Guest Post by Kurt Schlichter
I have always lived my life around a simple principle, “Don’t eat weird stuff.” And see? I was right. The Coronavirus ripping through the Wuhan region of Red China – and that has now spread here – may well have crossed over to our species because some people in China eat bats. Yeah, on purpose. How the hell did they ever get the idea that dining on Dracula birds was a good plan?
It doesn’t matter – what does is our response, and right now the Administration is behind the power curve. With attention fixed on the circle of self-abuse that is the impeachment, it’s difficult to get a grip on this extremely dangerous situation. But the White House must do so, and fast.
I am not qualified to talk in detail about the proper strategies and tactics of responding to the virus’s spread into our country – I did nuclear, chemical, and biological stuff in the Army, but this is outside my skill set. Luckily, we have scientists who know how. What I do know is a little bit about communicating and leading, and a lot about disaster response, including commanding in the midst of civil crises. And the Administration risks dropping the ball.
This could be Trump’s Katrina, as Hugh Hewitt, who was way ahead of everyone else in the media on this potential nightmare, has pointed out. Understand this, and you probably don’t know because our media is garbage and most media people know nothing, but the federal disaster response to Katrina was amazing. Huge numbers of personnel and vast quantities of supplies poured into the stricken area in an incredibly short time. The incompetence came from – shocker – the Democrat leadership locally, but the media hung it around George W. Bush’s gentlemanly neck. And because he was too gentlemanly to cry “Bull Schiff!,” most everyone thinks what was a logistical miracle was a clusterfark.
The media is aching, yearning, begging for the chance to do the same thing to Trump.
And the stage is being set to do that. China is going nuts. The numbers of cases coming into the U.S. are growing. People are confused. The stock market is pitching and heaving. And the impeachment circus is going to end with the Democrats’ humiliation soon, meaning suddenly the media will soon need a new shiny object to chase.
Coronavirus is that shiny object. The media will not be honest or accurate or fair. It will lie, cheat, and give voice to leftist leakers with agendas. That’s why Trump needs to go around the media, straight to us.
Trump needs to go on the air, to the American people, and lay out the situation. Then Team Trump needs to step up the game by arm-twisting the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) into talking to us, at length, in detail. Get those science nerds in their lab coats out there, in front of the camera, every day, bombarding us with info. Talk our ears off.
The current lack of information is an invitation for the void to be filled with nonsense and lies designed to undermine the presidency – sadly, the media cares nothing about the infection risk and everything about its weird obsession with undoing the 2016 election. There is already a plan – the CDC is on this – but that plan has not been communicated to the people. The people are worried – they’ll be very, very worried when the media pumps up the threat.
If the president assures the citizenry that he understands this is a priority and that he is vectoring in America’s best scientists to respond, that not only foils the cheesy partisan political attack that is coming. It helps the actual defeat of this potential epidemic. Instead of inspiring panic, the presentation of the Administration as having this crisis well in hand will serve to calm fears as well as tell people what to do.
Do you know what you should do? I’m not sure I do. And the information has been so sketchy that right now most of us don’t know the Coronavirus from the Dos Equis virus, the most interesting flu in the world.
Pummel the people with information. Make those eggheads do briefings every day. Get a soothing one who can communicate to be the face of the CDC. And Hugh Hewitt has another good point – no one is telling us how the disease got here, what flights, what airports. Get that out there. People want to know if a carrier was in their mall or school or whatever. And explain why the hell you can still gobble a bat, jump on a plane, and fly to America? Why haven’t we limited or banned flights? Are we screening passengers? How? We need to know.
Trust us with the information and we will trust the Administration.
This is not just a public health crisis – it’s a political fight too. Sorry, but that’s the truth, and Trump is under no obligation to allow himself to be lied about as W. was. Luckily, though, Trump is a master communicator – plus, he’ll fight back.
And stop eating bats, people.
There’s a really ugly potential pandemic in my novel Wildfire. America has split into red and blue halves, and all sorts of stuff happens – including gratuitous liberal mockery. The newest novel is Collapse, but also check it out along with the other entries in the series, People’s Republic, and Indian Country. You’ll love the books, which Bill Kristol hailed as “appalling.”
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The bat thing? Really?
When Trump made an attempt to secure our border from invasion do you recall what the courts did?
You think that they would behave any differently now when it’s Chinese?
Please.
The CDC is another NASA, a money laundering operation for the people that run things. They couldn’t handle a case of the fantods if they put the full force of the entire agency behind it.
This is either real- in which case the government has been running a full court press to infect all Americans from day one, or it’s not and it will be replaced by another distraction when the attention span of the market starts to wane.
Pretending that our overlords care what happens to the average American is a fool’s game.
Since when is a President bound by some district court schmuck? Trump has made no serious attempt to secure our border. Agree with everything else.
You’re full of shit.
Steps have been taken to secure the southern border.
It’s a work in progress that will take time, besides all the other garbage he’s trying to address.
Another ‘Trumpster’ with “he can do no wrong.” He did nothing about the border the first 2 years of his presidency when he had both houses of Congress. He did nothing about the wall during the lame duck congress when in January, Pelosi would have the gavel again. He waits until he loses the House and then asks for money. Really?
Candidate Trump says the stock market is a propped up bubble near popping — CORRECT
POTUS Trump now claims victory that the stock market continues to go up because of him.
Candidate Trump says our national debt is a security risk and one he is going to bring down – CORRECT
POTUS Trump has expanded the debt even more than his predecessor, Oblahblah..
Funny, I didn’t see you shitting all over the on the ground reporting post about Wildwood.
Trumpster.
Another label, that carries with it the flawed belief that it accurately & completely defines someone pledging blind allegiance to the one imperfect ballsy bastard trying to clean up the multiple shitty messes that others made before him.
Got somebody better who will satisfy your criteria?
Drop a duece in your own barley and hops mix, Milwaukee.
Put a face on it. The backstabbing RINO Never Trumper FUQUE-Paul Ryan. That/he is why nothing could get done. Political sabotage from the Romney/Weekly Standard/National Review/GOPe den of vipers.
I think they suicided what good people they had at the CDC.
Apparently the author didn’t read the alt-market babble like the rest of the sycophants.
It’s not bats, it’s the jews.
No kneegrows involved either.
Oh, and Hugh Hewitt is a boob.
But the White House must do so, and fast…. like they would care to…..
I agree on most of the points that Kurt has suggested. However, he should read Brandon Smith’s article on the possible cause of the virus.
Russia says the new coronavirus can be fought with ribavirin, lopinavir/ritonavir and interferon beta-1b. Maybe Trump should follow their lead, along with closing borders.
The Lancet has reported on a January 2020 study of 2019-nCoV in Wuhan…
“No antiviral treatment for coronavirus infection has been proven to be effective. In a historical control study,31 the combination of lopinavir and ritonavir among SARS-CoV patients was associated with substantial clinical benefit (fewer adverse clinical outcomes). Arabi and colleagues initiated a placebo-controlled trial of interferon beta-1b, lopinavir, and ritonavir among patients with MERS infection in Saudi Arabia.32 Preclinical evidence showed the potent efficacy of remdesivir (a broad-spectrum antiviral nucleotide prodrug) to treat MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV infections.33, 34 As 2019-nCoV is an emerging virus, an effective treatment has not been developed for disease resulting from this virus. Since the combination of lopinavir and ritonavir was already available in the designated hospital, a randomised controlled trial has been initiated quickly to assess the efficacy and safety of combined use of lopinavir and ritonavir in patients hospitalised with 2019-nCoV infection.”
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30183-5/fulltext
The quote above is from p8 of the downloadable PDF version of that Lancet study.
https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0140-6736%2820%2930183-5
So it sounds like those antivirals had been effective against SARS and MERS and are being tried against 2019-nCoV. Perhaps Russia knows more.
PS… that study has lots of interesting preliminary facts for those with the energy to plow through. From p5 of the PDF: “As of Jan 22, 2020, 28 (68%) of 41 patients have been discharged and six (15%) patients have died.”
Oh! Look over there look over there.
Bullshit.
Trump’s Katrina moment might be Assange or Soleiman -depending on how much residual ethics still exist in the US population-, but not this.
Idiotic beyond belief.
A disease started in China – a country whom Trump has been confronting left and right – is supposed to hurt him?
This author has just destroyed all his credibility. Period.
schlichter is a rabid yay-gov thumper who grows more delusional by the day. i’ve read some dumb articles from him in the past, but this is the dumbest yet.
There was a really good segment on CNBC’s Squawk Box this morning with the guest telling the round table that Coronavirus is not a lethal as SARS, but it is spreading quicker. He says the US is in a much better position to stop it, than China.
In other words, it is just moar Doom Porn for the media to exploit, making the public cower.