America First - Then Engage the World

Can This Pandemic Usher in a New Era?

3/27/2020 - Pat Buchanan Townhall.com

To fight the coronavirus at home, France is removing all military forces from Iraq.

When NATO scaled back its war games in Europe because of the pandemic, Russia reciprocated. Moscow announced it would cancel its war games along NATO's border.

Nations seem to be recognizing and responding to the grim new geostrategic reality of March 2020: The pandemic is the real enemy of us all, and while we fight it, each in his own national corner, we are in this together.

Never allow a serious crisis to go to waste, said Barack Obama's chief of staff Rahm Emanuel during the financial crisis. Emanuel was echoed this month by House Majority Whip Rep. James Clyburn, who called the coronavirus crisis "a tremendous opportunity to restructure things to fit our vision."

What Clyburn had in mind is what Democrats advanced as their alternative to the $2.2 trillion emergency bill. It was designed to force President Trump either to swallow it whole or to take responsibility for vetoing a critical transfusion of federal funds to keep the economy alive.

Among the items stuffed in the Democrats' proposal:

A $15-an-hour minimum wage imposed on companies receiving funds. Blanket loan forgiveness of $10,000 for students. New tax credits for solar and wind energy. Full funding of Planned Parenthood. Federal dollars for fetal tissue research.

$300 million for PBS, which has been promoting the LBGT agenda to school kids. Mandating "diversity" on corporate boards as a condition of companies receiving funds. Election "reforms" to increase Democratic turnout. Insistence that airlines, to get a bailout, offset carbon emissions from jet engines. $35 million for the Kennedy Center.

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and congressional Republicans ash-canned almost the leftist wish list. But Trump should go further, turn the tables, and seize this crisis to do what he was elected to do -- impose a new foreign policy.

Isolate America, not from the world, but from the world's wars.

The New York Times and Washington Post editorialized Thursday for an easing of the economic sanctions we have imposed on Iran.

This would be a humanitarian gesture when Iran is suffering more than any country in the Middle East from the virus. More than that, it would be a statement that America is not at war with the Iranian people.

This unilateral gesture by Trump, asking nothing in return except negotiations, would put the onus for Iran's isolation squarely with the ayatollah and his regime.

As for Vladimir Putin's cancellation of war games in response to NATO's cancellation, Trump could seize upon this as an opening to engage Russia as candidate Trump promised to do.

Does anyone believe Putin wants a war with NATO? Should he do so, does anyone think Italy and Spain, two of the largest NATO allies, but both suffering greatly in the coronavirus crisis, would invoke Article V and declare war on Russia?

When Hitler was our foe, America created a wartime alliance with Stalin in the common cause of crushing the Axis powers. Liberals and leftists yet defend the Popular Front between the democracies and Stalin. If we could unite with Bolsheviks to defeat Nazis, surely we can join with Iran's rulers to cope with and crush the coronavirus.

When, if ever, will there be a better time to make good on Trump's campaign pledge to extricate America from the wars in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan?

Consider also the Korean Peninsula. Kim Jong Un has been testing rockets again over the Sea of Japan. Transfixed by the coronavirus crisis, however, the world is paying him no attention. We should make a final offer to Kim Jong Un to pull our U.S. forces from South Korea and lift sanctions for verifiable reductions and restraints on his nuclear arsenal.

We are ready for a deal. But If Pyongyang refuses to talk, we should tell him we are going home and are allowing South Korea and Japan to develop their own nuclear weapons. And let Kim deal with them.

The coronavirus pandemic is the greatest crisis since the Cuban missile confrontation of 1962. After that crisis, John F. Kennedy sought to use the world's brush with Armageddon to establish a detente with the Soviet Union of the Communist dictator who had put the missiles in Cuba.

Following our Cold War victory, we have not done that. Instead, we plunged into wars that were none of our business to deal with imagined threats and advance utopian causes like establishing Jeffersonian democracy in lands where tribalism and dogmatism are rooted in the very soil.

The coronavirus is the enemy Saddam Hussein never was. And the ayatollahs never had tens of millions of Americans "sheltering in place."

What the coronavirus crisis tells us is not that we should turn our backs on the world but that, in engaging with the world, we should put our own interests first, as every nation in the world is doing now. 

Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of "Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever."

Economic Freedom = Better Health Outcomes Overall!

Why Economic Freedom Is Critical to Beating the Coronavirus

3/26/2020  - Kay Coles James Townhall.com

The debate in the United States over whether to move away from free markets and toward socialism may change dramatically as the latest coronavirus spreads throughout the world. That’s because in the fight against the global pandemic, we’ll likely witness one of the most compelling arguments in our lifetimes emerge in favor of free-market systems – and lives will be saved in the process.

The pandemic will demonstrate that nations with the freest markets and freest people tend to have the health care systems with the greatest capacity to handle such a crisis. Free-market incentives have produced health care systems that have better capacities in terms of beds, equipment and medical personnel to handle increased caseloads. Those incentives have also spurred innovations that have led to some of the greatest medical advances in history.

Moreover, nations with both private-sector companies that are financially incentivized to work quickly for a cure, and governments willing to remove regulatory obstacles to innovation, are more likely to develop the treatments to abate the disease or possibly even find a cure.

Countries with freer markets also tend to be more resilient in times of crisis and more capable of handling external shocks. Thanks to their free-market incentives as well as the flexibility to respond to changing conditions that comes with less government central planning, they have the widest availability of food, medicine, and other crucial necessities.

This is not conjecture. The Heritage Foundation’s annual “Index of Economic Freedom,” the latest edition of which was released just days ago, provides the indisputable data showing that citizens who live in nations with greater economic freedom have better health outcomes overall.

Economic freedom is represented by a variety of factors such as smaller, less intrusive government; lower taxes; reduced regulations on people and businesses; an environment that makes it easier for average citizens to start or operate a business; and the protection of private property rights, including protections like patents for new innovations.

The index has measured economic freedom in approximately 180 countries around the world for the last 26 years and shows that greater economic freedom has decreased poverty, created more prosperous economies, and increased positive health outcomes and life expectancies across the globe. Greater economic freedom has led to better health care systems, better education systems, a greater abundance of food, cleaner environments, and a higher quality of life for citizens.

Recently, Heritage Foundation researchers put the Index of Economic Freedom side-by-side with the Johns Hopkins’ Global Health Security Index, which measures countries’ capabilities to prevent, detect, and respond to infectious disease threats. Not surprisingly, they found a high correlation between economic freedom and health security.

Countries that Heritage ranked as “free” or “mostly free” in the economic freedom index also tended to score the highest on the health security index, while countries ranked as “mostly unfree” or “repressed” tended to score the lowest, indicating a poor ability to respond to infectious diseases.

In the coming months, we will be watching how countries across the economic freedom spectrum respond to the coronavirus pandemic. I have little doubt that we’ll see it’s the world’s freest nations that will do the best job of finding treatments and possibly a cure. Ultimately, their medical advances will be shared with all nations and used to save lives around the world.

That isn’t gloating; that is a sincere hope that such a critical demonstration of the power of economic freedom will encourage every nation to adopt more free-market approaches so that their citizens don’t just overcome this pandemic, but go on to live longer, healthier, and more prosperous lives.

It’s also my hope that some in our own government learn these lessons as well and don’t use this crisis as an opportunity to erode our personal and economic freedoms and push for spending free-for-alls. Any legislation to address the crisis must be targeted to the people who actually need it, temporary for only as long as the crisis lasts, and transparent – directed at fighting the coronavirus and aiding public health, not aiding special interests.

That is how we will emerge from this pandemic stronger than we were before.

Kay C. James is president of The Heritage Foundation (heritage.org).

Use Common Sense - Discipline is the Right Directive

Must We Kill the Economy to Kill the Virus?

3/24/2020 - Pat Buchanan Townhall.com

"We cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself," tweeted the president on Sunday night, adding that, after the current 15-day shutdown, "we will make a decision as to which way we want to go."

President Trump is said to be privately expressing a deepening concern at the damage the coronavirus shutdown is doing to the U.S. economy and debating whether it can be safely reopened.

Though castigated for his remark, Trump has a point.

The U.S. is rightly using extreme measures to meet the threat and control the virus that threatens the lives of millions of Americans, with the elderly sick foremost among them. And we need to do so without killing the economy upon which scores of millions of other Americans depend.

Clearly, America was unprepared for this pandemic.

And there will be time enough to assess responsibility for the lack of surgical masks, medical gowns, rubber gloves, respirators, ventilators and hospital beds.

The immediate imperative is to produce those beds and that equipment and get it delivered to doctors, nurses and hospital staff, the front-line troops in the battle to control the virus.

However, during this shutdown, all "nonessential businesses" are being closed and their workers sent home to shelter in place and to keep "social distance" from friends and neighbors to minimize the risk of spreading this easily transmissible virus.

Unfortunately, what is "nonessential" to some -- bars, restaurants, hotels, stores, cruise ships, tourist sites, shops, malls -- are places of employment and indispensable sources of income for millions of other Americans.

Close the businesses where these Americans work and you terminate the paychecks on which they depend to pay the rent and buy the food and medicines they and their families need to shelter and live. And if the salaries and wages on which workers depend are cut off, how are these millions of newly unemployed supposed to live?

How do those who follow the instructions of the president and governors to remain in their homes get their prescriptions filled and buy the food to feed their families?

How long can the shutdown be sustained if the necessities of life for the unemployed and unpaid begin to run out? Is it necessary to create an economic and social crisis to solve the medical crisis?

"We had to destroy the village in order to save it," was a remark attributed to a U.S. Army officer in the Vietnam War. Must we cripple or destroy the economy to rescue the American nation from the coronavirus crisis of 2020?

Then there is the matter of time. Many Americans can survive on what they have on hand for two or four weeks. Far fewer can survive without income for two or four months.

If we shut down the economy, what will we have when the medical crisis passes, be that in May, June, July, August or September?

Will all those nonessential businesses we put to sleep come back to life?

The free market system that is the legacy of Hamilton and the Founding Fathers is the world's best design for the distribution of goods and services and ensuring prosperity. And in a population where life expectancy is decades beyond what it was in the early 20th century, there are government programs to provide the necessities of life for those who can no longer access or afford them.

But businesses are needed to deliver the goods. And if, by government command, America's free economy is partly shut down as unessential in this medical crisis, the government could be responsible for imposing the conditions that lead to social disorder.

At some point, the country is going to have to open up the supply chains and take the risks to let the market work to provide food -- or people will engage in panic buying, hoarding and using any means to get what they need for themselves and their families.

Reports of folks in this heavily armed nation stocking up on guns and ammunition suggest a widespread apprehension of what may be coming. If the medical crisis is allowed to induce an economic crisis that leads to a social crisis, the American political system, our democratic system, may itself be severely tested.

Lest we forget: In the greatest crisis in this nation's history, in which the issue was whether the American Union would be severed into two nations, Abraham Lincoln suspended the right of habeas corpus, shut down state legislatures, closed newspapers, jailed journalists and was prepared to arrest the chief justice. And for the dictatorial measures he took, and for waging the bloodiest war in U.S. history, against fellow Americans, Lincoln is now regarded by many as our greatest president.

Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of "Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever." To find out more about Patrick Buchanan and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators website at www.creators.com.

OTM's A Distinctive Definite Problem!

2,060 Chinese Nationals Apprehended At U.S.-Mexico Border in Fiscal Year 2019

3/18/2020 - Terry Jeffrey Townhall.com

The Border Patrol apprehended 2,060 aliens from the People's Republic of China crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in fiscal year 2019, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

The Border Patrol defines an "apprehension" as "the physical control or temporary detainment of a person who is not lawfully in the U.S. which may or may not result in an arrest."

A Border Patrol datasheet lists the number of "total apprehensions" it made in fiscal year 2019 by both the citizenship of those apprehended and the border sector where the apprehension took place.

In fiscal year 2019, the Border Patrol apprehended a total of 2,134 Chinese nationals. This included the 2,060 apprehended at the Mexican border, 47 at the Canadian border and 27 at coastal borders, which include the Border Patrol's New Orleans Sector, Miami Sector and Ramey Sector in Puerto Rico.

Clearly, people from China seeking to become "not lawfully" present in the United States are more likely to come here through Mexico than through Canada or by sea.

But this is not only true for aspiring illegal immigrants from the People's Republic.

It is also true, for example, for people from Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.

In fiscal 2019, the Border Patrol apprehended 24 Iranians, including 14 at the Mexican border, 8 at the Canadian border and 2 at the coastal borders.

It apprehended 17 Afghanis, including 12 at the Mexican border and five at the Canadian border.

It apprehended six Iraqis, including four at the Mexican border and two at the Canadian border.

It apprehended three Syrians, including two at the Mexican border and one at the Canadian border.

This is not a new phenomenon.

The Border Patrol datasheet also includes the number of "deportable aliens" it apprehended in fiscal 2007 through 2018. These are also listed by nationality and by the border sector where the apprehension occurred.

From fiscal 2007 through 2018, the largest number of "deportable" Chinese nationals the Border Patrol apprehended was in fiscal 2016. That year, it apprehended a total of 2,439 "deportable" Chinese nationals. Of these, 2,320 were apprehended at the Mexican border, 52 at the Canadian border and 67 at the coastal borders.

In each of the last four years, according to a Border Patrol data sheet on "illegal alien apprehensions," the Border Patrol has apprehended more people crossing the Mexican border who were not from Mexico than who were from Mexico.

Of the 851,508 illegal aliens the Border Patrol apprehended along the U.S.-Mexico border in fiscal 2019, 166,458 were from Mexico, but 685,050 were from countries other than Mexico.

In other words, 80.5% of the "illegal aliens" the Border Patrol apprehended at the Mexican border came from some other country and tried to use the U.S.-Mexico border as a pathway into the United States.

This percentage has escalated over the past four fiscal years. In fiscal 2016, 218,110 of the 408,870 "illegal aliens" apprehended at the Mexican border -- or 53.3% -- were from countries other than Mexico.

In fiscal 2017, it was 175,978 of 303,916 -- or 57.9%.

In fiscal 2018, it was 244,322 of 396,579 -- or 61.6%.

By far, the largest numbers in fiscal 2019 came from Guatemala (264,168) and Honduras (253,795). But, as noted, the same path for possible illegal entry also appealed to aspiring border crossers from as far away as Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Syria.

At a time when Americans in some communities are being told to shelter in their homes to protect themselves from a virus, aliens from all over the world are still coming to our southern border hoping to cross illegally into the United States.

If they qualify for asylum because they have a well-founded fear of persecution at home, they should get asylum.

But not so long ago, some interesting Washington establishmentarians saw the flow of other-than-Mexicans to our southern border as a national security problem.

On Feb. 16, 2005, retired Adm. James Loy, then deputy secretary of Homeland Security, testified in the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

"Recent information from ongoing investigation, detentions, and emerging threat streams strongly suggests that al-Qaida has considered using the Southwest Border to infiltrate the United States," Loy said in his written statement to the committee.

"Several al-Qaida leaders believe illegal entry is more advantageous than legal entry for operational security reasons," he said.

"However, there is currently no conclusive evidence that indicates al-Qaida operatives have made successful penetrations into the United States via this method," he said.

Democratic Sen. Diane Feinstein of California took careful notice of this testimony.

"I view a worldwide threat to be our borders," she said during that 2005 hearing.

She then quoted Loy's written statement back to him.

"I think that is a very important statement, particularly when you consider the fact that a half-a-million other-than-Mexican intrusions have been made on our borders since 2000," she said.

"Now, I've looked at the statistics for each country," Feinstein said. "And the so-called countries of concern -- Syria, Iran, others -- the numbers are up of penetrations through our southwest border."

In 2007, the Border Patrol apprehended 3 deportable aliens from Syria at the Mexican border and 12 from Iran.

Have Feinstein and her colleagues fixed the problem?