Sep 8, 2021 | Constitution, Economy, Globalism, Liberty Articles
By Harold Pease. Ph. D.
Recently LibertyUnderFire published “Biden Voters Bear Responsibility for Afghanistan Debacle.” It documented a foreign policy disaster by the Democrats second to none. Sixty percent of Americans now believe Biden should be removed from office. Two years ago I said, “the day will come when few will admit having once been a Democrat.” This prediction will prove even more true ahead. Why?
Because on January 20th the United States became a socialist country ruled by Democratic Socialists. Socialism in any form has no brakes in its control over others hence can become very tyrannical. Tyranny, whether expressed by lockdowns, compulsory mask wearing, vaccinations, vaccine passports, or censorship is still forced behavior by one part of the population on the other and is not popular. Socialism divides the population into two classes, the rulers and the ruled without the ruled having any say in the matter. Elections, if they exist at all, are for window dressing to make socialism appear to have popular support but are always controlled. The antidote to socialism is the U.S. Constitution as written, as it, when followed, provides brakes on the growth of government and prohibits tyranny. This is why socialists oppose the Constitution.
Because, as the coming forensic audits will prove, and FrankSpeaks.com has already shown beyond doubt of any reasonable person, the election of 2020 was the most fraudulent in U.S. history by enemies of the republic both domestic and foreign. Over a thousand affidavits and real time computer switches of Trump votes to Biden in every county will necessitate a reckoning with justice. The Democrat Party will fall from grace. Are Democrats interested in making certain this never happens again? No! They roadblocked every audit and implemented full-court press censorship practices of anything negative to Joe Biden.
Instead, their H.R. 1 “Bill For the People Act” sought to cement indefinitely corrupt election practices widely used in the 2020 election. Contrary to its title the nearly 800-page bill would remove authority over elections from the people and the states. It constitutes a federal takeover of all elections. It installs controlled elections. With the defeat of the bill in the Senate the House simply repurposed much the same bill, now called HR 4 which in now pending.
Because, more and more Christians view the Democrat Party as a threat to Christianity as demonstrated by their promotion of the so called Equality Act which “would give homosexuality, transgenderism, and other perversions of human sexuality and gender the same protections as race or sex in employment, housing, public accommodations, and more.” It specifically prohibits religious freedom as a defense. “The legislation applies to churches, religious schools, religious hospitals, religious employers, gathering places, sports, all government entities, and more. Christian adoption agencies will be shut down, too, if they refuse to place children with homosexuals or individuals confused about whether they are men or women.” It could criminalize Christianity, Judaism and Islam as their holy writ condemn as sin the behaviors of the LGBTQ community (“Equality Act Would Unleash Federal Persecution of Christians,” By Alex Newman, New American, May 8, 2019).. It is also anti-women affecting bathroom privacy and women’s sports.
Because, Democrats oppose the Constitution on virtually every freedom issue especially religion, speech, press, self defense, and the 9th and 10th amendments. Indeed as a student of the Constitution, I have difficulty finding any part of the Constitution that they support as written.
With the violence, burning and looting in our streets last summer, endorsed by the Democrat Party presses and office holders, and staged to reappear after the forensic audits this Fall, more people are purchasing firearms for their own self-defense than ever. They see the wisdom of the Founders in defining the people as the militia and cementing their right to keep and bear arms from any government. Democrats can not push to defund the police without at the same time causing the populous to feel unprotected. Many now understand that an armed populous is the best protection from a complete socialist revolution.
Because, the Democrat Party opposes borders. Such opposition allows criminals, terrorists, child sex predators (even pedophilia slavers for the vile appetites of the wealthy class, Hollywood and members of Congress), and drug dealers unrestricted access to our vulnerable populations and the bounty of our land. Illegals, they believe, in appreciation for access to America, will become reliable Democrat voters.
Because, the Democrat Party seeks to bankrupt America. On March 15, 2021, Joe Biden signed into law the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Act without a single Republican vote in either house. Only 9% of it had anything to do with the Wuhan China Virus. Nearing passage is Biden’s $3.5 trillion budget and $1 trillion infrastructure bill. Democrats plan trillions more debt in reparations for descendants of slaves, the green new deal, and free college for everyone. It is hard to believe that the Democrats, and globalist Republicans, are not purposely pushing us over a cliff to destroy the economy of the once wealthiest nation in world history. In just eight months of his reign we are no longer energy independent and soaring prices are already felt by everyone.
Yes globalist Republicans too have been complacent in bankrupting America because of their national debt increases; but Democrats appear to be aggressively so. Biden provides benefits for those staying home from work, resulting in factories not having sufficient laborers to maintain their normal production loads. This has resulted in shortages and backordering of items of every kind, crippling the economy. And severe food shortages are on the horizon.
For these reasons, “the day will come when few will admit having once been a Democrat.”
Dr. Harold Pease is a syndicated columnist and an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He taught history and political science from this perspective for over 30 years at Taft College. Newspapers have permission to publish this column. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
Mar 24, 2021 | Economy, Liberty Articles, Taxes
By Harold Pease Ph.D.
On March 15, 2021, Joe Biden signed into law the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Act . Not a single Republican in the House or Senate voted in favor of this legislation, as only 9% of which had anything to do with the Wuhan China Virus. This in light of the fact that a trillion dollars was not yet spent from the money previously allotted for COVID relief.
Prior to this the first spending package for the virus was last year March 27, 2020, when Congress added $2.5 trillion to the national debt with the The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) giving most adults $1,200. Most were jubilant to receive a stimulus check but to pay this single stimulus back today would cost each taxpayer $18,863 since about 50% of adults pay no income taxes (Compare U.S. Debt Clocks Nov. 2019 with April 2020). I would rather not have the $1200 stimulus if it costs me $18,863 later.
On December 27, 2020, President Trump signed a second Stimulus Bill of $900 billion giving most adults another stimulus of $600. We have not assessed what the payback for this particular stimulus will be.
These three stimulus packages ($2.5T, $900 B, $1.9T) added increased the national debt by $5.3 trillion in less than one year. This total is more than the combined cost of World War I, $334 billion, and World War II, $4.1 trillion “adjusted for inflation to today’s dollars” (“The Cost of U.S. Wars Then and Now,”Military History, by Norwich University, October 20, 2020). Such debt is a recipe for bankrupting America and those doing it must know this.
So what is a trillion dollars? To begin with a trillion is the number one followed by twelve zeros. A trillion dollars is a thousand billion and a billion is a thousand million. One mathematician gave us a very practical way of evaluating our outstanding debt. One trillion one-dollar bills stacked atop each other (not end to end but flat) would reach nearly 68,000 miles into space—a third of the way to the moon (See CNN News Cast, Feb. 4, 2009). If so, the debt thus far incurred by the coronavirus alone, $5.3 trillion, would reach to the moon and two-thirds back to earth.
Senator Mitch McConnell gave another illustration just as awe striking. He calculated that if we spent a million dollars every day since Jesus was born, we still would not have spent a trillion dollars—only three-fourths of a trillion dollars (Ibid).
Who will pay these three coronavirus loans? Since we never liquidate our debt—only increase and pass it on to posterity—our grandchildren yet unborn, will be saddled with this debt plus the interest on it. How can I prophesy with such certainty? The United States has not been free of debt since Warren G. Harding 100 years ago (US Debt by President by Dollar and Percentage Who Increased the U.S. Debt the Most? Depends on How You Measure It. By Kimberly Amadeo, Updated November 04, 2019)?
Yes the coronavirus is a massive rogue wave that has sunk thousands of businesses in its path but following closely behind it is a tsunami many times larger—the national debt—that is and will bring down this country because our children cannot pay it either. Our national debt has soared to $28.09 trillion (USDebtClock.org). This debt in one dollar bills laid flat atop each other, not just the COVID portion as mentioned, will now go to the moon and back almost five times. We are drowning in debt.
I ask students, “Who gets to go without so that this debt can be paid?” “Go without!!!?” That is a concept foreign to this generation!! They do not know, and neither do their parents and grandparents who laid it on their backs. When they are told that their share to liquidate this debt is not just $37,726 for the coronavirus bailouts, but $224,456 per taxpayer—due immediately, they get angry (see USDebtClock.org). “Someone should have told me that government handouts are not free.”
The 13th Amendment ending slavery has been rescinded, they are America’s new slaves. Bondage was given them before their birth, or while they were in the womb, or before they were old enough to know what it meant to be sold into slavery. The past and present generations wanted nice costly programs for free and were willing to sell their children to have them. Worse, the older generation is still anxious to incur even more debt on our defenseless children and grandchildren. Are we not the most debt addicted, insensitive generation in U.S. History?
Yes these are hard times and in such adding to a national debt is said to be justified. What isn’t justified is that in prosperous times, of which most of the last 70 years have been, we should, and could have, liquidated that debt. Then a $5.3 trillion debt to handle a virus could have been repaid in the next prosperous time or perhaps by the children, but not now. We have squandered our wealth in foreign endless wars, foreign aid and domestic welfare.
Both parties are responsible for this debt. I had hoped with the robust Trump economy (the best in several decades) that we could start paying off the debt but now chances of removing, even the coronavirus portion of the national debt enslaving us, is slim. Biden proposes $3 trillion for infrastructure updating. Trillions more debt Democrats plan for reparations for descendants of slaves, the green new deal, and free college for everyone. It is hard to believe that the Democrats are not purposely pushing us over a cliff destroying the once wealthiest nation in world history.
Dr. Harold Pease is a syndicated columnist and an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He taught history and political science from this perspective for over 30 years at Taft College. Newspapers have permission to publish this column. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
Sep 28, 2020 | Constitution, Economy, Globalism, Immigration, Liberty Articles
Harold Pease Ph.D.
An amazing event happened September 8, 2020 in a Donald Trump campaign rally in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The huge crowd broke into spontaneous “We love you” chants for the president. He was noticeably affected.
It happened again two days later in Freeland, Michigan, Sept. 10. Ten chants in a row broke out 30 minuets into the speech after his comments about helping stop the violence in Minneapolis and his threat to use federal agents in Seattle if violence did not stop there. He thanked the crowd after the first two chants but they would not stop until after another eight—“We love you. We love you. We love you. We love you. We love you. We love you. We love you. We love you.” He interrupted, “Don’t say that, I’ll start to cry [pause] and that wouldn’t be good for my image. You don’t want to see me cry. I’ll start to cry.” This tender moment was followed by another five “We love you” chants before he was permitted to continue.
Why is this a big story, two reasons? First, because I do not recall any politician getting that chant in the history of this country. Not even George Washington, Andrew Jackson, or Franklin Delano Roosevelt, presidents said to be among the most popular. Second, in almost five years, I have yet to hear one favorable comment from Democrat news outlets. Because of this I am certain half of America, so influenced by the constant “hate Trump” spew, will never know that they lived through the administration of perhaps America’s most popular president. No public office holder has drawn the crowd sizes he consistently gets.
Remember this is the same presidential candidate who just four years ago was “piled on” seemingly by everyone: the establishment media, establishment Democrats, establishment Republicans, establishment bankers and corporations. Added to this was the globalist establishment special interest groups the Council on Foreign Relations and the Bilderbergers. No president has endured more opposition than he—perhaps all put together. Imagine thousands now chanting “We love you” in unison to a politician in appreciation. This has never happened.
So why is he so popular with the American people? I’ll not dwell on the greatest economy in over a century, the highest employment rate for Africans, Hispanics, Asians, women and youth in my lifetime. The lowest taxes for the middle class in decades. These are not even disputed by the left in the 2020 election.
He is loved because he took on the globalists who were turning this country into the military arm of what they call the New World Order. He started no new wars, ended nation building in foreign lands, and is pulling out of the no-win wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. Our soldiers will no longer dye in foreign lands for globalist causes.
Veterans love him because he treated them with dignity. He signed the VA Choice Act and VA Accountability Act, expanded VA health services, walk-in-clinics, and same-day urgent primary and mental health care.
Until the Chinese Wuhan Virus he lifted nearly 4 million Americans off food stamps. Against the advice of his opponents he shut down immigration from China early in the virus. He teamed with the CDC with daily reports and projected confidence by not overreacting to the virus by a nation-wide shut-down of the economy. He is viewed as most likely to restore his previous booming economy.
He gave America energy independence by encouraging fracking, opening ANWR and approving the Keystone XL and Dakota Access Pipelines. These blocked by his predecessor.
Border law enforcement agents love him because he is finally building a wall to stop illegal immigration that undermines the salaries of the American worker. It also slows drug trafficking that is killing Americans and greatly restricts the activities of drug gangs like MS-13 and other criminals. Trump has done more than any other president to stop wide spread sex trafficking, especially with underaged girls.
Those who value the Constitution love him because he protects it as written, with two appointments to the Supreme Court and 214 Article III judge confirmations. He is viewed as most likely to hold to the restraints of the Constitution, especially the 2nd Amendment and 1st Amendment rights of free speech, assembly, and religion. Also he is most likely to do away with the double standard in justice including the probability of treason in high places.
Most Christians love him because, more than any predecessor for a lifetime, he values and protects religion. He is the most “Right to Life” president in American history. Stopping the annual killing of hundreds of thousands of America’s unborn babies is widely supported by Christians.
Americans love him because he is perceived as being the most likely to stop the spread of socialism in the United States now fully embraced by the Democrat Party. Historically it has brought only universal poverty and misery.
Americans love him because he is most likely to deal with anarchists in our cities and arsonists in our forests. Most view these as insurrectionist attempting to remove their president and destroy the greatest most prosperous, for those willing to work, nation on earth. Safety is a human right.
But mostly he is loved because they trust him and believe that he really cares about them. He is the only second term president in decades that can run on “Promises Made, Promises Kept.”
Dr. Harold Pease is a syndicated columnist and an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He taught history and political science from this perspective for over 30 years at Taft College. Newspapers have permission to publish this column. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
Jun 9, 2020 | Economy, Liberty Articles, Taxes
By Harold Pease Ph.D.
In March Congress added $2.3 trillion to the national debt with the stimulus package. Most were jubilant to receive a stimulus check. But what does this mean? Just to pay this back today would cost each taxpayer $18,863 (compare U.S. Debt Clocks Nov. 2019 with April 2020).
In May the Treasury Department announced that it will borrow another $3 trillion this quarter making our total coronavirus indebtedness $5.3 trillion and thus what we owed for the smaller loan more than doubles (Matt Egan, The US is becoming the king of debt. It’s a necessary risk, CNN Business). To pay both loans in August would be more than $37,726 per U.S. taxpayer.
Those who pay no federal taxes, which is about 50% of American adults, are not assessed. “The latest spending packages are estimated to be worth about 14% of the country’s economy…the national debt soared above 100% of GDP” (“Coronavirus: US to borrow record $3tn as spending soars,” BBC News, May 4, 2020).
So what is a trillion dollars? To begin with a trillion is the number one followed by twelve zeros. A trillion dollars is a thousand billion and a billion is a thousand million. These numbers mean very little to the average person. who count their money in tens, twenties and hundreds .
One mathematician gave us a very practical way of evaluating our outstanding debt. One trillion one-dollar bills stacked atop each other (not end to end but flat) would reach nearly 68,000 miles into space—a third of the way to the moon (See CNN News Cast, Feb. 4, 2009). If so, the debt thus far incurred by the coronavirus alone, $5.3 trillion, would reach to the moon and two-thirds back to earth.
Senator Mitch McConnell gave another illustration just as awe striking. He calculated that if we spent a million dollars every day since Jesus was born, we still would not have spent a trillion dollars—only three-fourths of a trillion dollars (Ibid).
Who will pay these two coronavirus loans? Since we never liquidate our debt—only increase and pass it on to posterity—our grandchildren yet unborn, will be saddled with this debt plus the interest on it. How can I prophesy with such certainty? The United States has not been free of debt since Warren G. Harding 98 years ago (US Debt by President by Dollar and Percentage Who Increased the U.S. Debt the Most? Depends on How You Measure It. By Kimberly Amadeo Updated November 04, 2019)?
Yes the coronavirus is a massive rogue wave that has sunk many businesses in its path but following closely behind it is a tsunami almost six times its size—the national debt—that is and will bring down this country because our children cannot pay it either. Our national debt has soared to $25.5 trillion, and with the newly announce $3 trillion loan to $28.5 trillion. Our debt in one dollar bills laid flat atop each other will now go to the moon and back almost five times.
I ask students, “Who gets to go without so that this debt can be paid?” “Go without!!!?” That is a concept foreign to this generation!! They do not know, and neither do their parents and grandparents who laid it on their backs. When they are told that their share to liquidate this debt is not just $37,726 for a coronavirus, but $205,440 per taxpayer—due immediately, they get angry (see USDebtClock.org). Someone should have told them that government handouts are not free.
The 13th Amendment ending slavery has been rescinded, they are America’s new slaves. Bondage was given them before their birth, or while they were in the womb, or before they were old enough to know what it meant to be sold into slavery. The past generation wanted nice costly programs for free and were willing to sell their children to have them. Worse, the older generation is still anxious to incur even more debt on our defenseless children and grandchildren. Are we not the most debt addicted, insensitive generation in U.S. History?
Yes these are hard times and in such adding to a national debt is said to be justified. What isn’t justified is that in prosperous times, of which most of the last 70 years have been, we should, and could have, liquidated that debt. Then a $5.3 trillion debt to handle a virus could have been repaid in the next prosperous time or perhaps by the children, but not now. We have squandered our wealth in foreign endless wars, foreign aid and domestic welfare.
I had hoped with the robust Trump economy (the best in several decades) that we could get to paying back the debt. I previously published that we could survive and turn things around if we did three things: made significant cuts in our top 6 major expenditures, did not elect a big spending congress, and did not incur a big funding event. Unfortunately we made no major cuts in spending, maintained a big spending congress, and did incur a big funding event—the coronavirus.
Trump remains our only hope for rebuilding the economy because he already did it once, but chances of removing even the coronavirus portion of the national debt enslaving us is slim.
Dr. Harold Pease is a syndicated columnist and an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He taught history and political science from this perspective for over 30 years at Taft College. Newspapers have permission to publish this column. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
May 25, 2020 | Economy, Healthcare, Liberty Articles
So many things are hitting us fast, hard and from all directions. It is increasingly difficult to sift through the messages to find truth as everything—even a virus—has been weaponized. So honest people have to ask, “Is this about the election or the virus?” Who benefits most?
I was a boy when the Asian Flu Pandemic, originating in Singapore, attacked America leaving 116,000 dead in 1957. I was in college when more than 100,000 people in the U.S. died of the highly contagious Hong Kong Flu in the 1968 Pandemic (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). I contracted both. Both exceeded the death rate of COVID-19.
No one spoke of shutting down the economy, businesses, schools and churches. The media did not frighten us with nightly death tallies and Congress did not rush forward with grants and loans valued at 4 trillion dollars to help ease difficult times. People were not quarantined to their homes for weeks—even months. No-one wore face masks or social distanced six feet from others. No one was arrested for going to work or being on public beaches. No governors openly violated the 1st and 4th Amendments of the Constitution. We did not stop shaking hands or attending public dances. NOBODY WAS PARANOID OF NORMAL CONTACT.
Nor did we do any of these things just two years ago when 61,000 people died of influenza in the 2017-18 flu season or last year when 34,000 died of the same. It was life. The media in modern history had never focused on the body count of flu that takes thousands each year—until now. Nobody thought to benefit politically.
Until now no country self destructed their economy over a pandemic. They came and went and the economies thereafter remained good because we let them alone. Even the Twenties were prosperous times following the Spanish Flu of 1918 that took approximately 675,000 in the United States of a much smaller population. As bad as that was, at least six times worse in death, we did not shut down the economy by governmental decree, make it unlawful to go to work and church, or violate the Bill of Rights.
So why now? Because we have been made to be afraid and stay afraid.
Death in America with the present Wuhan Coronavirus is, as of May 20, 2020, at 90,340. “Now we know that it’s likely to be closer to maybe a really aggressive flu season” (Ingram Angle, April 23, 2020). This is the number who died WITH COVID-19. The number who died FROM COVID 19 is at least 25% less—probably far less.
What we know now of the Wuhan Coronavirus is that children are only minimally affected and unlikely to pass it on and that it overwhelmingly takes those over 65 with preexisting conditions. The Journal of American Medical Association, April 22, 2020, concluded that 94% of coronavirus patients in New York City hospitals suffered from preexisting conditions.
The odds of you dying from this virus from those contracting it “can vary from, at most, eight-tenths of a percent in New York City to two-one-hundredths of a percent in Phoenix.” (“An Advantaged Disease, Indeed.” By William J. Bennett & Seth Leibsohn, April 06, 2020).
What we know now is that states like South Dakota and Georgia, without lockdowns damaged their economies least. States like Florida and Texas that protected the aged had minimal death rates next to states like New York City and New Jersey.
So again, is this about the election or the virus? In the questions below which political party benefits most from making a “somewhat normal” pandemic into the most fearful event in a century so close to an election?
How do you kill the greatest economy, the greatest unemployment records, and Trump’s gigantic rallies attended by 20% Democrats, just prior to the election? Why are blue state governors so slow to open their economies before November 3, if possible? Which party is most advantaged by an economy unable to get back to normal?
How would fear of human contact and normalcy cause the people to want mail-in voting, which is said to advantage one political party—especially in swing states?
Which is advantaged by keeping the people in fear? Why is the CDC so adamant about counting deaths WITH COVID-19 rather than only deaths FROM COVID-19? Why did Democrat governors send COVID patients to nursing homes in Washington, Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey especially when, in the latter two the hospital ship Comfort was available but mostly unused? Was it to inflate the death numbers? Why is the proven and vastly effective drug hydroxychloroquine opposed by Democrat media outlets and governors?
How more easily could the Democrat media shift the narrative from the alleged Biden-Burisma-Ukraine and China Scandals and divert investigations on FBI and DOJ and alleged FISA corruption to COVID-19? Finally, how better could the media shelter Biden from past corruption, obvious cognitive problems, and coming devastating debate performance?
So, is this about the election or the virus? Given the fact that Trump has been the target of constant Coup d’etat attempts to remove him by the same media who hyped the fear on this virus, I think it fair to pose this question.
Author
Dr. Harold Pease is a syndicated columnist and an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He taught history and political science from this perspective for over 30 years at Taft College. Newspapers have permission to publish this column. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
Apr 13, 2020 | Economy, Healthcare, Liberty Articles
When President Donald Trump mobilized a health squad to advise him and the nation on the seriousness of the coronavirus epidemic he was given projections of death vastly exceeding the number of Americans who died in the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic. Initially these numbers were 2.2 million Americans. These later were reduced to 240,000. The latest IHME model, just out, has it at nearly 82,000 by August 1, 2020.
Now let’s be clear! All these numbers are unacceptable and involve real people: fathers, mothers grandparents and occasionally a child but always someone loved. Life matters. Any death is serious, of course, but this is only 20,000 more than death from the flu season of 2017-2018.
Why does this matter? Because it was these extreme projections of 2.2 million that were used as cause to shut down the economy and increase our indebtedness by perhaps $4 trillion dollars—an indebtedness more than all wars combined in American history.
What also concerns me is that most Democratic media outlets fed these panic inducing death counts from day one, even before evidence confirmed them. They now seem almost disappointed 1) with these new lower numbers, 2) that a drug used to treat malaria, hydroxy-chloroquine, is able to treat also the coronavirus, and 3) that this crisis is going to go away far too early. Democrats still can not give Trump a win on managing this crisis. They loaded Congress’s 2 trillion dollar relief bill with pork that had nothing to do with the virus itself, but did prolong passage of the bill designed to help millions of Americans desperately needing it.
My biggest concern, however, remains the weaponization of death projections seemingly to keep hysteria alive and well—and for what possible purpose? Who benefits from this hysteria? The media in modern history have never focused on the body count of flus that take thousands each year.
I am writing this on April 8, using the newly released death projections for April. By the time newspapers print this column on April 10 the projected death rate will be 22,239. By the time LibertyUnderFire subscribers read this April 14, deaths are projected to be 34,068. One week thereafter, April 17, it will be 43,279. By April 21 they are to be 54,857 By April 24, they are to be 62,089 and by April 28, they will be 68,938. Projections to Aug 1st will be 81,766 dead Americans. Deaths per day are to peak April 16 at 3,130 (IHME, COVID-19 Projections assuming full social distancing through May 2020, United States of America view at https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america). Readers can compare these numbers against reality as we approach these dates.
Still, the reduction of death by the panicked media is, for the rest of us, manna from heaven compared to the projections just 10 days before of 2.2 million dead Americans. The latest projected death in the United States of 82,000 in three months is unlikely to be reached. It might turn out to be even less than the 61,000 who died of influenza in the 2017-2018 season. Most of us may never know anyone who actually died from it. Body count of the deceased did not lead the news every night causing us to hunker in our homes wondering if we would be next.
So here are the facts that are underreported or ignored by the panicked press The odds of you getting this virus are much smaller than the hype, “based on the population tested, … rates can vary from, at most, eight-tenths of a percent in New York City to two-one-hundredths of a percent in Phoenix.” The few out of 330 million Americans that actually get this virus at least 98% will recover from it. There are models showing 50% of the population may have already had it, never knew they had it, and recovered (“An Advantaged Disease, Indeed.” By William J. Bennett & Seth Leibsohn, April 06, 2020). With these facts accurately reported it is unlikely that we would have shut down the economy.
They did not tell us of the 34,000 who died of influenza in last year’s 2018-2019 flu season, nor that we lose PER MONTH “about 54,000 Americans to heart disease; 50,000 to cancer; 14,000 to asthma, bronchitis, and emphysema; 12,000 to stroke; 10,000 to Alzheimer’s; 7,000 to diabetes; 5,600 to drug overdoses; and 4,700 to influenza and pneumonia.” These deaths give us over 157,000 deaths PER MONTH” and no-one shuts down the economy or cries out for a $2 Trillion stimulus package. Apparently only the coronavirus, amplified by the Democratic press, alerts the panic response.
Again all life matters and these too are horrifying unacceptable death numbers involving those we love. The media have no right to drive a panic without accurate, proportional (including the omissions noted above), supporting evidence that potentially could damage the economy beyond repair for years.
One piece of knowledge that would have helped reduce the media hysteria for young people is that only 7% of those who got it were under 50 years of age. We knew this early on. Allow them to return to work ASAP. Perhaps a better response to this epidemic would have been rather than shut down the economy, quarantine those over 65 and tell those younger not to visit them for a time.
Dr. Harold Pease is a syndicated columnist and an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He taught history and political science from this perspective for over 30 years at Taft College. Newspapers have permission to publish this column. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
