September, 2020, Part 6, Political Class Insanity: Cuomo Lives In An Alternative Universal When It Comes To Virus Blame

It is the beginning of another month which means it is time again to review the latest political class insanity from the American political class. Each month it takes us multiple posts to cover the wasteful spending, incompetent government organizations and employees, government programs that usually make a problem worse than resolving it, inane and idiotic politician comments, etc.

To review past posts on this insanity and idiocy, just click on the first few posts in each month listed to the right of this page. After reviewing just a handful of these insanity posts we think you will agree that we are currently being served by the worst set of American politicians ever to hold office in our entire history.

We have often talked about the reality that New York City and New York state have led the country in coronavirus deaths and infections. The governor, Andrew Cuomo, probably unnecessarily killed hundreds, if not thousands. of elderly residents by forcing nursing homes in the state to accept virus patients into their facilities where the virus spread unimpeded. The NYC mayor, Bill de Blasio, was very cavalier early in the virus crisis by telling his residents to go out and party in enclosed quarters with others.

As a result, the number of New Yorkers killed or infected by the virus easily outpaced the deaths and infections of every other state no matter how you count. Whether you look at absolute numbers of deaths and infections or by population ratio, New York screwed up the most. Until very recently, more people in New York state died from the virus than the number of deaths in Texas, Florida, and California COMBINED. 

But in an example of one of the worst perceptions of reality, Cuomo recently blamed Donald Trump for the deaths and infections caused by the virus. He refuses to accept the reality that his screw ups short changed his residents' life and health. Specifically: “Donald Trump caused the COVID outbreak in New York,” then immediately said again, “Donald Trump caused the COVID outbreak in New York.”

Seriously, Trump caused the outbreak?! The Chinese lab that created the virus had nothing to do with it? The World Health Organization that screwed everything up early in the outbreak had nothing to do with it? Nancy Pelosi, who told everyone to go down to Chinatown and not worry about the virus, had nothing to do with it?

Hey governor, let’s review a recent Wall Street Journal article by Karl Rove that reviewed the adverse actions and quotations that you, de Blasio, Democrats, and other New York politicians and bureaucrats have put forth in the past six months:

1. When Trump banned travel from China, the raging source of the virus, on January 31, Joe Biden accused Trump of being a racist even though the travel ban likely prevented infected Chinese people from coming into the country and spreading the disease even wider.
2. Specifically Biden accused Trump of fear mongering and xenophobia.
3. Ron Kain, a former chief of staff for Biden, also opposed the China ban, calling it premature on January 28.
4. On January 30, Biden’s coronavirus advisor, Zeke Emanuel, told CNBC that everyone should “take a very big breath, slow down, and stop panicking and being hysterical” and that the virus would “go down as spring comes up,” a reality that never happened.
5. On February 6, another Biden coronavirus advisor, Irwin Redlener, claimed that a global pandemic was “not very likely” and that the chances of “getting a severe, potentially lethal form of the Wuhan virus is negligible,” grossly wrong opinions.
6. NYC’s health commissioner, Dr. Oxiris Barbot, tried to reassure NYC commuters, in early February, that “this is not something that you’re going to contract in the subway or on the bus,” an incorrect assertion that de Blasio repeated several times in March.
7. Kain came back with more wrong predictions on February 11 when he doubted that the virus would become “a serious epidemic,” two days later he stated confidently, and incorrectly, that “The evidence suggests it’s probably not that [an epidemic],” and two days later he was also wrong when he said that “We don’t have a COVID-19 epidemic in the US but we are starting to see a fear epidemic.”
8. Emanuel popped up again on February 20 when he incorrectly stated the country was overreacting and that “warm weather is going to come and, just like the flu, the corona virus is going to go down.”
9. On February 24, Nancy Pelosi told tourists in San Francisco to “come down to Chinatown.”
10. Kain supported Pelosi’s invitation three days later when he said people should not be worried by “needless fears about coronavirus” and that everyone “should tonight go down to Chinatown in their city and buy dinner or go shopping.”
11. On February 29 Emanuel told CNN that “running out and getting a mask is not going to help.”
12. On March 2, Cuomo nonchalantly stated that “So, when you’re saying, what happened in other countries versus what happened here, we don’t even think it’s going to be as bad as it was in other countries.”
13. On March 12, Biden advisor Lisa Monaco bitched about Trump’s Europe travel ban, a continent where the virus was raging.
14. Biden kept holding election rallies without distancing or masks up until March 9.
15. In early March, de Blasio told his city residents to go out to city bars and restaurants since the virus is not spread by food and drink, an assertion that may be the worst assumption ever regarding the virus.
16. On March 5, de Blasio reassured the city that there was no need to panic and `”We'll tell you the second we think you should change your behavior”
17. By mid March most of the country were doing lockdowns but New York was late to that party: “New York City as a whole was late in social measures,” said Isaac B. Weisfuse, a former New York City deputy health commissioner. “Any after-action review of the pandemic in New York City will focus on that issue. It has become the major issue in the transmission of the virus.”
18. On March 31, Cuomo admitted: “I am tired of being behind this virus. We’ve been playing catch-up. You don’t win playing catch-up.”

And yet, Cuomo thinks that Trump caused the virus. Trump stopped travelers from high infection areas from entering this country and possibly bringing the virus with them but he caused the virus. Trump never told people to go dine and shop in Chinatown but he caused the virus. Trump never told people to go out to bars and restaurants because the virus does not spread by food and drink but he caused the virus. Trump did not work in the Chinese lab that created and lost control of the virus but he caused the virus. Trump never told people to continue to travel on the subway but he caused the virus.

Trump did not do everything perfectly. Testing was lagging. Virus prevention supplies were initially in short demand. But to say Trump caused the virus after all of the bad information, advice, and actions taken by China, Cuomo, de Blasio, Biden advisors, Biden, Pelosi, etc. is certainly a gross denial of reality.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

https://www.amazon.com/Walter-Bruno-Korschek/e/B002KYU08Q/ref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share

Please visit the following sites for freedom:


http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

July, 2020, Part 9,Political Class Insanity: How Government Cannot Count When It Comes To The Coronavirus, Chapter 2

It is the beginning of another month which means it is time again to review the latest political class insanity from the American political class. Each month it takes us multiple posts to cover the wasteful spending, incompetent government organizations and employees, government programs that usually make a problem worse than resolving it, inane and idiotic politician comments, etc.

To review past posts on this insanity and idiocy, just click on the first few posts in each month listed to the right of this page. After reviewing just a handful of these insanity posts we think you will agree that we are currently being served by the worst set of American politicians ever to hold office in our entire history.

1) Today we will still be focusing on the coronavirus. Not because it has sickened and killed so many people around the world but because it illustrates the pure incompetence of government and the politicians that operate that government and their inability to simply be able to count effectively. You cannot solve a problem unless you understand the reality of the problem and almost always the reality of a problem is determined by the data and numbers that describe the problem. 

But if you cannot even collect that data and numbers correctly then your ability to solve a problem is almost nil. You are basing any solutions on faulty data and premises and only pure luck will ever get you to the right solution, as we pointed out in our previous post:

• A man in Tennessee was classified as a positively tested coronavirus person even though he had NEVER taken a coronavirus test.
• Multiple virus testing labs in Florida were found to have over counted the number of virus cases by up to ten fold.
• In Colorado, a man was classified as a virus death even though subsequent medical analysis showed he clearly died from acute alcohol poisoning, not the virus.
• We also cited other cases in Colorado where nursing home patients were classified as virus deaths but more testing showed that the virus had nothing to do with their deaths.

But it is not just state government and state politicians who cannot accurately count the actual number of virus deaths, that inability to accurately count may have been established by the Federal government back in the spring:

• Dr. Deborah Birx is the response coordinator for the White House coronavirus task force so she is a very important person in the fight against the virus in the country.
• But back in April, she stated that the Federal government was going to classify the death of any American who had the virus as a death caused by the virus regardless of any underlying, pre-existing medical condition that may have actually been the cause of the death.
• So, if I understand the good doctor correctly, if someone had stage four liver cancer and contracted the virus in the final days of their lives after a losing battle against the liver cancer, the Federal government somehow decided to classify that as a death caused by the virus.
• I think her words verify my conclusion and example: “There are other countries that if you had a pre-existing condition, and let’s say the virus caused you to go to the ICU [intensive care unit] and then have a heart or kidney problem, some countries are recording that as a heart issue or a kidney issue and not a COVID-19 death."

It seems other countries got their logic and counting right: just because someone who died had the virus, doesn't mean that the virus killed them. But for some godforsaken reason, in this country the Federal government says that anyone who dies who has the virus is to be counted as a virus victim, not a cancer, kidney, or other malady victim. 

As a result, we may have a significant over count of the number of deaths in this country caused by the virus which resulted in drastic economic pain and suffering which may not have been necessary because the Federal government did not know how to count. Insanity.

2) This inability to count is finally showing up in opinion polls as Americans begin to doubt what all levels of government are telling them about the virus:

• An Axios/Ipsos poll recently asked a sample of Americans the following question: “Do you believe the actual number of Americans dying from the coronavirus is more, less, or about the same as the number of deaths that have been reported?”
• The poll found that about one out three of those polled think the actual virus death toll is lower than what is being reported.
• 31% of those polled said the death toll from the virus is less, 31% said it is about what is reported and 37% said it is more than what is being reported.
• So in round figures about one third say it is under reported, one third say it is over reported and one third say it is correctly reported, you cannot be much more divided as a nation than that.
• Republicans are much more doubtful of the reported results with 58% of those polled thinking the death toll reported is too high and only 16% saying it is higher than what is reported. 
• Democrats go the other way with 61% saying the reported death rates are too low and only 9% believing that the death toll is lower than what is being reported.
• Again, you cannot be much more divided than that.

The more troubling aspect from the total responses is that those who think the death toll is less has gone up eight percentage points from the poll conducted just two months which would indicate there is growing doubt that the death rate is that high.

Again, if we cannot agree on the numbers and the true scope of the issue, then it is doubtful we will agree on a proposed remedy. All because government and politicians cannot even count.

3) In addition to the state by state cases we have talked about and their serious counting flaws, it turns out that there may be a more basic problem with the whole testing process across the country:

• Department of Health scientists in Connecticut found that a virus test being used widely across the country is causing false positives, i.e. the test results are saying that a tested person has the virus when they really do not.
• The test is made and distributed by Thermo Fisher Scientific.
• In Connecticut they found that out of 144 positive virus tests they looked at between July 15 and July 17, 90 of the 144 were really false positives, a totally unacceptable rate for a medical test of any sort.
• The saddest part of this failure is that patients who were falsely thought to have the virus in nursing homes may have been moved into areas of residents who actually had the virus which means that healthy nursing home patients were unnecessarily and possibly fatally exposed to the virus for no good reason because of the faulty test.

So, bad testing procedures, bad counting procedures, and growing doubt that anyone in the government or politics has a clue to what is really going on. Lord help us, please save us from the “experts” who apparently have no clue themselves.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

https://www.amazon.com/Walter-Bruno-Korschek/e/B002KYU08Q/ref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share

Please visit the following sites for freedom:


http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

July, 2020, Part 8, Political Class Insanity: How The Government Cannot Count When It Comes To the Coronavirus, Chapter 1

It is the beginning of another month which means it is time again to review the latest political class insanity from the American political class. Each month it takes us multiple posts to cover the wasteful spending, incompetent government organizations and employees, government programs that usually make a problem worse than resolving it, inane and idiotic politician comments, etc.

To review past posts on this insanity and idiocy, just click on the first few posts in each month listed to the right of this page. After reviewing just a handful of these insanity posts we think you will agree that we are currently being served by the worst set of American politicians ever to hold office in our entire history.

1) Today we will be focusing on the coronavirus. Not because it has sickened and killed so many people around the world but because it illustrates the pure incompetence of government and the politicians that operate that government and their inability to simply be able to count effectively. You cannot solve a problem unless you understand the reality of the problem and almost always the reality of a problem is determined by the data and numbers that describe the problem. 

But if you cannot even collect that data and numbers correctly then your ability to solve a problem is almost nil. You are basing any solutions on faulty data and premises and only pure luck will ever get you to the right solution.

Consider the case of this poor guy in Tennessee:

• According to Amanda Prestifiacomo, writing for the Daily Caller website, Brock Ballou lives in Nashville, Tennessee.
• Unfortunately he received a call from the state of Tennessee that notified him that he had tested positive for the coronavirus.
• The problem is he has never taken any kind of test for the virus but somehow got counted and classified as a positive test for it.
• Now, he had expected to be contacted by the state since he had come in contact with a coworker who had tested positive for the virus.
• The state worker who called insisted multiple times that he was a positive case despite his insistence he had never been tested so how could he be positive: “She specifically said – I’m looking at it right here – you tested positive – this is a follow up call to see how your symptoms are.”
• In addition: “I’m 100 percent sure that’s what she said, she was looking right at it, she told me I’m in the system – looking right at it that you’re showing positive.”
• But it did not end there since Mr. Ballou continued to receive calls from the state in subsequent days checking on his symptoms.
• The local news station investigating his claims verified that all of the phone numbers that called him are indeed connected to the state’s board of health entity.

So, what do we have here? A single isolated computer error or data entry error or systemic reporting problems that significantly over count the actual number of cases? Whatever the truth is, the many, many instances of idiocy like this bring into doubt the whole validity of the coronavirus numbers and the drastic steps the country was forced to take, steps that have not been necessary if the numbers are inflated.

2) Following up on this Tennessee problem, recall that we have previously reported on the bogus numbers that were surfacing down here in Florida:

• Many testing labs in Florida reported that 100% of everyone who walked in their doors and were tested for the virus tested positive, a highly unlikely outcome for even a single testing center never mind multiple testing centers.
• In addition, some labs reported positive rates that were less than 100% but which were still unrealistically high such as the Orlando Veteran’s Medical Center which reported a positive rate of 76%.
• Follow analysis showed that the actual positive rate there was only a fraction of that 76%, only 6%, an initial over count that was 13 times higher than reality.
• The positive rate at Orlando Health was thought to be a whopping 98% but follow analysis showed it to be on tenth that rate, just under 10%.

Again, you cannot solve a problem unless you know what and how big the problem is and in Tennessee and Florida, we may not know what we think we know, that the infection rate may be far lower than the political class and government is telling us.

3) But the east coast is not the only source of bad virus numbers:

• A Colorado man recently died, his death attributed to the coronavirus.
• However, follow up analysis shows that he died of alcohol poisoning, he had actually drunk himself to death, a reality that had nothing to do with the virus.
• David Aaro of Fox News reported that Sebastian Yellow, age 35, was found dead on May 4 and his death was initially attributed to the virus.
• However, the county coroner followed up and found out that he actually died because his blood alcohol test was at a whopping .55 which led to acute alcohol poisoning.
• The .55 level is about seven times higher than what the state of Colorado considers being intoxicated.
• While Yellow did have the virus in his blood, the coroner concluded that it had nothing to do with his death.
• Which was consistent with other cases in Colorado where three nursing home deaths were initially attributed to the virus but follow up medical analysis found that the virus had nothing to do with their deaths.
• But this should not surprise anyone since the Colorado Board of Health basically says that if anyone has a positive test for the virus and then dies, the cause of death is officially considered the virus: "We classify a death as confirmed when there was a case who had a positive SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) laboratory test and then died. We also classify some deaths as probable." 
• The Board Of Health also went on to say that: “We will also count a death as a COVID-19 death when there is no known positive laboratory test but the death certificate lists 'COVID-19' as a cause of death."
• If I read that last statement correctly, even if there is no proof that a deceased person in the state actually had the virus, they will count the death as a result of the virus simply because the death certificate, without any proof, says it was a virus death.

So, in Colorado if you die from alcohol poisoning, there is a good chance you might be cited as a virus death. If you die in a nursing home, where you were likely placed there in the first place because of another health condition, you might be classified as a virus death. If there is no proof you have the virus but die anyway, you might still be classified as a virus death. 

As we stated up front, you cannot resolve any issue unless you have defined the parameters of that issue. And in the case of the coronavirus, many, many government entities and the politicians that oversee and operate those entities have shown again how incompetent they are at confronting and resolving any issue facing the country, When you cannot even accurately count, you cannot be expected to resolve any problems.

Unfortunately, the inability to count is not restricted to Tennessee, Florida, and Colorado as we will see in the followup posts in the next week or so.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

https://www.amazon.com/Walter-Bruno-Korschek/e/B002KYU08Q/ref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share

Please visit the following sites for freedom:


http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w