Arguments Need Facts
Editor:
A frequent contributor to this column penned a piece titled “Cure Worse Than Disease” in the April 3, 2020 issue. His opinion piece managed to speak disparagingly of folks from a certain country (Germany), accused Governor Hogan of fearmongering, touted a drug that is unproven (hydroxychloroquine) and stated that we should “expect the increases in deaths to start dropping next week”. At the time of his writing on April 3, there were 52,000 COVID-19 deaths around the globe, and 5,900 here in the USA. Not even two weeks later on April 15, the numbers were 137,000 globally and 31,000 in the USA. The writer finished his submission with the promise of another piece for us next week.
In the April 10 issue, the contributor insinuated that Presidents Harding and Coolidge were more productive than President F.D. Roosevelt. I realize there is a great deal of polarization and partisanship in our current world. However, when it comes to ranking the effectiveness of our US Presidents, almost all sources will put Lincoln, Jefferson, Washington and F.D. Roosevelt at the top of the lists. While they may not be in that order they will most certainly appear in the top five of just about any credible list. Two names you will never find near the top are Warren G Harding and Calvin Coolidge. Both Republicans, Harding gave us countless extra marital affairs and the TeaPot Dome scandal. Coolidge rose to fame by squashing the Boston Police Officers in their quest to form a Labor Union. Both have consistently been considered failures in office.
Lincoln preserved our Union, Washington was the Father of our Country, Jefferson penned the Declaration of Independence and FDR gave us the New Deal which helped put men and women back to work and got us back on our feet after 12 years of the Harding/Coolidge/Hoover team. He threw in the kitchen sink to resurrect our economy. It is interesting that the contributor failed to mention Hoover in his ramblings, although the same philosophies were practiced. In fact, during the stock market crash of October of 1929, Hoover famously wanted no federal government intervention. This is America and we are all free to believe whatever we want, but we can’t change the facts. Opinions are not facts.
It’s also important to note that this same contributor is probably the most vocal critic of the Mayor and Town Council. Every penny of revenue brought in by the town is somehow viewed to be thievery by the gentleman in question. I wonder if he will sing a different tune now after criticizing the Mayor and Town Council for having too high of Reserve Fund Balance. I doubt it, but it would be nice to see. However, there is a chance that this just might happen. Although he views the government as unnecessary and not good for much, he does see fit to come before the Mayor and Town Council each year to request taxpayer money for his pet entertainment and theater project. So, hey, you never know.
Scott Chismar
Crofton and Ocean City
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A Question Of Control
Editor:
I witnessed something on Resurrection Day Easter Sunday that brought back a memory of my past in the ’50s.
A time that many of you will not remember but I lived through it. Back at that time all restaurant, bars and most business were closed on Sundays. The only place that was allowed to be open was a drug store.
If you had more than one in town they took turns opening, never two on the same day. Well what was the memory?
Back then Sunday was a day of families going to church in the morning and spending the afternoon together with family and friends. It was always a very special day. Well things were about to change.
The government, after building new highways that gave access to large shopping malls outside of the town, allowed all malls to open on Sunday.
It gave access to all kinds of different stores, restaurants and even movie theaters. The result of this change caused many to go to the malls for the full day effectively ending our church and family Sunday.
Oh we still had jobs and money to spend but it changed our lives. We eventually started to go back to church again on Saturdays and Sundays but life was never quite the same.
Now we’re in a whole different situation. This time it’s much more severe and controlling.
Not only are the churches and business closed but everyone is being told and required to stay at home.
If you have to go out you’re required to follow their guide lines because of a virus?
Question: We’ve had viruses through all the years but never closed anything down so why now?
What is the difference it’s just a virus and our bodies will adapt and build a natural resistance. I’m afraid it has more to do with control then concern for our health.
There’s definitely a movement today to change our country.
If we allow the special interest groups, politicians and the media to achieve their desired end we will no longer be the United States of America we’ll become the Controlled States of America and the government will have total control of our lives.
Is this what you want? Are you willing to give up your freedom of choice, your right to determine what you want to do with your life. Are you willing to allow those special groups to decide what you can or cannot do with your life?
If you give them that power, they will also have the right to punish those who refuse their directions and remove them from their world.
As for me I can’t see allowing them to do that. Maybe it’s because I’m older and I don’t have many years for them to effectively change my life.
But for you, the younger generation, you better watch what’s happening and decide now as to what you’re willing to allow them government to do as far as control over your lives.
This is an election year and I suggest you consider this as a possibility when voting. These is no need to shut everything down because of a virus.
They are using the virus as a political tool to take controls of our lives. I, for one, will stand against giving them that right. I hope and pray that many of you will stand with me against their efforts and plan.
Paul St. Andre
Ocean City
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The Fake Vaccine
Editor:
A week ago, my wife, a nurse, asked me if I was going to take the COVID-19 vaccine when it became available. She said, “You’ve never taken a flu vaccine,” which is true.
I said “Nope.” Let me tell you why. To be clear, I took the malaria medication for 10 days prior to a trip to Africa some years ago and would love to have some in my medicine cabinet now.
Dr. Anthony Fauci reminds me of the Wizard in the Wizard of Oz. Before the Wizard was figured out, remember “don’t look behind the curtain.”
Estimates were released for the 2019-2020 Flu season by the C.D.C. on April 4th Hospitalizations were estimated at between 410,000-740,000 and deaths were estimated between 24,000-62,000. The Flu vaccine never seemed to work that well to me.
Dr. Fauci, in a letter, instructed physicians to put COVID-19 as the cause of death for patient deaths when the patient tested positive for the virus. In so doing he violated the CDC’s explicit instructions on how to fill out a death certificate.
For example if a person dies of a heart attack or phenomena and was positive for COVID-19, the heart attack was the cause of death and the virus was a contributing factor, not the cause, in accord with medical practices—not the other way around. Filling out death certificates correctly, I believe, would greatly reduce the daily number of deaths attributed to Covd-19 as the primary cause and defuse much of the pandemic drama. The good doctor is ‘cooking the books.’
Bloated daily death numbers attributed to COVID-19 are compared daily to fakec death projections to make politicians and the doctor look good for their recommendation of economic paralysis while the mesmerized nation is misled. Small business the pulse of our economy is being crushed. By falsely overstating the numerator (deaths) and underreporting the denominator(infected) Fauci expands the unwarranted fear and plays to big Pharma. The naval vessel had more than 100 sailors who tested positive without symptoms, they didn’t even know they had the Wuhan virus.
I have never seen any man, let alone this wizardly doctor, wield such extraordinary powers over Americans by manipulating the decisions of our political leaders who for the first time have forced an unnecessary stoppage of the American Economy with unknown consequences.
In Maryland, Governor Hogan has bought into the pandemic drama, hook, line and sinker. In so doing, Hogan has staged a profusion of unending public appearances espousing edicts, executive orders, based on falsehoods. Sadly, I fear, many of the mom-and-pop businesses that are shuttered now, due to orders by the Governor will be unable to sustain themselves next year when a sea level change in consumer behavior fails to sustain our economy after the expected economic pick-up second half of this year. Yes, scary self-destructive forces, have been self-imposed, on our once great economy.
Mr. Hogan, 26 executive orders? Really? Aren’t you off the conservative political reservation? Recently Mr. Hogan’s daily, high profile, ego-driven, proclamations of new executive orders are not only off the political reservation, they expose a pompous side of his boundless ego that is destructive and I believe many Marylanders won’t like and will remember. Hogan said last Friday, “The Easter Bunny is an essential employee.” Really Mr. Hogan?
This is an unmitigated power grab by both Mr. Trump and Mr. Hogan.
Last week Fauci caught my attention when he said we will need a “certificate” to tell us who had taken the future vaccine. Also, yesterday Dr. Oz, not the wizard, the professor from Turkey, said, “The vaccine would be administered subcutaneously” or under the skin, not penetrated into the muscle as the usual vaccines. Red flags went up with me.
The tuberculous vaccine is the only other vaccine that was administered subcutaneously, and at the end of last year they changed that to a shot deep into the muscle like other vaccines finding it to be twice as affective. In 2018, 1,500,000 people died of tuberculosis.
On March 3, 2020, the Sinclair Broadcast Group did an article on Bill Gates who has donated $100,000,000 to fight the corona virus. In the article it is revealed that Mr. Gates is working with MIT, among others, on embedding microscale capsules under the skin, subcutaneously, along with the vaccine. After the vaccine dissolves the chip is left below the skin as a “certificate” to know who took the vaccine.
Well, there you have it, the tiny, wizardly Italian doctor (Fauci) and the professor from Turkey (Oz) and enter big pharma and finally, Bill Gates, the chip guy, and is now a purported philanthropist, to implant microbes under our skin. Gates with his connections can easily design such a chip. What else would such a chip, inserted subcutaneously with the vaccine, be able to monitor? Anything the government wanted. Incidentally, Turkey has one of the worst human rights records on the planet
So, no thanks, no Wuhan flu vaccine for me. The real cures for this virus are repairing deficiencies in our own immune systems. Strengthening your immune system is the sensible approach not social distancing.
A unique idea to reach herd immunity would be to infect all millennials, who have near a zero-death rate. Social distancing should only be imposed on immune deficient individuals.
Tony Christ
Falls Church, Va.
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Council Or Mayor In Charge?
Editor:
Who is in charge?
Council Member Dennis Dare has been involved with the activities of the Ocean City government for at least 35 years. During the April 16, 2020 special meeting of the City Council to discuss issues related to the COVID-19 situation, Council member Dare told his fellow Council members that while he did not want to give them a civics lesson, they needed to understand that the “mayor is in charge”. In a pontificating lecture, he went on to admonish the other council members because their discussion on future actions needed to respond to the COVID-19 situation was “premature” and the council was acting “out of its lane.”
While I do not mean to give civics lesson to Council member Dare, the Ocean City Charter, the legal document controlling Ocean City government, makes it very clear the City Council is in charge. The Ocean City Charter established the council-manager form of municipal government with a mayor that has very limited authority. Section C–413A of the Charter states the “Council shall consist of seven members elected at large and shall hold all the legislative and except for the mayoral veto, all the executive powers of the town.” (Emphasis added.) Under its legislative authority, the Council can pass an ordinance and use its executive authority to make sure the provisions of the ordinance are carried out as intended. The day-to-day administrative operations are performed by the professional city manager.
Under the charter, the mayor can take only one action without the approval of the council. The mayor is authorized to approve or veto a bill passed by the council. The charter also permits the mayor to be a member, along with three council members, of the Ocean City Police Commission, act as the city manager of the town during the pendency of any vacancy in the position of city manager, appoint members to all city boards, commissions and committees created by the council and be the spokesperson of the town before all state, federal and other local governmental bodies.
Of course, if Council member Dare wants to make sure the “mayor is in charge”, he can always request the city attorney for a public legal opinion to clarify the issue.
Joseph H. Potter
Ocean City
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Get Priorities Straight
Editor:
(The following letter was sent to President Trump and this publication.)
I am writing to you to express my deep concern about the direction that this country is going under your chaotic leadership from the Oval Office as we battle the COVID-19 virus. I understand the increased level of frustration that a reported minority of people are experiencing because of the stay at home orders that the governors of most states have issued.
Now to get more specific. I have seen you on television say that you, as president, had the power to declare, possibly as early as May 1, 2020, that our economy was opening for business. This was quickly followed by a pronouncement that really that power rested in the hands of the governors. And now I have watched the reports on television about demonstrators in the streets demanding that these stay at home orders be relaxed in order for some businesses to begin to open, etc. The really sad part of all of this is the total lack of your support for the governors as they try with all their heart to protect the safety and well-being of their citizens. In fact, I view many of your comments on this issue as undermining the Governors while encouraging these protestors to continue their demonstrations. My greatest fear is that your behavior on this issue could lead to riots in the streets similar to what we had in Charlottesville, Va. a few years ago.
I believe that we have come a long way in our battle against this invisible enemy. However, we should not attempt to reopen the economy before steps are in place to do it in a safe and orderly manner. This includes a number of steps that have been identified by your Task Force such as wide-spread testing, tracing, etc. As horrific as this virus has been, it would be devastating to find ourselves back to square one in this battle because we opened the economy too soon.
In closing, I ask that you be less concerned about the stock market while paying greater attention to the medical and scientific professionals that can provide you with sound advice as to the best way to move forward in these difficult times. After all, we only get one-shot at getting it right the first time.
Harry W. Yeich
Ocean City