May 5, 2020 --

The Wall Street Journal, April 25-26, carried an article based on an interview with Stanford University's Dr. John Ioannidis, "The Bearer of Good Coronavirus News."   Dr. Ioannidis believes data is more significant in estimating the impact of the coronavirus than "mathematical speculation."   In fact, he calls such speculation "'mind-boggling.'"  The research at Stanford suggests that the coronavirus is more broadly based which, in turn,  suggests that it is less lethal that conventional scientific thought would have it.  Dr. Ioannidis regards the view that lockdowns have a "'save the world'" aspect as "'completely opinion-based'" and "'immature.'"

In New York City, the influence of Dr. Ioannidis is nil.   People walk about wearing masks. Without masks and gloves, people are not permitted in stores that also limit the number of customers to two or five people at a time.  There was a report on April 29 that the mayor threatened the arrest of mourners attending  the funeral of a well-respected rabbi. The severe coronavirus-justified crackdown in New York City,  under Mayor de Blasio, and in New York State, under Governor Cuomo, without legislative action - let alone debate, suggests, at least to LPR, that government under the Democrats, could easily turn totalitarian, and that it is not true that it is under President Trump that we should get tyranny.

An article in The New York Times, April 26, asserted that the president's "erratic handling of the coronavirus outbreak, the worsening economic and a cascade of ominous public and private polling have Republicans increasingly nervous" that the Democrats will regain the White House and the Senate "if Mr. Trump does not put the nation on a radically improved course." Any Republican who falls for the anti-Trump propaganda trumpeted in The New York Times might as well become a Democrat. Just consider the quoted advice; it calls for Republicans to become radicals.  Who are the radicals?  Why the Democrats, of course.

What Republicans should do, must do, is stand with the president;  one sees very little of that these days.   Republicans should criticize the left for acccusing the president of causing the deaths of the people -- more deaths than we suffered in World War II they now say, as if coronavirus-related deaths had anything to do with battlefield casualties. Republicans should denounce the media for hurling invective and insulting questions at the president during his coronavirus Certainly Republicans in the Senate and inn the House and the Administration should send a cascade of letters to the editors of the media outlets --  newspapers, broadcast, tv, and cable stations -- that vilify the president and distort his statements.  When the president is attacked for challenging the unfairness of an inspector general, Republican officials should stand with him, not with the Democrats the official is assisting against the president.

Twenty-six million Americans filed for unemployment in recent weeks not because of the president's economic policies, but because local officials, governors and mayors, ordered businesses closed, lockdowns that, by the Stanford study, did not have to be so severe.  LPR calls attention to a June 9, 2018 report at Real Clear Politics, stating that Bill Maher wanted the economy to crash to prevent the re-election of President Trump.  Bearing this in mind, Republicans, are you going to fall for the anti-Trump propaganda spouted by The New York Times and abandon the president?

Senator Grassley, do you really want a Democrat president and a radical, Democrat Congress next year?