| Unleash Prosperity Hotline Issue #53 Written By Stephen Moore 1) Trump: “School Choice Civil Rights Issue of the Decade”We’ve been waiting for years for a president to come out and say it, and yesterday, Trump had the guts and the wisdom to declare what Obama never could or would:“Frankly, school choice is the civil rights statement of the year, of the decade, and probably beyond — because all children have to have access to quality education. A child’s zip code in America should never determine their future, and that’s what was happening. So we’re very, very strong on school choice, and I hope everybody remembers that.”Has anyone heard a SINGLE Black Lives Matter protester advocate for this in the last three weeks or three years? By the way, with many public school districts threatening to stay closed this fall, this would be the ideal time to give vouchers to parents so they can send their kids to schools that ARE open. Thank you, Mr. President for reminding us that every black child, every Hispanic child, every low income child Matters.https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-signing-executive-order-safe-policing-safe-communities/ 2) A Breakthrough Treatment For COVID-19 and Another Embarrassment for the WHOA breakthrough in the treatment of COVID-19 patients has been announced. After a very large randomized trial, Britain’s Oxford University reports that a low-cost, generic drug showed substantial reductions in deaths in severe cases.https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m2422Dexamethasone, a corticosteroid, “reduced deaths by one third in ventilated patients and by one fifth in other patients receiving oxygen only.”It was a gold-standard, randomized controlled trial with 2,104 patients for the dexamethasone arm (6 mg once daily, taken orally or by injection for 10 days) and 4,321 patients receiving standard care in the control arm.This comes after a retrospective study of a different corticosteroid, methylprednisolone, last month in Spain found: “Steroid treatment reduced mortality by 41.8% relative to no steroid treatment.”Which brings us to the WHO, which has seemed to get everything about this pandemic wrong. We remind you of this story from back on *March 22*:  How many lives did WHO’s bad advice cost?3) Media Finally Discovering the Blue State Nursing Home ScandalYesterday the WSJ news side sent out an email with the subject: “WSJ News Alert: Coronavirus Deaths in U.S. Nursing, Long-Term Care Facilities Top 50,000.”Our count regularly reported on these pages has been over that mark for a few days, but we’re glad they noticed.Of course, New York refuses to report their real total — which is perhaps 10,000 deaths higher than the 6,300 they admit to — which conceals the real national number.Now even the liberal group ProPublica has posted their own story yesterday with a lot more horrifying details on Cuomo’s policy of requiring nursing homes to admit infectious patients.CTUP president Phil Kerpen reported this long ago but it’s nice to see the rest of the media catching on. Phil’s comprehensive testimony to Congress on this issue from last week is posted on our website and our daily tracking sheet is here. 4) The Wrongest Medicine Man in HistoryDr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s top infectious-disease official, says that something resembling normal life in the U.S. won’t return for “a year or so.” “I would hope to get to some degree of real normality within a year or so. But I don’t think it’s this winter or fall,” Fauci told Britain’s Telegraph on Sunday.We know Dr. Fauci’s calm approach and communications skills are viewed in overwhelmingly positive terms, but it’s time to note that when it comes to being an oracle his record is pretty dismal.Michael Fumento, a science writer who has reported on infectious diseases for 35 years, says Fauci has spent “his professional career warning of nightmare scenarios, many which never materialized.”Fumento notes Fauci’s role in kicking off the U.S. AIDS alarm. Fauci, was sole author of an important 1983 medical article, in which he declared the disease might be transmissible by “routine close contact, as within a family household.” As late as 1987, he predicted the percentage of AIDS cases contracted via heterosexual transmission (then at 4%) would rise to 10% by 1991. That rate never rose above 4%.In 2004, Fauci declared we’re “due” for “massive person-to-person” spread of Avian flu H5N1. As it turned out, the disease killed 440 worldwide.More recently, Fauci sounded the threat of the Zika virus. It barely touched two U.S. states before burning out on its own.When it comes to the coronavirus, Fauci was a leading voice for locking down the country with plague-like predictions of death and destruction. This reversed the policies used during all prior pandemics. Today, the CDC’s “best guess” estimate of mortality is a flu-like 0.26 percent.https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/health/dr-faucis-recurring-nightmares-covid-19-might-be-his-worst-its-sure-not-hisFauci himself finally acknowledged to CNBC on May 22 that lockdowns could cause “irreparable damage” if imposed for too long. Now trillions of dollars of lost output later, and tens of thousands of lives lost to the health consequences of the lockdown, we’ve learned the harsh truth of those words.https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/22/dr-anthony-fauci-says-staying-closed-for-too-long-could-cause-irreparable-damage.htmlOtherwise, the good doctor’s record as an oracle is spotless. One of President Trump’s greatest errors was putting this Paul Krugman of medicine in a position of authority. 5) Quote of the DayAndrew Sullivan, a former editor of the liberal New Republic and now a columnist for New York magazine, points out the chilling truth that the modern “anti-fascists” are the fascists and authoritarians:“In this manic, Manichean world you’re not even given the space to say nothing. “White Silence = Violence” is a slogan chanted and displayed in every one of these marches. It’s very reminiscent of totalitarian states where you have to compete to broadcast your fealty to the cause. …..Every single aspect of life, every word you speak or write, every tweet you might send, every private conversation you may have had, any email you might have sent, every friend you love is either a function of your racism or anti-racism. And this is why flawed human beings are now subjected to such brutal public shamings, outings, and inquisitions — in order to root out the structural evil they represent.”Read the whole thing:https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/06/andrew-sullivan-is-there-still-room-for-debate.html 6) Anti-Hero of the Day: Austin Mayor Steve AdlerAustin, Texas has extended its “stay home, stay safe” order from June 15 all the way to August 15. Mayor Steve Adler says the move is necessary because virus hospitalizations are “surging.”Back on March 24, Dr. Mark Escott, the interim health director for Bexar County, held a media briefing at which he warned “That modeling suggests to us that if we put schools back in session, if we turn the businesses back on, if we allow people to go back to restaurants and bars and businesses today… that by May we will need to be able to provide more than 20,000 hospital beds a day for our community alone.”How did that 20,000 prediction go? Austin presently has 142 patients hospitalized with COVID-19 in a metro population of two million people.https://cbsaustin.com/news/local/health-chief-warns-local-hospitals-could-need-20000-beds-if-no-action-against-coronavirusThe good news is the Austin stay home order has no legal effect because Governor Greg Abbott, in his wisdom, pre-empted local orders in his state reopening plan. A good model for any governor who hasn’t yet taken that step. 7) Hero of the Day: A Surprise WinnerGovernor Gavin Newsom: “Poverty Is Part Of The Health Question”For months, Governor Gavin Newsom has relentlessly locked down California’s economy in sometimes strange and arbitrary ways. His low scores in our rating of the nation’s governors reflect that.But he seems to be suddenly changing his tune. Newsom now says:“There’s a certain point where you have to recognize you can’t be in a permanent state where people are locked away for months and months and months on end,” Newsom said, warning of the broader public health impacts of seeing “lives and livelihoods completely destroyed.” He noted that a shuttered society brings its own public health perils in the form of Californians succumbing to despair as they neglect mental health. In addition, he said that poverty has to be part of the “health question broadly defined.”We’ll look forward to Governor Newsom’s policies continuing to open up the economy. He can then look forward to a higher grade in our rating system.https://www.politico.com/states/california/story/2020/06/15/newsom-defends-widescale-california-reopening-as-positive-tests-continue-to-climb-1293036 8) New Episode of Steve Forbes: What’s Ahead: Can Law Enforcement Seize Your Cash Without a Crime?Did you know law enforcement can seize your property if they suspect it’s involved in a crime? Steve Forbes on civil asset forfeiture, a procedure claimed to target the illicit proceeds of organized crime has evolved as a revenue source for a number of government entities. As congress aims pass a major police reform bill few are talking about a critical law enforcement reform that disproportionately hurts low income communities and minorities. Should Police be able to seize and keep your property even if you haven’t been committed of a crime? 9) The Post Nails It  |
