For reasons decipherable only to them, two members of the House, Republican Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana and Democratic Rep. Seth Moulton of Massachusetts are looking to pass a nonbonding resolution blaming China for the COVID-19 pandemic.
The resolution, which would be purely for show and have no legal bearing on any damn thing, seeks to express "the sense of the House of Representatives that the Government of the People's Republic of China made multiple, serious mistakes in the early stages of the COVID-19 outbreak that heightened the severity and spread of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, [...]"
Will there be another resolution condemning the government of the United States for literally and precisely making similar "multiple, serious mistakes?"
"[...] which include the Chinese Government's intentional spread of misinformation to downplay the risks of the virus,"
Like telling their citizens that there were only "fifteen cases, soon to be zero?" Like claiming that Americans worried for the stock market should "buy on the dip?" Like claiming that warnings about the potentially disastrous results of a spreading hoax were a "hoax" being peddled by opposition voices and "fake news?"
"[...] a refusal to cooperate with international health authorities, internal censorship of doctors and journalists,"
Like a new order for top government pandemic experts to stop giving information in public unless they get prior permission from the vice president? Like refusing to answer questions from certain reporters due to the government being angry with the stories being produced by that outlet?
"[...] and malicious disregard for the health of ethnic minorities."
Like ignoring the world-recognized official name of the disease causing the current pandemic, instead calling it the "China virus" or "Chinese virus” in a blatant attempt to shift blame for an incompetent domestic response to an overseas target? A move that is putting ethic minorities in danger nationwide as the party leader's rhetoric goads the public into hate crimes against those minorities?
Piss off with this. Either pair it with a near-identical resolution condemning the Trump administration for their own "multiple, serious mistakes," their own rampant and now-deadly misinformation, and their own attempts to shift blame by scapegoating others or piss off with this. It serves only to further escalate racist attacks and paper over the catastrophic administration non-response to the emerging pandemic, a collapse of leadership that squandered all possibility of gaining control over the virus before it was spread, undetected and untested-for, nationwide.
Stop playing games in the biggest national emergency the United States has faced since the Spanish flu. You know, the Spanish flu—the one that originated in the United States, in Kansas.