The latest polls show that a majority of voters (58%) favor reforming our election laws so everyone in America can vote by mail. An additional percentage (9%) back a one-time exception this year because of the pandemic.

Having the entire nation vote by mail is not a good idea, but it will take some convincing arguments to sway the current push for nationwide voting by mail. In fact, there are already five states (Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, and Utah) that already conduct elections entirely by mail.

Why is voting by mail dangerous? First, the voter rolls are notoriously in bad shape. One study concluded that there are more voter registrations in 378 US counties than there are citizens of voting age in that county. Some voters have moved away. Others are registered more than once. Voters who have died are still on the rolls.

Mailing out ballots to the entire nation means that hundreds of thousands (or more) are arriving at homes for people who no longer live there or who are registered at more than one location. There is great potential for voter fraud.

Second, universal voting by mail raises significant security questions. These ballots are the only kind that are being marked without any supervision from election officials. People can engage in election fraud. Voters might even be intimidated into voting a certain way.

If someone is disabled or concerned about the virus, they can vote by absentee ballot in a majority of states. That has always been the case. Most all states allow early voting, which would allow citizens to vote when there isn’t a crowd at the polling place.

I think having the entire nation vote by mail is a bad idea. But I realize that it appears that most Americans want to move ahead with it anyway.

Many hospitals in America seem headed for bankruptcy. How could this be, given the need for clinics and hospitals to fight the virus pandemic? The reason is simple. The CDC recommended that health-care providers postpone “elective” procedures in order to have the needed capacity to treat COVID-19 patients.

If you needed a knee replacement, you had to wait. Everything from hernia repairs to colonoscopies were delayed. Some doctors even paused chemotherapy for less aggressive cancers in order to avoid exposing their patients with suppressed immune systems to the virus.

There’s just one problem. Hospitals and doctors make most of their income from these elective procedures that the CDC recommended they postpone. The Wall Street Journal reports that hospitals and physicians are now hemorrhaging cash. That revenue stream has dried up for now.

In addition to the financial cost is the medical cost of suspending care. Preventive screenings (mammograms and colonoscopies) have been cancelled. Cancers that would have been found go undetected. Chronic conditions can get worse because regular check-ups have been postponed. We may be moving quickly toward telemedicine, but many important diagnoses must take place in person.

Over the next few weeks, we will be hearing about hospitals filing for bankruptcy and health-care workers being fired or furloughed. It may seem hard to believe that the doctors, nurses, and medical personnel that we depended on these many weeks will now lose their jobs because of the CDC recommendation.

We have been praising these health-care workers for their stamina and perseverance in the midst of this pandemic. Unfortunately, we may end up rewarding many of them with a pink slip.

If you have been concerned about how the media has been reporting the virus pandemic, you are certainly not alone. HBO host Bill Maher is not only upset with the way the establishment media is reporting, he has even warned those in the media that their current methods of reporting will help President Donald Trump be reelected.

He began by acknowledging that “we’re starting to see some hope in all this.” But he fears that this “non-stop doom and gloom gives Trump the chance to play the optimist.” Then he reminded them that “optimists tend to win American elections.” To drive home his point, he displayed a graphic of candidate Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign poster that had the large word: HOPE.

He also gave them a little history lesson. President Franklin D. Roosevelt is famous for saying, “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” But he warned the media if they keep this up, Donald Trump will ride into a second term and “there will be no hope left for you to shame.”

He described the “daily drumbeat of depression and terror” as “panic porn.” He explained that “Everything looks scary if you magnify it one thousand times.” He also cited the major newspapers for describing the coronavirus as apocalyptic. His advice was to “calm down and treat us like adults.

He wasn’t finished. He also criticized his fellow liberals for making such a big deal out of calling it a Chinese virus. “Scientists,” he said, “who are generally pretty liberal have been naming diseases after places they came from for a very long time.”

This time, I think we can agree that Bill Maher is right. Sensationalistic reporting and politically correct demands for how to name the virus have not served the public well. The current virus reporting might even help President Trump win the 2020 election.

Should Congress approve more stimulus money? Former Senator Phil Gramm says no. When he was in Congress, he served as the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee and previously was a professor of economics. He co-authored an op-ed arguing that more stimulus would crush the recovery.

He acknowledges that we always face a challenge when a major crisis occurs during an election year. There is lots of political posturing and opportunism. But he also believes we need a reality check. The three stimulus packages will increase federal spending by half and quadruple the deficit. Soon it will trigger the largest monetary expansion since the Civil War.

It is worth questioning what has already been done before Congress approves any more spending. The massive involvement of the federal government requires the government to borrow more than ever, “consuming the very oxygen that a powerful recovery will need” from the private sector.

The authors do not mention two issues I have discussed on radio. First, federal money isn’t always going to those who need it most. Americans are getting $1200 checks even if they have not lost their jobs. Major companies that have not shut down are eligible for the Paycheck Protection Program.

Second, Congress approved benefits that may have unintended consequences. Senators, like Ben Sasse, tried to amend the legislation so that it would cap unemployment benefits at 100 percent of people’s salary before they were laid off. The senators along with members of the administration feared the bill would incentivize people to not return to work.

Perhaps the biggest concern is that this crisis is being used to vastly expand government spending and expand the size and scope of government. If the trend continues, we will have an even larger and intrusive government even in the post-pandemic America of the future.

Ramadan begins today. It is a holy month of fasting for Muslims. But you may have also noticed that Ramadan seems to be a time of increased attacks on infidels. Every year the death toll runs into the hundreds. I fear this year the statistics will also be grim.

At first this seems like a contradiction. Ramadan occurs during the ninth lunar month in the Islamic calendar. It is time when Muslims fast from their first prayer of the day (at dawn) to their fourth prayer (after sunset). They also refrain from other activities and focus their minds on fervent prayer. Ramadan is a holy month, so why all the violence?

One of my regular guests on radio is Dr. Jim Denison. He explains that Muslims believe they will receive greater rewards during this month on the Islamic calendar. Muhammad himself actually preached a sermon on Ramadan in which he said, “Whoever performs an obligatory deed in [this month] shall receive the reward of performing seventy obligations at any other time.”

One Taliban spokesman therefore proclaimed, “Our fight is Jihad and an obligatory worship. And every obligatory act of worship has 70 times more reward in Ramadan.” I guess it’s not surprising that jihadists use this month to maximize their rewards.

Each attack is different. A gunman stormed a casino in Manila. Attackers killed more than two-dozen Coptic Christians traveling on a bus in Egypt. A bombing in Baghdad killed a dozen and injured nearly 100. A suicide vehicle in Kabul destroyed parts of the German embassy and killed many. And attackers in London drove over pedestrians and then stabbed others after leaving the vehicle.

Ramadan begins today. Let us pray that it will end without the usual violence that has been part of it in the past.

How many Americans have died of the coronavirus? You would think the answer to that question would be fairly simple. After all, we have the bodies in morgues and funeral homes that we can count. That is true. But how many of those people died of the virus becomes a more difficult question to answer.

Most media reports argue that we have a significant undercount, even in this country. It isn’t because government officials are trying to hide anything. It is due to the widespread lack of testing, especially in the early weeks of the outbreak. Also, people dying at home usually aren’t tested. And even some who die at a hospital or nursing home may not be tested because medical examiners are overburdened in many of the nation’s hot spots.

In order to counter this disparity, New York City last week decided to add 3,700 people to its death tolls. They “presumed” they died from the virus. That addition increased the US death toll by 17 percent. And it is worth mentioning that Ohio also has included people in their death toll who they have “suspected” of having the virus.

Is it possible that instead of an undercount, we might have an overcount? Dr. Anthony Fauci has dismissed this concern as merely a “conspiracy theory.” But Dr. Deborah Birx explained is a recent press briefing that people are counted as victims of the pandemic if they tested positive for the coronavirus, even if something else caused their death.

This raises an important distinction between dying from the virus versus dying with the virus. And I’m not just playing with prepositions. If you died of cancer or a heart attack but also tested positive for COVID-19, you are listed as a victim of the pandemic.

As you can see, getting an accurate number of coronavirus deaths isn’t so easy.

Three dozen states have voter ID laws, but one of those states (Virginia) just struck down the requirement to show identification before voting. The governor signed the bill arguing that “voting is a fundamental right.” That is true and all the more reason to make sure voter fraud does not take place.

Meanwhile, Michelle Obama announced a nationwide push to have every state vote by mail and allow people to register online. Progressives have tried to eliminate voter ID laws and promote liberal policies toward voting for years. But they have had limited success, until now. Concerns about the virus pandemic, they believe, might provide sufficient justification for altering our election laws.

The argument against voter ID is difficult to make in a society that requires identification for just about everything. You need an ID to buy a cell phone. You need an ID to open a bank account. You need an ID to rent or buy a house and to apply for a mortgage. You need an ID to rent a car or even drive a car. You need an ID to get on an airplane. You need an ID to apply for food stamps and to apply for Medicaid and Social Security.

Having the entire nation vote by mail means that all those votes are cast without any election official overseeing the process. We don’t if there was undue influence or intimidation. We also know that voter registration rolls are often inaccurate and out of date. Someone could vote in place of someone who died, and we might never know it. Absentee voting by mail is helpful for some and can be allowed for certain circumstances. But having all Americans vote by mail is a temptation for voter fraud and would endanger the security and integrity of the election process.

The pandemic cannot be an excuse for changing elections in America.

Whenever you see a news report or hear a comment from a medical expert during this virus pandemic, it is important to use some discernment and apply some logic. Since so much of what is reported is from medical experts, it is easy to be intimidated since few of us have a medical degree. But you don’t have to know much about science or medicine to see the flaws in what is reported.

A good example from a month ago were the statements about masks. On the one hand, we were told that we should NOT wear a mask. On the other hand, we were told that medical professionals needed masks to protect themselves. Did that mean the masks only work if you get a paycheck from a clinic or hospital? The general public began to see through the double message being put out by politicians and health care experts.

Now medical professionals are writing articles trying to explain the different infection rates and death rates. They frequently point to different dates when states went into lockdown as the explanation. Yet a state like Nebraska, that never went into lockdown, has a very low death rate (less than 1 per 100,000).

Dennis Prager cites an article in the Los Angeles Times that quotes a UC Berkeley biostatistician. He argued that California has a lower death rate than New York, because California issued a lockdown order earlier than New York.

Prager then explains that the article undermines its entire thesis in the next paragraph by stating that Florida didn’t impose a stay-at-home order until April 1. The Los Angeles Times authors never thought to look up Florida’s death rate which is one of the lowest in the country. And it worth mentioning that Florida has a largest percentage of elderly people in the country.

You don’t have to know much about medicine to see the logical flaws in the statements by politicians and the reporting by the media.

Scott Gottlieb (former FDA Administrator) concluded that this coronavirus would have been more deadly than the Spanish Flu it if appeared in 1918. That’s a reasonable conclusion based on what we know about this virus and what was not medically available back then.

We currently have a debate about the severity and extent of COVID-19. Some skeptics believe the dangers have been exaggerated. Some of the models predicted more infections and more deaths than have occurred. Health care professionals lament that many Americans don’t seem to take the warnings seriously. These debates will go on for months.

One thing we probably can all accept is that this virus would have taxed the medical capacities of 1918. The world was at war, and medical facilities were nothing like what we have today. For example, a patient with COVID-19 today who needs intensive care still has a good chance of survival. We are seeing patients being rolled out of hospitals after facing significant respiratory issues.

Gottlieb observes that “anyone who gets admitted to a prolonged ICU stay with COVID-19 who ends up getting intubated or ends up getting prolonged care—that’s probably someone who would have died from the Spanish flu.” He therefore concluded that “COVID-19 not only looks like the Spanish flu in terms of its distribution across the age range but looks far more fearsome.”

At the very least, his observation should make you feel grateful that you not only live in the 21st century but that you live in the US. It has been popular among many politicians to criticize America’s health care system and to attack Big Pharma. Yet, these observations from the former FDA commissioner is a reminder of the benefits we enjoy in this country at this time.

In one of those ZOOM get-togethers that have become a social lifeline lately, participants were asked to reveal their worst and best experiences during life in the coronavirus lockdown.

My worst is an underlying angst and sleeplessness I can’t shake as I watch businesses and workers idled and try to swallow the passage of trillions of dollars in relief and stimulus.

I could go on about this. And I did, starting our time together on a real downer.

My fellow participants rescued the meeting as they began describing the good things they’re experiencing as a result of the current limitations.

People spoke of how they’re finding more time for reflection on their relationship with the Lord. Some see themselves dropping pretenses of control. We find it uncomfortable, even painful — but good — to learn to trust God more. Others said they appreciate relaxed dinners with spouses and family members, and opportunities to do some long-postponed purging and organizing at home. Many of us agreed we’re reaching out more to people who are important to us — often calling rather than emailing or texting.

And folks mentioned some sweet opportunities to communicate the gospel and provide help to others.

The Wall Street Journal’s Peggy Noonan predicted some positives for the nation in her column last weekend: First, she quoted a social psychologist who says: “hardship generally makes people stronger.” And Ms. Noonan wondered, “Could what we’re enduring leave us less polarized?” Not in Washington — she clarified the question — but “across America.” She wrote, “We need to be easier on each other, turn down the judgement 80%, or 90%.”

I’m rooting for getting the economy opened up sooner rather than later. The spending and the limitations on freedom must be curtailed before they’re baked in. But this era of lockdown is forcing practices like more online education and homeschooling, telemedicine, and commonsense immigration restrictions that could prove worthwhile and remain, becoming a silver lining to this dark cloud.