy are being deployed to New York City and to the West Coast respectively. These ships have been used many times to assist other nations in times of crisis, but they are going to be desperately needed now to help us get through this crisis.
The Pentagon is also preparing to deploy field hospitals as necessary.
GM and Ford are exploring ways they can help with the production of medical supplies.
The Federal Reserve is taking additional steps to calm frantic financial markets. The European Central Bank made its own announcement about funds it is committing to calm markets there.
The Good, The Bad & The Ugly
It has often been said that a crisis will bring out the best and the worst in people. That old adage is being proven correct every day.
I have seen many stories of Americans rising to the occasion. For example, New York City has asked retired doctors and nurses to come out of retirement. Within 24 hours, at least 1,000 had stepped up, knowing full well the risks they face should they be infected.
Churches and faith leaders are stepping up too, helping to disseminate critical information, running food banks and turning parking lots into mobile testing locations. Disney, which closed its famed theme parks in California and Florida, is donating surplus food to local food banks.
Sadly, some have tried to financially exploit the situation, for example, by selling hand sanitizer for $70 a bottle. (They did the right thing after state authorities and private companies cracked down.)
Attorney General William Barr has ordered U.S. attorneys to aggressively prosecute cases against anyone attempting to exploit the crisis through fraud and illegal price gouging.
Then there are those people who are just blinded by hate. A guy named Rick Wilson is one such example.
Wilson has been a Republican political operative closely associated with John McCain. He's now running something called the Lincoln Project, a gang of Never Trumpers who think they are going to take back the Republican Party after Donald Trump leaves office.
When the White House announced that the first lady would be doing public service announcements regarding the coronavirus, Wilson tweeted, "#BeInfected." Beyond disgusting.
Meanwhile, the mayor of Baltimore, where the murder rate has been sky-high in recent years, is publicly begging gangs to stop shooting one another. The city needs the hospital beds being used for wounded gang members to be freed up for coronavirus patients.
I give the mayor an A for effort, but I suspect it is going to take a lot more to turn these thugs into good citizens.
Media Malfeasance
If the media would stop its crusade to save communist China's reputation by criticizing the president every time he refers to the "Chinese coronavirus," there is something that it could do that is desperately needed. That is to report the statistics that are good news about the virus.
Unfortunately, the media rarely report the most encouraging thing: The recovery rate. Ninety-eight percent of people infected will recover. Johns Hopkins University and others are tracking that statistic.
You can see for yourself the proof of this because a number of celebrities have contracted it and none of them have died. Tom Hanks and his wife got it in Australia. It was big news when they were hospitalized. They were released after just a few days, sent home to self-quarantine.
Help & Accountability
Kudos to Senator Josh Hawley! As Congress debates ways to help American companies damaged by the crisis, he tweeted this:
"To any multinational corporations that come to Congress asking for taxpayer $$$, you better come prepared to explain how you will move supply chains and jobs back to America if you want my vote."
It's important to realize that financial aid to American companies is really meant to help American workers. But for companies that have moved factories to China, perhaps the help should have strings attached.
For example, perhaps they should be required to repay the money to the Treasury over the next few years if they don't return factories and jobs to the United States.
Boeing is a wonderful American company at risk of going bankrupt. We cannot allow the major American manufacturer of aircraft to go under.
But I remember how infuriating it was many years ago when some of us raised questions about Boeing's enthusiasm for doing business with communist China knowing how China steals our technology.
A top executive at the time rejected that criticism and embraced globalism, essentially saying, "When we ship a new aircraft to China, we feel like we're sending it home."
What?! I understand that many American companies do business all around the world. But America is their home, and their loyalty should be to American workers and American taxpayers.
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