90 Miles From Tyranny

Saturday, January 25, 2020

A Virologist Who Visited Wuhan, China Says Coronavirus is “Out of Control”

A top virologist who was involved in the response to SARS says he has visited Wuhan, China and believes that the coronavirus is “out of control.”

Dr. Guan, the director of the State Key Laboratory of Emerging Infections Diseases at the University of Hong Kong, told the Globe and Mail, “I’ve experienced so much and I’ve never felt scared before, but this time I’m scared.”

Guan also warned that the scale of the infection may be “10 times higher than SARS” and left Wuhan fearing that “the epidemic situation was out of control.”

The doctor warned that quarantine measures imposed by authorities may not go far enough.

“When these people returned to their hometowns, they took the virus to all parts of the country,” he said.

Yesterday we highlighted video footage out of Wuhan that showed victims of the virus collapsing on the streets.

20 million Chinese citizens are now under quarantine across 13 cities due to the outbreak.

There have been 830 confirmed cases of the virus within China with further cases confirmed in Thailand, the US, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Vietnam and Singapore.

The virus has claimed 26 lives so far, mostly elderly people with existing illnesses.

As we highlighted yesterday, a biosafety level 4 laboratory that studies the “world’s most dangerous pathogens” is based in Wuhan, leading some to speculate whether the virus was accidentally released.

However, officials say the source of the outbreak was...

Fixing Problems Stems The Free Money Programs....

America's Great Policy innovator: Donald Trump

Not many people think of President Donald Trump as a detailed policy innovator. His detractors still view him as a buffoon unequipped to run the country. His supporters view him as a guy who has succeeded on great instincts. Not many view the president as a guy who gets under the hood to study the details of policy options. But with historically low unemployment; a booming stock market; trade deals in place with China, Mexico and Canada; and many other wins under his belt, it’s a good time to examine the president’s policy record. Maybe the Trump team deserves more credit than they have received — especially when it comes to immigration.

Trump was faced with a true crisis at our southern border. Humanitarian policies were being exploited like never before. Human smugglers and left-wing activists realized there was no need to sneak across our border; if a migrant showed up and claimed political asylum and a fear of persecution in their home country, we would release them to an American community until a hearing could be held.

America has a history of taking in persecuted people on humanitarian grounds. But our goodwill was abused by those seeking to game our system. Tens of thousands of people began to show up at our border with no legitimate claim of political persecution. They were released into American towns, and most never returned for a hearing at all. These were mostly people fleeing poverty and seeking a better life for their families. It’s hard to blame them for trying, but our system cracked to the breaking point under this abuse. Huge caravans of migrants were overrunning border crossings, and American officials had no real tools to address the crisis. The net effect was a nearly open border. Some on the left want that. The vast majority of Americans don’t.

Trump pushed his team to come up with new policies to address the crisis. They were hampered by the fact that too many Democrats in Congress were not interested in finding a solution. Legislation was out of the question. Using executive actions and agreements with other countries, the Trump team has implemented a number of policy innovations that have taken us out of this crisis.

The Remain in Mexico program, launched in January 2019, requires that asylum-seekers wait in Mexico for the entire duration of their immigration court proceedings. This policy eliminates the possibility of “catch and release,” where migrants are able to escape into the interior of our country after claiming asylum.

“Metering” is a policy in which migrants who reach a port of entry along the U.S.-Mexico border must put their names on a list and wait their turn to request asylum. While this policy predates the Trump administration, Trump is the first president to implement metering on a consistent basis, since April 2018. Like Remain in Mexico, metering is effective at controlling the number of migrants who inundate U.S. immigration officials every day, and it prevents catch and release.

The Trump administration also entered into asylum deals with Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador — with the Guatemala deal the only one so far to be implemented. This mandates that migrants who pass through a “third” country must apply for asylum in that country before the U.S., or else be subject to removal to that country. Flights from the U.S. to Guatemala have already begun, and so far, nearly every single individual who’s been involved has opted to return home instead of staying put in Guatemala and seeking protected status there. This supports the administration’s argument that many of these asylum claims were not legitimate.

The Prompt Asylum Claim Review process, which can process and deport asylum-seekers at an extremely fast rate, was launched this past October. Instead of undergoing an asylum review process that could take months, migrants subjected to review can be processed in just days.

Finally, the Interior Repatriation Initiative was first introduced in 2012, but had been mostly shelved until it was recently relaunched with Mexico. It deports Mexican nationals crossing illegally into the United States deep into the Mexican interior, making illegal reentry into the U.S. that much harder.

The results of these policy innovations have been truly dramatic. Detention facilities that were shockingly overcrowded now have space. Customs and Border Protection officials conducted over...

Democrats Warn That American People May Tamper With Next Election

WASHINGTON, D.C.—In his opening statement at Trump's impeachment trial, Rep. Adam Schiff reminded the Senate of their solemn duty and the gravity of just what it is they will be discussing at the trial.

Schiff warned that if Trump is not impeached, the American people may have a chance to tamper with the next election.

"If President Trump is not impeached, the American people might get a say in who is president," Schiff said gravely. "We simply can't allow that to happen. We must diligently defend our electoral process against electoral outcomes we do not like. If that means seizing power through a sham impeachment trial, so be it."

"When the Founders wrote that founding document thing, they never imagined there would be electoral outcomes that Democrats did not agree with."

Democrats also said they even have hard evidence that the 2016 election was compromised by Republicans voting for Trump.

"We know this horrible outcome could happen, because...

Report: Obama Thinks Sanders is Unfit to Take on Trump in 2020

President Obama doesn’t think Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has what it takes to go head-to-head with President Trump in the 2020 race, and he may soon voice his concerns publicly.

Fox Business reports that Obama friends and associates said that the former president is “genuinely” concerned by the leftist policies set forth by candidates like Sanders and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren.

“The average American doesn’t think we have to completely tear down the system to remake it,” Obama reportedly said to a group of donors.

Fox Business writes:

People close to Obama point out that he has always said that he will support the Democratic nominee, whoever that may be. They also point out that Obama’s opinion of Warren has softened since November, and he is said to be growing comfortable with endorsing her fully if she should win the nomination.

But, these people add, he has recently grown even more wary of Sanders as the Vermont senator appears to be gaining momentum in polls and the Democratic primaries begin to heat up with the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary both in February.

According to the report, President Obama has said privately that Sanders is politically and temperamentally unfit to defeat Trump due to his confrontational nature, lack of willingness to compromise and far-left policies including free college tuition and student loan forgiveness.

Fox Business notes it is unclear if Obama will call out Sanders specifically, or discuss his opposition to the candidate in a more general approach. It is also possible that he will not need to speak out if Warren or former Vice President Joe Biden come out ahead in early primaries.

Earlier this week, failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton voiced her opposition to Sanders, telling The Hollywood Reporter that...