Sometimes I will, then again I think I won't Sometimes I do, then again I think I don't

-- Chuck Berry, Reelin’ and Rockin’ 1957

The news is suddenly awash in reports that, on May 6, Netflix and the Barack and Michelle Obama production company will premiere a documentary about the book tour Michelle Obama did in connection with her memoir.  Both the memoir and the documentary are entitled Becoming.  What's interesting is that this premiere is a surprise:

Am I the only one who finds this "surprise" an amazing coincidence when taken in conjunction with Joe Biden's declining candidacy?

Additionally, Michelle has been popping up all over the place.  Yes, surprise, surprise.

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Plans for a new Baltic–Black Sea waterway, passing through Ukraine, Belarus and Poland, have the potential to revolutionize the geopolitics of Europe’s East as well as exacerbate East-West tensions.

The transit project would not only help the economies of all three participating countries and their neighbors.  It would also promote trilateral cooperation on other issues, including security, and make each one of them more attractive partners for the West.

Not surprisingly, such prospects are gaining support in the US and part of the EU but generating ever more opposition in Moscow. Russia rightfully views E40 as a threat to its influence in the region and even, according to some analysts, as an existential threat to Russia itself.

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“Sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing…”

How many times did we sing that, never thinking about those simple, precious words?  Yet if history teaches us anything it is that liberty is elusive.  Precious.  It can slip away like a shadow, with hardly a whisper.  Before you know it it’s gone and once gone it is not so easy for the people to get back.  The powerful do not readily let it go.  It has to be ripped from their hands.  Fought for.

Two hundred and forty-four years ago, the founders of the United States began a long and bloody war to wrest liberty for us from the hands of King George  and secure it for posterity.

Yet, like the frog that will jump out of a pot of boiling water but swim contentedly until he becomes cuisses de grenouilles in water that is gradually warming, we have stood by in modern America and watched as our liberties have been eroded.  Now, today, we are suddenly in dire jeopardy of them being gone forever.

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The tragedy of the COVID-19 pandemic appears to be entering the containment phase. Tens of thousands of Americans have died, and Americans are now desperate for sensible policymakers who have the courage to ignore the panic and rely on facts.

Leaders must examine accumulated data to see what has actually happened, rather than keep emphasizing hypothetical projections; combine that empirical evidence with fundamental principles of biology established for decades; and then thoughtfully restore the country to function.

Five key facts are being ignored by those calling for continuing the near-total lockdown.

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The hysteria drummed up by the mainstream media over COVID-19 China Flu, in conjunction with the draconian lockdown measures being employed by many governors, is costing thousands of American lives.

As a result of the crashing economy, hospitals and medical facilities have furloughed doctors and staff, and people who want to seek treatment simply don't have the option.

Aside from suicide, cancer, and heart attacks, coronavirus hysteria and irrational stay-at-home orders are causing an increase in substance abuse.  The lady’s sign above is right: the “cure” is deadlier – literally – than the disease.

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We often ascribe a basic level of humanity to even the cruelest leaders, but People’s Republic of China leader Xi Jinping’s actions have forced us to rethink this assumption.

Although the emergence of the novel coronavirus now known as SARS-CoV-2 was possibly not due to China’s actions, the emphasis that its authoritarian system places on hiding bad news  gave the disease a sizable head start infecting the world.

Most ominously, China’s obsession with image and Machtpolitik raises serious questions about its lack of moral limits.  It may be there are none.

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A hostile foreign power openly meddles in U.S. electoral politics, working to cast discord generally and specifically to smear one of the two remaining candidates for our highest office.

If Democrats were consistent about the paranoia they fomented over the laughably small efforts of Russia to influence the 2016 presidential election, they would now demand immediate action to counter this nefarious foreign threat.

Only, this time, the adversary is China, and the declared target of their open election interference is the incumbent President Donald J. Trump – with China’s declared favorite Joe “Beijing” Biden.”

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