It’s Monday, March 2nd, 2020…but, before we begin, it appears the race for the Dimocratic presidential nomination has come down to a crazed, old, self-enriching Communist relic of the ’60s…

…and a demented, old, self-enriching product of the Washington swamp…

…whose expiration date came and went decades ago:

Yeah,…

…whichever.  As for Tom Steyer and Mayor Pete, don’t let the door hit you in the butt on your way out…though it might afford the pompous, self-righteous Pete…

…at least some pleasure from his long-overdue, well-deserved demise.

P.S. As Michael Brendan Dougherty notes at NRO, Lieawatha’s right behind you, primarily because:

“…The image of her campaign will be her on a debate stage, hand raised, ready with an answer — but losing support roughly every minute she speaks.

…Elizabeth Warren was not a Native American, she was not a radical egalitarian, her homework answers were elaborate but did not add up. Neither as left-wing as she proposed to be, nor as responsible and diligent. She won’t be missed.“

Now, owing to us feeling rather poorly last night, here’s a belated edition of The Gouge!

First up, while this item from AAP News forwarded by Bill Meisen reminds us, according to the…

CDC: 105 children have died of flu

…another article from PJ Media via his brother Walt puts the Trump-coronavirus storyline into proper perspective:

Fact-Check: Obama Waited Until ‘Millions’ Infected and 1000 Dead in U.S. Before Declaring H1N1 Emergency

Best of the Web highlighted the MSM’s selective recall and reporting with these two irreconcilable entries:

“Headline at the Daily Beast, February 6: “The Virus Killing U.S. Kids Isn’t the One Dominating the Headlines…Coronavirus, with zero American fatalities, is dominating headlines, while the flu has killed dozens of U.S. kids this season—including 11-year-old Luca, a true ‘Giver of Light.’”

Headline at the Daily Beast, February 28: “Trump Spends 45 Minutes With ‘Deep State’ Play Actors Amid Coronavirus Mayhem…Meanwhile, the man he tapped to run point on the virus, VP Pence, took to a conservative activists conference and had meetings with pro-Trump media luminaries.”

…Much like Vladimir Putin’s Russia, the coronavirus became much scarier and more newsworthy to U.S. mainstream media once Donald Trump became involved.“

In other words, this isn’t reporting; it’s Progressive propaganda.  Or, as Matt Continetti puts it at AEI, the only predictable fallout of the coronavirus is partisanship.

Speaking of Progressive partisanship masquerading as unbiased reporting, in a follow-up to Friday’s lead item detailing the fanciful fairy tale run as fact by FOX News, we recently started to read an item by Michael R. Strain which appeared at AEI. So, okay, the American Enterprise Institute… generally a fair source of analysis and commentary, and Strain is its director of economic policy studies…likely worth our time to read.

That was, until we got to this particular paragraph:

“Trump’s willingness to stoke racial animosity threatens the foundations of prosperity the way termites threaten a house — by assaulting its core. His attacks on the post-World War II liberal international order threaten long-term prosperity by changing perceptions of our country abroad. His weakening of federal institutions and the rule of law inflicts damage that could take years to undo. His hostility toward immigrants makes the United States less attractive to many of the world’s brightest and most ambitious people. The longer he is in office, the more ingrained these problems become.“

Seriously?!?  Sorry, Mr. Strain, but was it Trump who stoked the flames of racial division by embracing Black Lives Matter following the Ferguson farce, and purposefully supported the myth of an American justice and law enforcement system riddled with bigotry?

What “post-World War II liberal international order” has The Donald threatened: the U.N., aka, the “Useless Nations”?  And which foreign powers have changed their perception of our country: Iran…India?  Was it Trump who permitted an unrepentant Hillary to skate on her undeniable crimes, while at the same time using the full weight of the DOJ and FBI to fabricate the Russian collusion narrative in an attempt to undo the results of a lawful election?  Can Strain name one time this President EVER spoke out against lawful immigration?

It’s like Ammo Girl observed in her latest entry at Powerline, courtesy of Tom Bakke:

Thoughts from the Ammo Line

“The Press has long been called “The Fourth Estate,” a term that comes to us from pre-revolutionary French history. (The First Estate was the King and nobility; the Second Estate was the Church; and the Third Estate was the “commoners.” Because of the power of the press, at some point it was designated as The Fourth Estate.) When the felicitous term migrated to the United States, it was originally deemed critical that The Fourth Estate be above the fray, an independent and unbiased institution. (Stop laughing…)

The institution – electronic, print and social media — has decided in the last few decades to have the kind of Estate Sale that one reads about in the papers. Sold! Lock, stock, and barrel to the far left-wing of the Democrat Party for invitations to the best DC parties, occasional sex for a leak leading to a scoop, and obscene salaries for reading aloud. For the first few years of the shredding of its Unbiased Mission Statement, an effort was made to be a little bit stealthy about it. But shortly after Donald J. Trump descended that escalator and declared himself a candidate for the Presidency, the veil dropped. National Coming Out Day for the Media was proudly declared. No more “who, what, when, where, why” with even a thin veneer of objectivity. It was “all hands on deck to screw over Orange Man Bad.”

Nothing good, nothing positive, nothing humanizing must EVER get through! Under no circumstances should DJT be “normalized.” They actually used that word. So far beyond the pale was this President, this human being, that every single thing he touched had to be attacked – his dessert, how he likes his steak, his beautiful wife, her Christmas decorations, the First Lady’s clothes, her shoes, yes, even her ACCENT, for pity’s sake, never mind that she speaks five languages and most of the newsheads are semi-literate in one. The President is not only “literally” Hitler but also a Russian agent which is a good trick. And – talk about the pudgy pot calling the kettle fat – David “Pretend Republican” Frum says that Trump is our fattest President ever.

Can you even imagine that shameless, rotund little Frump calling out, say, Stacy Abrams, for her weight?

That is bad enough. But it doesn’t end there. In addition to tedious hourly ATTACKS on the President, the media giants DECIDE what is and what is not news.

This can happen by simple omission: “Let’s see – here’s a story about MS-13 illegals raping and killing a young woman (ah, that’s just a local crime story, not of general interest, bad for The Narrative…). Here’s a story about Ilhan Omar being married to her brother – oh, that’s been DEBUNKED, and bad for The Narrative. Wait, here’s a story where Trump said 40,000 people were at a rally when it was only 39,400. Let’s go with: Trump Lies Again!”

Are we done yet? No, we are not. The final step in the Estate Sale treachery is to BECOME the story…”

Boys and girls, can you say “Jim Acosta”?  We KNEW you could!

Meanwhile, Jim Freeman exposes the reality of Cuba’s healthcare system, Bernie’s fawning flattery to the contrary notwithstanding:

“…As for the Castro regime in Cuba, not even the thugs who run the dictatorship believe the Sanders talking points. They know that when they really need quality medical care, they won’t find it in Havana. Reuters reported in 2006:

A renowned Spanish surgeon has been rushed to Cuba to try to stop a steady deterioration in Fidel Castro’s health, a Spanish newspaper reported on Sunday.

Jose Luis Garcia Sabrido, an intestinal specialist, traveled to the Caribbean island on Thursday on an aircraft chartered by the Cuban government, according to Spain’s left-leaning El Periodico de Catalunya.

Garcia Sabrido was due to carry out tests on Castro to see if he needs another operation after undergoing emergency surgery for intestinal bleeding in July, the newspaper said, citing hospital sources.

The doctor’s plane was carrying advanced medical equipment not available in Cuba, the newspaper reported.“

It’s also worth noting, when Bernie had his heart attack, he didn’t hop on the first flight to Havana.

In a related item, Politico provides further proof Bernie’s backers will, under no circumstances, take his failure to win the nomination lying down, as Nevada Dimocrats recently learned:

Cops repeatedly called on Bernie backers

Their late-night bullhorn protests at public officials’ homes come as Sanders’ opponents are increasingly calling out his supporters’ behavior.

For decades, the Dimocratic Party has sown the wind; they’re about to reap the whirlwind.

And in the EnvironMental Moment, writing at City Journal, John Tierney notes…

The Perverse Panic over Plastic

The campaign against disposable bags and other products is harming the planet and the public.

“…Like the recycling movement, the plastic panic has been sustained by popular misconceptions. Environmentalists and their champions in the media have ignored, skewed, and fabricated facts to create several pervasive myths…”

For more on the myths on which the entire EnviroNazi movement is based, click on the #3 icon at the top of the page immediately beneath our Quote of the Day.

Which brings us to The Lighter Side:

Finally, in the Sports Section, we learn…

Olympic swimming champ Sun Yang banned for 8 years in doping case

“Chinese swimmer Sun Yang was banned for eight years on Friday and will miss the 2020 Tokyo Olympics because he broke anti-doping rules in a late-night incident in which a blood sample container was smashed with a hammer. The Court of Arbitration for Sport found the three-time Olympic champion guilty of refusing to cooperate with sample collectors during a visit to his home in September 2018 that turned confrontational.

“The athlete failed to establish that he had a compelling justification to destroy his sample collection containers and forego the doping control when, in his opinion, the collection protocol was not in compliance,” the CAS panel of three judges agreed in a unanimous verdict.

In a rare hearing in open court in November, evidence was presented of how a security guard instructed by Sun’s mother broke the casing around a vial of his blood…”

Yang rooks rike he could use some of Hirraly’s BreachBit…on his teeth!

Here’s the juice: though we try to put a comic spin on most of our stories, as Jim Freeman details at Best of the Web, like the mentally-ill boys robbing girls of their just rewards in Connecticut, crimes such as Yang’s aren’t victimless.

Magoo