State of the Nation: COVID-19 national health crisis could push America to the brink of civil war

Residents posting in the Michiganders Against Excessive Quarantine Facebook page called for Whitmer’s assassination. “Wonder how long till she’s hit with a shotgun blast,” one wrote. Another said they hope Thursday’s protesters are “armed to the teeth” because “voting is too late.” Dramatic images from a 30 April protest showed militia members carrying assault rifles while glaring and shouting from the galleries of the state legislature as an emotional debate over extending a stay-at-home order took place. In response, a black lawmaker last week came to Michigan’s capitol with an escort of armed black citizens.  –Yahoo News

Other ominous warnings about America’s grim future in this pandemic have been sounded by some of the nation’s leading scientists and epidemiologists. These professionals attest the Trump Administration fell asleep at the wheel, down-played the coronavirus threat from the onset, and responded too little and too late to avert a national health crisis that is now approaching 90,000 deaths. America faces the “darkest winter in modern history” unless leaders act decisively to prevent a rebound of the coronavirus, says a government whistle-blower who alleges he was ousted from his job after warning the Trump administration to prepare for the pandemic.

Immunologist Dr. Rick Bright makes his sobering prediction in testimony prepared for his appearance Thursday before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Aspects of his complaint about early administration handling of the crisis are expected to be backed up by testimony from an executive of a company that manufactures, respirator masks. “Our window of opportunity is closing,” Bright says in his prepared testimony posted on the House committee website. “If we fail to develop a national coordinated response, based in science, I fear the pandemic will get far worse and be prolonged, causing unprecedented illness and fatalities.” –AP News

If federal deficits rising to near unsustainable levels, declining state tax revenue, rising unemployment, a shortage of COVID-19 test and PPE equipment at U.S. hospitals, the back-lash against face masks and lock-downs, increasing racial tension, rising drug use and record gun sales, the threat of a deadlier second peak, dwindling food-supply chains, and the highest coronavirus death toll in the world is not enough to sink a nation into anarchy and civil war; I don’t know what is. Unless we put aside our differences and come together as a country to fight COVID-19, we will defeat ourselves long before the virus ever has a chance to.