By Nancy Thorner –
An outstanding webinar conference took place April 30, 2020. The express purpose of the webinar was to open Maryland, as well as the whole nation, although comments made by the six featured speakers were apropos for all freedom loving Americans across this nation.
Jim Simpson, the host, is a successful businessman, economist, author, journalist and speaker, who got his start at the White House Office of Management and Budget under presidents Reagan, H.W. Bush and Clinton. Presently, Simpson is a candidate for U.S. Congress in Maryland’s District 2. More about Simpson’s campaign can be found at https://www.jimsimpsonforcongress.com/about.
This author didn’t hesitate to register for Simpson’s webinar conference, which, upon watching on her computer, was deemed excellent and note-worthy to share with Illinois Review readers.
The webinar speakers are presented in order of appearance.
Freedom-loving sheriffs
The first two speakers featured via Zoom were two freedom-loving sheriffs, Sheriffs Richard Mack and Chuck Jenkins.
Sheriff Richard Mack founded the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA) in 2011, an organization with a mission similar to Oath Keepers, which encourages members to refuse to enforce laws they believe are unconstitutional. Sheriff Mack resides in Arizona.
Mack served as a career law enforcement officer, detective, sheriff, hostage negotiator, along with many other duties. He led a fight with six other sheriffs challenging the constitutionality of the Brady (gun control) Bill and won at the Supreme Court.
Sheriff Mack had the following to say in expounding upon the shutdown as an issue of constitutionality: “The Constitution applies to what is going on today. Never was there a time when you could suspend aspects of the Constitution and expect to get them back in the same form.” As to orders being given, said Mack, “None of the orders should be followed by any peace officer whose duty it is to protect our God-given rights.”
Continued Sheriff Mack, “Liberty is being destroyed to get rid of the disease. One principle of liberty for which liberty was founded was Freedom of Religion, yet we are seeing the arrest of pastors and gatherings of worshipers being prohibited.”
Suggested by Sheriff Mack was the purchase his book, The Victory for State Sovereignty, which deals with MACK / PRINTZ V. USA — the monumental Supreme Court case that restored the Tenth Amendment Abridged. Mack’s pocket-size booklet contains key verbiage from the official court record, with comments added, making it a great companion to the pocket constitution.
Sheriff Jenkins presently serves as Sheriff of Frederick County, Maryland and 2nd Vice-President of the Maryland Sheriff’s Association. A regular on Fox News, he has testified several times before the U.S. Congress on illegal immigration issues.
Jenkins understands his powers and duties. In discussing the shutdowns instigated at the state level, Jenkins referred to those in law enforcement who focus attention on individuals not wearing masks and/or gatherings where too many people are assembled.
According to Sheriff Jenkins, many state orders have gone too far. He has told his men not to arrest offenders, but to explain instead the rules that are meant to be followed. Jenkins fears that much pre-bargaining of criminals will take place once the coronavirus scare ends, resulting from the backlog of cases now in the court system.
Paraphrasing Jenkins: “With all the noise of the media and other sources, it’s impossible to know what to believe; nevertheless, it is necessary to open up this nation to prevent its collapse. Jumping at the bit to take the place of the U.S. is China”
China’s biological warfare program
Clare Lopaz is founder and president of Lopez Liberty LLC and an author at The United West. As a bio-weapons expert, Lopaz is a former CIA operations officer, former Center for Security Policy Vice President, and was national security advisor for Sen. Ted Cruz’ 2016 presidential campaign.
In explaining what we are up against, Ms. Lopaz suggested the following three books
1. “The Art of War”: Written in China more than 2,000 years ago, Sun Tzu’s classic The Art of War is the first known study of the planning and conduct of military operations without fighting an actual war.
2. “Unrestricted Warfare: China’s Master Plan to Destroy America”: A 1999 book written by two Chinese Communist Colonels in the People’s Liberation Army. It’s a battle plan for waging war across a span of methods of operations that explicitly includes “ Bio-chemical warfare, among other things like diplomatic warfare, economic warfare, electronic warfare, and space warfare, instead of actual warfare to subdue an enemy.
3. “The Hundred-Year Marathon: China’s Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower”: A fascinating read that puts “Unrestricted Warfare” into an historical context spanning millennia by Michael Pillsbury, Director of the Center on Chinese Strategy at the Hudson Institute.
As Lopaz related: It was a mistake to welcome China into the world network of trade and nation states. In 1949 China initiated a hundred-year plan. By 2049, China fully expects she will have taken the place of this nation as the world power, as explained in The Hundred-Year Marathon by Michael Pillsbury.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping has also laid out his own plan for world domination with a 30-year plan (2020–2050) to transform China. Its goal is to surpass the US to become the world’s biggest global superpower.
Lopaz explained how China has one of the most important biological warfare programs in the world. In 2014 the Obama administration funded a broad grant of 3.7 million to the ECO Health Alliance to research the coronavirus. Funding was held up for a while by the Obama administration, but after 2017 somehow the funding resumed and instead went to the Wuhan Institution of Viology in China. Trump was unaware of the funding.
The upshot, according to Ms. Lopaz:
As related by Clare Lopaz, also part of her special Made in China report of April 20, 2020 to be read here in full here:
There’s little doubt anymore that COVID-19 originated in China. It’s very possible – likely even – that the Wuhan coronavirus was not released into the world on purpose. But it’s also a fact that the Chinese Communist regime runs a sophisticated offensive biological weapons program.
Created was a hybrid that would never have developed naturally as a genetically engineered bioweapon. It was made more efficient to latch more easily onto to human cells.
Lopaz believes the hybrid bio weapon was released too soon, indicative of the clumsy way China dealt with the backlash through lying, coverups, and even shifting blame to this nation. Bio defense experts know what the Chinese did at the lab; however, public health officials do not have a complete understanding of what the virus really is
A journalist at The Epoch Times, Joshua Philipp, has produced a documentary film called “ Tracking Down the Origin of Wuhan Coronavirus.” It is put together in a way to be easily accessible to the average viewer.
County-based cost/benefit risk analysis to reopen state economies
Benjamin Nieuwsma is CEO & Founder of NAVIGO, Inc., a global risk analysis company which has supported customers across 95 countries. Benjamin is the creator of the new RestartNOW tool that provides a county-based cost/benefit risk analysis for reopening economies from the COVID-19 pandemic.
As explained by Nieuwsma, RestartNOW was created to assist decision-makers in the effort to restart the economy in stages, quickly and safely, right down to the county level. It provides a myriad of information regarding the economic, social, and health impacts of the virus itself but more importantly, those same impacts accruing from the shutdown itself. Currently available 18 states, including California, Idaho, Florida, Maryland, Nebraska, New Mexico, and Texas, this tool needs to be developed for every state and expeditiously incorporated.
Nieuwsma’s emphasis was on his RestartNow for Maryland. There is data to assess each Maryland county. This data driven approach is aimed at saving lives, livelihoods, and Maryland’s economic future, further indicating how another month of economic shutdowns would increase suicide rate through the absence of economic security. Human connections are essential in preventing suicide, yet we tell people not to do mingle with others.
According to Nieuwsma, low risk counties should be opened up. Protective measures are then important for those who are smokers, older people, or who have compromising health conditions. A blanket shut down is insane and will possibly result in more deaths from suicide than from the virus itself.
Nieuwsma’s report was shared with Maryland legislators and President Trump.
No shortage of beef, only getting it processed for distribution
The final presentation was by rancher Mike Elmore of Wyoming.
Preceding his remarks was a video by Shad Sullivan, another rancher, titled, We are being forced to dump your food supply.
” Food producers across the country, from vegetable farmers to cattle ranchers, are being forced to destroy crops and animals on an unimaginable scale. This is not the result of the COVID-19 pandemic but rather its effects on monopolistic processing and packing plants, many of which have been shuttered due to localized outbreaks of the virus. Even worse, meat and produce is still being imported into the United States from poorly-regulated countries such as Namibia. If there is anything that makes the case for decentralizing food processing and packing plants in the United States, and implementing common-sense policies on food imports such as Country of Origin Labeling, it’s this current crisis.”
In commenting about the video, Elmore said: “We are plowing under vegetable crops from coast to coast. We are euthanizing millions of chickens. We are aborting sows and burying feeder pigs. We are dumping milk by the hundreds of thousands of gallons, and now they are preparing us to depopulate the fat cattle ready to harvest because of a bottleneck caused by the effects of COVID…”
Even worse, meat and produce are still being imported into the United States from poorly regulated countries such as Namibia. If there is anything that makes the case for decentralizing food processing and packing plants in the United States and implementing common-sense policies on food imports such as Country of Origin Labeling, it’s this current crisis. As for meat, It must only be processed in a U.S. meat processing plants to be a product of the U.S.
Said Elmore: There is no shortage of beef. It’s just a matter of getting it processed for distribution, existing because of the vulnerability where meat is packaged.
President Trump called for packing companies to go back to work, but how to accomplish this. Social distancing can’t happen in a slaughterhouse. Workers will not go back to work, who are mostly Hispanics and refugees who work for almost nothing, if they are afraid of dying. Then too, the packing companies and the workers are also beholden to unions and the progressive Left.
Nancy J. Thorner 