Clichés for the age of the coronavirus

I'm getting sick, sore and tired -- aren't you -- of hearing Governor Cuomo preach to us about the horrors of the corona virus. (There are others of course, like the Prime Minister of Canuckistan, but Mr Cuomo annoys me most.) He spouts one cliché after another about how we're all in this "crisis" together, and about how he must have more money and power, all the while giving out the veriest bullshit about the imminent apocalypse.

I've got to the point of tuning out. I have developed self-control sufficient to prevent me from turning on the idiot's lantern at all. [With no hockey being played, why would you need to? Poor Len, filling in for Ed. who is self-isolating.] In case you, dear reader, can't resist tuning in to see if there's any other news [There isn't. Poor Len], let me list for you the clichés you will certainly hear, so you can "skim-listen", as it were. What follows is taken, with a few minor adaptations, from

The Myles na gCopaleen Catchism of Clichés

by Flann O'Brien

What, as to the quality of solidity, imperviousness, and firmness, are facts?
Hard.
And as to temperature?
Cold.
To what do hard facts belong?
The situation.
And to what does a cold fact belong?
The matter.
What should the cold, hard facts not be allowed to get in the way of?
A good story.
What, then, must we do to the hard facts of the situation?
Face up to them.
And what does a cold fact frequently still do?
Remain.
And what is notoriously useless as a means of altering the hard facts of the situation?
All the talk in the world.
If a thing is fraught, with what is it fraught?
The gravest consequences.
What downward cooking operation does it engage in when coming to the same thing?
It boils down.
When?
In the end.
What is that?
About the size of it.

VIDEO: About the corona virus, can we PLEASE calm down?

I haven't written much about the corona virus pandemic, because I suspect most of you are, if not sick with the disease itself, sick of reading about it. Yes, there is a pandemic that is sweeping the world. Yes, people are dying in the 1000s. This may indeed be the Great Chastisement which Our Lady of Fatima foretold, but let's not get all apocalyptic about it. We... well, our ancestors... have been through this before, 102 years ago and, more recently, in 2009.

For those who don't remember, the 1918 Spanish flu was an unusually deadly influenza pandemic. Lasting from January 1918 to December 1920, it infected 500 million people -- about a quarter of the world's population at the time.

The death toll is estimated to have been anywhere from 17 million to 50 million, possibly as high as 100 million, making it one of the deadliest pandemics in human history.

Most influenza outbreaks disproportionately kill the very young and the very old, with a higher survival rate for those in between, but the Spanish flu pandemic resulted in a higher than expected mortality rate for young adults.

A 2007 analysis of medical journals from the period found that the viral infection was no more aggressive than previous influenza strains. Instead, malnourishment, overcrowded medical camps and hospitals, and poor hygiene promoted bacterial superinfection. That would explain why the incidence of the corona virus is greater -- and more deadly -- in nursing homes and other facilities where large numbers of already sick people are crowded together.

The Spanish flu was the first of two pandemics caused by the H1N1 influenza virus. The second was the swine flu -- an influenza pandemic that lasted from January 2009 to August 2010. First described in April 2009, the virus appeared to be a new strain of H1N1, which resulted from a previous triple reassortment of bird, swine, and human flu viruses further combined with a Eurasian pig flu virus, thus the term "swine flu".

Some studies estimated that 11 to 21 percent of the global population at the time -- around 700 million to 1.4 billion people -- contracted the illness. This was more than the number of people infected by the Spanish flu pandemic, but only resulted in about 150,000 to 575,000 fatalities -- a lower death rate.  A follow-up study done in September 2010 showed that the risk of serious illness resulting from the 2009 H1N1 flu was no higher than that of the yearly seasonal flu. The WHO estimates that 250,000 to 500,000 people die of seasonal flu annually.

With all the hair-on-fire, we're-all-going-to-die coverage circulating, Still-President Trump's son, "Don Jr.", took to Twitter on Friday with a perfect video to set the record straight. "Every American needs to know this," he wrote. "You won't hear it on CNN. They are only playing bad news."
In the clip from Thursday's White House corona virus task force news briefing, response coordinator Dr Deborah Birx sets the record straight about the supposed shortage of hospital equipment. Check it out.



Dr Birx contradicted the fake news of dire shortages in New York state and explained that the country is nowhere near implementing drastic measures. "There are still ICU beds remaining and there's still significant -- over 1000 or 2000 -- ventilators that have not been utilized yet", she said.

She implored the media and others spreading falsehoods about hospitals being forced to issue "DNR" ("do not resuscitate") orders for patients due to a lack of equipment to cease and desist, saying, "There is no situation in the United States right now that warrants that kind of discussion. To make the implication that when they need a hospital bed, it's not going to be there, or when they need that ventilator, it's not going to be there -- we don't have evidence of that right now."

As the good doctor said, just because cities such as New York may be short on ventilators in reserve doesn't mean there won't be enough if and when the time comes. As she stated, "There are other parts of the states that have lots of ventilators and other parts of New York State that don't have any infections right now. So we can be creative. We can meet the need by being responsive."

Dr Birx is right. State leaders such as NY Governor Cuomo are responsible for figuring out how to shift resources already in their state to meet changing needs. The federal government is only there to provide the next level of assistance. And think about this... The states where the outbreak is most serious, whose governors are hollering loudest for federal government help -- NY, WA, CA, IL, MI -- are all run by Democrats. Think about it.

Further reading:
"Israeli doctor in Italy says new, innovative treatments 'flattening the curve'", Times of Israel, 29/3/20. You probably won't see this in the lamestream news. It defeats the planned hysteria. Thanks to Agent 35 for the link.
"Saint Corona - Patron against plague and epidemics", WWW 24/3/20.

VIDEO: Wuhan woman risks life to complain about Communists

Agent 35, bless her, has passed along an interesting video posted on social media (such as it is) in China but a woman from Wuhan -- the original focal point of the corona virus -- who is fed up with... well... everything in general and the Communist Party of China in particular. The woman has since disappeared!



Agent 35 writes:
The woman's comment about TV holds true in our country too. When I was growing up, I used to hear TV referred to as the "idiot box" or "boob tube", which I thought was a comment on its frivolity. Today the two labels are still true, but more insidious is its new use as a propaganda source found throughout our homes in various rooms and even in our pockets.
This woman is imprisoned in the type of society the Left envisions as Utopia for us.

Saint Corona - Patron against plague and epidemics

It has been said, only partly in jest, that the Catholic Church has a saint for everything. There are many, however, who are little known... very little known... like the Patron against plagues and epidemics. Her name is Saint Corona, and no, that's not a joke. We are grateful to the fathers at Traditio.com for telling us the following....

The Coronavirus that is at the center of the current pandemic is named after the Latin corona, meaning a crown. The virus's appearance under an electron microscope resembles the spikes of a crown. The virus has nothing to do with the noted Mexican brand of beer, which also is apparently taken from the Latin word.

Saint Corona is considered the Patron Saint against Plague and Epidemics. Her relics have been preserved in the Basilica in the town of Feltre in Northern Italy since the ninth century. St. Corona was only fifteen when she professed her Christian Faith during the persecution of Marcus Aurelius around 165, an emperor who otherwise was one of Rome's most charitable.

Although the records differ in some points of detail, Corona seems to have been arrested in Syria and tied by her feet to the tops of two palm trees, which were then bent to the ground. When the palms were let loose, she was torn apart. Her feastday is May 14.

There is a traditional Catholic litany, the Litaniae in Tempore Pestis (Litany in Time of Plague), which ends with the following prayer, in which all Catholics around the world can join in our own time of plague:

Da nobis, quæsumus, Dómine, piæ petitiónis efféctum : et pestiléntiam mortalitatémque propitiátus avérte. Per Christum Dóminum nostrum. Amen.
(Grant us, we beseech Thee, O Lord, the fulfillment of our pious prayer: and propitiously avert the pestilence and death. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.)

VIDEO: The Remnant's Michael Matt analyses the panic attack

Having heard... or read... Joan Swirsky's opinion that the pandemic (or dempanic!) isn't that big a deal, it's time to hear another voice saying that we shouldn't get our hair all on fire. [Not a problem for you! Ed.] Here's Michael Matt, editor of The Remnant newspaper.

As the death rate continues to flatten and decline, Mr Matt looks for the silver lining in perhaps the most bizarre global crisis in a hundred years. Is this a win for the globalists, or have they jumped the shark?

VIDEO: Musical advice for the PAN-DEMIC... or DEM-PANIC?

As long as you're sitting there with time on your hands, check out "Is This a PANDEMIC or a DEMPANIC?", below.

A big smile from behind the mask to Agent 9, who is not making public appearances for the duration.

Is This a PANDEMIC or a DEMPANIC?

Ed. here. We rarely repost anything very lengthy, but since you're likely sitting at home with not much to do (thank you, corona virus!), we take pleasure in submitting, for your edification, "Is This a PANDEMIC or a DEMPANIC?", by Joan Swirsky, which originally appeared on March 21st in The Post & Email. Read it and learn who's really responsible for everyone in the Excited States of America (except The Smartest Guy in the Room) having their hair on fire.

Now that we’re in a de facto Martial Law mode -- a shutdown of entire industries and small businesses, nighttime curfews, social isolation, a run on goods, huge sports events cancelled, a “shelter-in-place” mandate in California, releasing prisoners in New York (God forbid these miscreants get a flu!), Broadway gone dark, and a craven media inciting and delighting in the panic they’re causing, it is relevant to ask:

Are the powers-that-be withholding information about a deadly germ-warfare attack on the entire world, started by an aggrieved Chinese Communist nation that was perfectly happy with the Bush1 and Clinton1&2 and Bush1&2 and Obama1&2 regimes that kowtowed to their outrageous demands and unfair trade deals but is now existentially threatened because a Patriot President expects more equitable deals?

Isn't it both alarmist and immoral, as reported in American Thinker by Andrea Widburg, that the fake-news media have never told the American people that the scary statistics from Italy are the result of Italy's recent Silk Road Project agreement with China, which resulted in more than 300,000 Chinese workers entering Italy?

Is it just one of those strange coincidences that one of the four richest men in the world, the uber-leftist and population-control fetishist Bill Gates -- just weeks after the corona virus hit in January -- stepped down from the Microsoft giant he founded in 1975, and just weeks earlier, in December, sponsored a "fictional" simulation of such a corona virus catastrophic event which spread wildly and caused 65 million deaths worldwide? Just asking.

What are the powers-that-be not telling us? The worldwide population is nearing eight billion. America has between 330-370 million people (the last 40 mil being illegals). Every day in America, 130 Americans die from an opioid overdose, 102 people from car accidents, and 2500 from heart attacks. And yet, so far in America, 19,000 people have contracted the corona virus and 256 have died from it. Got that? Over 330-million people; 256 deaths. The swine flu of 10 years ago caused 60.8 million illnesses, and 12,469 deaths.

Or is this yet another hysterical, sky-is-falling anxiety attack by the hand-wringing left designed to convince the American public that either Communist Bernie Sanders or a clinically cognitively-diminished Joe Biden -- both inveterate tax-and-spend liberals -- would be just the man to help America recover from this traumatic event and revive the stock market they both revile?

Of course, neither one of these Big Government hacks would be capable of such a feat. Thank God for the cool, calm, collected and seasoned business mogul, President Donald J. Trump, who is guiding us through the corona virus scare with decisive action and great success -- with no less than 56 bold initiatives -- and who not only brought us the greatest economy and employment record in the 243-year history of our country, but will revive it when this virus scare passes into history -- shortly, I predict!

WHERE ARE WE NOW?
A crazed, out-of-ammunition Democrat Party,
A doddering presumptive Democrat presidential candidate,
A deranged leftist media, furious at their low and devolving ratings,
Socialist/Communist/Islamicized Europeans,
Huge investors in the Globalist economy,
Angry Chinese leadership,
Failed Trump saboteurs Michael Avenatti (now in jail), Michael Cohen (now in prison), Anthony Scaramucci (now in nowheresville),
The Russian-collusion hoaxers of Obama’s FBI, CIA, State, Homeland Security, et al.
The exposed liars in the Ukraine phone-call hoax,
The losers of the crashing failure known as the impeachment hoax,
The cringe-producing sore-loser Hillary Clinton, who "lost|" $6-billion dollars when she was Secretary of State, and presided over the tragic loss of American lives in the Benghazi catastrophe––and then lied about it!
These are just a few of the forces who have been working overtime for the past four years to sabotage, undermine, and ultimately destroy both candidate and then President Trump, the man who single-handedly exposed:

The Left’s seditious and I believe traitorous anti-American agenda and behavior,
The criminality they’ve engaged in for decades with absolute impunity,
The gouging of the United States’ economy for their own ideological and personal benefit, extorting billions that was laundered and stuffed into their own pockets,
Their devoted allegiance to colossal hoaxes like Global Warming,
Their abject neglect of blacks in education and where ignorance leads––ta da––prison,
Their seething contempt if not downright hatred of the United States of America.

And yet, with all their impressive advanced college degrees, fancy credentials, exalted titles, tenure-for-life government jobs, social-media collaboration with leftist Google, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, et al, and the flagrant abuse-of-power they’ve gotten away with -- but not for long! -- such as illegal FISA warrants, lying witnesses, shadow-banning, rigging elections, the list goes on…they still could not bring down THE. SMARTEST. GUY.IN.THE.ROOM.

TEARING THEIR HAIR OUT
Now, almost eight months from a presidential election, all of these forces are desperate, anguished, just-about suicidal with frustration. What can we do, they are asking themselves, to stop President Trump from winning a second term and then crushing for all time the remaining malignant remnants of the leftist agenda?

While none of them are smart enough to have created the corona virus threat, they secretly celebrated the fact that this crisis would prevent the president from conducting his two or three rallies a week around the country, where upwards of 50,000-75,000 people line up for days on end to applaud and support their president.

Well, they got their wish. Now he is on TV every single day, showing the entire country (and world) what genuinely strong and effective leadership is all about -- which is why his approval ratings are skyrocketing!

Undaunted, the frantic left is spending untold billions, not to help the deserving people affected adversely by the corona virus, but, as Daniel Greenfield documents exhaustively, “to smear President Trump and undermine the administration. How patriotic of them.”

Greenfield cites the SuperPac which leftist billionaires  -- Hollywood producer Jeffrey Katzenberg, financier George Soros, the list is long––are using to attack President Trump over the corona virus. Many if not all of them are more successful and savvy than most people in the world––but I repeat, none of them a match for THE. SMARTEST. GUY.IN.THE.ROOM!

WHERE ELSE THE OPPOSITION COMES FROM
Three years ago, I wrote an article called “The Hate-America Death Squads” in which I described the forces we are witnessing today, all of whom exult when America has trouble.

DEATH SQUAD #1 is the Cloward-Piven Strategy, begun in 1966 and flourishing to this day. In short, the founders of this plan, from Columbia Univ., loathed America and insisted that capitalism could be collapsed by overloading the government with financial demands that could not be met. They also formed voter-fraud schemes like Project Vote, ACORN, etc, still extant only with different names. And (surprise, surprise) ACORN’s lawyer was none other than Barack Obama. Birds of a feather, and all that.

DEATH SQUAD #2 Saul Alinsky, a community organizer from Chicago, wrote the bible for hate-America leftists: Rules for Radicals. Hillary Clinton wrote her Wellesley thesis about Alinsky and remained close friends with him years after she graduated, and Barack Obama became a community organizer in the Alinsky mode. Both of them shared Alinsky’s real goal -- to destroy capitalist America and turn it into the socialist-cum-communist regime they preferred.

DEATH SQUAD #3 is and was the leftwing media -- or what Dr. Drew Pinsky calls “the corrupt, uninformed, morally reprehensible American press -- notorious for skewing the “news” in a Marxist direction. Remember, most media anchors and news readers take their marching orders directly from bosses who are extremely invested in the global economy and not in President Trump’s economy, which has brought millions of jobs and manufacturing and profits back to the United States in order to Make America Great Again and Keep America Great!

DEATH SQUAD #4 is the Muslim Brotherhood which seeks the downfall of America, a phenomenon writer Linda Goudsmit explains in explicit and exquisite detail: “Islam is an expansionist socio-political movement with a religious wing created 1400 years ago.” Then and now, Islam “seeks world dominion  -- the establishment of a worldwide Islamic caliphate ruled by Islamic sharia law,” which is incompatible and anathema to American law and the U.S. Constitution.

DEATH SQUAD #5 is comprised of leftwing billionaires, mentioned above, who fund the hate-America groups like Occupy Wall St., Antifa, et al, as well as the politicians who have brought us Sanctuary Cities, no-bail laws, and attempts to rob Americans of their First Amendment right of Free Speech, Second Amendment right to bear arms, the power of capitalism to lift all boats, and belief in God.

THE GOOD NEWS
Medications to treat the corona virus are now being discussed, as Scott Johnson from Powerline reports; among them is the anti-malaria drug, chloroquine. The Israeli pharmaceutical company Teva is donating six-million doses of the medication to U.S. hospitals starting March 31st, and by the end of April 10 million will be shipped.

President Trump has asked the Food and Drug Administration if it can expand the use of the drug as an experimental treatment for coronavirus patients. A related article in Gateway Pundit reported that a chloroquine study showed a 100% cure rate for patients infected with the corona virus.

And just as I’m writing this article, an explosive article is broadcast reporting that three international studies from China, Australia and France show that chloroquine with the antibiotic azithromycin shows 100% success in treating corona virus in six days!

The ridiculous ban on plastic grocery bags is being temporarily lifted because, as John Tierney reports, the reusable tote bags "that politicians and environmentalists have been so eager to impose on the public…can sustain the COVID-19 and flu viruses…[a fact] that was clearly demonstrated in a 2018 study published in the Journal of Environmental Health."

Nobel laureate Michael Levitt, an American-British-Israeli biophysicist who teaches structural biology at Stanford University…offered the public reassurance during the peak of China’s coronavirus (Covid-19) outbreak. "Levitt did not discover a treatment or a cure…he crunched the numbers" and predicted that the spread of the virus would come to a halt." His forecasts turned out to be correct: the number of new cases reported each day started to fall as of February 7th. A week later, the mortality rate started falling as well."

All this is devastating to Democrats, but there is a solution. Simply plaster this poster in every newspaper and all over the Internet and watch how quickly the corona virus scare vanishes into thin air!

Thanks to Agent 6 for pointing us in the RIGHT direction!