As the therapeutic efficacy of hydroxychloroquine becomes more and more provable, the left gets more and more hysterical.  Leftists have bet the farm on COVID-19 as a means of preventing President Trump's re-election, and then this old malaria drug appears on the scene.  The first trial came from China, and no one should take China's word for it, but a doctor there realized that every patient with lupus, even if sick, was negative for the disease.  Then a French doctor, Dr. Didier Raoult, a world-famous microbiologist, tested the theory with more than a thousand patients and found it 100% effective, especially when combined with Zithromax.  More than six thousand doctors around the world are using it to combat the disease with tremendous life-saving results.  Many of those doctors are using the drug as a prophylactic, and it is keeping them from getting the virus as they care for sick patients.  Dr. Mehmet Oz has been amassing information about it and explaining it to the public on his television program.  On Tuesday, he introduced Los Angeles lupus specialist Dr. Daniel Wallace, who has the largest number of patients with lupus in the nation, who also swears by the drug and its safety.

But this is all bad news for the left, especially those in the media who prostitute themselves each and every day to damage the president and so are spending every waking moment on the air trying to scare people about its use, all because it was Trump who introduced it as a possible cure.  They believe that it is their job to tell us how and what to think, and they want us to think Trump is responsible not just for the virus, but for pushing a dangerous drug as well.  But it works.  Ask Karen Whitsett, a Democratic Michigan state representative.  It saved her life, and she has thanked the president for mentioning it, stating she would not have known about it otherwise.  She had better watch her back now: she is very likely a target of the left-media.  Inexplicably, New York's Gov. Andrew Cuomo is still banning it outside a hospital when, if widely distributed, it may well keep people out of the hospital.

America's favorite gnome, Dr. Anthony Fauci, was late in the game to warn the public about COVID-19.  He was downplaying the risk in late January.  He was wrong about AIDS early in his career.  He may be an expert, but he is not the only expert.  Many so-called experts have a very narrow view, blinkered by the narrow focus of their specialties.  Expertise can be overrated.  It is likely that the president and the millions of us who watch the daily briefings are getting mighty tired of Dr. Fauci's predictions, projections, and prescriptions, like "this shutdown may last for eighteen months!"  Such a policy would be the end of America.  Does Fauci care?  Apparently not — not his wheelhouse.  Same goes for Dr. Deborah Birx and the odious Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel; he would love to see the collapse of the United States.  These people are experts in their field and are clearly totally ignorant of basic economics.  There are other doctors out there, many more experts to consult, and now would be a good time for some second and third opinions: Dr. Stephen Smith, Dr. William Grace, Dr. Ramin Oskui, Dr. Bill Morice, and the aforementioned Dr. Daniel Wallace, to name a few.  Fauci is something of a lightweight compared to these doctors.  Fauci is also known as a "patent man."  Because hydroxychloroquine is an old and inexpensive drug, no one is going to get rich selling it. 

Bill Bennett and Seth Leibsohn list some basic numbers in their column at RCP: "In any given month in America, we lose about 54,000 Americans to heart disease; 50,000 to cancer; 14,000 to asthma, bronchitis, and emphysema; 12,000 to stroke; 10,000 to Alzheimer's; 7,000 to diabetes; 5,600 to drug overdoses; and 4,700 to influenza and pneumonia.  Since February, in America, coronavirus: 9,500[.] ... Those deaths give us over 157,000 deaths a month."  No one will be seeing those numbers on CNN or MSNBC anytime soon.  Revealing that 157K people die in this country every month would spoil their faux hysteria.  They simply cannot abide the fact that a drug Trump mentioned early on has proven to be a near cure.  They have to condemn it, pretend it is not a viable treatment that is working.  But you can bet that if they come down with COVID-19, they will all beg for it.  John Berman went after Peter Navarro so hard, so rudely, on this issue that he made an utter fool of himself.  He revealed his desperation, as does every other CNN "presenter" all day long.  Like the rest of the left, they are all in on blaming Trump for every bad thing that happens anywhere. But Bookworm has it right when she notes that since whatever he does he will be charged with one crime or another by the media, he has the freedom to act, to act on his own instincts. The press thinks they've boxed him in but they have in fact set him free. At this point, as one can see from the daily briefings, they are just noise, annoying and rather foolish. They hate Trump, want to see him defeated, and don't mind using sick and dead people, the more the better, to take him down. They, our press and electronic media hacks, are barely a notch above the criminal class and the public knows it. How could they not? Their blatant lack of character, ethics or integrity is on display each and every day. 

America has a long tradition of an adversarial press, beginning in the revolutionary era. Beyond that, President Lincoln was savaged by his opponents, those who wanted slavery preserved. But no president in modern times has had to endure the incessant viciousness that Donald Trump has and he has put up with it with more grace than they deserve. He bites back and often rightfully humiliates them for their perfidy, but they never learn. They come back the next day and do it all over again. They fear Trump's leadership throughout this pandemic so frantically they are rooting for the failure of hydroxychloroquine and so for more deaths. Christopher Hitchens perhaps had the media in mind when he wrote: "A sure sign of ineptitude and malice is manifested when one's attacker is willing to cover himself with mud in order to try and make some of it adhere to his target."

Image credit: National Park Service, public domain.