Bad Journalism, Worse Politics in Covid Crisis

Some elected officials have used the desperation of Americans for funds, while their businesses are closed and their jobs are suspended, for partisan purposes. This has been largely ignored by the media. Similarly, the culpability of some politicians in allowing the pandemic to spread in the regions they manage has not been adequately discussed.

There has not been ample coverage of the actions by Speaker Pelosi, who threatened the urgently needed CARES act by attempting to include measures that would have the practical effect of encouraging voter fraud and increase her party’s chances of winning the 2020 election. Nor has there been sufficient analysis of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s absurd bid to include illegal aliens in the distribution of stimulus checks.

Largely absent from the unctuous comments by television journalists is the role played by irresponsible electeds and pundits who vehemently criticized President Trump in January when he closed off travel to the United States from China. They have not acknowledged their mistake in calling him “xenophobic” and “racist” for taking a stand that they irrationally proclaimed, at the time, to be unnecessary.

New York City has indeed been the epicenter of America’s Covid infection. It is time for a blunt and honest discussion why. The astounding irresponsibility of statements made by New York City officials earlier this year urging large-scale participation in crowd-heavy events such as the Chinese Lunar New Year, and to use the subways to travel to them, has been conveniently forgotten by media moguls.

While some localities logically, prudently and timely closed their school systems in the face of the pandemic, NYC Mayor de Blasio insisted on keeping them open. He only relented when forced to do so in the face of a threatened law suit by teachers, and the increasing trend of parents to wisely keep their offspring home. Mayor de Blasio’s hometown newspaper, the New York Post reports that “A pregnant teacher who was hospitalized for Covid-19 says the city refused to close her Brooklyn school — even after she turned over positive lab results — while five colleagues also fell ill from the virus… ‘I had a lab report and a letter from my doctor. It still wasn’t good enough,’ the fourth-grade special-ed teacher told The Post.”

The Post also noted that as late as March 13, de Blasio urged city residents to “carry on with their normal lives.”

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While inexcusably slow to take necessary steps to contain the disease’s progress, de Blasio, Pelosi and others moved swiftly to ram their wholly unrelated agendas down the throats of Americans who have repeatedly rejected them.

Particularly notable is their anti-law enforcement agenda. Long before the Covid crisis, de Blasio and a number of left wing officials across the nation pushed the radical notion of releasing many offenders from jail. They seek to do so in order to shift spending from incarceration to the large-scale government programs they favor. While eagerly releasing thugs and predators from correctional facilities, the same leftist politicians seek to diminish the ability of honest citizens to protect themselves by exercising their Second Amendment Rights.

The ultimate responsibility for the plague rests with China’s governing Communist Party, which intentionally hid the outbreak, resulting in a planetary pandemic. Instead of delving into that reality at presidential press conferences, the White House press corps instead levies charges of racism against Trump for correctly calling the contagion the “Chinese Virus,” in the same way that MERS, (Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome) is named after the region in which it originated.

“Never waste a good crisis” preached Obama adviser Rahm Emmanuel. The medical and financial agony of Americans apparently was just too good a crisis for the left to not use for their partisan goals.

Illustration: Pixabay

Quick Analysis

Russia Expanding Aggression

President Putin is using more than one pathway to enter Europe and undermine the West. While most of the world watches the conflict he initiated in Ukraine, the Russian government is actively pursuing a second front in a little noticed campaign in Cyprus. Although the corrupt Cypriot government ended its issuance of “golden passports” in 2020, Russian intelligence is functioning quietly there to transform this EU country into a Russian beachhead of illicit economic activity aimed at penetrating the capitalist West, according to Paul Goble of the Jamestown Foundation. Cyprus is not a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) nor does it receive as much attention as those countries who are member states. That adds to its allure as a prime location for Russia to attempt to gain a European foothold. Last week a NATO report, cited in the European Daily Monitor, noted that Russian intelligence agents have been plotting to destroy European infrastructure across the continent to disrupt states supporting Ukraine. It further suggests that Putin’s immediate goal is to lay the framework for a future move against the security organization’s members. Hungary, in particular, is another country garnering Moscow’s attention as it opposes the Western response to Russian aggression. Russia is focusing its intelligence efforts on other European, non-NATO member countries in addition to Cyprus, including Austria, Malta, and Ireland. The NATO report suggests that Moscow has had success in disseminating the Russian political narrative in these states to advance its campaign against the West. The island of Cyprus is proving to be a good target for Moscow as it is an ethnically divided island that is part of the EU since 2004. Northern Cyprus, officially called the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), is a de facto state that is only recognized by Turkey. The division precludes it from joining NATO. As Goble suggests, “it offers Russia troubled waters in which to fish.” Over the last 20 years, he points out, Cyprus’ challenges have opened it to a massive influx of Russian citizens, who now comprise approximately 10 percent of the island state’s population. Over 2,900 residents are Russians who entered until the “golden passport” program that allowed wealthy or well-connected Russians to move to Cyprus. It also provided them with documentation to travel freely throughout Europe! Although less visible on the world’s radar than the war in Ukraine, Moscow is also being helped by Cyprus’ banks opposition to seizing Russian assets and its support in evading Western sanctions. Russia has placed tens of billions of US Dollars there for money laundering. It has been more than two years since a single Russian “diplomat” has been deported and, in fact, the Embassy has grown to over 300 staffers on this tiny island state of only 1.2 million people. The Russian embassy in Nicosia has advanced communications antennae on its roof and opened a consulate on the northern end of the island. Moscow’s Ambassador, Mura Zyazikov, is a lieutenant general in the FSB with no diplomatic experience. The FSB, SVR (Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service), and GRU are actively using the island as a base of operations against NATO Member states, Israel, and other Western allies. Moscow backs pro-Russian political parties who in turn influence Cypriot decisions on education, language, and other issues. “Dmitry Khmelnitsky of the Dossier Center says that its findings should be of concern not only to Cyprus but to the West as a whole. Those who ignore what Moscow is doing because Cyprus does not follow the EU sanctions regime are missing something critical,” says Goble. “Cyprus does not seek to get rid of Russian agents and does not interfere with their work,” Khmelnitsky concludes, “despite the fact that what the Kremlin is doing is so clearly visible.” This has an impact not only on the small island but on the EU, NATO, and the West in general. Earlier this year the Moscow Times reported that when the FBI became more interested in Russian business and oligarchs in Cyprus, at least 10 of the major Russian businesses operating there left. Despite the government of Cyprus’ vow to implement plans for new sanctions against Russia, it continues to ignore Putin’s atrocities in Ukraine and to shield the wealth of the 50,000 wealthy Russian citizens and oligarchs residing there. Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept. Illustration: Pixabay