Recorded on June 18, 2020 Dr. Scott Atlas is the Robert Wesson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, an accomplished physician, and a scholar of public health. For several weeks, Dr. Atlas has been making the case in print and in other media that we as a society have overreacted in imposing draconian restrictions on movement, gatherings, schools, sports, and other activities. He is not a COVID-19 denier—he believes the virus is a real threat and should be managed as such. But, as Dr. Atlas argues, there are some age groups and activities that are subject to very low risk. The one-size-fits-all approach we are currently using is overly authoritarian, inefficient, and not based in science. Dr. Atlas’s prescription includes more protection for people in nursing homes, two weeks of strict self-isolation for those with mild symptoms, and most importantly, the opening of all K–12 schools. The latter recommendation is vital for restarting and maintaining the economy so that parents are not housebound trying to work and educate their children. Dr. Atlas is also adamant that an economic shutdown, and all of the attendant issues that go along with it, is a terrible solution—the cure is worse than the disease. Finally, Dr. Atlas reveals some steps he’s taken in his own life to try to get things back to normal. For further information: https://www.hoover.org/publications/u…
In this week’s episode, Larry looks back at Trump’s past when he was loved by Democrats for his position on race relations. He also compares Trump’s position on immigration to that of past statements from Democrats, citing their similarities before the party’s switch on the issue. Larry also looks into just how well blacks have prospered economically under both Obama and Trump as well as comparing race relations were under both presidents. －
By James D. Agresti
March 31, 2020
Updated 6/27/20
Given the spread of misinformation about Covid-19, Just Facts is providing a trove of rigorously documented facts about this disease and its impacts. These include some vital facts that have been absent or misreported in much of the media’s coverage of this issue.
This research also includes a groundbreaking study to determine the lethality of Covid-19 based on the most comprehensive available measure: the total years of life that it will rob from all people. This accords with the CDC’s tenet that “the allocation of health resources must consider not only the number of deaths by cause but also” the “years of potential life lost.”
The CDC emphasizes that the Covid-19 pandemic “is a rapidly evolving situation,” and as such, the emboldened figures in this article will be updated each weekday as the CDC publishes new data.
On one hand, the facts show that:
the death rate for people who contract Covid-19 is uncertain but is probably closer to that of the seasonal flu than figures commonly reported by the press.
the average years of life lost from each Covid-19 death are significantly fewer than from common causes of untimely death like accidents and suicides.
the virus that causes Covid-19 is “very vulnerable to antibody neutralization” and has limited ability to mutate, which means it is very unlikely to take masses of lives year after year like the flu and other recurring scourges.
if 240,000 Covid-19 deaths ultimately occur in the United States, the virus will rob about 2.9 million years of life from all Americans who were alive at the outset of 2020, while the flu will rob them of about 35 million years, suicides will rob them of 132 million years, and accidents will rob them of 409 million years.
On the other hand, elderly people and those with chronic ailments are extremely vulnerable to Covid-19. Furthermore, the disease is highly transmissible, which means it could spread like wildfire and overwhelm hospitals without extraordinary measures to contain it. This would greatly increase its death toll.
However, such precautionary measures often have economic and other impacts that can cost lives, and overreacting can ultimately kill more people than are saved.
Likelihood of Exposure
Per the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a total of 2,459,472 people in the United States have been diagnosed with Covid-19 as of 4:00 PM EST on June 26, 2020. The U.S. population is 330 million people, which means that one out of every 134 people has been diagnosed with Covid-19. The disease is not equally dispersed throughout the nation, so this figure is much higher in some areas and much lower in others.
Reported cases don’t include people who may have Covid-19 but have not yet been diagnosed. Because its incubation periodis 2–14 days, the number of people who have been infected could substantially exceed the number who have been diagnosed.
Also, the vast majority of people who contract Covid-19 experience only mild or no symptoms, and many of them may never be diagnosed. This means that the count of reported cases further understates the actual number of people who have been infected. A February 2020 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association based on data from China found that 81% of reported Covid-19 cases are “mild.” The true portion of such cases is even higher than this, for as the paper explains, there are “inherent difficulties in identifying and counting mild and asymptomatic cases.”
A rare case in which asymptomatic cases can be counted is the Diamond Princess cruise ship, since all passengers were tested for Covid-19. Among those who tested positive, 51% didn’t have symptoms when they were tested. The number of these people who later developed symptoms is currently unavailable.
In another such rare case, the New England Journal of Medicinereported in mid-April that universal Covid-19 testing of pregnant women at two New York City hospitals found that 88% of the women who tested positive for the disease were asymptomatic.
Conversely, the number of people who have ever been infected may greatly exceed the number who are still infected. Growing numbers of people who were once diagnosed with Covid-19 have recovered, and the count of those who were unknowingly infected and had fast recoveries could be enormous. A March 2020 paper in the journal Microbes and Infection notes that “most infected individuals … appear to be able to recover with little to no medical intervention.”
Moreover, a March 2020 paper in the Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal states: “Preliminary evidence suggests children are just as likely as adults” to contract Covid-19, but they are “less likely to be symptomatic,” and even those with diagnosed infections typically “recover 1–2 weeks after the onset of symptoms.”
The upshot of all this is that the number of people who are actively infected and contagious is lower than the total of reported and undiagnosed cases.
A March 2020 paper in the journal Science condenses the factors above into a single number. It estimates that 86% of all Covid-19 infections in Wuhan, China “were undocumented” before the government implemented travel restrictions. This means that the number of people who were infected was six times the number of documented infections. This figure declines as social distancing measures are adopted and as diagnoses and recoveries rise as time passes.
Under that worst-case scenario from Wuhan, if the number of people with contagious Covid-19 infections in the U.S. is actually six times the number of people who have been diagnosed with it, the average American would have to come in contact with 22 people to be exposed to one person who has it.
Numbers of Deaths
According to the CDC’s counts of “confirmed and probable” fatalities from Covid-19, a total of 124,976 U.S. residents have died from the disease as of 4:00 PM on June 26, 2020. To put this figure in perspective:
Covid-19 has killed about one out of every 2,638 Americans, whereas one out of every 116 Americans die every year.
roughly 12,469 people in the U.S. died from the swine flu from April 12, 2009 to April 10, 2010. Unlike Covid-19, which mainly kills older people with preexisting health problems, 87% of people killed by the swine flu were under the age of 65.
In other words, deaths from Covid-19 are now 60.3% of the annual fatalities from the flu and accidents. Although Covid-19 is a new disease and took its first reported life in the U.S. during late February, this comparison may substantially overstate the relative deadliness of Covid-19 because fatalities from accidents and the flu occur in droves every year, and this is unlikely for Covid-19.
The primary reason why the flu takes tens of thousands of lives every year is because the viruses that cause it mutate in ways that prevent people from becoming immune to them. Per the Journal of Infectious Diseases, “All viruses mutate, but influenza remains highly unusual among infectious diseases” because it mutates very rapidly, and thus, “new vaccines are needed almost every year” to protect against it. While much remains to be seen about the mutations of the virus that causes Covid-19, the early indications are that it will not mutate rapidly and become an ongoing scourge.
As detailed in a March 2020 paper in a molecular biology journal that cites Michael Farzan, co-chair of the Department of Immunology and Microbiology at Scripps Research, once a vaccine for Covid-19 is developed, it “would not need regular updates, unlike seasonal influenza vaccines” because the part of the virus that the vaccine targets “is protected against mutation” by a feature of its genetic material, or RNA.
The same point applies to naturally acquired immunity. People who get Covid-19 develop natural antibodies that protect against future infections of it. The physiology textbook The Human Body in Health and Illness explains that such immunity, which is called “active immunity,” is “generally long lasting.” The same applies to diseases like measles, mumps, rubella, and polio. If someone contracts these diseases, they rarely get them again, and furthermore, they are very unlikely to transmit them to others. Thus, these people become firewalls against the spread of these contagions.
Media outlets like The Atlantic, Vox, and Forbes have turned the truth of this matter on its head by confusing the general nature of coronaviruses with that of Covid-19. The habit of calling Covid-19 “the coronavirus” can be very misleading because there are different types of coronaviruses, and Covid-19 is caused by just one of them. Coronaviruses are a family of RNA viruses that includes some common cold viruses. These viruses tend to mutate rapidly, but Covid-19 does not share that trait. Per the same March 2020 paper cited just above, the virus that causes Covid-19 “does not mutate rapidly for an RNA virus because, unusually for this category, it has a proof-reading function” in its genetics.
Likewise, a February 19th editorial in the British Medical Journal about Covid-19 reports that the “genome data available so far show no unexpected mutation rate or signs of adaptation….”
Put simply, Covid-19 does not mutate nearly as much as the flu, and thus, it is far less likely to take lives regardless of acquired immunity and vaccines. If this proves true in the long run, as current evidence suggests it will, the lifetime risk of dying from Covid-19 is greatly overstated by comparing its ultimate death toll to yearly fatalities from the flu, accidents, suicides, and other frequent causes of death.
Years of Lost Life
Beyond raw numbers of deaths, another crucial factor in measuring the deadliness of a public health threat is the ages of its victims. In the words of the CDC, “the allocation of health resources must consider not only the number of deaths by cause but also by age.” Hence, the “years of potential life lost” has “become a mainstay in the evaluation of the impact of injuries on public health.”
In this respect, Covid-19 is much less lethal than common causes of untimely death, such as accidents. The precise average age of death for Covid-19 fatalities is still unknown, but the vast majority of victims are elderly or have one or more chronic illnesses, as is the case with deaths from the flu and pneumonia.
Based on the CDC’s latest data for the age distribution of deaths, the average age of death for accidents is about 53.3 years, while for the flu and pneumonia, it is about 77.4 years. Using flu and pneumonia as a rough proxy for Covid-19, this disease robs an average of 12.0 years of life from each of its victims, as compared to 30.6 years of lost life for each accident. And again, accidents kill around 170,000 Americans per year, while Covid-19 is unlikely to have an ongoing high death toll because of its limited prospects for mutation.
In a March 29th comment that generated headlines in virtually every major media outlet, renowned immunologist Anthony Fauci told CNN’s Jake Tapper that “looking at what we’re seeing now, I would say between 100,000 and 200,000” Americans will die from Covid-19, but “I just don’t think that we really need to make a projection when it’s such a moving target that you can so easily be wrong and mislead people.” The next day, Dr. Fauci emphasized that those figures are based on a model, and “a model is as good as the assumptions that you put into” it.
A day later at a White House press conference, Dr. Deborah Birx, another world-renowned immunologist, presented a slide of model results based upon “five or six international and domestic modelers from Harvard, from Columbia, from Northeastern, from Imperial who helped us tremendously.” The model projects that 100,000 to 240,000 deaths will occur if Americans follow social distancing and hygiene guidelines. She added that “we really believe and hope every day that we can do a lot better than that because that’s not assuming 100% of every American does everything that they’re supposed to be doing, but I think that’s possible.”
If the high-end of that range comes to pass, and 240,000 U.S. residents die from Covid-19, this disease will rob 2.9 millionyears of life from all Americans who were alive at the outset of 2020. In comparison, the flu will rob them of about 35 million years and accidents will rob them of 409 million years.
These figures reveal that accidents are about 140 times more lethal to Americans than this worst-case scenario for Covid-19 given mitigation. Likewise, the flu is 12 times as lethal. This is a substantially more comprehensive measure of deadliness than the tally of lives lost during a year—or any other random unit of time—because it accounts for the entirety of people’s lives and the total years of life that they lose.
While not diminishing the value of any life, these facts speak to the efforts that society takes to save some lives versus others.
Death Rates
Initial media reports of a 2–3% mortality rate for Covid-19 are inflated, and the actual figure may be closer to that of the flu, which has averaged about 0.15% over the past nine years in the United States. A large degree of uncertainty surrounds this issue due to the same factor that prevents accurate counts of infections: unreported cases.
As explained by Dr. Brett Giroir—who has authored nearly 100 peer-reviewed scientific publications and serves as the Assistant Secretary for Health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services—the Covid-19 death rate is “lower than you heard probably in many reports” because the bulk of people who contract coronavirus don’t get seriously ill, and thus, many of them never get tested.
Giroir calls this a “denominator problem” because if you’re “not very ill, as most people are not, they do not get tested. They do not get counted in the denominator.” Giroir’s best estimate is that the mortality rate is probably “somewhere between 0.1% and 1%.” This “is likely more severe in its mortality rate than the typical flu” rate of 0.1% to 0.15%, “but it’s certainly within the range.”
Giroir’s estimate accords with a February 2020 commentary in the New England Journal of Medicine by Fauci and others:
If one assumes that the number of asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic cases is several times as high as the number of reported cases, the case fatality rate may be considerably less than 1%. This suggests that the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza (which has a case fatality rate of approximately 0.1%) or a pandemic influenza (similar to those in 1957 and 1968) rather than a disease similar to SARS or MERS, which have had case fatality rates of 9 to 10% and 36%, respectively.
A prime example of how journalists misreport on this issue is a March 12th article in Business Insider by Andy Kiersz. In this piece, he compares the “death rates” of Covid-19 from the South Korean CDC to that of the flu from the United States CDC. Based on these numbers, he reports that “South Korea—which has reported some of the lowest coronavirus death rates of any country—still has a COVID-19 death rate more than eight times higher than that of the flu.”
What Kiersz and his editors fail to understand is that the denominator for the Korean rate is the number of “confirmed cases,” while the denominator for the U.S. rate is based on a “mathematical model.” The CDC clarifies how the model works by citing a study on swine flu, which multiplies “43,677 laboratory-confirmed cases” of the disease by 41 to 131 times to calculate the denominator for the death rate. In the authors’ words, they do this because confirmed cases are:
likely a substantial underestimate of the true number. Correcting for under-ascertainment using a multiplier model, we estimate that 1.8 million–5.7 million cases occurred, including 9,000–21,000 hospitalizations.
Put simply, Covid-19 death rates that are based upon reported or confirmed infections grossly undercount the number of people with the disease. This, in turn, makes the death rate seem substantially higher than reality.
Social Media Amplification
The famous maxim that “there are six degrees of separation between everyone in the world” has changed in recent years due to social media. A 2014 paper in the journal Computers in Human Behavior finds that the “average number of acquaintances separating any two people” has declined from six to 3.9.
A 2011 paper in the American Journal of Sociology estimates that each American knows an average of 550 people. If 150 of these are mutual connections who already know each other, each American has about 220,000 friends of friends—and 88 million friends of friends of friends.
Thus, if everyone is sharing on social media about people they know who have been infected or killed by Covid-19, it can seem like the world is coming to an end. Yet, if people did the same for other deaths, each person would hear every yearabout an average of:
1,905 deaths among their friends of friends, and 761,844 deaths among their friends of friends of friends.
38 deaths from the flu and pneumonia among their friends of friends, and 15,075 such deaths among their friends of friends of friends.
6 deaths of people under the age of 65 from the flu and pneumonia among their friends of friends, and 2,385 such deaths among their friends of friends of friends.
In addition to social media, the press acts as another megaphone of Covid-19’s impacts. Because the U.S. is the third-most populous nation in the world, it is easy for journalists to create misleading impressions by focusing on certain events and ignoring the broader context of facts that surround them. This kind of crucial context is missing from much of the media’s coverage of Covid-19 and practically every other public policy issue.
Transmissibility
Another important factor in weighing the risks posed by Covid-19 is its transmissibility, or how contagious it is. In this respect, Covid-19 is much more dangerous than the seasonal flu because it spreads very quickly and can overwhelm hospitals.
Scientists measure the contagiousness of diseases with a basic reproduction number, which is the average number of people who tend to catch a disease from each person who has it. This measure is an innate characteristic of the disease because it doesn’t account for actions that people take to prevent it. A February 2020 paper published in the Journal of Travel Medicine explains that any disease with a basic reproduction number above 1.0 is likely to multiply over time.
The same paper evaluates 12 studies of the basic reproduction number of Covid-19 in various nations and finds that they “ranged from 1.4 to 6.49,” with an average of 3.28 and a median of 2.79. Based on their analysis of these studies, the authors conclude that the basic reproduction number of Covid-19 will likely prove to be “around 2–3” after “more data are accumulated.”
In contrast, a 2014 paper in the journal BMC Infectious Diseases analyzes 24 studies of the seasonal flu and finds that the median result for the basic reproduction number is 1.28. The authors stress that the seemingly small difference between 1.28 and higher figures like 1.80 “represent the difference between epidemics that are controllable and cause moderate illness and those causing a significant number of illnesses and requiring intensive mitigation strategies to control.”
In other words, if the transmissibility of Covid-19 is as high as currently estimated, the aggressive measures that some governments, organizations, and individuals have taken to limit large gatherings and travel from areas with outbreaks will save many more lives than doing the same for common diseases like the flu. Because Covid-19 spreads so quickly, it can easily overwhelm hospitals and thereby prevent people from getting the care they would otherwise receive under normal circumstances.
Overreactions
There are, however, mortal dangers in overreacting because measures to limit the spread of Covid-19 often have economic impacts that can cost lives. As detailed in the textbook Macroeconomics for Today, countries with low economic growth“are less able to satisfy basic needs for food, shelter, clothing, education, and health.” These hazards can manifest quickly and over extended periods of time.
If certain industries adopted the social distancing extremes that many people have embraced, this would shut down food production and distribution, health care, utilities, and other life-sustaining services. Even under far more moderate scenarios where people who are not in these industries shun work, all of those necessities and many more aspects of modern life depend on the general strength of the economy. Thus, overreacting can ultimately kill more people than are saved.
The same applies to people who are flooding supermarkets to stockpile food, toilet paper, and other supplies. In doing so, they have often stood in close proximity to each other and touched the same items, which opens avenues to spread the disease. Panic buying also creates shortages that deprive typical consumers of provisions.
Likewise, panic can fuel suicides, which snuff out about 47,000 lives per year in the U.S. at an average age of 46 years old. Over a lifetime, that amounts to 132 million lost years of life—or 46 times the loss from Covid-19 if it ultimately kills 240,000 people.
The implications of overreacting to Covid-19 or any other potential hazard are aptly summarized in a teaching guidepublished by the American Society for Microbiology. This book explains why “the factors driving your concept of risk—emotion or fact—may or may not seem particularly important to you, yet they are” because “there are risks in misperceiving risks.”
The Path Forward
Aggressive social distancing can extend the timeframe over which Covid-19 patients are infected and hospitalized, but it cannot by itself reduce those outcomes in the long run. This is because Covid-19 is so contagious that another outbreak will begin and quickly proliferate as soon as the distancing measures cease.
Hence, the Imperial College’s March 16th report on Covid-19 states that in order to “avoid a rebound in transmission,” policies of “population-wide social distancing combined with home isolation of cases and school and university closure” must “be maintained until large stocks of vaccine are available to immunize the population—which could be 18 months or more.”
Moreover, the report notes that the “more successful a strategy is at temporary suppression, the larger the later epidemic is predicted to be in the absence of vaccination, due to lesser build-up of herd immunity.” A 2012 paper in the journal PLoS One about “Immunity in Society” underscores the importance of that point by noting that:
when a sufficiently high proportion of individuals within a population becomes immune (either through prior exposure or through mass vaccination), community or “herd” immunity emerges, whereby individuals that are poorly immunized are protected by the collective “immune firewall” provided by immunized neighbors. In humans and other vertebrate communities … responses to a previously encountered pathogen are faster and stronger than those to a novel pathogen, and thus individuals are better at blocking its spread. [Emphasis added.]
Equally, if very few people are immune to a disease, they can transmit it to others instead of blocking it. Without a vaccine, the only way people can become immune to Covid-19 is by catching it and recovering. This means that too much social distancing may cause more deaths because young, healthy people—who would otherwise catch the disease, recover quickly, and become firewalls—remain as potential carriers.
However, social distancing can keep hospitalizations at reasonable levels so that victims receive proper care, and it can also buy time to discover and mass-produce effective treatments. This is a distinct possibility in the short term, for as Michael Farzan, co‐chair of the Department of Immunology and Microbiology at Scripps Research, has stated, the same physical feature of the virus that makes it so contagious also makes it:
very vulnerable to antibody neutralization, and thus it is a relatively easy virus to protect against. I refer to it as “stupid” on a spectrum where HIV, which lives in the face of an active immune system for years, is a “genius.”
President Trump has touted a small French study showing that treatment with a combination of two drugs, hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin, “is significantly associated with viral load reduction/disappearance in COVID-19 patients….” The study was published in the International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents, and the 18 scholars who authored it wrote that the “results are promising” and “we recommend that Covid-19 patients be treated with” these drugs “to cure their infection and to limit the transmission of the virus to other people.” Nonetheless, media outlets have covered this matter by reporting that Trump “is not a doctor” and that he shouldn’t hype “unproven” and “untested” treatments or give people “false hope.”
Theatrics aside, the FDA has issued an Emergency Use Authorization that allows doctors to treat certain hospitalized Covid-19 patients with hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine “when a clinical trial is not available or feasible.” The authors of the French study make clear that their “study has some limitations including a small sample size, limited long-term outcome follow-up, and dropout of six patients from the study, however in the current context, we believe that our results should be shared with the scientific community.”
During a March 14th press conference, U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams asserted that “this situation will last longer, and more people will be hurt” if “we are complacent, selfish, uninformed,” and if “we spread fear, distrust, and misinformation.” Conversely, he said that “we will overcome this situation” if we “pitch in” and “share the facts.”
The vital facts above confirm the wisdom of his words.
Four months into the corona manufactured pandemic, blue states are still enforcing draconian measures to wear masks everywhere in public for your own good lest be seen as a danger to society, public enemy number one, and to the well-being of those around you.
If your mask does not cover your nose properly, there are Karens nearby who let you know immediately that you are wearing your mask incorrectly or a barista with a sonorous voice who asks you to cover your nose. You are not allowed to say, I cannot breathe behind it for medical reasons, because that is a racist statement and cultural appropriation, and nobody cares about your well-being when it violates the collective good.
Mandated use of face masks represents a “culture of silence, slavery, and social death.”
The mask has a different symbolism for those who lived under communism and yearned to escape to the freedom of the west before the Iron Curtain fell in 1989. A good example is the Russian skating couple, Oleg Protopopov, and his wife Ludmila Belousova, who defected to Switzerland in 1979 while on a tour from the Soviet Union and became Swiss citizens in 1995.
Ludmila recounted how on their last skating routine in front of the Soviet communists before defecting to the west, she danced in a black costume representing death (of soul, of spirit, at the hands of the Communist Party), while Oleg wore a black mask, the pretense façade most citizens had to adopt in order to cover their real feelings and to survive the oppressive regime of the Communist Party. At the end of the routine, Oleg overcomes death (the Communists) and removes his mask, skating into the light (of freedom).
Personally, the Covid-19 mask has surpassed the utility of protecting us from a potentially harmful virus, it has become the mask that muzzles biting dogs. It is the mask we had to wear when we were forced into harvesting grapes for free every fall in high school when we had to wear masks that prevented hungry and thirsty students from eating any grapes.
Masks were used in other cultures to control and enslave people, to diminish, and demoralize them. Masks were and still are worn as a form of obedience.
President Donald Trump shared a tweet that argued that the mandated use of face masks represents a “culture of silence, slavery, and social death.”
Beyond the normal isolation of 14 days and quarantine (40 days) following the outbreak of an illness, liberty loving people resist the mask and see it as a form of communist indoctrination while the progressive/liberal segment of society is more than happy to comply and wear the masks indefinitely.
Leftist all-knowing and snitching Karens and their submissive husbands wear the mandatory masks with eagerness and arrogance because they virtue-signal how good they are
Conservatives see the blue states mandatory mask wearing as forcing compliance by legal means with fines, threat of, or actual loss of jobs, denied access to stores, restaurants, businesses, and medical doctors, dispensing “political medicine disguised as medical science.”
Leftist all-knowing and snitching Karens and their submissive husbands wear the mandatory masks with eagerness and arrogance because they virtue-signal how good they are. They want to make sure you know how respectable their character is and how morally virtuous and superior is their political correctness.
Masks were thought to prevent the Black Death, and ridiculous shapes of masks were designed and worn to ward off the bubonic plague.
Masks aren’t about public health but social control,” a conservative columnist tweeted, linking to a Federalist piece.
“To those looking to benefit politically from emergencies, COVID presents an opportunity to advance plans targeted to transform American freedom and the American way of life. Mandatory-masking policies provide a valuable foundation to weaponize the virus against American liberty—now and in the future.”
But there is an important question, how long must a mask be worn? Will we have to wear them indefinitely, or every flu season? Will the necessity of mask-wearing disappear after the November elections? Will we have COVID-2020 and thus the masks will never go away?
And last, but not least important, what will happen to our immune systems that are no longer strengthened by exposing ourselves to viruses and bacteria around us? How weak will such sheltered immune systems become? Will we need to live in a bubble?
On the pretext it was necessary to save the masses from a raging pandemic, governments who want to rule in a Godless world, got away with shuttering churches worldwide.
For just over three months, people of faith, whose collection basket contributions kept Houses of Worship up and running, have been denied service.
Bishops and clerics—who offered zero resistance on behalf of their flocks—are far more pious in defence of church shutdowns than they ever were in their homilies:
A statement that says it all
“The New York State Catholic Conference, which represents the bishops of the state, told CNA on Friday that churches would probably continue to follow state health guidelines for reopening, even though they are no longer bound by law to do so. (Catholic News Agency, June 26, 2020)
A statement that says it all.
“Bishops must weigh many factors in reopening, the most important being the safety and well being of our congregations, clergy and parish staffs,” a spokesman for the conference told CNA. “We believe the guidance offered by the state is important to achieving that goal.” (CNA)
The restrictions that come with the tepid ‘reopening’ of churches allowing 30 percent to return under pages-long dictates are absurd—necessitating the taking of temperatures at home before venturing out to church, calling ahead to register, only to discover they have already reached capacity, “no talking in church parking lots”, on and on.
How soon before other jurisdictions follow a federal judge who has ruled that New York churches can reopen in line with businesses?
“Washington, D.C .—A federal judge on Friday ruled that New York must allow indoor and outdoor religious services in the same way it would allow mass outdoor protests, or indoor shopping malls. (CNA)
“Judge Gary Sharpe of the Northern District of New York said that the state cannot limit outdoor religious services during the pandemic, provided that attendees follow social distancing requirements. For indoor services, he said, the state has to make the same allowances for churches as it does for other businesses.
“The judgement follows a lawsuit filed on behalf of several different religious groups by the Thomas More Society. No Catholic diocese or parish was party to the suit.
“The New York State Catholic Conference, which represents the bishops of the state, told CNA on Friday that churches would probably continue to follow state health guidelines for reopening, even though they are no longer bound by law to do so.
“Bishops must weigh many factors in reopening, the most important being the safety and well being of our congregations, clergy and parish staffs,” a spokesman for the conference told CNA. “We believe the guidance offered by the state is important to achieving that goal.”
“The state had already allowed some churches in the state to hold services at 33% indoor capacity, where that particular jurisdiction had reached phase IV of reopening. Churches in other areas have been allowed to offer Mass at 25% capacity.
“New York City, currently in the second reopening phase, had allowed some indoor offices, retail stores, and salons to operate at 50% capacity while churches were restricted to 25% capacity.
“Judge Sharpe on Friday said that those businesses are “not justifiably different than houses of worship” in the risk they pose to the spread of the virus.
“Furthermore, state officials showed preferential treatment by allowing or even encouraging mass outdoor protests and 150-person outdoor graduation ceremonies, while subjecting religious gatherings to ten or 25-person outdoor gathering limits, he said.
Cuomo and de Blasio endorsed “what they knew was a flagrant disregard of the outdoor limits and social distancing rules”
“Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio have both appeared to condone or even encourage mass outdoor anti-racism protests attended by hundreds and thousands of people in recent weeks, despite strict state limits on the size of outdoor gatherings to 10 or 25 people.
“On June 2, de Blasio defended his selective enforcement of gathering restrictions, saying that “[w]hen you see a nation, an entire nation simultaneously grappling with an extraordinary crisis seeded in 400 years of American racism, I’m sorry, that is not the same question as the understandably aggrieved store owner or the devout religious person who wants to go back to services.”
“By their words, Cuomo and de Blasio endorsed “what they knew was a flagrant disregard of the outdoor limits and social distancing rules,” the judge said, thus sending “a clear message that mass protests are deserving of preferential treatment.”
“They could have verbally discouraged or remained silent on the protests while suspending any enforcement of outdoor gathering restrictions, Judge Sharpe said, and thus could have remained within the law.
“Christopher Ferrara, special counsel for the Thomas More Society, stated that Judge Sharpe “was able to see through the sham of Governor Cuomo’s ‘Social Distancing Protocol’ which went right out the window as soon as he and Mayor de Blasio saw a mass protest movement they favored taking to the streets by the thousands.”
“Lawyers from the Thomas More Society originally brought the lawsuit on June 10, on behalf of three Orthodox Jewish congregants from Brooklyn and two priests of the Society of St. Pius X, a group in irregular communion with the Catholic Church, which operates independently of the dioceses of the state, and does not recognize the local bishops’ authority.
Cuomo, who identifies as Catholic, and De Blasio, a Communist, will need more than Nancy Pelosi’s prayers to see them through this one
“The lawsuit charged that Cuomo, state attorney general Letitia James, and de Blasio all violated religious freedom, free speech, and due process in their public health restrictions during the pandemic.
“The state and city put more burdensome restrictions on churches than they did on some businesses and mass protests, the lawsuit alleged, creating “a veritable dictatorship” where they “selectively enforced ‘social distancing’ under a ‘lockdown’” in the state, while carving out “numerous exceptions” in line with “their value judgments.”
“De Blasio has on multiple occasions during the pandemic threatened houses of worship with fines, permanent closure, and mass arrests if they would not comply with public health orders.”
Cuomo, who identifies as Catholic, and De Blasio, a Communist, will need more than Nancy Pelosi’s prayers to see them through this one.
Meanwhile, now that millions of the faithful have seen, firsthand how quickly their religious leaders gave way to government dictates during the Time of Coronavirus, things may never be the same for churches again.
Even more significantly, godless governments never succeeded in bringing the masses into despondency and despair by cutting them off from their churches.
Coronavirus proved that doors can be locked on all buildings constructed by brick and mortar.
Coronavirus also proved that if you are Christian and believe in the Almighty YOU are the House of Worship because God lives in YOU.
Linus of Charlie Brown cartoon fame has his signature blanket. Democrat presumed presidential nominee Joe Biden—who’s been hiding it out in his Delaware basement ever since the Burisma scandal—has a better one: COVID-19.
“Democrats will hold an almost entirely virtual presidential nominating convention Aug. 17-20 in Milwaukee using live broadcasts and online streaming, party officials said Wednesday. ()
From the Clinton and Obama households: “WHOOPEE!”
‘Stay home, suckers, We’ve all but got it in the bag’!
“Joe Biden plans to accept the presidential nomination in person, but it remains to be seen whether there will be a significant in-person audience there to see it. The Democratic National Committee said in a statement that official business, including the votes to nominate Biden and his yet-to-be-named running mate, will take place virtually, with delegates being asked not to travel to Milwaukee. (AP, June 24, 2020)
‘Stay home, suckers, We’ve all but got it in the bag’!
“It’s the latest sign of how much the COVID-19 pandemic has upended American life and the 2020 presidential election, leading Biden and the party to abandon the usual trappings of an event that draws tens of thousands of people to the host city to mark the start of the general election campaign. Not even during the Civil War or World War II did the two major parties abandon in-person conventions with crowded arenas.” (AP)
It’s the era of Barack Obama’s “Great Awakening”, and practically everything “in-person” is being done away with by the get-even-with-Trump-supporters, desperado dirty Dems—especially “in-person” voting.
The biggest Democrat 11th-hour coup is the coming complete MAIL-IN vote.
While the mask-wearing world waits for the second wave of COVID-19—bound to strike sometime between now and October— Michelle Obama, Tom Hanks and other celebrities are putting the finishing touches on a complete MAIL-IN vote, courtesy of their “non-partisan”, “non-profit ‘When We All Vote’ initiative.
It will all come down without a single bang and without anyone ever having to step foot outside their house.
Just like the 2016 election the 2020 election is entirely all about HATING Donald Trump
As smooth going down the gullet as Biden’s favorite frozen yogurt with no one other than the once sovereign Republic getting hurt.
Just like the 2016 election the 2020 election is entirely all about HATING Donald Trump:
“Biden’s campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon said the drastically altered convention won’t be an impediment. “Vice President Biden intends to proudly accept his party’s nomination in Milwaukee and take the next step forward towards making Donald Trump a one-term president,” she said, adding that Biden’s campaign will continue to highlight Wisconsin as a key battleground state.” (AP)
But so much more importantly, what will Joe do to put out the fires now burning America down, Jen?
Will he stop smelling female hair and counting the golden hairs swaying on his own legs when in the swimming pool?
Can we really count on whomever he chooses as his V.P. to wake him up?
The Democrats are not, as they are accused of, hiding anything, including ‘Sleepy Joe’:
“Party Chairman Tom Perez said scaling back Democrats’ festivities is a matter of public health. He sought to draw a contrast with Trump’s push for a traditional convention in North Carolina, clashing with the state’s Democratic governor, Roy Cooper, and public health officials over the details amid the pandemic.” (AP)
“The Republican National Committee has confirmed its official business will be conducted in Charlotte. But Trump has said he plans to accept his nomination in Jacksonville, Florida, because Cooper wouldn’t guarantee Republicans the ability to host a large-scale event in Charlotte’s NBA arena.
“Unlike this president, Joe Biden and Democrats are committed to protecting the health and safety of the American people,” Perez said.”
Make that “protecting the health and safety of the American people,” other than the vulnerable elderly in long term health facilities.
“Besides events in Wisconsin, Democrats plan other events in satellite locations around the country to broadcast as part of the convention. (AP)
“Veteran producer Ricky Kirshner, who has worked on every Democratic National Convention since 1992, will lead production of the convention, including the satellite broadcasts. Kirshner has served as executive producer of the Tony Awards since 2004 and the Super Bowl halftime show since 2007; he’s won nine Emmy awards.”
And delegates planning to head to Milwaukee for the DNC can throw away their balloons, ‘Joe’s Our Guy”, ‘Hillary’s Still Our Queen’ signs because the convention’s being held without them:
“(Bloomberg)—The Democratic National Convention told state delegates to stay home from the gathering in Milwaukee this summer as the party announced it was significantly scaling back its nominating convention due to the coronavirus pandemic. (MSM, June 24, 2020)
“On Wednesday, the party’s convention planning committee told delegates that they should plan to conduct their official convention business remotely.
“Joe Biden, the party’s nominee, will still officially accept the nomination in Milwaukee, but the thousands of delegates who usually pack a convention hall for the week-long festivities will not be there. The committee said it is working to ensure all delegates can cast their votes remotely during the convention.
“It was unclear how many party officials, members of Congress and other supporters would attend the four days of programming.
“The Democrats have taken a dramatically different approach from President Donald Trump and the Republicans, who moved the majority of their convention from Charlotte, North Carolina to Jacksonville, Florida after Trump told officials in North Carolina he would not abide by social distancing requirements. Despite cases rising in Florida, Trump is planning a three-day campaign event in Jacksonville after minimal party business in Charlotte a few days before.”
The fix, like they thought about with Hillary, is in
Perfect timing for Coronavirus Two, which can be entirely blamed on the president.
Yes, the world is changing in the never-ending aftermath of the pandemic, and as some folks say, “Things will never be the same again.”
You can’t send up either rousing cheers or jeers at an almost completely virtual Democrat convention because no one other than your own family members will ever hear you.
You can’t throw rotten tomatoes, lest you want to hit your own television or computer.
But the not so golden silence of what the Democrats have done and are still doing to America is so loud it’s downright deafening.
The fix, like they thought about with Hillary, is in.
After eight long years of never knowing who Barack Obama really was, and almost four years after he is no longer in the White House, (at least officially) he has at long last outed himself as a textbook-style Conquering Hero.
Obama is the self-identified ‘Architect of the “Great Awakening” in a self-portrait that couldn’t possibly be more clear.
All should Take A Knee and bow down to the Architect of the Great Awakening!
The “Great Awakening” will fundamentally transform the America so many love and admire
The “Great Awakening” will fundamentally transform the America so many love and admire; rid the nation of law and order, starting with police forces, leaving the way clear for predators posing as “peaceful protesters”.
At the same time when people everywhere are giving in to their propaganda-planted fear, it’s prime time for Survival of the Fittest.
“Former President Barack Obama referred to the ongoing unrest around the country, associated with the Black Lives Matter protests, as a “Great Awakening” in his remarks to a fundraiser for former Vice President Joe Biden on Tuesday. (Breitbart, June 23, 2020)
“Obama said:
“And the good news, what make me optimistic is, the fact that there is a Great Awakening going on around the country particularly among younger people who are saying not only are they fed up with the shambolic disorganized mean spirited approach to governance that we’ve seen over the last couple of years but more than that are eager to take on some of the core challenges that have been facing this country for centuries.”
“…The current wave of protests, ostensibly motivated by outrage at the death of George Floyd, 46, an African American man, in the custody of Minneapolis, Minnesota, police, has devolved into riots and vandalism, with widespread destruction of historic statues and monuments.”
No call from the ‘Architect of the Great Awakening’ for restraint from mob looting and burning; no calls for peace
No call from the ‘Architect of the Great Awakening’ for restraint from mob looting and burning; no calls for peace.
Tragic that at the very same time, Obama has come forward to lead the raging mobs, Republican senators are refusing to back President Trump’s ‘treason’ claim against Obama:
“Senate Republicans on Tuesday distanced themselves from President Donald Trump’s claim that former President Barack Obama committed “treason,” refusing to back up the unfounded allegation that has fueled the president’s revenge campaign against his predecessor. (Politco, June 23, 2020)
“In general, Republicans have shied away from directly criticizing the president’s comments and actions as the November election approaches. In fact, they have heeded Trump’s encouragement to undertake wide-ranging investigations targeting Obama administration officials for their roles in opening up the investigations that have ensnared Trump and his associates for years.
“But accusing Obama of treason was a bridge too far, they said.
“I don’t think that President Obama committed treason,” said Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who is up for reelection this year.
“I don’t know what he’s talking about,” added Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). “I don’t have any evidence to believe he committed treason.”
“It’s a silly, comedic thing, and you guys got to stop taking it all so seriously,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), who laughed off the question. “I don’t think the former president committed treason.”
“The president speaks for himself,”—Sen. Ron Johnson
“GOP senators avoided echoing those unfounded claims. While many of them are sympathetic to Trump’s concerns about the origins of the Russia investigation, for example, Republicans simply did not want to talk about it on Tuesday.
“I’ve got more important things to worry about,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said.
“Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who is leading an investigation into the Obama administration’s activities during the presidential transition process in late 2016 and early 2017, similarly declined to endorse Trump’s “treason” charge.
“The president speaks for himself,” Johnson said. “I’m looking at the corruption with the transition process, which I think is evidently true. And we just need to figure out all that did happen so that the American people understand it, so hopefully it’ll never happen again. I’m not going to respond to what the president said.”
“Hopefully” is not good enough Sen. Johnson, particularly when the word “hopefully” is coming from the mouth of a self-serving politician.
“In an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network on Monday, Trump accused Obama of treason but did not provide evidence to back up the allegation.(Politico)
“It’s a constant refrain from Trump, whose allies have ramped up their attacks against Obama in recent months — accusing the former president of illegally targeting Trump and his associates during the 2016 campaign and the presidential transition period.
“Treason, the only crime specifically defined in the U.S. Constitution, is punishable by death and has rarely been charged in modern times. But Trump has a penchant for accusing his political foes of treason, most notably Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the House Intelligence Committee chairman, who led the impeachment efforts against the president. While presidents often criticize their predecessors, it’s highly unusual for one president to accuse another of treason.”
If “Fundamentally Transforming” America as its seated president, and weaponizing intelligence agencies like the FBI is not treason, then what is?
If “Fundamentally Transforming” America as its seated president, and weaponizing intelligence agencies like the FBI is not treason, then what is?
From the safety of private life as a multi-millionaire from money somehow accrued as a 2-time president and no longer needing his Teleprompter, Obama is now leading the “Great Awakening”.
Obama has taken his oft-repeated “This is Not Who We Are” all the way to “This is Who We Will Force You To Be”—with no advance warning.
Meanwhile welcome to the New World where predators walk zombie-like among us.
It’s become a bold New World where only mob rule will survive.
When the Speaker of the House wants to announce something momentous, her first call goes to Hugh Betcha, Ace Reporter of the Mighty Canada Free Press. Hugh, winner of the coveted Rachael Maddow “Conservative Reporter I Hate Most 2020 Award” and a man respected by both sides of the aisle in Foggy Bottom, was only too happy to oblige. Within two hours of her call, the reporter flew his private jet from Wynstone, South Dakota to Washington D.C. and was pressed into service by the Speaker who was removing paintings from the halls of Congress.
“Here, grab this,” Pelosi told him as she handed down a portrait of a former Speaker of the House from atop a ladder. Hugh obliged.
Our ANTIFA supporters are doing the noble work of tearing down racist statues
“Why are we doing this?” Hugh inquired naturally.
“Because we must erase from our history any last vestiges of racism and some of my forebears had questionable views on race and slavery,” she replied.
“Who determines that?’ Hugh pressed her.
“Well I do, being of impeccable credentials when it comes to racial matters.”
“Why not just let history be history and face the fact that our ancestors were not perfect and sometimes along the way some were a bit unsavory, or prejudiced?”
“No, the time is right, the country is in ferment, our ANTIFA supporters are doing the noble work of tearing down racist statues and—-“
“—-You mean like Ulysses S. Grant, who defeated the Confederate Army and, as President, promoted civil rights for blacks? Hugh pressed her.
“Well there always be some collateral damage…but that is not why I called you here.”
“What then could be worse than tearing down statues, removing paintings of past historical figures and renaming schools all in the name of political correctness?”
“It’s about our past presidents,” she continued, “many were slave owners and it is time for a reckoning. Since we are batting a thousand and have successfully impeached President Trump and our impeachment machine is well oiled, we are going to—“
Pre-death Felony Racism, Pre-death Possession of a Slave
“—Don’t tell me!” Hugh cried.
“Yes we are going take on a new project since we in the House have done nothing useful for awhile. We are going to conduct Post Mortem Impeachment of those dead Presidents who owned or had in their possession a slave.”
“On what charges?”
“Pre-death Felony Racism,” “Pre-death Possession of a Slave,’ and others to be announced. We’ll decide this as we go—just as we did with Trump impeachment. It does all the right things: appeals to the Left wing base of our party, acts as a deterrent to others who may have a desire to own slaves—such as most Republicans—punishes the slaver Presidents ex post facto and will appeal to all right thinking, compassionate Americans.”
“How can they defend themselves now that they are dead?”
“We are considering disinterring them so that they can at least confront the charges—in respectful urns of course, and sitting at counsel table. This shows that we are—“
“—Grave diggers?” asked Hugh in disbelief.
“—No, patriots who are ashamed of our past and the sin of racism. It shows the respect that we hold for the descendants of slavery.”
“So, Hugh continued, you are saying that any former politician, president or public figure who once held racist views should be shamed, his memorials or paintings removed, his namesake buildings or schools renamed and his memory erased from history?”
“Yes, absolutely!”
“Then any such person who once belonged to a secret organization that advocated for the killing of blacks, hanging black men and castrating them, burning down black homes and who promoted the destruction of the black race should be shamed? That sort of person?”
“By all means, yes!” Nancy declared emphatically.
“Then how about Senator Robert Byrd—once the Exalted Cyclops of a Klan chapter—who referred to blacks as ‘race mongrels’? Must we retire his images, rename dozens of namesake Byrd buildings and highways? Destroy his monuments?”
[………Cricket noises………]
“Well?” Hugh demanded.
“He is different,” Nancy replied sheepishly. “He was, after all, a liberal Democrat. His sins may be forgiven.”
Earlier today President Trump signed an Executive Order requiring Federal agencies to focus hiring on the skills job seekers possess, rather than focusing on whether they earned a college degree. The order requires Federal agencies to revise and update outdated Federal job qualification standards and candidate assessments, improving the quality and competency of the civil service.
The order implements best practices already adopted by private sector leaders to promote equity and inclusion. As a result of this reform, talented individuals with apprenticeships, technical training, and apt backgrounds will have greater opportunity to pursue careers in the Federal civil service. [Video and Transcript of Workforce Meeting]
.
[Transcript] – THE PRESIDENT: Nice to see you. Thank you very much. Busy time.
MS. TRUMP: Absolutely.
THE PRESIDENT: We’re making a lot of progress with the whole situation that came in from a place called China, as you probably know. You probably see. But we have a little work to do, and we’ll get it done. We’re having some very good numbers coming out in terms of the comeback — the comeback of our nation. And I think it’s going very rapidly and it’s going to be very good. But right now, we’re in that process of building.
And it’s an honor that you’re with us today. We very much appreciate it. I’m delighted to welcome members of the Workforce Policy Advisory Board. And I want to thank Ivanka; she works very hard on this board. She works very hard to get jobs. And it’s “Made in the USA” and jobs in the USA.
I saw a group of your people yesterday, having to do with ships. You’re involved in that partnership and it’s fantastic, what they’re doing in Wisconsin. It was really a great day.
The Secretary of Treasury is with us, and he’s worked very hard, and I think he’s got some very good things to say and some pretty big news.
And Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, Secretary of Labor Gene Scalia, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, and Small Business Administrator — who has definitely kept busy — Jovita. Where is Jovita? Jovita. Good. Jovita Carranza.
Thanks also to Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds, who’s done terrifically. Kim — hi, Kim.
GOVERNOR REYNOLDS: Good to see you.
THE PRESIDENT: Nice to see you. Thank you very much.
And Eric Holcomb, Governor of Indiana. And we always recognize Eric because he’s — how tall are you, Eric? (Laughter.) Little — he’s a pretty tall guy. Right? But we have one that’s a little taller. You know where that is? Alaska. You know that, right? You’re doing a great job. We appreciate it.
As well as the CEOs who have signed our Pledge to American Workers: Marillyn Hewson — thank you very much — of Lockheed Martin; Sebastian Thrun of Udacity; and Ginni Rometty of IBM. I want to thank you all. You’ve been really here from — from the beginning, very much from the beginning, and we appreciate it very much.
Together we built the greatest economy in history — and, literally, in the history of the world. Greatest we’ve ever had. The greatest the world has ever seen. And now we have to bring it back because we had to close in order to save millions of lives. We added 2.5 million jobs last month, which was incredible. A number — the largest monthly increase in history and more than double the previous record.
So we’re bringing it back. We had the greatest ever and we had to close it, and now we bring it back. And we start off with 2.5 million jobs in one month; I would say that’s pretty good, Marillyn. Right? That’s the highest ever done.
And then likewise, retail sales surged by nearly 18 percent last month. That was the biggest jump ever recorded. So that’s great.
The stock market is seeing you go back a week — one week. It’s the — saw the best 50 days in its history — best 50-day increase in the history of the stock markets.
Our Pledge to America’s Workers has secured commitments to over 16 million job and training opportunities from employers nationwide. And some of the employers are with us, and they’ve been fantastic.
I want to thank the American people for doing such an incredible job. They understand what’s happening, and they see how fast we’re turning it around. I want to just state that this is Americans of all backgrounds that we’re talking about, to have the chance — we want to get them the chance to learn and to build a successful career. We want to train Americans and we want to hire Americans. So we’re training American and we’re hiring American.
Before the pledge — and this is a very big factor. I mean, we have a — a problem that has about 22 different names, but I’ll just call it “the plague.” But before the plague struck, we had the lowest African American and Hispanic American, Asian American unemployment ever. We had the most jobs we’ve ever had, almost 160 million jobs. We’ve never been in a position like that. Women were thriving. Best numbers ever. And since my election, more than half of those jobs — more than half; first time that’s ever happened — went to women. But now we want to get that all back.
The African American group got hit very hard. The Hispanic American group got hit very hard. Essentially all groups got hit hard, but now it’s all coming back.
To further expand opportunity, I’m taking a bold action to reform the federal workforce. Today I’ll sign an executive order that directs the federal government to replace outdated — and really outdated — it’s called “degree-based hiring” — with skill-based hiring. So we want it based on skill.
The federal government will no longer be narrowly focused on where you went to school, but the skills and the talents that you bring to the job. We want that skill to be there. We want it based on merit. We’ve looked at merit for a long time, and we’ve been able to get that done.
And today’s signing is a very, very important one. I think maybe before I sign, I’ll ask Ivanka to say a few words. And then we’ll go around a little bit, we’ll pick a few people, and then we’ll sign, and we go back to work.
Thank you very much. Ivanka.
MS. TRUMP: Thank you, Mr. President. It’s an honor to have you here. We just convened our sixth meeting of our Workforce Advisory Board, and we got an update on the team’s response to your bold call to action.
First, we’re going to be launching — and Ginni Rometty, in partnership with Tim Cook, spearheaded this group — a massive advertising campaign that directs those that need to reskill, learn a new trade, to secure a job to the resources to enable them to do that. So we’re very excited about the launch of this private-sector-led and driven campaign to match Americans with the training they need, and ultimately the job vacancies that exist.
The advisory board is also creating a series of pilot programs — and Scott Pulsipher and Doug McMillon have been running these groups — where we really think about how we create the resumes of the future and allow people to find job vacancies based on skill — and for employers to connect with those unemployed workers, again, based on skill. So creating a lot more efficiency to that process.
You are once again leading by example here today with this EO signing. As the nation’s largest employer, we are always seeking to recruit and retain the best and the brightest to serve the American people. Last December, you fought for and secured paid leave for every federal worker — this was a first — creating a workplace that reflects our American values of work and family, and helping us retain our amazing talent.
It’s also why you fought so hard this spring, when COVID struck, to secure paid sick leave for Americans employed by small businesses and additional funding for child care providers helping millions and millions of Americans remain employed and providing relief to small businesses across the country. This is going to ensure a faster and stronger recovery.
Today, we’re taking that next step, as you mentioned, in signing an executive order that directs federal agencies to hire based on skills and knowledge, not just outdated degree requirements. This will allow us to better recognize the talents and competencies of all Americans we hire. You built once the most inclusive economy in this country’s history, and you’ll build it again.
Through our Pledge to America’s Workers, the private sector has committed to investing in the training and education of over 16 million American students and workers. And this continues, despite the vast change that — that the plague ushered in.
Companies like Udacity — Sebastian Thrun joins us today — have been leading the way, and they’ve been using their pledge commitment and fulfilling it by providing free tech training to American workers laid off as a result of COVID.
I recently had the opportunity to virtually meet one of the students that went through your program and received your scholarship in conjunction with the pledge, and it was incredible. His name was Tony. He was a lifelong truck driver. He owned his own business. It was a single rig that he had. Through a series of setbacks, the company ended up going under. He signed up for a course in tech, and is now a software engineer, providing for his family, absolutely loving what he does. And there are many, many stories like Tony that hopefully will inspire millions across the nation.
Marillyn Hewson, also an early pledge signer, of Lockheed Martin committed to hiring during the pandemic using virtual technology and other techniques to ensure recruitment processes move forward.
So with more people teleworking and learning from home than ever before, we have a lot to accomplish in the months ahead, and I’m really excited about your effort to extend this working group and to reform our federal hiring practices, as we think about building that inclusive American economy as we transition to greatness.
So, thank you for today. And it’s a pleasure to have you join us.
THE PRESIDENT: Great. Thank you very much, honey. Great job. It really has been. It’s been a labor of love.
MS. TRUMP: That’s true.
THE PRESIDENT: And Ivanka loves helping people. That’s a wonderful thing.
Marillyn, how about starting with you? Thank you.
MS. HEWSON: Well, thank you, Mr. President. It’s really an honor to serve on this policy board. And I must say, I agree with you: Advisor Trump — Ivanka Trump — and Secretary Ross have led us well. We’ve had a great effort over the last several meetings and put forward some strong recommendations that I help- — helped to match the skills together with the jobs that are there. And at Lockheed Martin, we’re proud that this year we’re on a path to hire 12,000 people. And a lot of it is around making sure that we are getting the kind of apprenticeships and scholarships and skills training for them so that they can link up to jobs in our operation.
Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, you’ve done a great job. And I got to see it again. I mentioned it — it was so impressive what I saw — the whole group yesterday. It was really great to be there. And I didn’t know you had a big chunk of that one, but you’ve done very well with it, so we appreciate it.
Please, Sebastian. Please.
MR. THRUN: It’s a great honor to meet you. And I want to thank you for keeping us safe and moving us forward. This has been, of course, a vital time for all of us with over 30 million unemployed. It’s our chance to really redefine how education looks like and move into a world where people learn lifelong, have lifelong access, and unfold their livelihoods.
Ivanka was, of course, the visionary behind all of this. And thank you for doing this. I mentioned Tony Boswell — a truck driver who was driving trucks for 10 years, and then his truck broke down, and he couldn’t finance the new engine that he needed. He was unemployed, had no income, no education, and came across, by randomness, a Google scholarship that Udacity launched. And then, in 10 months’ time, was able to become a software engineer.
These are the stories that I believe this nation needs. I think we have so much opportunity, so much potential in this — in this great nation to bring people forward, and I think this is the time to do it.
THE PRESIDENT: That’s a great story. It’s a great story. Amazing story.
Ginni, please.
MS. ROMETTY: Yes. Well, first, Mr. President, thank you for your leadership during this time.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Thank you very much.
MS. ROMETTY: And you used an important word when you described Ivanka’s contribution here as a “labor of love” because this is something — I think what the team has done collectively will have a very long-term impact, as well as short-term. And we are solving probably — or working towards helping solve one of the most important pro- — programs for growth for the country as well, so — to help anyone from any socio-economic background.
So I really — my hat is off and a thanks to Secretary Ross and to Ivanka for having led us through this. And I think what we have put on the table is substantive change, and I know it is a change to a company like mine.
So as you sign skills first, we’ve adopted that, and 15 percent of our hires last year were people from non-traditional backgrounds. And so it’s a — it’s really what this is all about, I think, in giving everyone a bright — a bright future in the digital era.
So thank you for that.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much, Ginni. Good job.
MS. ROMETTY: Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: Eric, go ahead, please.
GOVERNOR HOLCOMB: Well, I’ll just add my appreciation. I mean, what you’re doing today is leveling the playing field. And there’s been a lot of people, a lot of have-nots that will have an opportunity to join the haves. And to — to do it during a time of such challenge, but to recognize the opportunity that’s here, and to do it now — there couldn’t be a more important time.
So appreciate everyone’s effort around this table and your leadership on this front.
THE PRESIDENT: And Indiana is doing very well. I’m hearing good things.
GOVERNOR HOLCOMB: We are. We are moving in the right direction. We are — we’ve got 93,000 unfilled jobs right now —
THE PRESIDENT: Amazing.
GOVERNOR HOLCOMB: — that we need to fill. We’ve ushered in 100,000 jobs in just three and a half years; the previous record was 93,000 in four years. These are high-wage, high- demand jobs. These are $28, north, an hour.
THE PRESIDENT: That’s great.
GOVERNOR HOLCOMB: So this is what it’s all about –skilling up the workforce. Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: That’s great. Great job. Thank you very much.
Kim.
GOVERNOR REYNOLDS: Well, thank you, Mr. President. And what I so appreciate about your administration is it’s really an administration of action. You identified barriers and gaps, and then you helped bring the right people together to find the solutions and enact those. So thank you very much.
It’s been an honor to be a part of this advisory board. I appreciate how, with the leadership of Ivanka and Secretary Ross, we really have identified the various elements, connected those elements — whether it’s been consistent data, definition, goals, and messaging. And I look forward to really amplifying that in the state of Iowa.
By executive order, I just created an economic task force. I brought several CEOs, business leaders, and nonprofits together to utilize their expertise in the way through innovation, adaptation, and creativity adjusted within weeks to the coronavirus.
And everything that this group has talked about will fold so well into what we’re trying to do at the state level. And when you think about that happening in every state across the country, we really are going to come back stronger and better and really help provide opportunities for every single American.
So thank you for leading it.
THE PRESIDENT: All right. And we see it now, Kim. Next year is going to be, we think, amazing, actually.
GOVERNOR REYNOLDS: Yep. I agree.
THE PRESIDENT: It’s going to be an amazing year.
Larry, would you like to say something?
MR. KUDLOW: Yeah. Thanks, sir. I spoke just before you came, but I’ll just repeat the “V” shaped recovery. Virtually every number is showing a “V” shaped recovery now — private surveys, government statistics, restaurants, home builders, truckers, durable goods makers, Apple mobility and travel, gasoline demand.
As you said, the jobs went up really about 3 million in May. We had tremendous retail sales. Actually, today, in the income report, we had tremendous consumer spending: 8 percent at an annual rate for one month. It’s a great story.
THE PRESIDENT: That’s a great number. Yeah.
MR. KUDLOW: And I still think we’ll get 20 percent in the second half of the year. And if we get another 5 percent in the first quarter of next year, we will be right back to the peak in 2019, where you got us the first time with the growth policies.
And I just want to say: Ivanka, I gave you a big pitch, gave you — did the best I could. Private sector reskilling and retraining — and not only will people come back to the labor force when they’re reskilled; they’ll come back with higher wages, and they’ll come back with more confidence, and it’ll make a huge difference as it already has.
And so I’ve added you to the four pillars of growth. The President —
THE PRESIDENT: Good.
MR. KUDLOW: Tax cuts —
THE PRESIDENT: Good taste.
MR. KUDLOW: — deregulation, energy unleashing, fair trade deals, and private-sector-led reskilling. How’s that, sir?
THE PRESIDENT: That’s great. That’s great. And I’m very happy what you said about early next year. I think next year is going to be an incredible year.
Thank you very much, Larry.
MR. KUDLOW: Appreciate it.
THE PRESIDENT: Wilbur, would you like to say something?
SECRETARY ROSS: Yes, Mr. President. Thank you for the opportunity to help Ivanka and the others on this group. I’ve been very, very impressed with the productivity of this advisory board. Most advisory boards create a big, thick book at the end. It goes in the library and nothing happens. This group, every single meeting, there’s a specific, tangible thing that gets filed up and it gets implemented.
So it’s really been a heartwarming thing to see how productive these folks have been, and I congratulate all of them.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Thank you.
Gene, please.
SECRETARY SCALIA: Thank you, Mr. President. And you mentioned the three and a half percent unemployment rate just a few months ago. You did so many things for the American worker during those three years.
You know, back in the summer of 2016, the Congressional Budget Office said that we’d be at 5 percent unemployment in February. They said that, between then and February 2020, they said we’d create 1.9 million jobs; we created 7 million jobs.
So Larry touched on it. It was — it was policies of tax cuts, of deregulation that brought us there, which was just a wonderful thing for the American worker as jobs were being created and wages were rising.
But there was other work going on. And what you see today is a manifestation of other things that were being done that are now going to have their day to really help workers. We — we are coming back. Larry has mentioned some of the numbers. But we know that the training will be important, and we’re fortunate that this really, very extraordinary group — and as Secretary Ross has said, a group that really generated valuable product — they were working quietly to help train American workers.
I spoke earlier about a new apprenticeship rule that we adopted at the Labor Department that I think will be very helpful. This will be an important part of the rebound.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Gene, very much. Appreciate it.
Steve, please.
SECRETARY MNUCHIN: Thank you, Mr. President. Well, as others said, your economic team, working with you, knew how to create jobs and it created an enormous amount. And because of this virus, we had to, unfortunately, shut down the economy.
We know how to reopen the economy safely. Working with Congress, we put $3 trillion in. It’s beginning to work; we see it. And we’re — our work isn’t going to be done until every single one of these jobs is done.
We know we need a few more tools. We’ll go back to Congress next month, but we’re going to get everybody back to work. And I’m confident we’re going to see a strong third and fourth quarter as we reopen.
THE PRESIDENT: That’s great, Steve. Thank you very much.
Anybody else would like to say something? Anybody? Anybody? This is your chance. Go ahead. Please.
MS. ROLLINS: Mr. President, I just want to say, as your Domestic Policy Chief, what an extraordinary today — day today is, and here’s why: It’s not just the work of this council and the leadership of Ivanka, it is the executive order that you are about to sign that completely resets the playing field.
The federal government is the largest employer in the country, with 2 million employees. Two thirds of American adults do not have a college degree. Your signature that is recalibrating the workforce away from being degree-only to skillset is transformational.
And the opportunity for you to fight for all Americans — I think about Tony that Ivanka talked about; that Sebastian talked about from Udacity — from a truck driver, to a software engineer, next potentially into the federal government because of this executive order that is focusing on skills, rather than degrees.
Congratulations and thank you for your leadership. It’s extraordinary.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Thank you very much. Anybody? Jovita.
ADMINISTRATOR CARRANZA: Yes, President Trump, thank you very much for your strong leadership.
You know, I sit in the audience here as part of a participate — participation of this particular advisory board, and I’m a recipient of the type of programs that you are actually implementing and supporting.
I started out as a box handler in a — in the world’s largest logistics company. And so when I hear everyone talk about the dedication of the workforce and establishing some really comprehensive training, I took advantage of every training opportunity there was in the private sector. And perhaps you’ll see another Administrator similar to me, based on the programs that you’re going to advocate and support.
And because of the public-private partnerships that this administration has enabled — the Paycheck Protection Program, just one example that has fortified small businesses, sustained their viability, and also protected their employees — a baseline of about 60 million employees. And so I thank you again for putting small businesses front and center.
And one other comment. I’m looking at all of these private sector companies — the super leaders in your various sectors. You are the primary contractors for the — the subcontractors that I represent as an advocate for Small Business Administration. So once you reinstate your viability, the small-business sector will then follow soon — soon after.
So thank you again, President.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much, Jovita. Thank you very much.
SECRETARY DEVOS: Mr. President —
THE PRESIDENT: Please.
SECRETARY DEVOS: I just appreciate your unrelenting focus on creating opportunity for all Americans, and that begins with opportunities in education. And I so appreciate your leadership there. And it’s been a privilege to be part of this, Ivanka. And, Secretary Ross, thank you for your work here.
We are privileged to carry out your vision in policy and action, as Governor Reynolds said. And thank you for your leadership.
THE PRESIDENT: Choice — how’s that going? Choice. Right?
SECRETARY DEVOS: Yes, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: That’s what we want. Please.
MR. PULSIPHER: Yeah, I was just going to say thank you, Mr. President. From a university’s perspective, it’s often perceived as skills versus degrees. But in reality, in a skills-denominated future, it is that tide that lifts all boats. Because even those who possess degrees, they can better articulate the skills and competencies that they now have for the future of work.
And the reality is, too — is that it’s also more fair, it’s more equitable, it’s more prosperous for our workforce because what it really is, is it — it’s now about what you possess and what you can demonstrate, not how you acquired the competency and skill.
THE PRESIDENT: Right.
MR. PULSIPHER: And so it just creates much more of an equitable — equitable pathway. And WGU, as a competency-based education provider, has always been focused on how do you articulate the outcomes of achieving a degree in a skills and competency-based way so it’s much more aligned with the future of work. And so it is truly that tide that lifts all boats.
So, this is a huge step in the right direction. So, thank you very much.
THE PRESIDENT: I agree with you 100 percent, I must say. I do.
Okay? Why don’t we sign? And this is a big deal. Congratulations to everybody in the room. This means a lot.
(The executive order is signed.)
Okay. We’ll do that for Marillyn. Who will take this?
(The President distributes a signing pen.)
(Applause.)
Thank you very much. (Inaudible.)
(The executive order is signed.)
Okay. That’s very good. We have pens for everybody. Here, honey. (Applause.) All right. Phase two. Thank you very much.
Well, thank you all very much. We appreciate it. This is really an important day for a lot of reasons. But this is one of them. Thank you all for being with us. We appreciate it very much. Thank you very much.
I have created this site to help people have fun in the kitchen. I write about enjoying life both in and out of my kitchen. Life is short! Make the most of it and enjoy!
This is a library of News Events not reported by the Main Stream Media documenting & connecting the dots on How the Obama Marxist Liberal agenda is destroying America
Centinel2012 