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COVID CLIMATE DENIAL

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MERRI OK

REBOOT AI 9 26

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both driven by free mkt fundamentalism/ reductionism?  pro corp GNP

verify climate: laffer, kudlow, moore

cap and trade

milloy pepsi SEC 2/2008

https://www.sec.gov/divisions/corpfin/cf-noaction/14a-8/2008/pepsico022808-14a8.pdf

e Congressional Budget Office U.S Department of Energy and prominent ecOnomists such as Alan GreenspanArthur Laffer and Greg Mankiw all say that cap-and-trade type of greenhouse gas regulation promoted by USCAP would reduce economic growth

Joseph Hall Davis Polk Wardwell 450 Lexington Avenue New York NY 10017 Re PepsiCo Inc Incoming letter dated December 27 2007 Dear Mr Hall This is in response to your letters dated December 27 2007 and January 10 2008 concerning the shareholder proposal submitted to PepsiCo by the Free Enterprise Action Fund We also have received letter on the proponents behalf dated January 2008 Our response is attached to the enclosed photocopy of your correspondence By doing this we avoid having to recite or summarize the facts set forth in the correspondence Copies of all of the correspondence also will be provided to the proponent

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MMA

Right-wing media downplay AI safety concerns as a hoax by comparing them to climate change and “COVID hysteria”

Written by Helena Hind, Jane Lee & Evlondo Cooper

Published 09/15/26

Right-wing media are following President Donald Trump in dismissing calls to slow down AI development in the wake of multiple hacking incidents as a “hoax,” comparing concerns over AI to “climate change apocalyptic talk” and “COVID hysteria” including support for vaccines.

Reports have surfaced in recent months that rogue AI agents from OpenAI anonymously hacked into AI startup Hugging Face servers and into software service RubyGems. As Reuters explained: “Many incidents where AI agents from developers such as OpenAI and rival Anthropic have hacked or attempted to access external systems have heightened concerns over ​the increasing capacity of AI models and developers' ability to contain them.” On September 12, both Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman publicly called for a slowdown in AI development, with Altman announcing that his company would be delaying its initial public offering until 2027.

Trump vehemently rejected the idea of an AI slowdown in a series of Truth Social posts on September 14, calling the push for caution a “hoax,” “scam,” and a “SICK conspiracy.” Trump wrote: “The people that say AI is going to destroy the World, and that Data Centers are bad for your neighborhood, are the same people that said, just a short time ago, that the World would be extinguished by ‘Climate Change.’”

The claim that climate scientists’ predictions have failed is not borne out by the evidence — warnings about greenhouse gases causing more warming have now come to pass, with over a decade of record-breaking heat and thousands of excess deaths across Europe in climate-driven heat waves this year alone.

Nonetheless right-wing media followed Trump’s lead, comparing concerns about unregulated AI development with supposedly fabricated climate change warnings and COVID-19 pandemic safety measures like vaccines. (In reality, researchers have repeatedly proven that vaccines limited the spread of COVID-19 during the pandemic, reduced the rate of severe complications and death, and continue to be a safe, effective treatment.)

On his September 14 radio show, Fox host Sean Hannity accused former President Barack Obama of “urging Democrats to fearmonger AI just like Democrats fearmongered and flat-out lied about global warming,” claiming those concerns “turned out to be bunk.” Hannity then reassured his listeners that Trump said that “the U.S. has already put guardrails in place to regulate and prosecute AI companies.”

Dismissing AI warnings on his Daily Wire podcast, Ben Shapiro stated, “This is pretty redolent of the climate change apocalyptic talk. Like all the ice caps were going to be gone, the polar bears were all going to drown, all the rest of it.”

Video

Citation

From the September 14, 2026, edition of the Daily Wire's The Ben Shapiro Show.

Fox host Will Cain referenced climate change while discussing AI warnings: “Vested interests did stop nuclear [power] and set it back half a century. And that same playbook of fears played out with climate change and COVID. So now, what is so scary about AI?”

Downplaying the “AI apocalypse alarm” during Fox’s The Five, co-host Jesse Watters referenced both climate change and the COVID vaccine, asking, “If I told you the world was going to end if you didn't take this vax, what would you do? Or if the world was going to end because of global warming, what would you do? Same thing's happening here — some people get rich and we all still survive.” B/C OF LIE/HYPE?

Video

Citation

From the September 14, 2026, edition of Fox News' The Five

Fox’s Laura Ingraham echoed Watters’ comments later that evening, saying AI concerns reminded her of “the first several months of COVID hysteria.” She later evoked “fearmongering about climate change, same thing. Al Gore's film, Inconvenient Truth, oh my God. That still echoes in politics today.”

Hannity rounded out Fox's evening coverage with yet another comparison of AI fears to climate change and the pandemic.

Decrying “the climate alarmist cult religion,” Hannity said, “Al Gore was preaching from the pulpit of climate alarmism. … All these predictions have come and gone and the time frame he said it would happen, none of it came true.”

“We were lied to about COVID at a high level,” he added. “I just don't trust the government at all in that sense. But I trust America enough that we would use this for good.”

However, the over-the-top comparisons are not limited to Trump and right-wing media dismissing AI concerns. Joe Allen, previously the “transhumanism editor” on former Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast, opposed AI at a debate held in Dallas during last week's GOP midterm convention by bizarrely referencing “algorithmic immigrants.” Semafor reported:

“You look at the data center, this incubator for algorithmic immigrants,” he said. “They’ve already broken out and invaded other companies. These immigrants are out of control.”

Allen was speaking at Forum, a policy discussion staged at a stylish venue fifteen minutes from the convention center to give the new American right an opportunity to debate some of the policy issues currently dividing it— in particular, the tension between populism’s activist promises and traditional small government, and the rise of artificial intelligence.

(Allen’s opponent at the debate, Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, reportedly “compared complaints about AI to the ‘Black Lives Matter hysteria,’ and suggested they were driven by ‘psyops from China.’”)

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COVIDenial Executive Summary NO DATE

COVIDenial Executive Summary - DeSmog

Series: COVIDeniers: Anti-Science Coronavirus Denial Overlaps with Climate Denial

“Government should be doing little or next to nothing,” Richard Ebeling wrote in a postabout COVID-19 republished on March 24 by the Heartland Institute. “The problem is a social and medical one, and not a political one.”

“I just think we’re going to be fine. I think everything is going to be fine,” Heartland editorial director and research fellow Justin Haskins said about COVID-19 during a March 1episode of the podcast In the Tank. “I really don’t think this is going to be a problem even two to three months from now.” [VID]

On Dec. 31, 2019, “a pneumonia of unknown cause” was first reported to the World Health Organization’s China Country Office — and in the months following that report, the disease now known as COVID-19 spread to infect millions of people worldwide and seems well on its way to killing hundreds of thousands — while experts warn that the presumed death toll may be significantly higher than we yet know.

As the virus spread, so too did misinformation: baseless predictions that the disease would not cause significant harm, claims of miracle cures, and conspiracy theories about the virus’s origins. That misinformation was often circulated by white-collar professionals — including many who have a history of casting doubt on climate science or seeking to debate issues that were already laid to rest within the scientific community. The overlap was so striking that it caught the attention of both former President Barack Obama and late-night host Jimmy Kimmel in March.

Some of that misinformation on COVID-19 came straight from President Trump. But a river of faulty information on the coronavirus also flowed from think tanks, experts (some self-proclaimed), academics, and professional right-wing activists who also have spurned climate science and sought to slow or stop action to respond to the climate crisis.

Some compared COVID-19 to the flu or other threats, suggesting that the flu was a larger threat and that action to slow the spread of the novel virus was an overreaction. As the toll from COVID-19 grew, others argued that the virus was the most important threat and that action to slow climate change was superfluous. Some circulated false or unproven cures and remedies while others touted the benefits of single-use plastics during the pandemic (without regard for the health of those living in places where plastics and petrochemicals are produced — like Saint John the Baptist parish, Louisiana, which on April 16, had the highest per-person COVID-19 death rate in the U.S.)

Some attacked renewable energy, some the Green New Deal, and others the World Health Organization (WHO). Some framed efforts to “flatten the curve” of infections as infringements on liberty or simply unnecessary while others persisted in using terms that the WHO has warned can lead to dangerous stigma and discrimination. And some climate science deniers have circulated conspiracy theories, like claims that the virus was a foreign “bioweapon,” that it’s linked to “electrosmog” and 5G networks, or alleged that “the World Health Organization has carried out the greatest fraud perhaps in modern history.”

The decades that fossil fuel companies spent funding organizations that sought to undermine the conclusions of credible climate scientists and building up doubt about science itself ultimately created a network of professional science deniers who are now deploying some of the same skills they honed on climate against the public health crisis at the center of our attention today.

Many of the operatives spreading COVID disinformation have influence because of the fossil fuel industry.

COVID denial reveals the deadly threat that climate denial poses to all aspects of public health and science.

COVID denial should forever discredit climate science deniers.

Climate change and the COVID pandemic are both crises.

By taking a close look at where those who advocate inaction on climate change erred or misled their audience about the pandemic, it’s possible to learn a great deal — and not only about who has provided reliable information about COVID-19 and who has misled.

There are striking parallels between this pandemic and the climate crisis. The virus’ spread has proven capable of accelerating at an exponential rate.

Similarly, climate scientists have warned for decades that climate change can accelerate exponentially. That means that for both crises, the earlier action is taken, the more effective it is, and more cost efficient too.

The question facing each of us is whether we will listen to the counsel emerging from public health circles and climate scientists — or whether we allow their voices to be drowned out by those who argue for inaction.

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ISD

TONY HELLER A retired computer engineer turned video producer, Heller posted nearly 300 tweets to his nowsuspended account and garnered almost 30,000 interactions during COP26. Heller is commonly known by the pseudonym ‘Steven Goddard’ and formerly contributed to climate denial blog WattsUpWithThat - he has previously described global warming as “the biggest scientific fraud in history”. In addition to content on COVID-19 conspiracy theories, which led to his suspension from Twitter in mid-December 2021, Heller also pushed the debunked conspiracy that temperature records are being manipulated to justify climate action. 

He has been repeatedly fact-checked for such claims, including by ClimateFeedback and Politifact, but remained a key influencer online during the Glasgow summit. While Heller’s content has earned him temporary suspensions from YouTube and Twitter, previous bans were lifted and do not seem to have affected his general rhetoric - the most recent suspension from Twitter appears to be permanent, but came after he had amassed hundreds of thousands of interactions on topics including COVID-19 and climate change.

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2012

Arthur Laffer, architect of Ronald Reagan’s economic plan, spells out his case for a tax on carbon to replace taxes on  income.

He finds it apparently expedient to throw out some perennial climate canards, apologizes for quoting Al Gore, and then calls a carbon tax a “no brainer.”

Vanderbilt:

As a longtime champion of conservative causes, renowned economist Arthur B. Laffer says he’s officially neutral in the debate over climate change. But he sees a fundamentally backward system in the United States that imposes taxes on things people want more of: income and jobs. At the same time, the U.S. allows something we want less of — carbon dioxide pollution — to be emitted without penalty.

Laffer says that situation should be reversed. Instead of tax increases that are “veiled as ‘cap and trade’ schemes,” Congress should offset a simple carbon tax with a reduction in income or payroll taxes.

Below, former Republican Congressman Bob Inglis further explained the conservative case for carbon action in an interview from a few months ago.

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omg trio consistently, spectacularly and devastatingly WRONG! punditry at worst/lethal

jon chait

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/04/arthur-laffer-lawrence-kudlow-stephen-moore-public-health.html

no lnx

THE NATIONAL INTEREST APR. 25, 2020

The Fatal Calculations of the Economists Steering Our Public Health

By Jonathan Chait

One night in late March, President Trump, seized by one of his periodic bouts of dismay with his public-health officials, sought out a second opinion on how to handle the coronavirus pandemic. He called Arthur Laffer. After missing the president’s first three calls, the79-year-old Lafferfinally answered, and the two men connected for what Laffer described as “a very serious conversation,” shortly after which Trump tweeted, “WE CANNOT LET THE CURE BE WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM ITSELF.”

Trump gravitated back to his public-health advisers, but he is again lurching toward the opposite pole — one anchored by Laffer and his close allies: National Economic Council head Lawrence Kudlow and economic adviser Stephen Moore. They have seized on their historic role as the antagonists to the administration’s public-health wing because they have a particular competence of their own, honed over decades: persuading Republican officials to ignore experts.

Even before his current role, Laffer was perhaps the most successful policy entrepreneur in modern American history, at least if measured by political influence.In the 1970s, as an economics professor who had served in Nixon’s Office of Management and Budget, Laffer developed a friendship with Wall Street Journal editorial writer Jude Wanniski, whose job had previously included defending Richard Nixon’s conduct in the Watergate scandal. The two came to believe that Laffer had developed a blinding insight with world-historical ramifications. A tax rate of either zero or 100 would yield no tax revenue at all, Laffer posited. Drawing a sloping, sideways curve between those points, he further hypothesized that reducing tax rates might increase revenue.

The “Laffer curve,” which at one point Laffer drew on a cocktail napkin for an impressed Dick Cheney (the Smithsonian now claims to display the original), formed the basis of what became known as “supply-side economics.” The doctrine held not only that tax cuts could increase tax revenue, but that changes in tax rates were the primary driver of all economic events. Republican economist Herb Stein coined the name as a term of derision, intending to highlight the absurdity of building a model entirely on one side of the economy instead of considering both supply and demand.Economic experts mocked Laffer’s notion that reductions in tax rates at existing levels could produce anywhere close to enough new economic growth to pay for itself.

And the experts … were completely right. After supply-siders converted Ronald Reagan and promised his tax cuts would pay for themselves, revenue hemorrhaged. Reagan’s non-supply-side advisers prevailed upon him to sign a series of tax increases for the purpose of “reducing the size of the nation’s fiscal disaster,” his budget director later admitted. When Bill Clinton raised the top tax rate from 31 percent to 39.6 percent, supply-siders insisted he would kill the recovery and reduce tax revenue. Instead, revenue soared far higher than anybody had forecast.

Kudlow and Moore began ascending in the 1980s, shuttling between right-wing think tanks and media — especially the Journal editorial page, which remained the high temple of the supply-side cult. I first came across Moore when he was writing Journal columns arguing that the supply-siders had been right to predict Bill Clinton’s tax hike would reduce revenue. (A hallmark of supply-side thought has been to refuse to concede any error or complication in its analysis.) The supply-siders went on to insist that George W. Bush’s tax cuts would produce untold prosperity. Moore wrote a book called Bullish on Bush, and Kudlow wrote the foreword to The Bush Boom and a series of columns dismissing “pessimistas” who detected economic turmoil. “There’s no recession coming. The pessimistas were wrong,” he wrote in December 2007.

In the spring of 2016, just after Trump had sewn up the nomination, Laffer, Kudlow, and Moore set out to meet the candidate at Trump Tower. Like many members of the conservative elite, they initially harbored reservations. But unlike foreign-policy hawks or social traditionalists, their concerns were devoid of any moral component, like a suspicion of dictators or philanderers. Their sole misgiving concerned Trump’s populist rhetoric and occasional campaign vows to raise his own taxes. The troika wanted to find out if he really meant it. To their relief, he didn’t. “He wanted tax cuts. He wanted to deregulate, he wanted to get the government out of the way,” Kudlow recounted in the foreword to Laffer and Moore’s laudatory book, Trumponomics. “The three of us saw Trump in a whole new light.”

We’ll come out of this soon, the economy will reopen, the economy will restart. It will, I hope, take care of itself. Markets will take care of themselves over time.

— Larry Kudlow, optimistic as oil prices tanked, on April 22

Kudlow joined the administration as Trump’s chief economic adviser. Trump announced he would nominate Moore for the Federal Reserve Board, but the Senate killed Moore’s bid over a combination of embarrassing ignorance of the subject — just two years before, he’d admitted on a panel, “I’m not an expert on monetary policy” — and years of sexist comments, including an obsessive hatred of women working as play-by-play commentators on basketball games. He and Laffer instead served as outside advisers and allies to Trump, who last summer bestowed a Presidential Medal of Freedom on Laffer.

Trump rewarded their confidence by implementing a large corporate tax cut, which was intended to encourage more corporate investment and therefore “would yield about the same revenue — and possibly more — than the current system,” Laffer and Moore wrote in Trumponomics. Naturally, it failed. Business owners got a windfall, but there was no corporate-investment boom and corporate-tax revenue fell by more than a third. Just as naturally, they acted as if events had proved them right.

And so, when the coronavirus struck, Trump had on hand a coterie of loyalists who would not hesitate to question legitimate experts.Kudlow forcefully endorsed Trump’s optimism that the virus would never spread. On February 25, Kudlow said it had been “contained … pretty close to airtight.” Even two weeks later, he was insisting, “I would still argue to you that this thing is contained.”

When public-health officials persuaded Trump to abandon his denialism, the supply-siders formed the resistance. Applying Laffer’s old dictum, “All economic problems are about removing impediments to supply, not demand,”they reasoned that the problem facing the economy was not a deadly pandemic but, as ever, bad incentives imposed by government — in this case, restrictions on business and excessively generous unemployment benefits that “discourage work.” If the government just stopped suppressing incentives, the economy would spring back to life.

The Journal editorial page published some of the first pushback against the wisdom of lockdowns. As early as mid-March, Moore denounced on Fox News the first closings, in California, as “a very dangerous, almost Orwellian situation.” Trump began repeating the supply-siders’ warnings that he had ceded too much authority to scientists (“If it was up to the doctors,” he mused, “they might say shut down the entire world”). Trump relented to his public-health experts but, by early April, was again listening to the supply-siders. Moore began proposing May 1 as a deadline to reopen the economy, a timeline Trump endorsed soon thereafter.

The supply-siders’ struggle to tug Trump away from his medical experts has both public and private facets. Laffer and Moore promoted a new administration task force to focus on economic reopening, a counterweight to the coronavirus task force led by doctors Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx. Moore encouraged anti-shutdown protests in several states to pressure governors to speed up their timetables for reopening businesses. “I call these people the modern-day Rosa Parks,” he explained, “They are protesting against injustice and a loss of liberties.”

In their book, Laffer and Moore fondly recall Kudlow’s instructing Trump to ignore budget forecasts that tax cuts would reduce revenue. “Don’t get stressed out by the phony numbers of Washington’s bean counters,” he said. “They are always wrong.” The message today is largely unchanged. The main difference is that the experts they are urging the president to dismiss are counting lives. We’re the beans.

This article appears in the April 27, 2020, issue of New York Magazine

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https://www.desmogblog.com/covideniers-anti-science-covid-19-denial-overlaps-climate-denial

The climate science denial machine created by the fossil fuel industry is now a major source of COVID-19 disinformation. Deniers have deployed many of the same tactics they have used to attack climate scientists and delay action to downplay the severity of the coronavirus outbreak and sow distrust in the response efforts of governments, scientists and the medical community — with deadly consequences that are now unfolding before our eyes.

Others have used the threat of COVID-19 to argue against action to address climate change, which would leave us all more vulnerable to the wide array of future catastrophes that scientists say will result from additional degrees of warming.

In the following series, DeSmog presents the #COVIDenial evidence our team has gathered revealing the overlapping cast of characters who have long attacked climate science and are now spreading COVID misinformation, touting false cures, ginning up conspiracy theories and fomenting attacks on public health experts. We began tracking this overlap in March 2020, when Sharon Kelly wrote Meet the Climate Science Deniers Who Downplayed COVID-19 Risks.

Many of these groups, including Koch network-funded entities such as Americans for Prosperity and State Policy Networkmembers have also attacked stay-at-home orders and orchestrated ‘Liberate’ movement protests nationwide, as Steve Horn wrote in COVID-19 'Liberate' Groups Are the Same Ones Pushing Climate Denial. And as DeSmog UK’s Zak Derler reported in Climate Science Deniers Use Coronavirus to Downplay Environmental Threats, notorious climate deniers around the world are even claiming that the novel coronavirus pandemic is a hoax, or that it’s an evil plot by “globalist elites” like Bill Gates and George Soros to alternately force vaccines or a “world population cull.”

These are dangerous operatives at work spreading all manner of doubt and delusion to confuse the public, and their actions and words will forever cement them on the wrong side of history.

Explore the report materials below, and please contact DeSmog with any other examples of COVID denial you come across

COVIDenial Executive Summary:

"Government should be doing little or next to nothing,” Richard Ebeling wrote in a postabout COVID-19 republished on March 24 by the Heartland Institute. “The problem is a social and medical one, and not a political one.”

“I just think we're going to be fine. I think everything is going to be fine,” Heartland editorial director and research fellow Justin Haskins said about COVID-19 during a March 1episode of the podcast In the Tank. “I really don't think this is going to be a problem even two to three months from now.”

On Dec. 31, 2019, “a pneumonia of unknown cause” was first reported to the World Health Organization’s China Country Office — and in the months following that report, the disease now known as COVID-19 spread to infect millions of people worldwide and seems well on its way to killing hundreds of thousands — while experts warn that the presumed death toll may be significantly higher than we yet know.

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As the virus spread, so too did misinformation: baseless predictions that the disease would not cause significant harm, claims of miracle cures, and conspiracy theories about the virus’s origins. That misinformation was often circulated by white-collar professionals — including many who have a history of casting doubt on climate science or seeking to debate issues that were already laid to rest within the scientific community. The overlap was so striking that it caught the attention of both former PresidentBarack Obama and late-night host Jimmy Kimmel in March.

Some of that misinformation on COVID-19 came straight from President Trump. But a river of faulty information on the coronavirus also flowed from think tanks, experts (some self-proclaimed), academics, and professional right-wing activists who also have spurned climate science and sought to slow or stop action to respond to the climate crisis.

Some compared COVID-19 to the flu or other threats, suggesting that the flu was a larger threat and that action to slow the spread of the novel virus was an overreaction. As the toll from COVID-19 grew, others argued that the virus was the most important threat and that action to slow climate change was superfluous. Some circulated false or unproven cures and remedies while others touted the benefits of single-use plastics during the pandemic (without regard for the health of those living in places where plastics and petrochemicals are produced — like Saint John the Baptist parish, Louisiana, which on April 16, had the highest per-person COVID-19 death rate in the U.S.)

Some attacked renewable energy, some the Green New Deal, and others the World Health Organization (WHO). Some framed efforts to “flatten the curve” of infections as infringements on liberty or simply unnecessary while others persisted in using terms that the WHO has warned can lead to dangerous stigma and discrimination. And some climate science deniers have circulated conspiracy theories, like claims that the virus was a foreign “bioweapon,” that it’s linked to “electrosmog” and 5G networks, or alleged that “the World Health Organization has carried out the greatest fraud perhaps in modern history.”

The decades that fossil fuel companies spent funding organizations that sought to undermine the conclusions of credible climate scientists and building up doubt about science itself ultimately created a network of professional science deniers who are now deploying some of the same skills they honed on climate against the public health crisis at the center of our attention today.

Many of the operatives spreading COVID disinformation have influence because of the fossil fuel industry.

COVID denial reveals the deadly threat that climate denial poses to all aspects of public health and science. 

“Make no mistake,” Michaels wrote. “The proposed EU climate law will reverse a lot more progress and a lot more economic and environmental resilience than any probable climate change or, for that matter, coronavirus.” (Another of the scientists whose work was discredited in the draft Global Climate Coalition report, Richard Lindzen, signed onto a March 23, 2020, open letter calling climate change a “non-problem” compared to COVID-19. HUH?

“As a very first step, designated Green New Deal money must be redirected and invested in a significantly better global health system,” the letter argues. “The past 150 years also show that more CO2 is beneficial for nature, greening the Earth and increasing the yields of crops. Why do world leaders ignore these hard facts? Why do world leaders do the opposite with their Green New Deal and lower the quality of life by forcing high-cost, dubious low-carbon energy technologies upon their citizens?”)}:

COVID denial should forever discredit climate science deniers.

Steve Milloy tweeted out a link to a New York Times op-ed by Dr. Cornelia Griggs, who described working in a New York City hospital amid the pandemic, calling her a “Hysterical doc” and writing “Stop the panic.” (Less than a week later, Milloy tweeted that “#Coronavirus has given us the #GreenDream: —Deprivation — Destroyed economy — Police state”). On April 10 — at a time when over 92,000 deaths had been reported worldwide — Bjorn Lomborg wrote that “Significant data indicate corona is no worse than the common flu.” And former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani tweeted out a list of leading causes of death on March 10, writing “Likely at the very bottom, Coronavirus: 27.” Six weeks later, more than 14,400 people in New York City had died after contracting the virus.}:

Climate change and the COVID pandemic are both crises.

By taking a close look at where those who advocate inaction on climate change erred or misled their audience about the pandemic, it’s possible to learn a great deal — and not only about who has provided reliable information about COVID-19 and who has misled.

There are striking parallels between this pandemic and the climate crisis. The virus’ spread has proven capable of accelerating at an exponential rate.

Similarly, climate scientists have warned for decades that climate change can accelerate exponentially. That means that for both crises, the earlier action is taken, the more effective it is, and more cost efficient too.

The question facing each of us is whether we will listen to the counsel emerging from public health circles and climate scientists — or whether we allow their voices to be drowned out by those who argue for inaction.

Series:

COVIDeniers: Anti-Science Coronavirus Denial Overlaps with Climate Denial

“Government should be doing little or next to nothing,” Richard Ebeling wrote in a post about COVID...

By DeSmog, 22 Apr, 2020

COVID-19 Denial

The following individuals and groups, who have historically focused on denying or downplaying the...

By DeSmog, 22 Apr, 2020

COVID-19 & Climate Comparisons

The following individuals and groups, who have historically focused on denying or downplaying the...

By DeSmog, 22 Apr, 2020

Give Me Freedom or Give Me COVID

The following individuals and groups, who have historically focused on denying or downplaying the...

By DeSmog, 22 Apr, 2020

Climate Deniers & the 'China Virus'

The following individuals and groups, who have historically focused on denying or downplaying the...

By DeSmog, 22 Apr, 2020

Climate Deniers & Coronavirus 'Cures'

The following individuals and groups, who have historically focused on denying or downplaying the...

By DeSmog, 22 Apr, 2020

COVID-19 & Fossil Fuel Promoters

The following individuals and groups, who have historically focused on denying or downplaying the...

By DeSmog, 22 Apr, 2020

https://www.desmogblog.com/covid-fossil-fuel-promoters

The following individuals and groups, who have historically focused on denying or downplaying the risk of man-made global warming, have turned their attention to the COVID-19 crisis.

This set of examples looks at those who have used the coronavirus as an excuse to promote fossil fuels over renewable energy going forward.

These examples are taken out of a larger body of evidence DeSmog has gathered on COVID denial.

COVIDenial Executive Summary

COVID-19 Denial

COVID-19 & Climate Comparisons

Give Me Freedom or Give Me COVID

Climate Deniers & the ‘China Virus’

Climate Deniers & Coronavirus ‘Cures’

COVID-19 & Plastic Promoters

COVID Deniers & Attacks on Renewables

COVID-19 Denier Attacks on WHO

COVID Denier Conspiracy Theories

Alex Epstein

“Power Hour: 4 Ideas About COVID-19 You Won’t Hear Anywhere Else,” via Alex Epstein on SoundCloud, March 18

Alex Epstein: [00:02:05] Our biggest ally in the fight against Coronavirus is the fossil fuel industry.

Life:Powered/ Texas Public Policy Foundation

April 2, 2020 (Via TPPF/Life: Powered Newsletter, on file at DeSmog: “Facts: Powered — Surviving Coronavirus? Thank Fossil Fuels)

If you’re surviving the coronavirus, you have fossil fuels to thank. After the coronavirus subsides, our politicians’ priorities when it comes to energy must change.

Mark Mathis

Steve Milloy

COVID-19 & Plastic Promoters

The following individuals and groups, who have historically focused on denying or downplaying the...

By DeSmog, 22 Apr, 2020

COVID Deniers & Attacks on Renewables

The following individuals and groups, who have historically focused on denying or downplaying the...

By DeSmog, 22 Apr, 2020

COVID-19 Denier Attacks on WHO

The following individuals and groups, who have historically focused on denying or downplaying the...

By DeSmog, 22 Apr, 2020

COVID Denier Conspiracy Theories

The following individuals and groups, who have historically focused on denying or downplaying the...

By DeSmog, 22 Apr, 2020

https://www.desmogblog.com/covid-denier-conspiracy-theories

The following individuals and groups, who have historically focused on denying or downplaying the risk of man-made global warming, have turned their attention to the COVID-19 crisis.

This set of examples examines those who have promoted conspiracy theories regarding the original, spread, and other aspects of the coronavirus epidemic.

*Please note that automatic transcripts were generated for some of the video materials, and while we have reviewed the transcripts, there may still be errors. Contact DeSmog if you notice any errors and we will address them as soon as possible.*

These examples are taken out of a larger body of evidence DeSmog has gathered on COVID denial.

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Alex Jones

“MUST WATCH FULL SHOW - 03:24:2020 - We’re Not A Nation Of Cowards, This Is Not How America Works, Time To Go Back To Work!“ The Alex Jones Show

Alex Jones: [00:19:49] But this whole random stay in your homes, it's all about the vaccine coming out next year. Force inoculation. They admit it's all about programming people. And now they say that's all coming out just as we warned you.

Alex Jones: [00:30:04] So what I don't like is the fawning over the hysteria and the getting into it and the and the people enforcing made up stuff on themselves and exaggerating and then getting into how they're complying. But see, we've been turned into a nation of jellyfish, of followers, of cowards. There's still a lot of good people. But we have to be leaders and not comply with the mind control and the exaggeration. And we have to get in the face of the sheeple and explain to them their compliance is the danger, because the globalists are evil. They're the threat. They want to put handcuffs on you.

“President Trump Declares National Emergency Implements War Powers To Fight Chicom Corona Weapon - FULL SHOW 3:18:20“ The Alex Jones Show

Alex Jones: [00:12:45] What I'm saying is it's a bio weapon man-made that they've tested before in the lab. You released something that you know the trajectory of. That's sort of what a weapon is. It's been battlefield tested. It's then released and it's all pre hype and ready. And it does have a kill rate. And they know and they know the kill rate. And so they then overhype that rate to create incredible fear on a bio weapon. [00:13:08]

Alex Jones: [00:13:10] That is what they call a simulant, you know, [00:13:14]

Alex Jones: [00:13:14] turns out they released one of the flu viruses eight, nine years ago, the year before. In a vaccine as a tracker. So they're doing all of this experimentation. So I am concerned. The virus is going to kill a lot of people. But the entire fear mongering is the real threat to the economy, to our liberties, to our future. And now they're getting, at M.I.T., microchips ready for us. They're little and they're they're a digital jail. And it's just tiny. It's it's it's like, you know, smaller than a grain of rice and it's invisible. [00:13:49]

Judicial Watch

Matt Shuham. “Sued Chinese government, claiming COVID-19 was a bioweapon,” TalkingPointsMemo

Larry Klayman, the co-founder of the conservative groups Judicial Watch and Freedom Watch has sued the Chinese government, alleging that the COVID-19 pandemic was the result of a Chinese bioweaponthat made its way around the world.

“Although it appears that the COVID-19 virus was released at an unplanned, unexpected time, it was prepared and stockpiled as a biological weapon to be used against China’s perceived enemies, including but not limited to the people of the United States,” the suit reads.

Martin Armstrong

“World Health Organization Demanded Sweden Lock Down To Cover Its Own Fraud,” Armstrong Economics, April 17 (bold emphasis in original, highlights added)

The New York Times and others are out in full force to defend Bill Gates, their savior of the world. They distort everything and try to pretend he is this wonderful man who only has our best interests at heart. They also refuse to address how the World Health Organization has carried out the greatest fraud perhaps in modern history and the links of the United Nations to the drive for Climate Change also go back to Bill Gates.

“What is the Agenda?” Armstrong Economics, April 17

It is becoming increasingly obvious that the more socialistic the country, the greater the demand for us to be tracked. Australia is telling its people if you want to end the lockdown, then you must be tracked. This virus is by no means so dangerous to warrant such a complete breakdown of all our liberty. What seems to be emerging is that they know the monetary system is collapsing. A number of people have written in and said they have been following our models warning that 2021-2022 was going to be the breakdown of the monetary system. Perhaps, the actions of these socialists are clearly strategic and highly anti-democratic.

What comes next? Suspension of elections so we transform into totalitarian states? I would not expect that in the USA until they get rid of Trump. I would strongly advise he does not take any vaccine on the recommendation of Fauci.

“Is Bill Gates the Dark Lord?” Armstrong Economics, April 15

My trouble with Bill Gates is his alleged reputation for being ruthless and devious in light of his positions which are inconsistent. He is fearful of overpopulation, wants CO2 to be zero, funding vegetarian enterprises, wants to chip everyone, and then is a climate change supporter. This makes no sense. Why would you want to vaccinate everyone in the world to live longer if you are afraid of overpopulation and climate change? This is like being long and short at the same time in the same market with the same size positions on both sides. This makes no sense! What is his true end game?

COVID-19 will now be part of the annual flu season. By keeping everyone locked down, this means if they are not exposed, this virus will be prolonged. About 50% of those in Germany have already been exposed and have proven to be naturally immune.  Is this a virus they have intended to reduce the elderly to eliminate the pension and social liabilities for the baby-boomers? Some see this as the goal to save socialism. Reduce the population of the elderly and start over subjugating the youth. Interesting theory.

We already have Microsoft calls home like ET (phone home) every time you open any program in Office. Its antivirus software was taking your programs and checking them on their servers. That is obviously a threat to proprietary software to send a copy up to their servers.

Why do we all have to be chipped? Microsoft is tacking everything we do already. They sell that information to target advertisements. Now we have numerous countries demanding full-time tracking of people because of this coronavirus which is no more lethal than the flu. There are proposals for Britain and Europe lurking in the background where everyone must be tracked. How does this impact tourism? How will an American go to Greece or Italy if they are not part of this tracking system? Is this were Gates’ chips come in? Are we looking at losing our freedom to travel, assemble, and to speak freely? Is this what so many people died for defending our freedom in all these wars since the American Revolution?

[great pix bill as star wars dark lord]

“Trump Opening America Again,” Armstrong Economics, April 16 (bold emphasis in original, highlights added)

I had to laugh when Trump used the very reports claiming 2 million Americans would die which was put out by Neil Ferguson from Imperial College which received donations from Bill Gates to flip their negativity back on the press. We did a great job, Trump said, and we are coming in with well under 100,000 deaths because he closed the borders. It was sort of a mental martial arts contest using the force of your opponent against them.

Shifting the burden back to the governors was a brilliant move. New York City, which under governor Andrew Cuomo just weeks ago was blaming Trump and pleading that it would need 40,000 ventilators to handle a projected flood of critically ill COVID-19 patients that never appeared, now says things are going so well New York is shipping hundreds of ventilators to other states. It’s always a question of who gets the blame.

Socrates was right. COVID-19 would peak the week of April 6th. Even back on March 11th, our cyclical models showed the peak would be April/May. This was not some personal opinion or guess. This was simply modeling the life-cycle of all viruses. People who were saying this could last for 18 months were doing so to support Bill Gates saying it would take 18 months for a vaccine that would be conveniently after the 2020 elections.

I find it personally offensive for these journalists to harp on this nonsense that Trump was wrong when it is plainly the FAKE NEWS. What Trump has done was political. The draconian measures being carried out by each state will be attributable to the governor for the 2020 election – not Trump. Then we will probably see these horrible corrupt journalists flip it around and blame the lockdowns and loss of local jobs like in New York on Trump in time for the 2020 elections. Personally, I believe they are carrying out Sedition against the United States.

Trump has absolute authority to reopen the country because there is NO Constitutional Authority to have ordered a lockdown, to begin with. This idea of flattening the curve is only a THEORY and there is no evidence that this would even work. It is no different than Keynesian Economics with Quantitative Easing which has failed. The attempt to flatten the curve CANNOT defeat the energy of any cycle. All you will do is prolong it. The likelihood of this returning in the fall is probably better than 90%. The real threat is once this power has been seized by governments and it remains unchallenged, it will be used again and again in the future.

Trump made it very clear, there was NEVER a bed capacity problem. He sent hospital ships to New York, but they were not used. He had the Army Core of Engineers build beds in stadiums – they were never filled. The entire theory we needed to be locked down because there were not enough beds was totally BOGUS!!!!! When is the press going to point this out? We have been lied to and why? Where is the journalist willing to tell the truth just once! This is the CDC’s own graph showed bed capacity was the justification for the lockdown. The press bash Trump claiming he was wrong, but not a single word about this chart to justify the lockdown, to begin with, will ever appear in main-stream media.

“China v Gates – Spinning the Conspiracies,” Armstrong Economics, April 12

There may have been a leak from China which was a mistake, but it has been a deliberate seizure of this virus to further agendas by both the Gates Foundation and left-wing politicians. When Hydroxychloroquine has been used with 100% success in France, we had Gates and Fauci saying no – we need a vaccine. That was clearly the Gates agenda so were people supposed to die because Fauci claimed he wanted a long-term study?

[…]

The question will come down to historians was this a deliberate attack, or was it a leak which was exacerbated by the corruption behind the curtain of the Gates Foundation controlling every aspect of world health and politicians eager to use it because socialism was collapsing? This certainly seems to be very convenient for many people, not just China.

“Bill Gates Has Been Controlling WHO,” Armstrong Economics, April 12

We have a major crisis on our hands. Bill Gates is a VERY SERIOUS threat to not just the world economy, but to world peace. He has been using a loophole that allows health organizations to appear to be government agencies but are not independent and have been actually controlled by Gates. You will see that 80% of the funding of WHO is not from governments, but from donations. Then you see that Gates is the largest donor after countries listed on their website. Behind the curtain, the WHO has been bullied and pushed around by Bill Gates according to various sources one who is even writing a book on the domination of the WHO by Gates.

[…]

Bill Gates has taken over the world health issue as he allegedly ruthlessly he ran Microsoft. This man, I believe, has threatened civilization itself. We should be yelling to every politician in every country to (1) abolish any governmental agency from accepting any private donation AT ONCE! and (2) to launch an investigation into the connections with Gates that span the entire world. I may be risking my life even saying this – but we have a right to be free, not tagged and herded like cattle.

“The COVID-19 Fraud – It’s Massive,” Armstrong Economics, April 10

Senator Dr. Scott Jensen of Minnesota came out to expose how the AMA is encouraging American doctors to overcount coronavirus deaths across the US. He showed a 7-page document coaching him, as a doctor, to fill out death certificates with a COVID-19 diagnosis without a lab test to confirm the patient actually had the virus. Why? Because of the package for this relief, hospitals are paid more to attend this virus. NOBODY is dying of the flu any more – only COVID-19

The numbers will then be used to justify keeping the money flowing to misrepresent this as an epidemic. This fraud will then come back to justify keeping the economy locked down longer and the AMA is now contributing to the destruction of everyone’s livelihood, pension, and this exposes the corruption that always emerges with government programs.

“Influence v a Cabal,” Armstrong Economics, April 9

This is a cabal, a coordinated attack using so many fronts it is just beyond contemplation. It has been well organized. The WHO, which is part of this conspiracy, is now stating the world must remain locked down. This is not the bankers, it is the socialists who have used climate change which was not moving the people to action. They switched the dogma to immediate death if you dare to walk outside.

“Did Bill Gates Buy the CDC?” Armstrong Economics, April 6

Trump should fire Fauci first and secondly shut down all private donations from anyone, especially Bill Gates. This is a matter of NATIONAL SECURITY. Gates should be investigated and all his connections. Anyone who sold all their stocks and bonds just in advance should be hauled out for Insider Trading. But these people typically also OWN the SEC. Trump needs to appoint a Special Prosecutor and never someone from New York City.

“UN Wants Global Power to Tax 10% for the Coronavirus,” Armstrong Economics, April 2

Anyone who thinks for one second that I am exaggerating by calling this a global coup does not know me very well. I do not buy into conspiracy theories. I rely upon qualified sources – not rumor or conjecture. I have WARNED that we are facing a leftist coup of major proportions. I have warned that this virus was not a real threat from the beginning. It was not a biological weapon spliced with aids or a leak. This has been an intentional misrepresentation. My sources suggest it existed in the previous flu season in China.

The United Nations, and their World Health Organization, is behind this coup as well. The death toll is far less than the annual flu (about 10%) but the press is so happy to support this Marxist agenda. The journalists who are following orders from their managing editors are sealing their own future and that of their families and children. They used this virus for there is no vaccine but there are plenty of independent sources saying the medicine to treat malaria have been working with no deaths in France and elsewhere.

“Is the Virus Being Used to Usher-In a Police State in Different Parts of the World?” – March 21

There is something wrong here. You do not destroy the world economy on this magnitude to even save 25,000 lives. Even if 40% of the population got this, with a death rate which is less than 3% (8% among the elderly), it does not warrant this economic destruction. They are wiping out small businesses, countless people have lost their jobs, others their entire pension fund, and there is no putting this back together again as nothing happened. This is an intentional economic destruction that is being carried out for an undisclosed purpose.

The Wrong Conspiracy – Is the Virus the Bait? – March 19

In France, journalists are no longer allowed to go out and cover stories. They need permission from the government and must explain what the story is about. Then their editors must also approve before they even seek permission from the government. There are reliable leads that this is a manufactured crisis coming from people seeking to further the global socialist agenda out of the United Nations. I have confirmation that the central banks have NOT been apart of this and they are being pushed into the corner. Hedge funds are being wiped out and the losses are staggering. The main reason seems to be that the bulk of the industry relies on fundamental analysis. This has proven that they were caught completely off guard because this virus does not warrant shutting down the entire world economy. Now, journalists who are skeptical are being sequestered to prevent exposing what is going on.

Those touting the virus is being understated may love their own conspiracy world, but they are being used for a much more serious agenda.

Principia Scientific International

“Shock: Govt Study Proves Flu Vaccination Link To Coronavirus,” Principia Scientific International, March 21, 2020

The study shockingly reveals the flu vaccine INCREASES your risk from  coronavirus.

Were We Inadvertently Killing Our Parents And Grandparents By Encouraging Them To Take Annual Flu Shots?

In the light of the findings of an important US military study, this may be the Big Question posed when the coronavirus pandemic post mortem is due.

[…]

Being that the above is verified government data involving medical research performed on thousands of govt employees, it therefore stands as empirical proof that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention must thereby be mandated to immediately announce that anyone who has had a flu shot should be notified urgently to consider self isolation quarantine.

The COVID-19 pandemic may yet prove to be the smoking gun of how the global elite planned to apply a ‘solution’ to solve the problem of the ever-growing pensions crisis and spiraling health care costs caused by an aging population.

:{:{WND.:(style="background-color:#ffff66ff"):}: “MIT PhD Reveals Sinister Theory About Coronavirus,” Principia Scientific International, March 18}:

A biological engineer with four degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology believes the coronavirus pandemic is being used by “Deep State” bureaucrats to further their agenda.

Shiva said the CDC is “corrupt,” focusing mostly on reactions to outbreaks rather than preventative measures such as improving immune health.

“The real infection here, he said, is the fear and the uncertainty that we need to overcome as an American family, to get strong, to move forward,” he said.

Shiva said the outbreak provides an opportunity for Americans to improve their immune health, asking, “What does it mean to have a healthy and resilient immune system?”

Jim Holt. “Revealed: Basic Math Error Likely Cause Of Global Coronavirus Panic!”,” Principia Scientific International, March 18

Before the US economy disintegrates into nothingness — Will any so-called expert out there also notice that the WHO Director caused a global coronavirus panic over a basic math error?

The controversial Ethiopian politician and Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, claimed in a press conference in early March that the fatality rate for the coronavirus was many multiples that of the fatality rate of the common flu.

This egregiously false premise has led to the greatest economic panic in world history.

[…]

If latest study published in the Science journal is correct then the coronavirus scare will be the greatest hoax in world history causing trillions and trillions of dollars in economic damage.

The WHO and Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus need to be held responsible!

Jonas E. Alexis and John W. Whitehead.“Coronavirus Vs. The Mass Surveillance State,” Principia Scientific International, March 8

If one even considers it possible that the United States had a hand in creating the coronavirus at what remains of its once extensive biological weapons research center in Ft Detrick Maryland, it is very likely that Israel was a partner in the project. Helping to develop the virus would also explain how Israeli scientists have been able to claim success at creating a vaccine so quickly, possibly because the virus and a treatment for it were developed simultaneously.

Is this theory entirely farfetched? I don’t know. Perhaps we won’t know all that is to know about the virus until ten to twenty years later. But the media has almost certainly hyped up the coronavirus outbreak. My oldest brother, Chris, has raised a point which deserves a fair hearing:

This is the twenty-first century, and not one son or daughter has gone online or on YouTube to explain that one of his/her family members, even himself/herself has contracted the virus to explain what it feels like and maybe express concerns that this might be it. We’re living in an age where people voluntarily share information for the sakes of others. Has anyone met anyone or heard from anyone? So many deaths being reported everywhere in the news, I would think there would be first-hand and second-hand accounts?

[…]

Consider all the ways you continue to be tracked, hunted, hounded, and stalked by the government and its dubious agents:

By tapping into your phone lines and cell phone communications, the government knows what you say. By uploading all of your emails, opening your mail, and reading your Facebook posts and text messages, the government knows what you write. By monitoring your movements with the use of license plate readers, surveillance cameras and other tracking devices, the government knows where you go. By churning through all of the detritus of your life—what you read, where you go, what you say—the government can predict what you will do.

By mapping the synapses in your brain, scientists—and in turn, the government—will soon know what you remember. By mapping your biometrics—your “face-print”—and storing the information in a massive, shared government database available to bureaucratic agencies, police and the military, the government’s goal is to use facial recognition software to identify you (and every other person in the country) and track your movements, wherever you go. And by accessing your DNA, the government will soon know everything else about you that they don’t already know: your family chart, your ancestry, what you look like, your health history, your inclination to follow orders or chart your own course, etc.

John O’Sullivan. “The Lies And Manipulation Around Coronavirus Mass Panic,” Principia Scientific International,  March 17

Independent scientists are increasingly speaking out concerning false claims and misinformation about the COVID-19 ‘pandemic.’ No Lab Has Yet Isolated and Identified COVID-19 so how can anyone claim a vaccine is “in development?”

Principal villain appears to be Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (photo, above). He is the discredited head of the World Health Organisation (WHO) and exposed  today in ‘Evidence Shows Director General of World Health Organization Severely Overstated the Fatality Rate of the Coronavirus Leading to the Greatest Global Panic in History.’(thegatewaypundit.com)

[…]

In addition, a new study reveals that 86 Percent Infected with Coronavirus in Public Are Undetected. Having roughly 90% of cases be undetected leads to a death rate of 1/10 of what the media is hyperventilating over.

[…]

So, why aren’t they closing the world down every year to save us from the more dangerous disease – ordinary flu?

Chicken Littles and Snowflakes are whining that: “We can’t be complacent because it could mutate into something really deadly and kill us all!”

Well sure. It could do that. As could absolutely any other virus in existence, known or unknown. Many things couldhappen. But we don’t act as if they have until they do. Right?

[…]

Who Benefits from Mass Fear-mongering?

Some claim it is about a globalist agenda for population control; a means to distract from and/or curtail Donald Trump’s re-election to the US Presidency, etc. But there is also the money angle.

“Electrosmog And The Wuhan Corona Virus,” Principia Scientific International, March 13

The recent COVID-19 outbreak has stimulated mass fear and mass hysteria across the planet, in spite of the fact that there have only been 93 deaths (at the time of this writing on February 29th, 2020) outside China, with 2835 of the deaths 17 and 99 percent of infections occurring within China. 18

In fact, the highest death rates outside of China have been in places already implementing 5G technology, South Korea and Italy, for example. The exception is Iran, which at present has 978 cases, and 54 deaths, is officially not implementing it, but very well may secretly be trialing it given the reason why on December 1, 2018, at the request of the US government, Meng Wanzhou — Huawei’s CFO and daughter of its founder — was arrested in Canada on allegations she participated in a conspiracy to defraud banks in connection with Iran sanctions violations, 19 was indeed because Huawei was working to sell their 5G technology to the Iranians. In fact, Iran — in a joint operation between Irancell and Ericsson — had started trialing the technology back in September of 2017. 20 In the article, titled “Irancell, Ericsson Test 5G Systems,” (2017) it is stated that the technology will be available by 2020 and become globally accessible a year later.

During the event at Irancell headquarters, the company’s CEO Alireza Dezfouli said “We are aiming to keep pace with the international operators. Iran will not be left behind again.”

Furthermore, a number of articles in the media, have stated that Iran has carried out “preparations” and is ready to launch 5G. 21 22 23 Well, preparations usually include trialing. Hence, it is easy to believe that Iran already has the 5G infrastructure set up and they have been secretly trialing it.

Belgium, on the other hand, — which had decided not to even trial 5G, let alone implement it, due to radiation concerns 24 — has had only one case so far of the coronavirus (recovered) and no deaths.

In fact, for the majority, the symptoms of patients outside of China, (especially with those away from the 5G), for the most part, have seemingly been relatively mild, as one would most likely see with a regular cold or flu virus, and with many of those infected not showing any symptoms at all.

---

1/22 no lnx twt etc

Give Me Freedom or Give Me COVID

The following individuals and groups, who have historically focused on denying or downplaying the risk of man-made global warming, have turned their attention to the COVID-19 crisis.

This set of examples examines arguments for opening the economy despite data suggesting this could sharply increase coronavirus cases. Some view lockdowns or shelter-in-place orders as infringement on basic rights. Others suggest that it’s acceptable to sacrifice a vulnerable portion of the population for the greater good.

*Please note that automatic transcripts were generated for some of the video materials, and while we have reviewed the transcripts, there may still be errors. Contact DeSmog if you notice any errors and we will address them as soon as possible.*

These examples are taken out of a larger body of evidence DeSmog has gathered on COVID denial.

Alex Epstein

“Power Hour: Ray Niles on How a freer market can help us protect ourselves from COVID-19,” ImproveThePlanet on YouTube, May 20

Alex Epstein: [00:07:31] Yeah, find this issue of the controls ratcheting up, really motivating to get involved, because just knowing a bit of the history myself, I can just see where we’re at a point where we’re having really unprecedented use of power, particularly by state governors, just saying, well, we can indefinitely tell people to stay in their homes. And that’s scary to me that that could continue indefinitely and in fact, that it could get normalized. So that’s part of my own motivation for getting involved, seeing like, oh, this is a time sensitive thing. I’ve a lot of other things in a sense. I’d rather be talking about other plans. But once these things get established, they’re very, very hard to move back.

[…]

Alex Epstein: [00:10:26] I’m curious, how would you state what do you think the role of the government of a free society is in this pandemic?

Raymond Niles: [00:10:33] I think the role of government is to empower individuals to take all steps to protect themselves.So, for example, if a person owns a business, they should be free to set whatever policy they want to protect themselves and their customers. They might require that people wear a mask or maybe they don’t require that people wear masks.

[00:25:40] We were told the most of us were told, like even if you yourself are not at high risk from this, you should be willing to be forced to be inside your home indefinitely, because if you have a serious thing, then the hospital won’t have the capacity if the hospital’s been overloaded. But what’s very conspicuous now is that the capacity of the whole medical system has gone dramatically down because people aren’t able to go for other procedures. And, you know, people are like hospitals are losing money. Doctors are losing money. Practices are closing. So the very thing that we were supposed to avoid, it actually hasn’t happened through an overload of the beds, but it’s happened through a decrease of the whole system.

[…]

Raymond Niles: [00:26:58] No, non-essential medical procedure is going to be permitted in the hospitals. Well, guess what? That’s how hospitals make money. So they’ve destroyed the most of the revenue opportunity for hospitals. And then when it turns out, it turns out the original estimates of the infection rate and the death rate for Coronavirus were way too high. It’s just a fact. There were way too high. So the number of beds they thought they would need for Coronavirus was, you know, it was a big mistake on what they thought to begin with.

[…]

Alex Epstein: [00:29:04] I definitely think there’s just no respect for the rights of individuals, for the judgment of individuals. And you see this, that the level of people locked inside their homes. But you also see is on the level of the hospitals, just oh, well we’re going to just, we just decided that all the hospitals, what they should do is they should be infinitely ready for one virus. That’s it. And no matter where they are, no matter how much it’s spread. You said one size fits all, which is a total description, like if something bad is happening in Italy, if something bad is happening in New York City, then it must be everywhere and so we’re going to order the whole country to stop everything so that it has infinite, the maximum possibility of dealing with this virus regardless of any other circumstance. It’s just an incredible example of…it’s almost fascism, you could call it, in terms of like supposedly we own our lives and we own our property, but we’re not allowed to use it when the government decides that the virus is a significant enough threat.

Raymond Niles: [00:30:28] And what bothers me, to be honest, is I don’t see very much protest against it. And we’re seeing some now a little bit in places. I see individual examples. You know, there is an art gallery in California, there are barbers. There are bar owners who are who are trying to open their businesses despite this. But whereas the mass revolution or mass revolt against this? I feel like the original American spirit of pride in your individual freedom is just not evident the way it should be, because our government, it is fascistic. It is fascistic.

[…]

Alex Epstein: [00:39:20] So there’s this whole idea. They’ll say, well, if you go out, you know, you’re killing people or, you know, you’re killing somebody’s grandmother. But that grandmother can decide whether to go out. This isn’t something that transmits a thousand miles. Again, it’s not a death ray. And so in general, yeah, it’s people, you know, if you save this, many people died. Well, in general, there’s this many people are choosing to put themselves in situations, and they’re in many ways, they’re rightly trying to put themselves in situations. I mean, I have a bunch of elderly neighbors and some of them are probably deciding I would rather increase my risk of death by one percent and be able to go to the pool and walk on the beach because who knows how long I’ll be alive. That’s a rational thing for them. And it’s in a free country.

[00:40:01] Like here’s a controversial statement, like the freest, the best outcome, with regard to Coronavirus, given how quickly it spreads, is not zero deaths and is not the country with the lowest Coronavirus deaths is not the best country. The country in which individuals are freest to decide what to do about Coronavirus within the context of their lives, that’s the best country. It’s the same with the flu and it’s same with everything else.

[…]

[00:45:25] We’ve seen the destruction of taking away people’s freedom. It’s immediate to tens of millions of Americans. They can see, my life is a lot worse because of these policies. And now maybe people say, oh, well, it would have been worse because of the virus anywhere anyway. But you’re seeing certain places, Taiwan, South Korea, Sweden, in different ways where people were freer and they’re not all dying from the virus. They didn’t have this Armageddon. And so what that shows is that a pro freedom response was possible and was better. And I’m really interested in anything that can be done to tell the truth about what has happened in that the catastrophe risks have unjustly and catastrophically restricted our freedom, and then the implications going forward.

Alex Epstein, via Facebook, May 6

The Tom Woods Show: Ep. 1627 Lockdowns vs. Human Flourishing: Is There Another Approach? April 6

[6:18] I think the purpose of the government is to protect ourfreedom. And that’s different from saying the purpose of the government is to prevent early death from any given cause.

I think ultimately, if you really believe that, then you just believe the government should control your life for anything. And you’re even seeing with locking people down, it’s decreasing the death rate, whether it decreases the death rate from Coronavirus. It’s definitely decreasing the death rate from say car crashes. Is that justified? Because the government can say, well, we want to save lives. And I think most people would think, no, there’s something wrong with that.

And the thing is, the government’s purpose is to protect our freedom. And then with our freedom, we decide how to sustain our lives, including how to make different kinds of risk, reward trade offs. So that’s one thing I think is lost when people think, oh, it’s the government’s job to quote, save lives. I think it’s to protect freedom.

[…]

But also, if you’re concerned about a spike in hospital resources, they’re by far the biggest likely users of hospital resources. So that kind of thing can make sense. And then you can talk about rational and I believe voluntary measures that most of us can take that are low cost that slow the spread of the virus. But that’s very different from eliminating it or eliminating its spread. And I do not think that eliminating it is at all compatible with human freedom or human flourishing, given everything we’re told about its nature, and in particular, its contagiousness. That would be different from something like Ebola that isn’t super contagious.

So you can isolate a couple people. And and and get rid of it. But nobody’s saying we can isolate the flu. And this is supposedly more contagious, even much more contagious than the flu. So this this clarity of purpose about is the government supposed to protect our freedom? And then can protecting our freedom involve eradicating this it seems like no, and therefore it can only be it’s protecting our freedom through managing this and in particular, managing a really catastrophic spike in I should say, the government controlled health care system and that A big part of the problem that the healthcare system is in many ways inept because of government controls.

And I’m sure you’ve enumerated many of the reasons why. But even given that it’s government controlled, you can say, yeah, maybe we can do certain things to slow the spread. And those should focus on, they should focus on on liberating free people to produce more of the treatment. That’s one of them. But then insofar as isolation is necessary, it should definitely focus on the most vulnerable. So it should be selective isolation, versus universal isolation, which is the dominant policy and that is morally completely indefensible, and cannot be the optimal way to achieve any kind of management.

[14:42] The purpose of the government is not to extend people’s lives. It’s to leave us free to live our lives as we judge best.

“Power Hour: 4 Ideas About COVID-19 You Won’t Hear Anywhere Else” via SoundCloud, March 18. Note that this episode seems to have been since removed from SoundCloud, however is still available at Apple Podcasts.

[00:17:49] The Corona crack down, this tyrannical behavior, this indefinite universal isolation illustrates the tyrannical nature of the ”right to health care.”

[00:18:08] My view of health is health is a responsibility. So it’s a responsibility. Individuals…. and so we have a right. We have a right to the pursuit of health care, including to produce different forms of health care, whether medical care, rather, medicines, medical services or to produce them. And, of course, to trade with others who produce them. But fundamentally, health is a responsibility and we should be free to pursue it and produce it.

Alex Jones

“MUST WATCH FULL SHOW – 03:24:2020 – We’re Not A Nation Of Cowards, This Is Not How America Works, Time To Go Back To Work!” The Alex Jones Show, March 24

[00:02:17] No, the virus is real, it kills some people. Nobody’s bad that wants to be upset about it. Quarantine themselves. But that’s your choice. The forced shutting down of society.

[00:02:30] It’s unconstitutional and it’s deadly dangerous.

American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)

“State Audio Resources: COVID-19,” Via ALEC_states on SoundCloud, March 21

    “Dr. Art Laffer Presents to the Committee To Unleash Prosperity on COVID-19”

Art Laffer: [00:00:36] They let me just say, the the issues are very serious here. I mean, obviously, it started with a Coronavirus, but then it spread right into the economy and a lot of people holding off work. We have a lot of reduction in demand and all that. There are two very serious economic issues at hand. My view there’s a liquidity issue and there is a production issue, both of which are very serious.

[…]

[00:02:43] The production issues are very different and they are very material as well by people staying at home, not being there at work. You have a great shortfall of supply in this country.

[…]

[00:04:42] My best guess is that that would do a great deal to re-accelerate and re bring back employment as fast as possible. Following the nature of this, I really Coronavirus induced downturn. The third thing I’d like to just. John, before I let you all go, is the thousand dollars per family payment is I don’t believe it makes any sense whatsoever, to be honest with you. People do need the money, very much so. But, you know, the government doesn’t create resources. The government redistributes resources. And everyone you bail out. You put someone else into trouble. And when I look at this number, I don’t know why one month would be enough. Two months would be enough. Three months. But every every month of that is at least 200, 150 to 200 billion dollars. You don’t go very many model very where you run out of money. You’re run out of money. Yeah. You run out of money.

[00:05:49] Symbolic gestures just don’t make sense here. We need production and we need it right now.

[…]

[00:07:27] If people could go back to work. Believe me, they would have gone back to work. The reason we have a downturn is because supplies were taken off the table because of the Coronavirus. Well, now it’s pyramiding and spiraling down. And that’s you know, that’s the real that’s the real, real problems. And what you find happening is with these politicians, you know, whenever you know, whenever politicians make decisions, when they’re either panicked or drunk, the consequences are rarely attractive. And you can see that with a W and with Obama in 2008, 2009.

[…]

[00:08:01] I mean, in five days of policy making, you can destroy a lifetime. And this is not the time to panic. It’s to be clear eyed. We need to get production back, period. And that’s what they have to do is right away. So my suggestion is discount freely. Make sure you take care of people who have liquidity problems, but not but not solvency problems and make sure they don’t become solvency. And number two, make sure you do a massive payroll tax waiver for the next eight months. So you make it very attractive for workers to work and you make it very attractive for employers to employ. And please don’t do these symbolic gestures of $1000 per family for the next five months and then wonder why it’s a depression.

Steve Moore, Founder of the Committee To Unleash Prosperity, Discusses Response to COVID-19

[00:00:41] We cannot  keep the American Academy shutdown for another three weeks. If it goes a day beyond three weeks. I think we get to a situation where the literally the cure is worse than the disease. We have to get the American economy open again. And that means that this kind of lockdown can’t continue because the costs, in my opinion, are going to be in the trillions of dollars.

[…]

[00:02:06] I’m a civil libertarian. The idea that we should have a policy like what’s going on in California right now to me is completely outrageous. It is a violation, it is an abuse of governmental power. The idea that people can’t go out of their homes is just outrageous to me. And I’m worried that that’s going to come to many other States as well. I don’t think you can do that. I just I think people will not stand for that kind of policy.

[00:03:07] I was thinking of starting a hashtag. You know, something like, you know, end the lockdown.

ALEC CEO Lisa B. Nelson w/ Cheryl Chumnley on Bold and Blunt

[20:19] Lisa B Nelson: You know, I think that the the I continue to be very optimistic, I continue to, you know, want to get America back to work again, and I’m appreciating the 15 days, to slow to spread. I get that we’re about halfway through that, but I also am encouraging our government leaders at the state level, to really look for ways to pivot to getting back, you know, to so that we can open America and get people working again.

[22:13] Yeah. You know, I mean, we are always going to defer to a limited government and free market response. We’ve never taken, you know, strong positions in support of any kind of bailout. And, and we, I guess we would call it a bailout. But, but I also think that there’s some important elements in in some of these bills that are going to encourage that fluidity and get money back in the hands of businesses. So, you know, we’re going to look for that limited government response, but support some of the things that have to happen at the state level. And I would, I would, you know, again, I would guess I would look at it much more.

Benny Peiserand Andrew Montford

“Coronavirus Lessons From the Asteroid That Didn’t Hit Earth” Wall Street Journal, April 1

When competing models are giving wildly different, and in some cases frightening, predictions, the pressure on governments to adopt a draconian approach can be overwhelming. But, as we are seeing, the costs of such measures are extraordinarily high. Nations cannot afford to lock down their economies every time a potentially devastating new virus emerges. Setting up an effective pandemic hazard scale would inform policy makers and the public, helping fend off media demands for “something to be done” until the right decisions can be made at the right time.

Bjorn Lomborg  twit

6.4% drop gnp b/c of lockdown? vs ppl dying and general disruption will kill more ppl thomas---bristol univ?]

“View: Shutdown is unsustainable,” The Economic Times/India Times, April 5

The potential impact of the Covid-19 pandemic is enormous. But draconian policies to tackle the virus also have colossal costs. Ignoring the trade-offs could land us with one of the worst possible outcomes.

[…]

This middle ground is more like what Sweden has been doing – recommending people to work from home if possible, and asking those who are sick and over-70 to avoid social contacts. But most people still work, children go to school, most of society is still running. This is long-term sustainable. Shutting everything down is not.

Charlie Kirk

“Growing concerns over coronavirus,” Fox News via Youtube, March 23

Charlie Kirk: [00:00:28] And so what I’d like to see is an even heavier focus and more national unity about assisting those areas and also relieving some of the quarantine and allowing the American entrepreneur to be liberated. Day fifteen comes some of the other parts of the country that have not been as impacted because you talked about there are real economic consequences to these sorts of quarantines that have been going on.

Charlie Kirk: [00:02:34] Look, the president has done a phenomenal job. And I can tell you the president is been he’s adapted quick into quick leadership form, almost like wartime form quicker than any other president we could possibly imagine. He has brought the country together against an invisible enemy. And I’m telling you, the president will make the right decisions to get this economy back and roaring in quick order. And he will be able to allocate the resources needed in these parts of the country, need them, and he will liberate the American off.

Club for Growth/David McIntosh

“Podcast: David McIntosh On Economic Shutdown And Bailouts Amid Coronavirus,” The Federalist, March 25

David McIntosh: [00:05:24] I think I think the government’s making many mistakes like that in the early panic days. And I was pleased to see yesterday the president announced he was hopeful the government could start allowing the economy and schools should follow suit to reopen as soon as Easter. We’ll see if that deadline works.

But I think it’s important for him to set out there. There is an end to this. And, you know, the health care providers, they’re doing their job. But but their perspective is very narrowly focused. How do we prevent any new patient from getting this Coronavirus, whereas the world has to operate on a whole larger scheme of things. How do we let families function of taking care of their kids? How do we get people to work so they can earn money to pay for the mortgage and pay for their bills? And so you can’t simply have the health care providers dictating that this go on indefinitely until we tell you it’s OK that that’s not acceptable.

Craig Rucker/CFACT

“Bill Gates: You know better than this. We need you now!” CFACT, March 25

As we work together to combat COVID-19, much of America is shuttered and our economy stopped.  We need to keep people safe, no doubt about it, but if we don’t keep the economy moving there’s a world of hurt in store for us all.

“Emergency! Narrow the recovery curve” CFACT,  March 23

If we don’t enable economic recovery to get moving, the resulting harm will exceed the harm from the virus.

Time to be smart.  Fast.

“Coronavirus: What’s the endgame?” CFACT, March 17

It will likely be a long time until the risk from the coronavirus approaches zero.

[…]

In short, our leaders need to plan not just how they will conduct the war against this virus, but an “exit strategy” on how to pull out when the mission has been achieved.

European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE)

“When the elephant jumps down the cliff for fear of the cat” EIKE, March 22. Originally published at ACHGUT. Translated with Google Translate.

However, the guards are probably wrong with the demand for comprehensive social containment, which is tantamount to blocking public life. Through horror scenarios and highly emotional reports, which are not embedded in an overall fact-based context, they, together with the grateful media, drive politicians to irrational actions, which in retrospect will probably have done more harm than Covid-19 itself.

[…]

My personal conclusion:

Currently, with a week, maybe month long policy of social containment, we are buying the probably only minor cushioning of Covid-19 consequences with the increasing risk of a system crash.

Politicians, fired by experts who do not consider the overall context, are likely to outdo themselves with measures that are probably only of limited use, but which jeopardize our society’s ability to act. What applies to the subject of climate, energy or immigration applies even more to a pandemic like Covid-19. A challenge will not be mastered by panic and moralism, but by expertise and reason on the basis of reliable data, which can most reliably deliver a free and unrestricted science.

The media in particular must finally stop, particularly in the face of such a crisis, to distort the perception of their listeners and viewers because they report on terrible individual situations in purely emotional terms, without paying attention to the overall context. In this way you reduce the scope for making sensible decisions.

The functionality of our society is based on a functioning economic life. It is not cynicism, but rather ethics of responsibility when you realize that Covid-19 does not have the potency to paralyze working life itself, because it is above all a danger to the elderly and the sick. On the other hand, if even the worst calculations come true, the best long-term care for those affected can only be achieved through a stable supply situation. And this is increasingly endangered by social containment policies.

Therefore, old and seriously ill people must remain in quarantine as optimally as possible and as humanly as possible (see also report on coronalage 15.03.2020 ) in order to end the policy of social containment by Easter at the latest.

FreedomWorks

“Reopen America Strategy Session with Stephen Moore and Scott Rasmussen,” FreedomWorks video, May 6

Scott Rasmussen [00:15:17] Seventy six percent of voters know that the number of people who had this virus now is much higher than we initially thought because we’ve seen all of those news reports. A lot of people don’t have symptoms, but they are having it.

So people are aware of that increase. But when we ask if they are aware that the fatality rates, the number of people who get it die, is lower than we initially thought – and quite frankly, it’s significantly lower – only 44 percent are aware of that.

The people who know the latest data, who know that it’s not you walk outside and you catch the virus and you die, they are much more supportive of reopening society. Those who mistakenly believe that the fatality rate is as high as we thought it was back, you know, when this was just in Kirkland, Washington. They’re the ones who are saying, no, we can’t possibly reopen. So, the more people understand the realities of this, the more support there will be for reopening society.

Adam Brandon[00:17:45] But I’m also just curious what it’s like in the House of Representatives under Nancy Pelosi at the moment, and it just seems like legislation is being driven, driven by panic and not fact.

Congressman Chip Roy[00:21:19] But I’m also going to fly right into this and say that 30 million unemployed is unconscionable and that the leadership of this country should be ashamed. They should be ashamed for letting this happen, for allowing this to become two weeks of, you know, flattening the curve in order to give our hospitals the chance to catch up is now turning into months on end shutdown of our American way of life. To hell with these leaders.

I want more Americans to go in and open up their barbershops. I want more Americans to go open up their bars and restaurants. I want more Americans to go use those services. You tell these local tyrants to pound sand.

I’m sick of it. We’re watching our American way of life getting absolutely decimated because we’ve got elected leaders who are walking around like they’ve been anointed to tell us how to live our lives.

You got Governor Hogan saying, oh, now you’re not going to be to leave Maryland to go on vacation now – to hell with you. I’m going to go wherever the hell I want to go. And look, I’m proud of Governor Abbott for leaning into this but Texas needs to go farther, faster, and we need to restart because every day that goes by is the day that this freight train of the American economy slows down. Thirty million unemployed. Compare that to the less than three million that were unemployed as a result of the 2008 financial crisis.

This is real. And we need to get busy getting it started so that our kids and grandkids don’t inherit a mess instead of inheriting the greatest economy in the history mankind.

Adam Brandon [00:50:31] And what we’ve lost in a lot of this is who is at most at risk in this country. We’re trying to compile some stats right now of who is dying in the United States. And frankly, it’s, it’s it tends to be older folks with certain pre-existing conditions. My father’s probably in that category, 80 years old, and his heart’s not as strong as it was a few years ago. So absolutely everything, every precaution necessary needs to be able to take… to help him.

But when we were looking at statistics on how many people below 30 and below 40 were dying, it’s not it’s… it’s… I’m not saying that this is not a bad disease, but I am saying that we do know who is the most affected. And I believe we have to start educating – going back to something we opened up with, with 62 percent of Americans still nervous to walk outside their door. We need to make – that actually hurts because you don’t understand who is at – we should be spending more time educating who is the most at risk and what we should do to keep those people safe and healthy.

And we’re wasting too much resources trying to keep college kids safe. Look. College kids statistically – that’s not a high probability that this is really going to affect them. So we’re going to have to do a more and a better job. And unfortunately, the media is not going to help us get that message out. And that’s why we’re going to rely on our activist community to be forwarding information to folks, family members. And I think as we start to see Georgia and other states start to open up, we’re going to have to get into a discussion about numbers and who’s really at risk.

And I’ll end with this: is that you remember we were told this is how – this is the capacity for a hospital and as long as you kept the cases under that capacity, that is our goal. Well we’ve done that and what I fear is the media has moved the goalposts now to trying to say prevention, prevention. I was told at the beginning of this crisis that everyone’s going to get this eventually, that eventually there’s nothing you can do to stop a pandemic. It’s all about preventing hitting that line. Well, we’ve done that and we’ve done our part. And now it’s time to prevent the next economic crisis that could find the next American generation.

Gregg Easterbrook

Heartland Institute

Taken from; Todd Richmond. “Waukesha County residents mount 2nd stay-at-home lawsuit,” Wisconsin Law Journal, May 8

Jeré Fabick, a policy advisor and board member of the Heartland Institute, and Larry Chapman filed a lawsuit with the Supreme Court challenging stay-at-home orders in Wisconsin as unconstitutional.

The Wisonsin Law Journal reported Fabick had alleged the order limits his free speech and travel rights and, according to the lawsuit, he wanted to engage in protests against the order but the travel ban prevented him from joining one in Madison on April 24.

“Even a public health crisis does not give the State executive authorities license to impose measures that are arbitrary and irrational, or that patently violate our most sacred constitutional rights,” the lawsuit said.

Richard Ebeling– “LEAVING PEOPLE ALONE IS THE BEST WAY TO BEAT THE CORONAVIRUS,” Heartland Institute, March 24

“Social distancing” is the new official language for government telling people not to interact with others at work, or in the common areas of everyday life, or even at home. What it amounts to is the government telling people where, with whom, and when they may associate in close proximity with others for mutually beneficial trades or for various forms of family activities and social comradery and entertainment.

Suppose that the federal government in close collaboration with state governments were to introduce such draconian coercive controls and commands on the American people at any time other than like the present one, when many in the country have become wrapped up in fear and near hysteria over the threat of the Coronavirus. I think it is likely that many would wonder if some type of political coup d’état was not in the process of transforming the American Republic into a near totalitarian state and planned economy.

[…]

My answer, for whatever it may be worth, is that is exactly right: Government should be doing little or next to nothing. The problem is a social and medical one, and not a political one.

Hoover Institution

John Cochrane (Hoover Senior Fellow) “Still needed – the back to work plan,” The Grumpy Economist (John Cochrane’s blog), April 8, 2020

In a month or so, cases in hospitals will have stabilized or tapered, and it will be time to begin reopening the economy. But most people will still not have been exposed, the virus will still be looking around ready to break out again. Technological saviors, in particular a vaccine or an effective treatment, will not have arrived.

It will be time to return to where we should have been in January. There are two parts to this. First, businesses and people need to adopt common-sense efforts to limit the spread of the virus. Second, we need an intense public health response: A regime of intensive watching, testing, tracing, isolating, locking down hotspots, and running businesses smartly.

Finally, I am seeing news all over that this thought is spreading. Today I do my bit to super-spread it. We need both, like yesterday.

John Yoo and Harmeet K. Dhillon. “Statewide Lockdowns And The Law,” defining ideas (Hoover InstitutionJournal), March 31.

As losses mount throughout the economy due to the coronavirus quarantines, President Trump suggested that he wants the nation “to be opened up and just raring to go by Easter.”  He has since stepped away from that proposal and issued guidelines that lockdowns stay in place until the end of April.  But Trump still seems to be more optimistic than many state governors in his hope that the U.S. will return to normal economic activity sooner rather than later.

But even if Trump were to issue a declaration re-opening American businesses, a nationwide compliance would remain beyond his power.  The Constitution’s system of federalism reserves the authority to lift the quarantine orders in the same people who issued them in the first place: the state governors.

Because state government sits closer to the people, we can and should demand more immediate transparency and accountability of our officials for these draconian, potentially devastating policies.  They may impede the spread of the disease, but we cannot tell if this comes at an acceptable cost because neither governors Gavin Newsom nor Andrew Cuomo have explained how they made the cost-benefit trade-off involved.  They risk judicial intervention or, ultimately, popular rejection, should they continue to keep shutting down their economies without justified benefits.

Richard Epstein, a Hoover scholar and friend, has come under fire for his claim that public health officials have overestimated the rate of infection and the lethality of the coronavirus.  Regardless of Epstein’s theory of why the spread of the virus will slow, the underlying truth of his argument remains: stopping the spread of disease balances lives potentially saved against the economic losses from the lockdowns.

[…]

Our states do not shut down their economies every winter to stop the flu, which can kill 60,000 a year nationwide.  Even if the deaths from the coronavirus extend to a higher estimate of 200,000 deaths nationwide, or 24,000 deaths in California, we are still forgoing millions in economic activity to save each life.  While each life is precious, our society chooses not to stop all economic activity to stop other illnesses, such as the flu, or to forgo certain valuable freedoms such as driving to reduce auto accidents.  As the Great Recession showed, massive economic losses can cost lives too by reducing incomes, decreasing longevity, and increases in death by suicide and drug overdoses.

[…]

These are tough decisions. California cannot spend whatever it takes to save every life.  In the 2017-18 flu season, the CDC estimates that 61,000 Americans died of influenza; but we do not impose the types of economic lockdowns and social distancing we see today to stop the flu.  We elect officials to state government to make these policy decisions for us, in a responsible and informed manner.  If they do not explain how and why they arrived at their decision, they risk popular discontent.  If the lockdown continues for weeks on end, and it appears that our leaders imposed statewide quarantines without sufficient proof that the numbers of lives saved would justify the heavy, widespread cost, they even risk civil disobedience where Americans will simply ignore the bans on social and economic activity.  No state has enough manpower to control an unwilling American population.

David R. Henderson. “How To Hobble The Economy–And How To Revive It,” defining ideas, March 25.

The sooner the mandatory sheltering is ended, the better. Those of us who are on the elderly side—I’m 69 and my wife is 70—should , to be sure, be super-cautious for at least the first few weeks. Others will be too. It’s simply absurd to think that the vast majority of people will choose to go for the next few months without any precautions. Meanwhile, these people, especially younger people, need to be allowed to get on with their lives.

Independence Institute [colorado]

“Freedom on Tap – Dave Kopel, Rob Natelson,” IITV via YouTube, April 7

Jon Caldera: [00:18:50] What’s been shocking for me is how complicit people seem to be about being put under house arrest without any sort of due process that the media especially seems to be giving kudos to those people who areputting us under house arrest without any challenge about their love of the First Amendment, which I thought gave us a right not only to free speech, but the right to assembly, the right to worship and the right to due process. And I don’t see any of that.

“Caldara: When the coronavirus cure is worse than the disease,” Complete Colorado, March 24

The CDC types are paid to have a purely engineering mind-set. Flatten the curve. Flatten the curve at all costs. To them market realities are an obstacle to overcome, a limitation to push through to a medically healthy outcome. Their expertise is health, not the economics to pay for it.

[…]

Shutting down private businesses by government fiat is economically insane, not to mention bordering on martial law.

It will certainly flatten the curve of COVID-19, a very worthy goal, but in the long run it could be curing a sickness via suicide. A person struck by the virus can and likely will survive. Small businesses, especially in hospitality, likely won’t. And the families that depend upon them might not either.

[…]

If you’re like me, you’d feel comfortable going to a restaurant during this crisis, assuming there was enough distance from other customers. I’m denied the simple freedom to choose.

James A Peden

James Delingpole

James Taylor

“Is the coronavirus lockdown the future environmentalists want?” CFACT video featuring Marc Morano and Heartland Institute president James Taylor, April 30

James Taylor [00:15:26] It appears the government is seeking to restrict our freedoms merely because it can, and because it fears criticism from the left if they go one step short that what any other governor or what any other state does. But our freedoms are very important, and especially when we look at a situation now where, as tragic as the COVID-19 situation is, we appear to at least have peaked, perhaps beyond the downside, and nowhere near what they had predicted for us. If we’re looking at 60/70,000 deaths, heck let’s say 80,000 deaths, that is just for equivalence, that’s about two flu seasons. Approximately 40,000 people each year die from the flu in the United States. And the question is, is it worth shutting down all of our freedoms, shutting down society, likely putting us into a great depression if we continue this, to basically avoid two flu seasons? Now that is a very serious consequence, those deaths that have occurred, but again the trade-off is what we need to consider.

James Taylor [01:01:20] The question brings up these government restrictions. Remember this is a bait and switch at the expense of our most important and basic freedoms. We were told that we needed these lockdowns until we flattened the curve so that we wouldn’t overwhelm hospitals and health care providers. And that if we flattened the curve, we wouldn’t be reducing the overall number of cases, we wouldn’t be reducing the number of deaths, other than preventing some unnecessary deaths because nobody could get into a hospital or see a health care person. Now that we’ve done this, now that the curve is flattened, still we see, as Marc mentioned, we’ve got in California now new restrictions. You can’t go to the beach. Restrictions that continue to exist and are becoming worse in some places, even when the justification that was initially given has gone away. If you want to justify it by a certain excuse, a certain rational, present it, and if you want to change it, tell us you’re going to change it and give us the opportunity to voice our concerns. And the people are rising up around the country, this is indicative of Americans as a whole understanding the government is out of control. People are wise.

Jay H. Lehr& Tom Harris (International Climate Science Coalition)

“Environmentalists should hope for quick economic rebound,” Canada Free Press (among other news sites), March 21

It will be tempting for climate activists to tell us that the reduction in economic activity due to COVID-19 is an example of what we should be striving for. Indeed, the emergency is already being presented in some circles as a dry run for the system wide changes needed to address climate change.

But this is a serious mistake. Environmentalists should hope the economy quickly rebounds. Only when we are affluent do we have the luxury to engage in environmental protection. While poor communities are usually willing to make sacrifices for some very basic components of environmental improvement such as safe drinking water and waste disposal, greater protections are not often instituted. However, as income rises, citizens raise their environmental goals and willingness to pay for a cleaner environment.

Jim Lakely

Jim Lakely on Twitter as @jlakely. 22-part Twitter thread, June 3

Part 1/22

Part 7/22

Part 9/22

Part 18/22

Part 21/22

Part 22/22

See full thread here.

Marc Morano

Quoted in “Washington Reopens in a Win for Trump Amid Nagging Safety Doubts,” Financial Post,May 29

“You have a much greater risk of getting killed by a car than Covid,” said Marc Morano, a former Senate staffer and Trump supporter who lives in Northern Virginia. He said Trump’s decision to cede control to Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the “medical bureaucracy” including the Centers for Disease Control was the “greatest blunder of his presidency.”

“He allowed the greatest economy to essentially be nuked in a matter of weeks because of the Anthony Fauci-CDC scare scenario,”Morano said.

“Is the coronavirus lockdown the future environmentalists want?” CFACT video featuring Marc Morano and Heartland Institute president James Taylor, April 30

Marc Morano: [00:59:41] I think we have to acknowledge at a national level that lockdowns, there’s no science to support essentially that they work. Especially, I can understand a flattening the curve or at least some kind of limited. Very limited. But you don’t lockdown… We need to acknowledge that they were wrong and not allow future lockdowns. That’s number one. [00:59:58]

Marc Morano: [01:00:20] I’m going to advocate absolute breaking of the law tonight. If you have people going to the beach and getting arrested, it’s easy for police to show up, arrest a few people or go to a park and arrest someone. But if people start showing up en mass to the beach, the police can’t arrest everyone.

And if you start having owners of businesses start, and we’re seeing this now, artists and other shops declaring themselves—tailor shops—declaring themselves nonessential, they’re opening up. More of them do it, the police can’t arrest everyone. This is my key thought. TheBerlin Wall was not taken down because the East German government passed a law that said, let’s remove the law. It came down because the people no longer gave their consent for a wall to be up. So when the people no longer give their consent through lockdown, through this kind of mass civil disobedience, that’s how you fight it. Not through calling your congressman or senator and complaining into a voicemail. You’ve got to act. And I think that’s what has to happen here. Sorry. I’m calling for lawbreaking tonight. [01:01:18]

Mark Mathis

Martin Armstrong

While everyone seems distracted on blaming China for creating this virus, even if they manufactured it and sent infected people on planes, that still does not answer WHY have Western governments so eagerly sought to use this virus as the excuse to transform Democracy into Authoritarianism. The European Commission is not elected anyhow, so the EU removed any accountability to the people for their leadership no different than China. Everywhere we look, civil liberties are being suspended in Europe. This is precisely in line with our model which forecast 2020 as the year for a European Revolution.

[…]

We are already seeing the narrative emerge that we should remain locked down until Gates comes up with his vaccine which curiously won’t be ready until AFTER the US Elections. The two characters that they have sought to overturn ar Trump and Borris Johnson. They both stand in the way of socialism. This is NOT normal. This virus is by no means that lethal to just overthrowing democracy. There is another motive that goes beyond Gates and China. This is the political forces seeking to hold on to power. Perhaps they have looked at Socrates and saw the Monetary Crisis Cycle coming and this was a preemptive strike to try to prevent the collapse of Europe and socialism. That may be the single greatest motive behind jumping on the bandwagon with Gates.

“The End of Democracy?” Armstrong Economics, April 12 (emphasis in original)

While everyone seems distracted on blaming China for creating this virus, even if they manufactured it and sent infected people on planes, that still does not answer WHY have Western governments so eagerly sought to use this virus as the excuse to transform Democracy into Authoritarianism. The European Commission is not elected anyhow, so the EU removed any accountability to the people for their leadership no different than China. Everywhere we look, civil liberties are being suspended in Europe. This is precisely in line with our model which forecast 2020 as the year for a European Revolution.

[…]

We are already seeing the narrative emerge that we should remain locked down until Gates comes up with his vaccine which curiously won’t be ready until AFTER the US Elections. The two characters that they have sought to overturn ar Trump and Borris Johnson. They both stand in the way of socialism. This is NOT normal. This virus is by no means that lethal to just overthrowing democracy. There is another motive that goes beyond Gates and China. This is the political forces seeking to hold on to power. Perhaps they have looked at Socrates and saw the Monetary Crisis Cycle coming and this was a preemptive strike to try to prevent the collapse of Europe and socialism. That may be the single greatest motive behind jumping on the bandwagon with Gates.

Manhattan Institute

Brian Riedl, Senior Fellow: “Necessary Intervention,” City Journal (Manhattan Institute Publication), March 23

We must acknowledge the unsustainability of shutting down much of the United States economy, and financing family and business incomes through unprecedented government borrowing. Just a few months of an economic lockdown will cost the government and the economy trillions of dollars. At some point, Washington’s borrowing capacity will become constrained, possibly leading to the Federal Reserve monetizing more of the additional borrowing. Business bankruptcies will continue to escalate, and a prolonged depression may become a real possibility. Depleted inventories and constrained supply lines could lead to production shortages of basic goods. It is incumbent on public officials to devise a strategy that will allow schools and businesses to reopen before this crisis extends into the summer.

“The Virus and the Economy,” City Journal, March 8

We still don’t know enough about the virus because we lack adequate information, including about such crucial factors as how deadly it really is and who it affects. Even the experts have disagreed. In recent days, growing evidence suggests that our approach should be surgical, rather than broad-based. Widespread quarantines and wholesale shutdowns of communities, for example, inevitably suppress the economy. Instead, we should focus our efforts on helping those overwhelmingly more vulnerable to the virus.

Pete Hegseth

Speaking on Fox News’ Outnumbered, May 7 – see archived part 1 and part 2. Also reported at DailyBeast

“I don’t love the warrior talk, but I do think you’re going to need that kind of ethos and that spirit toput freedom before fear.Listen, there’s a lot of anxiety, there’s a lot of misinformation, the experts have been telling us hundreds of thousands of people are going to die.

Now that we are learning more, herd immunity is our friend, healthy people getting out there, they’re going to have to have some courage. We’ve seen courage, we’re going to talk about it later, in Texas, where people are defying ridiculous orders. That takes courage, that’s not easy. So, I think that spirit, the American spirit frankly, is in full supply and ready to go if some of our experts and some of our leaders will just get out of their way. They’re drunk on power, it’s time to open up.

Phil Kerpen

Posted May 12:

Posted May 12:

“The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly Of Congress’s Latest Coronavirus Spending Bill,” The Federalist,March 25, 2020

Four Months of Full-Pay Unemployment

This repeats and worsens the principal policy error of the Obama recession: enhanced unemployment benefits that undercut work incentives, contract the active labor force, and undermine economic growth.

Even worse, this bill for the first time provides unemployment benefits for a worker who quits if he or she self-certifies that “the individual has to quit his or her job as a direct result of COVID-19.”

Four months exceeds any reasonable expectation of how long shutdown orders will be in place, and will disincentivize a significant portion of the workforce from returning to work before the extended benefits end.

Reason Foundation

“Will Aggressive COVID-19 Control Measures Cost More Than They Are Worth?” Reason Foundation, March 18

We can scale back both the expected number of deaths without drastic action and the economic impact of trying to prevent them, but we still seem to be left with a big imbalance between costs and benefits. Something like a nationwide lockdown makes sense only if you combine a low estimate of the economic cost with high estimates of the policy’s effectiveness and the number of deaths that would otherwise occur.

Matt Welch. “Stop It With the Coronavirus Curfews Already,” Reason Foundation, March 17

How do these curfews and mandatory quarantines end? No really, how do they? What does success look like? When is the “emergency” over? We see very little acknowledgment that these questions are even relevant, let alone attempts to answer them amid the cascade of competitive shutdowns.

I, too, urgently hope that people mostly stay the hell away from each other over the coming weeks. But not at gunpoint, and not in such a way that creates new and perhaps even worse pathways for unhealthy behavior. Let’s be careful out there both personally and governmentally.

Richard Epstein

“Don’t Expect Millions To Die From Coronavirus, Says Richard Epstein,” Reason Foundation (video), March 18, 2020

Richard Epstein: [00:20:42] So in New York state there are about 10 deaths today. My guess is not a single one of these deaths came from anybody who got a public exposure in a bar or in a school. And what happens is we know in effect that the number of people that we have in the state is relatively low with, say, a thousand people. That exhausts the pool of people who could have caused this thing by getting contracted two weeks or three weeks ago. So then you have to assume that what’s going to happen next week. My guess is you’ll see a kind of a modest increase going on. But the adaptive responses will be so strong.

The thing that is clear is most individuals, when you actually talk to them, are more cautious, I think, about the situation than it warrants. And indeed, one of the things that’s kind of depressing about all of this is every private institution that I’m aware of has taken independent steps like the way in the city. So, you know, NYU just announced that it’s cleaning out its dormitories of undergraduates, all of whom are aged 20 and very healthy. They have to go home.

We’re not going to have classes. Well, I can understand them saying, OK, Professor EPSTEIN, you’re 76 years old. Maybe you ought not to be in school, but suppose I’m just 30 years younger. I would certainly want them to have the class going on. So I see what happens here is what you do is you assume that everybody is in the highest risk class. Then you overestimate the damage to the highest risk. These institutions are going to suffer huge amounts. My wife and I, as we even talked to people with whom we do business. You know, the exercise codes I have the people start to cancel on that woman. You know how she’s going to be able to pay them rent, all sorts of things, like you said, while you’re paying you right now.

Richard Epstein: [00:25:21] Well, it’s all this stuff, again, depends upon the rapidity by which things start to spread one way or another. And there’s no question that early on and this thing is going you may want at the beginning to sort of slow down certain kinds of interactions. But generally speaking, you give strong kinds of advice as people respond to them and you’ll start to see it behave. What’s so dangerous here is that people are putting these things into place as if their capital investments that will stay in effect for three to four months and. This economy cannot survive these kinds of shut down.

[…]

And unlike the Coronavirus, which will get less serious as you go on in time, the financial dislocations, the financial stresses, the bankruptcies, the reworks will get worse as time goes on. If you look at the legal blogs, as I have done, the single hottest topic now is voicemail, which is a force majeure, depending whether you like French or you like the land, its big forces, what it means. And the question is to what extent when you have big forces do excuse people from the performance of their contractual obligations.  [00:31:34]

Richard Epstein: [00:34:12] Well, if I’m correct, amount the path of the virus. This means that you would expect this thing to be a serious issue for three weeks or for a month. The way it was in China, the way I think will turn out to be in Italy at where it was in Korea. And so by May 1st or so you would want to see things more or less return to normal, at which point you got six months before the election.

Steve Milloy

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Stephen Moore

“Freedom on Tap – Steve Moore” IITV via YouTube, April 14

Stephen Moore: [00:03:17] Steve Moore and Arthur Laffer and Steve Forbes were named to the president’s economic recovery task force.  [00:03:24]

[…]

Jon Caldera: [00:03:47] All right. Let’s let’s get into that. So here here’s here’s my frustration. I’m thrilled that the president has Faouci on every day and they’re doing all this wonderful modeling. They’re doing all this wonderful modeling and the modeling is terrific and they’re showing how many people can be saved. But I don’t see somebody right next to them doing modeling to show how many jobs are going to be lost, how many foreclosures there’s going to be, how many how many folks are going to be unemployed, how many houses are going to go under, how many businesses and small businesses. The longer we keep this open, and the media doesn’t ask that question, and am I off on this?  [00:04:28]

Stephen Moore: [00:04:29] Now, you and I think alike on this. I regard this. This may go down in history as one of the biggest boneheaded moves by government in 100 years. [00:04:41]

Stephen Moore: [00:04:42] And it’s also going to go down in history potentially as one of the great abuses of governmental power, not just at the federal level, but at the state level and local level.  [00:04:50]

Stephen Moore: [00:05:53] So. So that’s point number one is I do think that it’s worth paying out. We’re kind of in a climate of fear right now. And frankly, just between us girls, I mean, I’m a little disappointed with the American people, that they are so, you know, we have generations of snowflakes right now that are just afraid. And by the way, that’s even many of my own family members. So that’s number one. Number two, the reason this was so unnecessary is because we’ve always known from the start who are the people who are susceptible to to dying from this disease. Ninety percent of the people, or roughly thereabouts, 90 percent are over the age of 75 and or have a chronic disease like diabetes or heart disease or something of that nature or emphysema and or are people, John, that are overweight. Just teasing you. But obesity is very highly, highly related to so to Coronavirus death. So if you were to sequester or isolate those groups of people and keep them safe. I’m not saying we should let those people die. I’m saying we should keep them keep them isolated.  [00:07:05]

Stephen Moore: [00:08:32] So one of my missions for this task force is, you know, as I said at the outset, you open the economy immediately in places again.  [00:08:40]

Stephen Moore: [00:09:59] By the way, the lowest among us, the people at the very bottom of the income ladder are the being being hurt the most that. But Nancy Pelosi is the biggest cheerleader for keeping the economy shut down. Remember when she said she cared about poor people? Maybe she doesn’t. [00:10:14]

[00:11:55] So every level of government, my point would be and I really just want to kind of take questions from folks in addition to you, John. But I would say this here is my analysis that if we don’t open the economy by May 1st, I think we are in really, really deep trouble. And we’re going to look at 15 to 20 percent unemployment. We’re going to thirty five million people unemployed in this country. [00:12:19]

Stephen Moore: [00:15:33] this is be a drive-in and they’re gonna shut down the capital. Don’t tell anybody, but they think they can get fifteen hundred people to come in. And this is great, you guys. So we have one big donor in Wisconsin. I’m not gonna mention his name. And I told about this. He said, Steve, I promise I will pay the bail and legal fees for anyone who gets arrested. So this is a great time. Gentlemen and ladies, for civil disobedience. We need to be the Rosa Parks here and protest against these government injustices.  [00:16:04]

Jon Caldera: [00:20:33] It is. It is terrifying. This virus doesn’t terrify me.  [00:20:37][3.9]

Jon Caldera: [00:20:38] The politics terrify me.  [00:20:38]

Stephen Moore: [00:20:39] This is why let me just say one quick thing. This is a man made crisis, right? This is no longer an act of nature. This is a man made crisis.  [00:20:47]

Stephen Moore: [00:25:09] If you keep this economy locked down for eight, ten, twelve weeks, you’re not going to have an economy reopen.  [00:25:13]

Stephen Moore: [00:27:44] Well, I think the first thing the people in Colorado have to do is write a big, big check to the Independence Institute. But that would be a good start right now. But it would be a good start. You should write a contribution check to these groups because it’s hard to raise money. I know this because people are really, you know, that people lost a lot of money. I think that the more the more civil disobedience, the better. And however you want to do it to people. You know what really disappoints me, John and Laura, is the national polls are showing the American people are in favor of the shutdown, the lockdown, because American people are sheep. And we need to get the word out that this is unconstitutional, that the damage that we’re doing to families is significant.

“Steve Moore, Founder of the Committee To Unleash Prosperity, Discusses Response to COVID-19,” ALEC_states via SoundCloud, March 21

We can actually keep the American Academy shutdown for another three weeks if it’s a day beyond three weeks. I think we get to a situation where the literally the cure is worse than the disease.

[…]

The idea that we should have a policy like what’s going on in California right now to me is completely outrageous. It is a violation, it is an abuse of governmental power. The idea that people can’t go out of their homes is just outrageous to me. And I’m worried that that’s going to come to many other States as well.

Walter Williams

“Benefits vs. Costs of the Government Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic,” Capitalism Magazine, April 20

The first thing to keep in mind about any crisis, be it war, natural disasters or pandemics, is we should keep markets open and private incentives strong. Markets solve problems because they provide the right incentives to use resources effectively. Federal, state and local governments have ordered an unprecedented and disastrous shutdown of much of the U.S. economy in an effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

[…]

Wittkowski argues that the lockdown prolongs the development of the “herd immunity,” which is our only weapon in “exterminating” the novel coronavirus — outside of a vaccine that’s going to optimistically take 18 months or more to produce. [1] He says we should focus on shielding the elderly and people with comorbidities while allowing the young and healthy to associate with one another in order to build up immunities.

[…]

The absolute worst part of the COVID-19 pandemic, and possibly its most unrecoverable damage, is the massive power that Americans have given to their federal, state and local governments to regulate our lives in the name of protecting our health. Taking back that power should be the most urgent component of our recovery efforts. It’s going to be challenging; once a politician, and his bureaucracy, gains power, he will fight tooth and nail to keep it.

Willis Eschenbach

“Is Extending Lockdowns Worth The Cost? (was Do Lockdowns Work?),” WUWT, April 1

If the peak is in two weeks, and the effects of what we do today won’t be visible for two weeks, and at this point the possible changes are small, is that worth the huge damage this lockdown is doing?

The problem that I see is the cost. One week of lockdown has cost us two trillion dollars, along with thousands of failed businesses, people unable to retire because their 401Ks are in the toilet, hundreds of thousands unemployed, a big uptick in domestic violence, and lots of jobs lost.

Now, I estimate that something on the order of 80,000 people will die in the US from this virus. (Curious me, I also looked up the estimate from the model above … 93,000.) Suppose the “flattening the curve” saves 10% of them. By all indications, it won’t, but let’s use that number.

That means that we have spent two trillion dollars to save maybe 8,000 people.

And that, in turn, means that we’ve spent a QUARTER BILLION DOLLARS PER PERSON, most of them over 70 like me but unlike me with other diseases, and put our economy in the crapper in the bargain. I may be wrong, but somehow I don’t think my life is worth a quarter billion dollars.

[…]

Call me crazy, but I do NOT want to spend another two trillion dollars to prop up a mostly “feel-good” lockdown ..

Given the general ineffectiveness of these various lockdown-type interventions in the Western countries, and given that a couple weeks of lockdown have already cost us a trillion dollars and hundreds of thousands of vanished jobs and failed businesses and unemployed workers …

… given all of that, I have to ask … is yesterday too soon to end the lockdowns?

Don’t give up. Just end the stay-at-home shelter-in-place regulations. Leave a strong VOLUNTARY self-isolation on geezers like myself, retired folks. Test incoming visitors to the US. Keep washing hands. START WEARING MASKS!

“END THE AMERICAN LOCKDOWN!!” Skating Under The Ice, March 21

END THE AMERICAN LOCKDOWN!!! We simply cannot afford a dead economy costing us a trillion a week, not even in good times, and especially not at this time when we are preparing to fight a war against a most sneaky and dangerous virus. 13,000 dead worldwide already … let’s add as little as possible to that number.

---

NO LNX MANY MANy NOC DOCS MANY no twt

https://www.desmog.com/koch-covidenial/

Koch & COVIDenial

The following individuals and groups, who have historically focused on denying or downplaying the risk of man-made global warming, have turned their attention to the COVID-19 crisis.

This set of examples examines many of the groups that have received significant funding from the billionaire Koch brothers Charles Koch, the late David Koch, and the various Koch Family Foundations.

*Please note that automatic transcripts were generated for some of the video materials, and while we have reviewed the transcripts, there may still be errors. Contact DeSmog if you notice any errors and we will address them as soon as possible.*

**Also note that funding values prior to 1998 cannot be independently verified by DeSmog, as original 990 forms are not available. View DeSmog’s page on Koch Family Foundations for more information.

These examples are taken out of a larger body of evidence DeSmog has gathered on COVID denial.

American Council on Science and Health (ACSH)

Donor Total

Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation $95,000

David H. Koch Charitable Foundation $6,000

Grand Total $101,000

See DeSmog’s reporting on ACSH‘s reaction to COVID here.

Alex Berezow. “Coronavirus And The Fallacy Of The False Dilemma,” American Council on Science and Health, April 22

Those who favor an indefinite lockdown also claim that we shouldn’t sacrifice lives for the economy. This is a statement made out of pure ignorance for two reasons: (1) A society with a severely damaged economy inevitably will harm public health; and (2) We already sacrifice lives for the sake of the economy every single day. Influenza kills thousands of Americans every year. HIV killed hundreds of thousands since it emerged in the 1980s. Car crashes kill about 40,000 Americans each year.

Imagine all the lives that could have been saved if we simply shut down daily life in 1980. If you believe that conclusion is absurd (and it is), then it’s equally absurd to argue that the COVID-19 lockdown must go on indefinitely until a vaccine comes out. (Spoiler alert: A vaccine may never come, and if it does, it may not work very well.)

Those who want to fully open up the economy right now are also spouting nonsense. There is simply no way that Americans have achieved herd immunity for COVID-19, so disease hotspots (which are usually in big cities) must reopen their economies cautiously over the coming weeks and months. Restrictions in other, less dense places can probably be lifted relatively soon.

Alex Berezow. “Best Evidence Yet That Coronavirus Came From Wuhan BSL-4 Lab,“ American Council on Science and Health, April 13

As the weeks and months have gone by, however, circumstantial evidence is piling up that the virus actually came from the Wuhan BSL-4 laboratory. Once again, it is not a biological weapon. Instead, it appears that Chinese scientists were studying a novel virus they found, and it accidentally infected a worker and “escaped” from the lab.

[…]

Now, CNN reports that China is censoring any research related to the origin of the virus. According to the article, an online announcement said that “[s]tudies on the origin of the virus will receive extra scrutiny and must be approved by central government officials.”

That announcement, as it so happens, was later removed, providing the best evidence yet that China is once again covering something up.

Alex Berezow. “Coronavirus: Is It Even Possible To Contain COVID-19?” American Council on Science and Health, March 17

Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures. But these kinds of measures can’t last forever. The public is willing tolerate massive disruptions to daily life only when it believes the disruptions will end. Therefore, mitigation is a more viable option.

[…]

COVID-19 does not appear to be on that track, especially with summer approaching. (Warm weather is often lethal to respiratory viruses.) In the roughly two months the virus has been circulating in America, the number of confirmed cases is only roughly 3,700. Even if off by a factor of 100, the number of infections is two orders of magnitude less than the flu. The bottom line is that scientists don’t really know how the virus is spread.

Can this extraordinary virus be contained? Probably not. The biological and epidemiological features of the virus make that nearly impossible. Research indicates that the virus is most contagious at the earliest point of illness, which means that a person is already spreading it by the time symptoms first appear. Once a person feels poorly enough to stay home, it’s already too late. Even worse, people who are infected but asymptomatic can probably spread the virus as well. The World Health Organization estimates that 80 percent of COVID-19 cases are mild or asymptomatic, underscoring the likely futility of containment measures. The only way to stop a virus that can spread so surreptitiously is to force every person on Earth to stay home for the next 14 days, which is the length of time necessary for quarantine, based on the virus’ incubation period.

Alex Berezow. “Coronavirus In The U.S.: How Bad Will It Be?“ American Council on Science and Health, January 31

Q: Is coronavirus worse than the flu?

A: No, not even close. In just this current flu season (which isn’t over yet), the CDC estimates between 15 million and 21 million infections and 8,200 and 20,000 deaths. However, the estimated case-fatality ratio would be roughly 0.05% to 0.1%, which is much lower than for 2019-nCoV. Though a person is 20 times likelier to die from the new coronavirus than seasonal flu, the sheer number of influenza infections makes the flu a far bigger public health threat.

American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)

Donor Total

Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation $2,544,531

Charles Koch Institute $171,089

Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation $720,000

Grand Total $3,536,620

“State Audio Resources: COVID-19,” Via ALEC_states on SoundCloud, March 21

“Dr. Art Laffer Presents to the Committee To Unleash Prosperity on COVID-19”

Art Laffer: [00:00:36] They let me just say, the the issues are very serious here. I mean, obviously, it started with a Coronavirus, but then it spread right into the economy and a lot of people holding off work. We have a lot of reduction in demand and all that. There are two very serious economic issues at hand. My view there’s a liquidity issue and there is a production issue, both of which are very serious.

[…]

[00:02:43] The production issues are very different and they are very material as well by people staying at home, not being there at work. You have a great shortfall of supply in this country.

[…]

[00:04:42] My best guess is that that would do a great deal to re-accelerate and re-bring back employment as fast as possible. Following the nature of this Coronavirus-induced downturn. The third thing I’d like to just. John, before I let you all go, is the thousand dollars per family payment is I don’t believe it makes any sense whatsoever, to be honest with you. People do need the money, very much so. But, you know, the government doesn’t create resources. The government redistributes resources. And everyone you bail out. You put someone else into trouble. And when I look at this number, I don’t know why one month would be enough. Two months would be enough. Three months. But every month of that is at least 200, 150 to 200 billion dollars. You don’t go very many model very where you run out of money. You’re run out of money. Yeah. You run out of money.

[00:05:49] Symbolic gestures just don’t make sense here. We need production and we need it right now.

[…]

[00:07:27] If people could go back to work. Believe me, they would have gone back to work. The reason we have a downturn is because supplies were taken off the table because of the Coronavirus. Well, now it’s pyramiding and spiraling down. And that’s you know, that’s the real that’s the real, real problems. And what you find happening is with these politicians, you know, whenever you know, whenever politicians make decisions, when they’re either panicked or drunk, the consequences are rarely attractive. And you can see that with a W and with Obama in 2008, 2009.

[…]

[00:08:01] I mean, in five days of policy making, you can destroy a lifetime. And this is not the time to panic. It’s to be clear eyed. We need to get production back, period. And that’s what they have to do is right away. So my suggestion is discount freely. Make sure you take care of people who have liquidity problems, but not but not solvency problems and make sure they don’t become solvency. And number two, make sure you do a massive payroll tax waiver for the next eight months. So you make it very attractive for workers to work and you make it very attractive for employers to employ. And please don’t do these symbolic gestures of $1000 per family for the next five months and then wonder why it’s a depression.

Steve Moore, Founder of the Committee To Unleash Prosperity, Discusses Response to COVID-19

[00:00:41] We cannot  keep the American Academy shutdown for another three weeks. If it goes a day beyond three weeks. I think we get to a situation where the literally the cure is worse than the disease. We have to get the American economy open again. And that means that this kind of lockdown can’t continue because the costs, in my opinion, are going to be in the trillions of dollars.

[…]

[00:02:06] I’m a civil libertarian. The idea that we should have a policy like what’s going on in California right now to me is completely outrageous. It is a violation, it is an abuse of governmental power. The idea that people can’t go out of their homes is just outrageous to me. And I’m worried that that’s going to come to many other States as well. I don’t think you can do that. I just I think people will not stand for that kind of policy.

[00:03:07] I was thinking of starting a hashtag. You know, something like, you know, end the lockdown.

ALEC CEO Lisa B. Nelson w/ Cheryl Chumnley on Bold and Blunt

[20:19] Lisa B Nelson: You know, I think that the the I continue to be very optimistic, I continue to, you know, want to get America back to work again, and I’m appreciating the 15 days, to slow to spread. I get that we’re about halfway through that, but I also am encouraging our government leaders at the state level, to really look for ways to pivot to getting back, you know, to so that we can open America and get people working again.

[22:13] Yeah. You know, I mean, we are always going to defer to a limited government and free market response. We’ve never taken, you know, strong positions in support of any kind of bailout. And, and we, I guess we would call it a bailout. But, but I also think that there’s some important elements in in some of these bills that are going to encourage that fluidity and get money back in the hands of businesses. So, you know, we’re going to look for that limited government response, but support some of the things that have to happen at the state level. And I would, I would, you know, again, I would guess I would look at it much more.

Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT)

Craig Rucker is the co-founder and executive director of CFACT, which has received just under $40,000 from Koch-controlled foundations:

Donor Total

Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation $27,752

Charles Koch Institute $10,500

Grand Total $38,252

Bonner Cohen. “Climate alarmism and Covid-19 don’t mix,” CFACT, May 20

Of the many responses to the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus, none was more predictable than the effort by climate activists to exploit the crisis for their own political purposes.

It was an intolerable situation. Climate alarmists suddenly found themselves relegated to the sidelines as the country confronted a real threat, one with deadly consequences.

It didn’t take long, however, for the Climate Industrial Complex to come up with a slapdash study linking COVID-19 to fossil-fuel-induced climate change and for that message to be trumpeted by the usual suspects in the hope of drawing attention to an issue that was being overshadowed by events.

[…]

Americans, by overwhelming majorities, were not willing to sacrifice their livelihoods for the climate before they were put through the ordeal of COVID-19 lockdowns, and they certainly aren’t now.

A Harris poll taken May 12 found that 62% of U.S. adults surveyed said climate change wouldn’t damage the American economy if left unaddressed, the Washington Times reported. Yet a Reuters/Ipsos poll found last year that Americans were unwilling to install solar panels, carpool or take the bus, reduce eating meat, pay an additional $100 in taxes, drive an electric car or pay an additional $100 or more on their annual electricity bill to fight climate change.

Peter Murphy. “Do lockdowns stop viruses?” CFACT, May 18

Imposing lockdown policies to protect public health and mitigate death is increasingly looking overwrought.

[…]

The continued lockdowns are unwarranted and ineffective in preventing deaths from Covid-19. Lockdowns have spread out the number of deaths over a longer time period. Still, the number of people getting infected with coronavirus has steadily increased, as have the number of deaths, during which most states where in lockdown.

[…]

The present day coronavirus, as tragic as it is from a health standpoint, nonetheless remains below the absolute numbers from the late ‘50s and ‘60s, and far below the percentages of Americans who died. A total of 217,000 Americans would have to die from Covid-19 to match the rate suffered in the 1958 pandemic, and 165,000 would have to die to reach the 1968 percentage.

Meanwhile, we have added $4 trillion and counting to the national debt in a single year, and now 36 million Americans have been forced into unemployment. Ongoing protests and lawsuits against lockdowns are burgeoning.

[…]

Economic lockdowns may have helped initially to slow the coronavirus, but longer-term are ineffective and counterproductive. It is long past time to get back to work.

David Wojick. “USA Today pushes climate panic,” CFACT, May 10

I recently described the all too often case where extreme computer modelling results feed the media into then feeding a public panic. A cascade of mindless fear. See my https://www.cfact.org/2020/04/27/tale-of-two-panics-covid-climate/.

USA Today has now provided a perfect example of promoting model based panic.

Here is their panicky title: “Unsuitable for ‘human life to flourish’: Up to 3B will live in extreme heat by 2070, study warns”

Three billion people will live where humans cannot survive? Seriously? Will they become billions of climate refugees? That is the absurd idea, right?

USA Today is a trusted source for many people, but here they publish pure nonsensical alarmist speculation as accepted fact. Note that the headline does not say “study suggests”. No it is “study warns” as though this nonsense were real and something to act on. Perhaps a ten year lockdown is called for, or even greater green sacrifices.

The article merely mentions in passing that this is just another (hyperbolic) computer result, nowhere even hinting that this is not something even remotely real. There is no hint of scientific caution. No alternative view, no questioning analysis or opinion, nothing. The entire article is written as though this nonsense were somehow an established fact.

“Is the coronavirus lockdown the future environmentalists want?” CFACT video featuring Marc Morano and Heartland Institute president James Taylor,April 30

James Taylor: [00:13:06] This is a very perilous time for freedom. Back seven months ago, we were told that we could expect up to 2 million deaths from Coronavirus. And fortunately, those models appear to have been greatly overstated because now we’re being told perhaps 60 thousand, maybe a hundred thousand, still quite a tragedy, but nowhere near the 2 million deaths. When those models made those predictions, it really gave me pause because I know how in the climate change debate people program models and the models are only as good, The outcome and predictions are only as accurate as the assumptions that go into the programing and for climate change. [00:13:47]

James Taylor: [00:14:06] So when we saw the models predicting such a great death toll, I was hoping that the models would be just as wrong as they are for climate change. And fortunately, they have been. We were told at the time that we needed these lockdowns, shelter in place, etc. because of such a high death toll. And it wasn’t true that these impositions on our freedoms were going to reduce the number of deaths it would merely make it would merely flatten the curve in the sense that we wouldn’t have an overwhelming number of people inundating our health care facilities and our medical professionals at the very beginning of the crisis. We were told that we’d still have the same amount of cases, the same amount of deaths, except that we wouldn’t have that spike in the beginning, which we couldn’t handle. Well, the curve has been flattened. We appear to be on the downside of the slope. And yet those restrictions on our freedom are still in place.  [00:14:56]

James Taylor: [00:18:20] On two separate occasions, we had World Health Organization officials making outrageous statements about climate change regarding Coronavirus. In one, the statement was that climate change may make current or future pandemics worse. From everything we know, influenza, which is what we feared for, the next great pandemic. We know that influenza is assisted by cold temperatures. Warm temperatures inhibit it spread and make pandemics less severe. Coronavirus, we’re not sure if the same will occur. It’s quite possible that warmer temperatures will have the same impact. At worst, it will be neutral. It’s an outrageous statement for the World Health Organization to make apparently just to pander to climate activists. [00:18:59]

James Taylor: [00:24:34] So the long and short of it is this: if humans are causing some warming to the planet and if we have earlier summers, early arrivals of summer and later arrivals of fall, this is something that inhibits the spread of Coronavirus. It’s going to reduce the death toll and it’s something is a complete opposite of what we’re hearing in the media. And it’s very concerning that folks in the media are so intent on spinning a narrative regardless of what happens in the real world, that they will twist and turn 180 degrees, what’s happening in the real world compared to what they’re reporting. But the long and short of it is this. If there’s going to be any impact of warming temperatures, of global warming, of climate change on Coronavirus or other epidemics and pandemics is going to make them less frequent and less severe. [00:25:25]

Marc Morano: [00:45:27] Let’s turn the argument around on them. Instead of them using this and AOC, as I mentioned earlier, is cheering the collapse of oil prices and everything else. Let’s turn it around. The idea of green living is not that is actually antithetical to virus panic and viral fears. Well, we use the virus fears to oppose their rules. We’ve always been told, you know, if a driver is going to a lone driver in a car, driving, commuting to and from work is bad for the planet and polluting. Well, given the age of virus scares and we’re all supposed to be terrified of all these viruses. Now, why would you want to pack on mass transit that’s green approved? Why would you want to take the subway system? Why would you want to be on the commuter train when you could take your glorious fossil fuel car in isolation away from the virus? So I would argue. Let’s turn the fears around, you know, where necessary to throw it back at ’em. And it was actually an article was actually article by Michael Barone recently called Anti Pandemic Rules, the opposite of anti climate change rules. Let’s use that against them because they want everyone living in crowded urban areas. I remember one climate activist years ago wanted everyone wanted to design cities after termite nests. The idea is to have everything just centrally planned, perfectly smart, smart planned out. If you now look at it in the lens of the virus scare, which they are promoting shamelessly, that doesn’t fly. So let’s use their own rhetoric against them. [00:46:53]

Paul Driessen.“Let’s quarantine some fake corona and energy news,” CFACT, April 6.

Life-saving modern technologies, hospitals, labs, drugs and homes didn’t just happen. They are the product of mining, logging, roads, drilling, modern agriculture, communication and transportation, and especially fossil fuel and nuclear energy – which enable innovation to thrive, help keep Nature’s wrath and fury at safer distances, and helped extend average American life spans from 40 in 1800 to 47 in 1900 and 78 today. How and why this happened is an amazing saga. The story of penicillin is just as fascinating.

The Guardian has it completely backward. Utilizing Earth’s surface and subsurface bounties – God’s blessings – did not unleash COVID-19 and other viruses, bacteria and diseases. Doing so helped save us from pestilence and starvation that have ravaged humanity throughout history. It still does today.

[…]

Imagine what would happen if abundant, reliable, affordable heat and electricity from fossil, nuclear and hydroelectric were replaced by limited, intermittent, weather-dependent, expensive wind, solar and battery power. The impacts on our healthcare and living standards would be horrific. Try to picture life in African villages and cities, where electricity, clean water, sanitation and healthcare are still almost nonexistent.

Imagine what our planet would look like, if we had to replace relatively few fossil, nuclear and hydroelectric power plants with millions of wind turbines, billions of solar panels and billions of backup batteries, sprawling across hundreds of millions of acres. We would have to open or expand thousands of mines, to provide the metals and minerals required to manufacture all that pseudo-renewable energy.

[…]

One has to wonder. If we can close restaurants and parks, and ban gatherings of more than ten people, can’t we quarantine nonsense about disease, mining, and wild ecosystems disrupted because we haven’t sufficiently adopted “clean, green, renewable, sustainable” wind, solar, battery and biofuel alternatives?

If we can’t quarantine nonsense, can’t our print and electronic media at least refrain from propagating it?

Norm Kalmanovitch. “A more robust way of predicting COVID-19 than models,” CFACT, April 4.

To date projections have been based on models of “flattening the curve” from the maximum destructive curve to a more benign curve modelled on the basis of measures being put in place.

Models are based on assumptions and are only as good as the assumptions being made. By contrast by plotting the actual data in this way makes no assumptions and therefore the data driven projections of reaching zero new cases are perfectly valid with the only questionable aspect being how the trajectory will behave and how long it will take to reach the zero point.

There is something to be said for plotting data by hand because unlike having a computer plot data from a computer generated spreadsheet, the individual numbers plotted have meaning and small anomalies can be identified that would never be seen in computer outputs which would likely average out anything that does not fit the curve.

A perfect example of this is Admiral Titley presenting a temperature graph plotted against CO2 claiming correlation at Ted Cruz’s December 8, 2015 hearing at which you were one of the witnesses.

https://www.commerce.senate.gov/2015/12/data-or-dogma-promoting-open-inq…

This is what was presented as evidence of correlation which clearly does not hold up when the temperature data is analyzed in detail and the actual emissions are plotted at each of the temperature inflection points.

[…]

Unlike the faked computer models responsible for creating the UN’s fabricated climate emergency https://clintel.nl/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/ecd-press-briefing.pdf the models used in predicting the outcome of the Covid-19 epidemic are both useful and necessary .Yet equally necessary is to use data based predictions as a complimentary alternative to the model based predictions that provides the positive outlook that a stressed US population is in desperate need of.

Please pass this on to your Whitehouse contacts with my compliments

“Bill Gates: You know better than this. We need you now!” CFACT, March 25

As we work together to combat COVID-19, much of America is shuttered and our economy stopped.  We need to keep people safe, no doubt about it, but if we don’t keep the economy moving there’s a world of hurt in store for us all.

“Emergency! Narrow the recovery curve” CFACT,  March 23

If we don’t enable economic recovery to get moving, the resulting harm will exceed the harm from the virus.

Time to be smart.  Fast.

Joe Bastardi. “Covid-19 and climate false equivalencies,” CFACT, March 23

First of all, this is in no way meant to minimize the threat from Covid-19. In fact the opposite. It is meant to point out similarities in some of the messaging that goes on with climate and this virus. I have written on this to some extent previously, but I wanted to sum up several parts here including some new observations. Warning: This is a long boring story. The best time to read is when you are going to sleep, I was going to market it as an audio presentation for insomnia but I thought that would be tacky. How’s that for honesty, eh?

[…]

So I am not trying to be critical, but more observant here of what I see as a common denominator. When someone, for instance, is saying that the climate emergency is worse than the Covid-19 outbreak, that should raise red flags simply due to the time scales as Covid-19 can tear down much in a year. In fact in the US, because of the mild winter, the economy likely did better than was thought before the winter, as we had record housing starts in January.  So right there the climate “emergency” had a result in the US that was positive while unless you are against progress for mankind, (that is another issue, the wish to diminish man’s progress) the warmer winter was great. The point is that in both issues, there are very good people that disagree, but a whole cottage industry that is swung by agenda has sprung up. So there are some dire messages here, but  in the end, the facts show that warmer is better for life, very much opposite the possible fast result of COVID-19.

“Banning plastic grocery bags spreads disease,” CFACT, March 18

The environmental cost of alternatives to plastic grocery bags should cause policymakers to resist further bans on them and to reconsider existing bans. More so, the spread of coronavirus and other bacteria demands the repeal of the bans on plastic grocery bags.

“Coronavirus: What’s the endgame?” CFACT, March 17

It will likely be a long time until the risk from the coronavirus approaches zero.

[…]

In short, our leaders need to plan not just how they will conduct the war against this virus, but an “exit strategy” on how to pull out when the mission has been achieved.

Jay Lehr. “COVID-19 and climate change require a better understanding of science,” CFACT, March 30

We have all been barraged on the 24/7 news cycle for years over fearful claims about climate change and global warming. Now for months, our lives are completely altered with a more realistic fear of the most contagious virus any of us have ever experienced. Both, however, suffer from questionable statistics and predictions that make us wonder what is real and what is someone’s best guess. Too few of us have an adequate understanding of what science is to make the most reasonable judgments for our own lives. Hence my attempt here is to better ground the reader in a more fundamental understanding of how science should help you rather than more commonly confuse you.

[…]

You have been witnessing a great deal of non – science on the issues of both climate change and the coronavirus. As for the latter, the political system has spoken deciding to err on the side of caution by ignoring the economic impacts of the decision to shut down the nation for fear of the virus largely. Wouldn’t it be interesting if every day we learned of the daily mortality from automobile accidents, flu, heart disease and strokes? What about old age, and the other leading causes of the daily death rate in our nation? Would we see it blown out of proportion? Some claims of a 3 percent mortality rate assume we know the numbers of folks contracting Covid-19 when common sense says unreported illnesses due to their lack of severity surely outnumber those that are counted.

As to climate change, we ignore how little we know of all the variables that must affect the earth’s temperature, too often embracing the Dogma of the activists that desire to end the use of fossil fuels.

We can not be blamed for often being lead around like sheep when our media, TVs, news papers and magazines regularly trade in the worst cases of all productions because human nature seems always to be conned by the bad news. It truly sells much better than good news or real science news.

No one is to blame for current worst-case scenarios based on fear when they are sold to us daily. If you would apply the simple principles of science, at the very least, your blood pressure may improve.

Joe Bastardi. “Climate change accused of being deadlier than Covid 19 — Fact check” – CFACT, March 17

I guess if the Covid-19 completely fizzles out, which is also a possibility, then anything that happens in the weather globally over the next 20 years that is blamed for deaths,  means perhaps it would be eclipsed.  But the facts reveal that man’s adaptation via freedom, competition and capitalism, which is leading the way, is saying the  EXACT OPPOSITE is happening!

[…]

[W]riting scare articles using what is admittedly a scary virus, and then saying, “climate change” is something worse, without  showing people where we are today on the matter and the actual data, is not being open-minded nor tolerant of contrary ideas.

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Competitive Enterprise Institute

Donor Total

Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation $364,820

Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation $326,419

David H. Koch Charitable Foundation $315,000

David H. Koch (Direct) $200,000

Charles Koch Institute $37,020

Koch Companies Public Sector $15,000

Grand Total $1,258,259

CEI launched the website subdomain https://neverneeded.cei.org/ arguing regulations removed during coronavirus fight were never needed to begin with.

Ian Murray is senior fellow and Vice President for Strategy at CEI.

Ryan Young and Ian Murray. “An Effective Pandemic Response Would Be Deregulation,” CEI, April 9

As Congress gears up for a Phase 4 stimulus, it is crucial that regulatory reform be part of the package. The top two priorities now are keeping people safe and minimizing economic damage, in that order. Regulatory sludge, as legal scholar Cass Sunstein calls it, is harming both objectives.

That is why the Competitive Enterprise Institute has started a #NeverNeeded campaign. By collecting ideas on the #NeverNeeded Twitter hashtag, the neverneeded.cei.org website, and a new paper, policy makers already have a ready menu of reform options to act on, with a continuing pipeline of fresh ideas and public input.

Certain principles should be incorporated into policy responses to the crisis going forward;

Suspend or repeal policies that make the crisis worse than it would otherwise be;

Remove regulatory barriers that prevent an effective response to the crisis;

Remove regulatory barriers that reduce resilience to changed economic behavior; and

Put in place reforms that will allow the economy to reboot quickly.

“Regulation, Not Offshoring, Is Hindering Industry from Ramping up Production” – March 25

“The debate over trade and offshoring in the face of the pandemic is misplaced. The debate should be about regulation.”

Daily Caller

Donor Total

Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation $3,429,493

Charles Koch Institute $80,200

Grand Total $3,509,693

Ron Hart. “HART: What New York Can Learn From Florida About Handling Coronavirus,” Daily Caller, May 12

The devastating effects of shutting down the economy equally nationwide, no matter if you are in a county with no COVID cases or one with many, are now becoming known. A record 23 million Americans are on unemployment, and each person who was employed believed his or her job was “essential.”

The mainstream media, which works for the Democrat Party, wanted us shut down more, and for longer. Keep in mind that Democrats, those in the media, education, government, public sector unions, etc., are mostly getting full pay to sit at home, which is the goal of Democrats.

Killing a booming economy is the only way Trump doesn’t get reelected.

Maybe Democrats are predisposed to be fearful, or they need to act like they care about others, or they like government telling them what to do.  Liberals gladly sacrificed their liberties and your tax dollars for any perceived “greater good.” In their minds, this makes them better than everyone else.

Katie Jerkovich. “‘They Should Be Ashamed Of Themselves’: Dr. Drew Blasts Media’s Coronavirus Coverage,” Daily Caller, March 10

Dr. Drew Pinsky said the media ‘should be ashamed of themselves’ and suggested they are creating ‘a panic that is far worse than the viral outbreak’ over their coverage of the coronavirus.

[…]

The host then pressed the doctor further, asking if based on what we know now about Covid-19, “who is most in danger” of actually “having severe repercussions” if they contract it.”

“Everybody else it’s going to be a mild issue, like a cold,” Dr. Drew shared. “If you are over the age of 70, maybe the age of 75, particularly if you have any chronic medical conditions and if you are a smoker over 50, you should be behaving differently than the rest of us.”

“The rest of us, go about your business,” he added. “Wash your hands, get your flu shot. That should be the story. Because you are way more likely, orders of magnitude, more likely to die of the flu than the coronavirus.”

Drew Johnson

Jason (Drew) Johnson is the founder of the the Beacon Center of Tennessee, formerly the Tennessee Center for Public Policy Research, and served as its president until 2009. He is also  a senior fellow at the Taxpayers Protection Alliance and the National Center for Public Policy Research and formerly worked as a policy analyst at National Taxpayers Union. Before founding TCPPr, Johnson worked at the National Taxpayers Union Foundation and was also a former senior fellow at the Koch-backed Institute for Humane Studies.

Here is a summary of the funding some of these groups have received from Koch sources:

Recipient Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation David H. Koch Charitable Foundation Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation Charles Koch Institute Grand Total

Institute for Humane Studies $45,445,842 $3,450,000 $2,640,074 $335,800 $51,871,716

National Taxpayers Union Foundation $333,811 $27,500 $48,960 $410,271

Beacon Center of Tennessee $259,000 $259,000

Grand Total $46,038,653 $3,450,000 $2,667,574 $384,760 $52,540,987

^Links to https://nypost.com/2020/04/27/ive-worked-the-coronavirus-front-line-and-i-say-its-time-to-start-opening-up/

^Above Facebook article appears to have been deleted

The Heartland Institute

Donor Total

Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation $62,578

Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation $40,000

Grand Total $102,578

Jim Lakely  is the president of the Heartland Institute:

“PODCAST: Panic Is a Terrible Idea – Talking Wuhan Virus (Coronavirus or COVID-19) and Some ‘On Theme’ Music Vids,” Heartland Institute, March 15

Jim Lakely: [00:14:19] we’ve told everybody that this disease is super deadly when it’s not. In the swine flu, the H1N1 virus of 2009, 2010. That infected fifty nine million Americans. It killed 12,000 Americans. I don’t remember the media going crazy like this.  [00:14:40]

Jim Lakely: [00:19:55] Dr. Drew Pinsky. Yeah. He’s been very vocal and getting on as many outlets as he can. You might even be able to get him a guest on this podcast. John, he’s so desperate to get this message out. And he does that.

It is that is that the regular flu is much more dangerous to people than this, is that you’re much more likely to get the regular flu and have very dangerous health complications from it than you are from the Wuhan virus.  [00:20:21]

Jim Lakely: [00:20:34] this is way overblown, that this panic is not none of it is justified and that this is not going to be as bad as everybody is saying it. [00:20:41]

Jim Lakely: [00:29:15] You know, I was thinking about this because here at the Heartland Institute, we’re actually probably going to let people work from home next week.  You know, kind of self self-quarantine is that is the term they use

Jim Lakely: [00:29:30]   I think it’s I think it is practice, it is a practical matter is not necessary. But as a as a mental matter for my staff who are watching this and consuming this and are getting a little bit a little bit upset about it, and it made for justifiable reasons, considering, you know, what’s being reported.

“In The Tank (Ep234) – Coronavirus Getting More Serious, China Slave Labor Report,” Heartland Institute, March 13

Jim Lakely: [00:13:21] But, you know, I don’t know if this will be, you know, pretty much out of the news in two months, I think the panic is definitely more dangerous than the flu. I mean, if this has been put in perspective and actually Donald Trump came under a lot of criticism for stating facts that should help everybody put these things, you know, put this Wuhan flu into perspective. Just two years ago in the United States, eighty thousand Americans died from the flu. Just two years ago. Is a pretty bad flu season, the winter of 2017, 2018. You might remember the H1N1 virus, the so-called swine flu from 2009. You know, fifty nine million Americans got swine flu in 2009. Two hundred sixty five thousand Americans were hospitalized for swine flu, and 12,000 Americans died from swine flu in 2009. And that was a strain of the flu that infected 1.4 billion people around the world and killed as many as a half a million people around the globe.

What’s happening? We’re counting the number of deaths in the United States in two digits. And in fact, it’s very, very tragic. But we know most of those deaths are coming from one nursing home in Washington state that got infected and didn’t know what they had on their hands before it infected a lot of other very elderly at-risk people. And it’s tragic. I think something like twenty two or twenty five of the patients at this nursing home have passed away from Wuhan virus. And that is very, very tragic. But it’s not even you know, it’s not the 12,000 Americans who died from swine flu in 2009. And it’s you know, that perspective needs to be kept here. The chances of you getting this virus, you know, contracting it is relatively low.

H. Sterling Burnett is a Heartland senior fellow on environmental policy and the managing editor of their Environment & Climate News:

H. Sterling Burnett. “CORONAVIRUS HIGHLIGHTS ECO–RADICALS’ ANTI–HUMAN AGENDA,” Heartland Institute, March 27

For decades, elitist radical environmentalists in academia, politics, and popular culture have vocally longed for a sharp decline in or extinction of the human race, regularly referring to humanity as a “cancer,” “parasite,” or “virus” destroying the planet.

In this more-limited but in the long run still-deadly goal of shutting down the economy, the coronavirus has largely granted environmental hypocrites their wish. The world’s economy has ground to a sudden halt. When not forced by their governments to stay home or limit travel, people are self-isolating. Store shelves are empty. Companies that produce desired goods and services have shut down. As a result, carbon dioxide emissions are falling dramatically. Reports indicate that in the time since China first began to lock down the Wuhan province in the aftermath of the coronavirus outbreak, that nation’s carbon dioxide emissions have fallen by 25 percent, and it is likely similar reductions in emissions are taking place in every country, region, and town that is shutting down normal economic activity.

[…]

This is what the breakdown of modern society looks like. Contrary to the claims by proponents of the Green New Deal, this is what it would really take to reduce carbon dioxide emissions substantially over the long term. If you like shortages of toilet paper, facial tissues, paper towels, medicine, milk, food, hospital beds, and medical technologies, by all means stop using fossil fuels.

[…]

Take note, people! Based on their own past statements, this is exactly what the radical environmentalists and global elites would bequeath you: a world of rampant death from disease and economic stagnation, a planet with far fewer people and much fewer possessions and comforts for those who survive.

We must wake up to the threat these misanthropic climate-crisis fearmongers pose to human flourishing and, after this current pandemic passes, embrace freedom of choice, free minds, and free markets. This is the best hope for creating an economy and health care delivery system able to prevent or respond rapidly to future pandemics.

“Media Lies Debunked: Coronavirus, Pandemics, and Climate Change,” Climate Realism, March 26

Climate alarmists and major media outlets are deceitfully exploiting the coronavirus pandemic to tell the public lies that climate change makes pandemics more likely and severe. In reality, the evidence is quite clear that warmer temperatures make pandemics and underlying outbreaks of viruses like the flu less frequent and severe.

[…]

Contrary to the fear-mongering assertions in The Hill and Time, the overwhelming scientific evidence shows it is cold, not heat, that kills. Therefore, a modestly warmer world, with shorter, less severe winters, should result in fewer premature deaths from disease, viruses, pandemics, hunger, and other natural causes.

Heritage Foundation

Donor Total

Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation $1,206,630

Charles Koch Institute $12,000

Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation $5,262,571

Grand Total $6,481,201

“MODELS ARE ONLY AS GOOD AS THE ASSUMPTIONS BUILT INTO THEM (GUEST: KEVIN DAYARATNA),” Heartland Institute Podcast, May 11

Kevin Dayaratna is senior statistician and research programmer at the Heritage Foundation’s center for data analysis. He was a guest on the Heartland Institute’s podcast to discuss COVID modeling:

Kevin Dayaratna: [00:04:25] And as we’ve shown with many other models, including the climate models, these epidemiological models, particularly the one that we looked at here, that it’s definitely the case with any other models as well are very, very sensitive to reasonable changes in assumptions. And it is important to understand that fact and look at that fact. [00:04:41]

H. Sterling Burnett: [00:04:43] So the models don’t come like manna from heaven, whole cloth. Here are the proper the clear sort of boundaries and inputs and outputs. That’s all human. That’s you know, that’s all human choice. [00:04:58]

Kevin Dayaratna: [00:21:47] Yea, so I touched on this earlier. So I was, like I said, in the center for analysis at the Heritage Foundation, I work on statistical modeling on all sorts of policy issues. Extensively, I worked on climate and energy modeling the last couple of years, actually. And we noticed that they’re also very, very sensitive to reasonable changes in assumptions. And in that regard, they have a whole lot of similarities to the Coronavirus models. And the danger with those models, though, is, is that with the Coronavirus models, with these epidemiological models. We can actually see we can verify in a couple of weeks, couple of months what the projections are going to be.

The climate models are often used for scaremongering because their results don’t happen for 50, 100 years into the future or even longer than that. So advocates are using those models to guide policy, often try to beef them up to satisfy an agenda. And they know they believe that they can hide what they’re doing because people are going to be able to verify what the outcomes is there of what they’re saying. But it’s clear that in that case also, that when you… Pat and I talked about this in that paper, the models themselves are highly sensitive to reasonable changes in assumptions. And when you change those assumptions, you can get drastically different temperature projections, sea level rise projections, as well as, for example, estimates of the social cost of carbon, which I’ve talked about quite a bit with you and your colleagues at Heartland. [00:23:13]

H. Sterling Burnett: [00:24:04] Willing and able without being tarred or derided or accused of being evil or racist. Being willing and able to question models, it’s like, look, folks, they’re made on assumptions.  [00:24:20]

H. Sterling Burnett: [00:24:21] You ought to be able to question the assumptions. And if the assumptions change, the results change.  [00:24:24]

H. Sterling Burnett: [00:24:25] That’s good science. But it seems to me that during this corona, this whole corona scare, there’s even more even more than in the climate debate it seems to me there’s been this this idea that if you question the models, you know, I guess it’s because the outcome is so dire. You know, people are dying today.  [00:24:43]

Kevin Dayaratna: [00:24:44] Yeah, people are dying every day.  [00:24:45]

H. Sterling Burnett: [00:24:46] And if you question the so-called science, which is the models, then somehow you’ve got some nefarious motive. And I think that’s you know, that’s really unfortunate. And it harms it harms it harms the pursuit of understanding this accurately.  [00:25:01]

Kevin Dayaratna: [00:25:03] That is absolutely right, Sterling. And it’s important to question the models because the people who question the models are the ones that care about the lives the most. They’re the ones that want to understand how this virus is going to unfold, who it’s going to hit and how to protect the most vulnerable. [00:25:17]

Hoover Institution

Donor Total

Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation $435,000

Grand Total $435,000

“Richard Epstein:‘More Probable Than Not…Total Number of Deaths at Under 50,000’ (Podcast/Audio),” Reason Foundation, March 18

From the available data, says New York University law professor Richard Epstein, “it seems more probable than not that the total number of cases worldwide will peak out at well under 1 million, with the total number of deaths at under 50,000…In the United States, if the total death toll increases at about the same rate, the current 67 deaths should translate into about 500 deaths at the end.

Note: Epstein posted a revision/retraction on April 6, 2020 to the following essay

In the earlier, March 16, 2020 version, of this essay, I made the single largest unforced intellectual error in my entire academic career, when I included numerical estimates about the possible impact of the coronavirus in terms of life and death. Those estimates were obviously ridiculously too low. Those mistakes brought on a torrent of criticism, pointing out the magnitude of those errors. Unfortunately, those responses detracted from the main purpose of that initial essay, which was to question some of the basic assumptions of the standard model. I regret those mistakes, and of course, I retract them.

Original Essay: “Coronavirus Perspective,” Hoover Institution, March 16, 2020

**Note: Epstein also posted this number at 5,000 dead, and already revised to 50,000. An original correction at the Hoover Institution lists Epstein’s initial estimate at an even lower ‘500’ (see threads on Twitter here, and here discussing this)**

“From this available data, it seems more probable than not that the total number of cases world-wide will peak out at well under 1 million, with the total number of deaths at under 50,000. In the United States, the current 67 deaths should reach about 5000 (or ten percent of my estimated world total, which may also turn out to be low).”

[…]

“Of course, every life lost is a tragedy—and the potential loss of 50,000 lives world-wide would be appalling—but those deaths stemming from the coronavirus are not more tragic than others, so that the same social calculus applies here that should apply in other cases.

These are deeply contrarian estimates. In dealing with any future prediction it is necessary to develop some model. Right now, the overwhelming consensus, based upon the most recent reports, is that the rate of infection will continue to increase so that the most severe interventions are needed to control what will under the worst of circumstances turn into a high rate of death. This pessimistic view is well captured in an op-ed by Nicholas Kristof and Stuart Thompson, who offer this graph to stress the importance and the immediacy of the looming crisis.”

[…]

“Much of the current analysis does not explain how and why rates of infection and death will spike, so I think that it is important to offer a dissenting voice. In what follows, I look first at the trends in the American data, and then, building on my conclusions there, I construct a theoretical framework to evaluate the evolution of the coronavirus in other places.”

[…]

The irony here is that even though self-help measures like avoiding crowded spaces make abundant sense, the massive public controls do not. In light of the available raw data, public officials have gone overboard. To begin with, the word pandemic should not be lightly used. Recall that the Spanish influenza pandemic, fully worthy of the name, resulted in perhaps as many as a half-billion infections and between 50 and 100 million deaths, world-wide, of which some 675,000 were Americans, many coming back from Europe in the aftermath of the First World War. The World Health Organization recently declared coronavirus a pandemic at a time when the death count was at 4,000, presently being just over 6,500. It will surely rise no matter what precautions are taken going forward, but what is critical is some estimate of the rate.

By way of comparison, the toll from the flu in the United States since October ran as follows: between 36 to 51 million infections, between 370 thousand to 670 thousand flu hospitalizations, and between 22 thousand to 55 thousand flu deaths. That works out to between roughly between 230,000 to 320,000 new infections per day, and between 140 to 350 deaths per day for an overall mortality rate of between 0.044 percent to 0.152 percent.

[…]

“What, then, does all of this portend for the future of COVID-19 in the United States? Good news is more likely than bad, notwithstanding the models that predict otherwise. The deaths in Washington have risen only slowly, even as the number of infections mount. The New York cases have been identified for long enough that they should have produced more deaths if the coronavirus was as dangerous as is commonly believed.”

[…]

“Clearly, the impact on elderly and immunocompromised individuals is severe, with nearly 90% of total deaths coming from individuals 60 and over. But these data do not call for shutting down all public and private facilities given the extraordinarily low rates of death in the population under 50. The adaptive responses should reduce the exposures in the high-risk groups, given the tendency for the coronavirus to weaken over time. My own guess is that the percentage of deaths will decline in Korea for the same reasons that they are expected to decline in the United States. It is highly unlikely that there will ever be a repetition of the explosive situation in Wuhan, where air quality is poorer and smoking rates are higher.”

So what then should be done?

The first point is to target interventions where needed, toward high-risk populations, including older people and other people with health conditions that render them more susceptible to disease. But the current organized panic in the United States does not seem justified on the best reading of the data. In dealing with this point, it is critical to note that the rapid decline in the incidence of new cases and death in China suggests that cases in Italy will not continue to rise exponentially over the next several weeks. Moreover, it is unlikely that the healthcare system in the United States will be compromised in the same fashion as the Italian healthcare system in the wake of its quick viral spread. The amount of voluntary and forced separation in the United States has gotten very extensive very quickly, which should influence rates of infection sooner rather than later.

Perhaps my analysis is all wrong, even deeply flawed. But the stakes are too high to continue on the current course without reexamining the data and the erroneous models that are predicting doom.

Richard A. Epstein. “The Grim Cost Of Total Lockdowns,” defining ideas (Hoover Journal), March 30

The question then is what should be done, given uncertain information. Here, there are two general approaches. One thinks the doomsday hypothesis is still valid, meaning that one million Americans, if not more, could die out of a population of about 331 million. There is also a second approach, with which I identify, that sees this problem as being akin to previous episodes of the flu, and is consistent with the lower end of the Fauci estimates. As a rough benchmark for this view, the deadliest flu season in recent years was 2017-2018, with an estimated 80,000 fatalities, which is higher than the levels reached with the 2009 H1N1 pandemic. According to the CDC, around 12,500 people died from H1N1 (range: 8,868-18,306).

But for the moment, let’s assume the pessimists are right and, God forbid, one million people may die. What then, are the social gains from potential interventions?

It is here that the difference between wealth and utility cuts. The customary starting point for this analysis is the apparently bedrock assumption, shared by many economists, that the estimated value of a statistical life (VSL), is about $10 million. The EPA arrives at this result by first asking individuals how much money they would demand to face a 1 out of 10,000 risk of death. On average, people say $1,000, which yields the $10 million figure for the value of an entire life ($1,000 times 10,000 equals ten million).

[…]

The dispute begins when coercive measures are imposed, for it is quite clear that there are not enough resources to meet the EPA’s VSL. Thus, one common measure of health is the QALY, or quality-adjusted-life-year, which is used in order to make interpersonal comparisons of benefits in a setting in which it is impossible to use market mechanisms to establish an exchange value. The more quality years, the higher the return from treatment. One suggestion of many is that we should reduce the value of a life saved roughly in half, in part because “moderate social distancing” could lead to trillions of dollars saved in VSL. For these purposes, I will set that VSL figure at $5 trillion, even though there are higher estimates.

[…]

The only solution that has a prayer of working is to ease restrictions as quickly as possible in those areas where the risks are lower, such as virtually all rural areas, and major centers that have only a low incidence of reported deaths. Of course, that requires a sophisticated incremental strategy that won’t be developed if our leaders remain hunkered down in a “fortress America” approach, which may turn out to be more deadly than the coronavirus itself.

Richard A. Epstein. “Coronavirus Overreaction,” defining ideas, March 23

In my column last week, I predicted that the world would eventually see about 50,000 deaths from the novel coronavirus, and the United States about 500. These two numbers are clearly not in sync. If the first number holds, the total US deaths should be about 4 to 5 percent of that total, or about 2,000–2,500 deaths. The current numbers are getting larger, so it is possible both figures will move up in a rough proportion from even that revised estimate. Indeed, the recent run-ups in Italy and perhaps Spain suggest that those countries have yet to turn the corner.

[…]

The question is—what should we make of these data?  The standard model sees a slow rise in cases until mid-July when it predicts that the United States shall have, for a period of several weeks, close to 10 million cases per day, with an ultimate death total that could reach one million deaths. A recent, thorough study by Aaron Ginn (which itself has been heavily attacked), takes a much more cautious view. A second article by David Katz also indicates that the global totals and that of the United States could be even higher than the numbers I suggested, perhaps by two- or three-fold. These estimates are almost two orders of magnitude lower than the common estimate. Ginn’s study uses the term “hysteria” to describe the response to COVID-19, and, sadly, he is right, given the dangers of drawing hasty inferences from Italy to rest of the world. Unfortunately, the most common visuals of the virus spread, large red dots to indicate the number of cases in a given area, are alarmist and suggest a more severe crisis than the raw numbers indicate.

[…]

Progressives think they can run everyone’s lives through central planning, but the state of the economy suggests otherwise. Looking at the costs, the public commands have led to a crash in the stock market, and may only save a small fraction of the lives that are at risk. In addition, there are lost lives on both sides of the equation as many people will now find it more difficult to see a doctor, get regular exercise, stay sober, and eat healthily. None of these alternative hazards are addressed by the worthy governors.

It is critical therefore to get some perspective on this issue, which is perhaps done by taking  a quick look at the now forgotten H1N1 pandemic that ran for about a year from April 2009 to April 2010. The similarities between the two pandemics are evident. Both were novel strains for which there were no available vaccines.  Both viruses hit people over 60 the hardest. During the year that H1N1 raged, the CDC estimates that “there were 60.8 million cases (range: 43.3-89.3 million), 274,304 hospitalizations (range: 195,086-402,719), and 12,469 deaths (range: 8868-18,306).”

These figures are in flat contradiction to the wildly high estimates that supposed experts give to support their current doomsday scenario, and they suggest that a far more modest program of containment—and allowing the virus to run its course—is a better path forward for the economy. Our government fiats will probably save very few, if any, lives saved over what we can obtain through more focused voluntary precautions. All the while, the United States is entertaining hopeless stimulus negotiations that shift dollars around, but do nothing to make up for the trillions that will inevitably lost as result of the economic shutdown.  There is only one cure to the current malaise, which is to reverse these self-destructive policies before it is too late.

Richard A. Epstein. “Playing Politics With Coronavirus,” defining ideas, March 9

At this time, the total cost of the combined responses is assuredly in the trillions, and these costs vastly outstrip the number of deaths worldwide from the coronavirus. The New York Times is presently reporting (and constantly updating) a total of 545 confirmed cases across 34 states and DC with 22 total deaths—surely a low estimate of the total prevalence of the disease. By way of comparison, the CDC reports that this year’s U.S. flu season saw between 34 and 50 million infections, between 350 thousand and 620 thousand flu hospitalizations, and between 20 thousand and 52 thousand flu deaths. (The wide range of these estimates is due to difficulty estimating the number of flu cases that go undetected through what the CDC terms “influenza surveillance.”)

Independence Institute

“Freedom on Tap – Dave Kopel, Rob Natelson,” IITV via YouTube, April 7

Jon Caldera: [00:18:50] What’s been shocking for me is how complicit people seem to be about being put under house arrest without any sort of due process that the media especially seems to be giving kudos to those people who are putting us under house arrest without any challenge about their love of the First Amendment, which I thought gave us a right not only to free speech, but the right to assembly, the right to worship and the right to due process. And I don’t see any of that.

Jon Caldera: [00:33:46] I know this is out of proportion, so take it for what it’s worth. I just wondered how does Hitler happen? And then I realized when people are scared. And this is just a virus. Yes, a really bad virus. And it’s gonna kill lots of good people. As the flu does, and this will be several times the flu. … [00:34:03]

Manhattan Institute

Donor Total

Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation $2,100,000

Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation $1,085,817

Charles Koch Institute $66,720

David H. Koch Charitable Foundation $50,000

Grand Total $3,302,537

“Facts Exposing The Hysteria Over The COVID-19 Coronavirus” March 18

Heather Mac Donald is the Thomas W. Smith fellow at the Manhattan Institute. She wrote at Principia Scientific International:

Even if my odds of dying from coronavirus should suddenly jump ten-thousand-fold, from the current rate of 0.000012 percent across the U.S. population all the way up to 0 .12 percent, I’d happily take those odds over the destruction being wrought on the U.S. and global economy from this unbridled panic.

[…]

And, you know, the so far the data continues to be the case that the overwhelming number of fatalities are people who are elderly, have existing respiratory ailments.

And, you know, they may have been in the hospital anyway, this is not to say that their deaths are not as as tragic as anybody else. But it is not something that is going to take down the entire society and radically increase its mortality rate, at least with what we’re seeing so far.

[…]

So and, you know, the mortality rate, the initial estimates were grossly inflated three or 4%. It’s obviously you know, a function of we don’t yet know the denominator. I think, really what matters is not so much the rate it’s the absolute number of deaths. And and so far again, they’re a pittance. I know it’s early in the in the United States, but 69 deaths.

Mac Donald also went on The Glenn Show to discuss her views as a “Corona Contrarian”:

Patrick J. Michaels

Recipient & Donor Total

CO2 Coalition $50,409

Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation $32,409

Charles Koch Institute $18,000

Competitive Enterprise Institute $1,258,259

Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation $326,419

Charles Koch Institute $37,020

Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation $364,820

David H. Koch Charitable Foundation $315,000

David H. Koch (Direct) $200,000

Koch Companies Public Sector $15,000

George C. Marshall Institute* $620,000

Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation $200,000

Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation $420,000

Grand Total $1,928,668

*The George C. Marshall Institute later morphed into the CO2 Coalition.

Patrick Michaels is a senior fellow in the Center for Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

A leaked 2006 memo from the Intermountain Rural Electric Association (IREA) revealed that  Michaels was a recipient of at least $100,000 from IREA to combat global warming “alarmists.” The IREA memo outlines a coordinated strategy by Koch Industries, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Michaels, and other key groups. “We have met with Koch, CEI and Dr. Michaels, and they meet among themselves periodically to discuss their activities,” NERA‘s General Manager Stan Lewandowski wrote.

Michaels is also a member of the Koch-funded CO2 Coalition.

Patrick Michaels. “EU official exploits coronavirus to push awful climate change legislation,” Washington Examiner, March 9

In reality, economically vibrant societies are increasingly immune to the vagaries of severe weather events. As convincingly shown by the University of Colorado’s Roger Pielke Jr., weather damages as a percent of global GDP are going down, not up. Sure, dollar-cost damages are increasing, but only because we have more and more stuff to get hit.

Make no mistake: The proposed EU climate law will reverse a lot more progress and a lot more economic and environmental resilience than any probable climate change or, for that matter, coronavirus.

Patrick Michaels. “Counterpoint: Let’s Really Celebrate the 50th Earth Day With Some Humble Pie,” Inside Sources, April 22

Over time, the scope of environmental concerns spawned by the first Earth Day grew increasingly large, culminating with global warming.

EPA’s reach increased proportionately, justified by the 2007 Supreme Court decision in Massachusetts v. EPA that granted the agency the power to regulate carbon dioxide if it deemed the gas “endangered” human health and welfare. The agency issued its official finding of endangerment in 2009.

EPA’s sole metric to determine future endangerment consists of complicated computer models for future climate.

Anyone who is watching the coronavirus saga (and who isn’t?) knows that future prospects are completely dependent upon very fuzzy and plastic assumptions. How effectively would people “socially isolate?” No one really knows. How many “silent” cases are out there contributing to an undetected herd immunity?

Ditto.

It’s now known that the climate models are “with one notable exception” totally incapable of modeling the three-dimensional structure of climate change in the Earth’s vast tropics. The one model that works, predicts less warming than any other, a warming so modest that it can’t justify “endangerment.”

Pacific Research Institute

Donor Total

Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation $627,000

Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation $905,000

David H. Koch Charitable Foundation $550,800

Grand Total $2,082,800

Sally C. Pipes is President, CEO, and Thomas W. Smith Fellow in Health Care Policy at the Pacific Research Institute:

“Sally Pipes: Coronavirus causes financial crisis for hospitals and doctors – Patients lose vital care,” Fox News, May 9

The good news for hospitals and medical professionals is that as states begin to relax their coronavirus lockdowns, hospitals are trying to return to normal. Earlier this month, 20 states green-lit the resumption of elective surgeries that had been postponed to preserve personal protective equipment and other resources for the response to COVID-19.

But even without government restrictions on elective surgeries, fear of the coronavirus may keep patients away from hospitals for some time. Nearly half of doctors believe patient visits will only return to pre-COVID-19 levels sometime between July and September.

By that point, patients and providers alike will have suffered real losses.

Patrick Moore

Recipient and Donor Total

CO2 Coalition $50,409

Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation $32,409

Charles Koch Institute $18,000

George C. Marshall Institute $620,000

Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation $200,000

Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation $420,000

Grand Total $670,409

Patrick Moore is the chairman of the board of directors of the CO2 Coalition.

Phil Kerpen

Recipient & Donor Total

American Commitment $6,850,000

Freedom Partners $6,850,000

Americans for Prosperity $6,555,068

Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation $661,981

Charles Koch Institute $199,862

Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation $4,693,225

David H. Koch Charitable Foundation $1,000,000

Grand Total $13,405,068

Phillip G. Kerpen is the president of American Commitment, a conservative 501(c)(4) group largely funded by Freedom Partners, a group controlled by the billionaire industrialist Koch brothers. He previously served as the vice president of Americans for Prosperity.

Posted May 12, 2020:

Reason Foundation

Donor Total

Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation $1,760,909

Charles Koch Institute $177,650

Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation $1,080,500

David H. Koch Charitable Foundation $1,522,212

Grand Total $4,541,271

“Coronavirus: Don’t Worry, Be Happily Informed,” Reason, March 4 podcast with Ronald Bailey

Ronald Bailey: [00:18:54] My best guess, looking at the severity, the disease and so forth, is it will be like a particularly well, like a really, really bad influenza season. And at some point it would probably be the worst case scenario.  [00:19:09][15.2]

Ronald Bailey: [00:32:29] So, yeah, don’t panic again. Yeah, it’s way too early to panic about it. Think about, you know, monitor it. Listen to the news. Keep track of what’s going on. Again, my best estimation and, subject to revision with new information is, is if it does, if quarantine fails, if in fact, that’s not able to be controlled it will probably result in something like a fairly severe bad flu season, but it’s not apocalyptic.  [00:33:00]

Spiked

An investigation by DeSmog UK and Guardian environmental columnist George Monbiot revealed that Spiked had received $300,000 from the Koch brothers between 2015 and 2018, including $150,000 in 2016 – the year that Donald Trump became president and the UK voted to leave the European Union.

Ben Pile. “Covid-19 is a frightening dress rehearsal of the climate agenda,” Spiked, May 12

From the outset, there has been a palpable sense of green jealousy of the virus as it stole attention from the climate fearmongers. For half a century, greens have been prognosticating the imminent collapse of society. Yet with each new generation, deadlines to stop the destruction of the planet pass without event. In reality, the world’s population has become healthier and wealthier, and we live longer lives than ever before. Panic about the virus achieved in days what greens have been demanding for years: grounded planes, empty roads, and a halt in economic growth.

[…]

The virus of green thinking has infected political leaders and their plans for the economic recovery, too. ‘No one hesitates to make very profound, brutal choices when it’s a matter of saving lives’, French president Emmanuel Macron told the FT: ‘It’s the same for climate risk.’

[…]

Greens also claim that the pandemic exposes the shortcomings of a fossil-fuel dependent world. The recent crash in oil prices proves this, apparently. As demand for energy withered, cargo ships containing oil approached depots that were at full capacity. Consequently, supply being far in excess of demand, the oil price, which was already sinking, went negative. This, said Sky News’ Ed Conway in The Times, was a sign of our ‘post-oil future’. ‘Eventually the world will wean itself off fossil fuels, so today’s oil producers’ days are numbered; only a handful will survive’, he wrote.

But the demand for fossil fuels is suppressed, not because of any inherent problems with fossil fuels, but because vast numbers of people have been immobilised. The reason the oil price plunged is the same reason videos of dancing nurses appeared on social media. Whereas many nurses are extremely busy, the lockdown has caused other health workers to become surplus to need.

[…]

On this timescale, we can see that far-reaching and regressive political agendas are hidden behind a preoccupation and oversensitivity to risk. And whereas the green agenda has played out in years, we can see in mere weeks that policymakers are indifferent to our lives and livelihoods, and will cynically embrace crises to advance their own interests. There will be no chance of an economic recovery if Britain, the EU and the rest of the world follow their existing climate-change agendas – there will only be a lockdown, or something like it, forever.

Stephen Moore

Stephen Moore is the founder and former President of the Club for Growth and a visiting fellow at the “arch-conservative“ Heritage Foundation. According to SourceWatch, the Club for Growth received at least $450,000 from the Center to Protect Patient Rights (CPPR). CPPR, which eventually morphed into American Encore, was  founded and managed by GOP strategist and Koch ally Sean Noble and has played a key role in the Koch brothers’ political network. CPPR itself has received at least $114,828,000 from Freedom Partners, a group designed by the Kochs to distribute funds.

Freedom Partners > $114,828,000 >

Center to Protect Patient Rights > $450,000 >

Club for Growth

The Heritage Foundation is also a significant recipient of Koch dollars:

Donor Total

Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation $5,262,571

Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation $1,206,630

Charles Koch Institute $12,000

Grand Total $6,481,201

Moore appeared on a program by the Independence Institute’s IITV on YouTube. Note that the Independence Institute is also a Koch funding recipient:

Donor Total

Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation $75,000

David H. Koch Charitable Foundation $50,000

Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation $16,000

Grand Total $141,000

“Freedom on Tap – Steve Moore” IITV via YouTube, April 14

Stephen Moore: [00:03:17] Steve Moore and Arthur Laffer and Steve Forbes were named to the president’s economic recovery task force.  [00:03:24]

[…]

Jon Caldera: [00:03:47] All right. Let’s let’s get into that. So here’s my frustration. I’m thrilled that the president has Fauci on every day and they’re doing all this wonderful modeling. They’re doing all this wonderful modeling and the modeling is terrific and they’re showing how many people can be saved. But I don’t see somebody right next to them doing modeling to show how many jobs are going to be lost, how many foreclosures there’s going to be, how many folks are going to be unemployed, how many houses are going to go under, how many businesses and small businesses. The longer we keep this open, and the media doesn’t ask that question, and am I off on this?  [00:04:28]

Stephen Moore: [00:04:29] Now, you and I think alike on this. I regard this. This may go down in history as one of the biggest boneheaded moves by government in 100 years. [00:04:41]

Stephen Moore: [00:04:42] And it’s also going to go down in history potentially as one of the great abuses of governmental power, not just at the federal level, but at the state level and local level.  [00:04:50]

Stephen Moore: [00:05:53] So. So that’s point number one is I do think that it’s worth paying out. We’re kind of in a climate of fear right now. And frankly, just between us girls, I mean, I’m a little disappointed with the American people, that they are so, you know, we have generations of snowflakes right now that are just afraid. And by the way, that’s even many of my own family members. So that’s number one. Number two, the reason this was so unnecessary is because we’ve always known from the start who are the people who are susceptible to dying from this disease. Ninety percent of the people, or roughly thereabouts, 90 percent are over the age of 75 and or have a chronic disease like diabetes or heart disease or something of that nature or emphysema and or are people, John, that are overweight. Just teasing you. But obesity is very highly, highly related to so to Coronavirus death. So if you were to sequester or isolate those groups of people and keep them safe. I’m not saying we should let those people die. I’m saying we should keep them keep them isolated.  [00:07:05]

Stephen Moore: [00:08:32] So one of my missions for this task force is, you know, as I said at the outset, you open the economy immediately in places again.  [00:08:40]

Stephen Moore: [00:09:59] By the way, the lowest among us, the people at the very bottom of the income ladder are the being being hurt the most that. But Nancy Pelosi is the biggest cheerleader for keeping the economy shut down. Remember when she said she cared about poor people? Maybe she doesn’t. [00:10:14]

[00:11:55] So every level of government, my point would be and I really just want to kind of take questions from folks in addition to you, John. But I would say this here is my analysis that if we don’t open the economy by May 1st, I think we are in really, really deep trouble. And we’re going to look at 15 to 20 percent unemployment. We’re going to thirty five million people unemployed in this country. [00:12:19]

Stephen Moore: [00:15:33] this is be a drive-in and they’re gonna shut down the capital. Don’t tell anybody, but they think they can get fifteen hundred people to come in. And this is great, you guys. So we have one big donor in Wisconsin. I’m not gonna mention his name. And I told about this. He said, Steve, I promise I will pay the bail and legal fees for anyone who gets arrested. So this is a great time. Gentlemen and ladies, for civil disobedience. We need to be the Rosa Parks here and protest against these government injustices.  [00:16:04]

Jon Caldera: [00:20:33] It is. It is terrifying. This virus doesn’t terrify me.  The politics terrify me. [00:20:38]

Stephen Moore: [00:20:39] This is why let me just say one quick thing. This is a man made crisis, right? This is no longer an act of nature. This is a man made crisis.  [00:20:47]

Stephen Moore: [00:25:09] If you keep this economy locked down for eight, ten, twelve weeks, you’re not going to have an economy reopen.  [00:25:13]

Stephen Moore: [00:27:44] Well, I think the first thing the people in Colorado have to do is write a big, big check to the Independence Institute. But that would be a good start right now. But it would be a good start. You should write a contribution check to these groups because it’s hard to raise money. I know this because people are really, you know, that people lost a lot of money. I think that the more the more civil disobedience, the better. And however you want to do it to people. You know what really disappoints me, John and Laura, is the national polls are showing the American people are in favor of the shutdown, the lockdown, because American people are sheep. And we need to get the word out that this is unconstitutional, that the damage that we’re doing to families is significant.

Steve Moore, Founder of the Committee To Unleash Prosperity, Discusses Response to COVID-19  – ALEC_States via SoundCloud, March 21

ALEC_states · Steve Moore, Founder of the Committee To Unleash Prosperity, Discusses Response to COVID-19

[00:00:40] We cannot keep the American Academy shut down for another three weeks. If it goes a day beyond three weeks, I think we get to a situation where the, literally the cure is worse than the disease. We have to get the American economy open again and that means this kind of lockdown can’t continue. [00:00:59]

[00:02:09] The idea that we should have a policy like what’s going on in California right now to me is completely outrageous. It is a violation, it is an abuse of governmental power. The idea that people can’t go out of their homes is just outrageous to me. And I’m worried that that’s going to come to many other states as well.[00:02:30]

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Texas Public Policy Foundation

Donor Total

Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation $3,555,624

Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation $549,000

Charles Koch Institute $53,798

Grand Total $4,158,422

^ Links to an April 3 TPPF press release announcing its new “COVID-19 Dashboard,” that TPPF says is “tracking several indicators of the economic damage done to America by the government’s response to the COVID-19 crisis”

“Our public officials need to be painfully aware that each day that our restaurants, shops, office buildings, and hotels are shut down and people are unable to earn a living and provide for their families, the harder it will be for the American people to pull themselves out of the hole governments have dug for them,” TPPF’s Executive Director Kevin Roberts said in the statement.

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