It’s a sad day for the news profession when media outlets become elated with the idea that a disease may bring down a president they hate.

Television stations and newspapers on the east and west coasts particularly are the worst offenders, seeking to create hysteria over the potential for a coronavirus epidemic arising in China.

At the point of this writing 6,400 people across the world have died of the disease – 3,217 in China (half the total), 1,441 in Italy and 724 in Iran, two countries where many Chinese were allowed in until recently.

Italy’s high death toll is believed the result of its elderly population, the most elderly in Europe – and more elderly per capita than the U.S., although this writer falls into that category.

(Why does my dear wife, Sweetie Pie, keep asking how I feel?)

Epidemic Possibility Delights Left

The American left, including the corporate media which has become a wing of the Democratic party, appears delighted that the disease may create economic conditions that will lead to the election of a Democratic Congress and president.

President Trump was denounced by the leftwing elite when he banned flights from China on Jan. 31.

Columnist Dennis Prager observed that the very next day presidential candidate and former vice president Joe Biden declared:

“This is no time for Donald Trump’s record of hysteria and xenophobia -- hysterical xenophobia -- and fearmongering.” On Feb. 2, the American Civil Liberties Union announced, “These measures are extraordinary incursions on liberty and fly in the face of considerable evidence that travel bans and quarantines can do more harm than good.”

Now the left is accusing the president of not going far enough and implying he is taking a cavalier attitude about the seriousness of the disease.

The actions taken thus far to prevent spread of the disease are sure to damage a large segment of the population economically – shutting down restaurants and bars, cancelling traditional sporting events and many other activities where people normally gather. Businesses which have taken years to build could go bankrupt.

Television outlets have told outright lies, causing people to wipe out supplies of such things as toilet paper, overthe counter medicines and canned goods in stores (as if they’re not going to be re-stocked) in fear they may run out if they’re quarantined with the disease.

One lie by New York Times reporters cited by columnist Derek Hunter is that President Trump has told states they are “on their own” to get needed equipment.What he really said was states and local governments might have quicker acceess to supplies by buying them direct (rather than waiting for the oh-so-efficient federal bureucracy).

European Nations Closing Borders

One interesting aspect of the coronavirus scare is that the European open borders of Europe have disappeared as nations are closing their borders – even to longtime friends and neighbors.

Meanwhile, the American left continues to rail against the president’s efforts to close our southern border.

The left is following the advice of Obama pal Rahm Emanuel, “never let a crisis go to waste.”

Columnist Larry O’Conner lists five policies that are being floated in the country these days which would never be considered in normal times: 1. Nationalizing industries (New York Mayor and failed presidential candidate Bill de Blasio; he thinks it would be a good idea for the U.S. to replicate Venezuela), 2. Universal government controlled health care (Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders and other “intellectuals”), 3. Banning guns (Champaign, Ill., Mayor Deborah Frank Feinen), 4. Emptying prisons (Democratic Rep. Ayanna Pressley), and 5. Cease arresting and convicting criminals (Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner suggested ending arrests for low level-non-violent crimes).

But, hey, we’ve heard the government is going to send us all a check to get us through the coronavirus crisis.

It reminds us of the childhood neighbor who had recently qualified for some federal payment and called it his “rabbit.”

He obviously had lived through the depression when jackrabbits were welcome mealtime additions.

Times and Free Press Publisher Barry Reid aptly observes about the coronavirus issue: the cure may be worse than the disease.

Taiwan Calls Coronavirus ‘Wuhan Pneumonia’

If you gave any thought to accepting Chinese propaganda that the coronavirus plague started with a visit of U.S. servicemen to China, The Taipei Times (in Taiwan) quotes the Central Epidemic Command Center calling it Wuhan Pneumonia. The CECC is further quoted in saying it would continue to designate it as such.

Communist China is borrowing from the Russian Communist playbook with its disinformation campaign.

It is old news that China attempted to cover up the outbreak of the disease and punished medical people who tried to issue warnings. (That’s typical in dictatorships.)

Now China is pretending the disease didn’t start there and is attempting to be an international hero in working with a few other allies to mitigate the problems.

What is really sickening is that the U.S. has transferred so much of its medicine production capacity to our current greatest enemy.

China has now expelled journalists from five American outlets, escalating political warfare over the disease. Rep. Michael McCaul comments:

“I worry we will never get to the bottom of this. But at the end of the day, we will be pointing the finger at China.”