Posts on Monday, April 13, 2020
As the northern hemisphere begins to emerge from the worst of the pandemic, political punditry is focusing on two issues: how to reopen the economy and how to decouple from China. The two subjects are related because a large part of the Western economy is joined at the hip with Beijing. To a substantial degree, China produces what America consumes. Each country's holdings in the other are enormous. They are bound by innumerable contracts, deals, projects and cross-posted personnel that are not easily severed.
This system of cross-dependency was consciously pursued to vaccinate the world against a repetition of the two world wars. However, globalization also significantly eroded the independence
Trump Derangement Pandemic
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In this spring season, America’s future is fraught with uncertainties as a result of the pandemic unleashed by communist China’s malicious deceptions about a virus that first appeared in the city of Wuhan.
Will the nation be able to “re-open” as the president desires, or will it descend into a long-lasting depression with millions unemployed? At the same time, a much greater uncertainty haunts the horizon. This uncertainty is a product of the ferocious hate for the president and his supporters ginned up by the political left ever since the 2016 election.
The anti-Trump fervor is so intense that it has divided the nation into two alien camps
Dr. Anthony Fauci: Contrary
to media spin, Trump followed
our virus mitigation recommendations replies
to media spin, Trump followed
our virus mitigation recommendations replies
Today’s Wuhan coronavirus press briefing was an amazing event. First, Anthony Fauci eviscerated claims in the media that Trump refused to follow mitigation recommendations soon enough. That claim was made after the media misleadingly cherrypicked a portion of a sentence from an interview Fauci did with Jake Tapper on Sunday. That created another frenzied news cycle about how Trump had blood on his hands. (Snip) Fauci said on two occasions he and White House coronavirus coordinator Deborah Birx approached Trump twice to recommend restrictions and that both times he agreed.
Former President Barack Obama says the time is now, during the Chinese coronavirus crisis, to provide amnesty to about 3.5 million illegal aliens who are enrolled and eligible for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.
While about ten million Americans have filed for unemployment in just three weeks, Obama took to Twitter to call for an amnesty for DACA illegal aliens in the midst of the coronavirus crisis.
“Dreamers have contributed so much to our country, and they are risking their lives fighting on the frontlines of this pandemic,” Obama said.
Rand Paul on His Coronavirus Experience:
‘No Symptoms’ — Never Had Headache,
Body Ache, Fever or Cough replies
‘No Symptoms’ — Never Had Headache,
Body Ache, Fever or Cough replies
Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), fresh off of his bout with coronavirus, told Fox News Channel on Monday he had what he deemed to be an “extraordinarily mild case.”
According to Paul, who is now serving as a volunteer at his local hospital, he did not show the symptoms others had because of the virus.
“Well, you know, in my case, I had an extraordinarily mild case,” he said. “I had no symptoms. Never had a headache. Never had a body ache. Never had a fever. Never had a cough. I didn’t really have any symptoms.
An intrusion suspect in Fredericksburg, Texas, was shot dead by a homeowner’s fiance Saturday morning after he allegedly choked the homeowner unconscious.
The woman was the homeowner’s fiancee.
KVUE reports the incident began when the 73-year-old homeowner hold noises in the night and went to investigate. The homeowner, Curtis Roys, discovered that an individual, 19-year-old Cleto Neri Solorzano, was allegedly trying to break through the patio door.
Roys confronted Solorzano, only to have Solorzano allegedly force his way through the door.
Solorzano then allegedly attacked Roys, and began choking him. Roys’ 65-year-old fiancee was in the room at this point and she ran back to the bedroom and retrieved a handgun.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) is allowing “drive-up” sales of firearms during the cornonavirus shutdown.
Cincinnati.com reports the ATF posted the new guidelines for Federal Firearms License holders (FFLs) on Friday, giving the dealers the option of conducting sales through a “drive-up” or “walk-up” window.
The ATF made clear that the sale transaction must take place in a way that “the customer is on the licensee’s property, on the exterior of the brick-and-mortar structure at the address listed on the license.” And the option of “drive-up” or “walk-up” sales do not eliminate the requirement for a background check via the National Instant Criminal Background System (NICS).
Virginia Governor Signs Law Ordering ‘All
Places’ Open to Public to Let
Transgenders Use Ladies’ Rooms replies
Places’ Open to Public to Let
Transgenders Use Ladies’ Rooms replies
Gov. Ralph Northam of Virginia, a Democrat, signed a law on Good Friday prohibiting “all places or businesses offering or holding out to the general public goods, services, privileges, facilities, advantages, or accommodations” from denying access to those things to people 18 years and older based on what the law calls “gender identity.”The law goes on to define “gender identity” as follows: “The term ‘gender identity,’ when used in reference to discrimination in the Code and acts of the General Assembly, means the gender-related identity, appearance,
The New York Times revealed that Joe Biden's campaign influenced the newspaper's decision to edit out allegations of sexual misconduct from a story published over the weekend.On Sunday, the New York Times was criticized for editing a sentence and deleting a tweet noting that Biden has been accused of sexual misconduct by women who found that his hugging and hair sniffing crossed the line. The sentence and the tweet were part of a larger story on the sexual assault allegation from Tara Reade, a former Biden staffer, who accused him of placing his hand under her skirt and penetrating her with his fingers.
'We don't have a king': Cuomo disputes Trump
claim of 'total' authority over reopening states replies
claim of 'total' authority over reopening states replies
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo wants President Trump to know he's not a king.Appearing Monday evening on MSNBC, the New York Democrat hit back against Trump’s claim that he has complete control over when states reopen and said that the premise violates the Constitution.“I don’t know why the president said it. I don’t know why he would take us down this path because it’s the exact opposite of everything he’s been trying to say,” Cuomo said, pointing out that Trump showed a video featuring various governors praising the administration for working with individual states at the same news conference.“It’s not legal. It’s a total abrogation of the Constitution,” Cuomo said.
Within every liberal, there's a totalitarian dictator, screaming to get out, to paraphrase the great David Horowitz. Nowhere is that more evident than in the case of Michigan's ambitious left-wing Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer.
She's declared war on garden seeds, forbidding their purchase from big box retailers now that there's a pandemic on, arbitrarily claiming they're not "essential."
This, from a governor who claims, of all things, to be a green, putting "climate change" at the "heart" of her governorship. That's some green — a green who advocates for brown, at least among the locals. Seems that changing the world "one act at a time,"
The governors of California, Oregon and Washington on Monday announced a joint plan of action to get a handle on the COVID-19 pandemic and ultimately reopen their economies. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee made the pact announcement in a statement. “COVID-19 has preyed upon our interconnectedness. In the coming weeks, the West Coast will flip the script on COVID-19 – with our states acting in close coordination and collaboration to ensure the virus can never spread wildly in our communities,” the statement read. The governors stressed that its coordinated response effort will
China appears to be taking advantage of the USS Theodore Roosevelt being crippled by the coronavirus by sending an aircraft carrier and fighter jets close to Taiwan over the weekend. Taiwan's Defense Ministry said the Liaoning, China's first operational aircraft carrier, and five accompanying warships passed first through the Miyako Strait, located between Japan's islands of Miyako and Okinawa, to the northeast of Taiwan, on Saturday.(Snip) The Liaoning, which can carry up to 24 J-15 fighter jets, is currently the only aircraft carrier active in the western Pacific.
Call me "Captain Obvious," but this must be said out loud: Democrats and their fake news media enforcers cruelly created corona-madness as a weapon to further their failed transformation of America. In their dream, America, government controls every aspect of our lives and the God of Christianity is banned.
Louisville mayor Greg Fischer decreed that he will not even allow a church to have drive-in parking lot Easter worship services. Thank God the church is suing his dictatorial derrière.
Drive-in worship services are banned in Raleigh, N.C. Wake County even forbade a pastor from visiting his church members in hospitals and rest homes.
CNN Goes Full Resistance: Chyrons During
Trump Coronavirus Briefing Read Like
Democrat Attack Ads replies
Trump Coronavirus Briefing Read Like
Democrat Attack Ads replies
CNN repeatedly posted statements on screen attacking President Trump during Monday’s White House coronavirus task force briefing with such viciousness they read like attack ads by the Democratic Party. Indeed, a Biden campaign official tweeted her approval of CNN’s attack on Trump.CNN reporter Shimon Prokupecz posted a series of photos of CNN’s chyron statements: “Angry Trump Turns Briefing into Propaganda Session”..“Trump Uses Task Force Briefing to try and Rewrite History on Coronavirus Response”
Joe Biden lashed out at President Trump for 'making excuses' in an op-ed in the New York Times detailing how he would handle the coroanvirus pandemic as president. 'We are now several months into this crisis, and still this administration has not squarely faced up to the "original sin" in it's failed response - the failure to test,' Biden pointed out in the editorial, which ran Sunday. The former vice president also warned that American life may be changed permanently, with crowds being a concept of the past. (Photos)
President Donald Trump shutdown CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins during the White House Coronavirus Task Force briefing on Monday after she repeatedly interrupted the president after he called on another reporter.“You said when someone is president of the United States, their authority is total,” Collins said. “That is not true. Who told you that?” “You know what we’re going to do? We are going to write up papers on this,” Trump responded. “It’s not going to be necessary because the governors need us one way or the other because ultimately it comes with the federal government.”
President Donald Trump on Monday showed reporters at the White House press briefing a video of their own reporting on the coronavirus, pointing out their failures and his success. “We have a few clips that we’re just going to put up, we could just turn the lights down lower, I think you’ll find them interesting,” Trump said. “And then we’ll answer some questions, I’ll ask you some questions because you’re so guilty, but forget it.” The president played the video on the screens at the White House press briefing room.
San Francisco—Wondering where your coronavirus stimulus check is, if it isn’t in your bank account just yet? There will soon be a tool for that! The Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service announced Friday it will launch a tool this week allowing Americans to register and track their stimulus checks. The tool is expected to be available around April 15. The free “Get My Payment” tool located on the IRS.gov website will allow taxpayers who filed their tax returns in 2018 or 2019 but did not provide their banking information on their return to submit direct deposit information as to ensure they get
RUSH: Okay. So, in the brief break, the brief segment we have, let me review here. “Coronavirus is not a major threat for the people in the United States and this is not something the citizens should be worried about,” Dr. Fauci, January 21st. He later said, “The American people…” Five days later, January 26: “The American people should not be worried or frightened by coronavirus. This is a very, very low risk to the United States. “It isn’t something the American public needs to be worried about or be frightened about.” Five days later, after Fauci says no big deal, Trump issued a travel ban on China.
He practiced what he preached — then he died of coronavirus. An evangelical pastor died of COVID-19 just weeks after proudly showing off how packed his Virginia church was — and vowing to keep preaching “unless I’m in jail or the hospital.” In his last known in-person service on March 22, Bishop Gerald O. Glenn got his congregation at Richmond’s New Deliverance Evangelistic Church to stand to prove how many were there despite warnings against gatherings of more than 10 people.
President Donald Trump will not fire Dr. Anthony Fauci, the White House clarified in a statement on Monday. “This media chatter is ridiculous – President Trump is not firing Dr. Fauci,” White House Deputy Press Secretary Hogan Gidley said in a statement, which he posted on social media.CNN and other establishment news organizations ramped up speculation that Trump was firing Fauci after the president retweeted a Twitter message from a supporter that included the hashtag #FireFauci. “Dr. Fauci has been and remains a trusted advisor to President Trump,” Gidley assured the public.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo teamed up with the leaders of five other Northeastern states on Monday to form a regional task force aimed at a gradual but thoughtful reopening of the economy beyond the coronavirus.“Everyone is very anxious to get out of the house, get back to work, get the economy moving,” said Cuomo in remarks to the press (Snip) For a smoother and more uniform approach, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Rhode Island will form a panel to share knowledge.
JFK
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There's too much chatter about movies that are "so bad, they're good." These admittedly amusing musings distract from a truly insidious phenomenon:
Movies "so good, they're bad."
No such creature as "just a movie" exists. We may (believe ourselves to) be capable of separating fact from fiction, but millions of people never will.
Take the "Hitler's Pope" canard. It was popularized by, of all things, a Soviet-orchestrated stage play called The Deputy, back in 1963. How many individuals have heard of this play, let alone seen it performed? A few thousand? Yet the Vatican's supposed collusion with the Nazis is widely considered "common knowledge," despite all the well-researched critiques
ABC News’ “Good Morning America” co-host George Stephanopoulos announced on Monday that he tested positive for coronavirus but feels “great” and currently doesn’t have any symptoms."I feel fine… I actually feel great,” Stephanopoulos told colleagues Robin Roberts and Michael Strahan. “I’ve never had a fever, never had cough, never had shortness of breath, never had chills.” (Tweet) Stephanopoulos’ wife, actress Ali Wentworth, announced earlier this month that she had tested positive for coronavirus. She detailed “horrific body aches,” a fever and a heavy chest
With the pandemic, ongoing economic collapse, and all the hours we’re now spending isolated in our own homes, it’s a weird time for all of us, including the rich and famous. Celebrities, whose jobs and livelihoods depend on their ability to draw attention to themselves, are adapting in their own ways. Movie premieres have been pushed back, TV productions are shut down, and the only paparazzi hot spots left seem to be grocery stores and the street Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas live on.
Most of the mechanisms with which famous people cultivate their famousness are out of commission; all that remains is social media.
Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont officially endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential race on Monday.
"We've got to make Trump a one-term president, and we need you in the White House," Sanders said in a livestreamed video with Biden. Sanders, a progressive firebrand who hit the ground running with a series of wins in early primary and caucus states, dropped out of the race on Wednesday after failing to pick up momentum, making Biden the presumptive Democratic nominee. Biden also praised Sanders on Monday and said he would need Sanders "not just to win the campaign, but to govern."
A China-owned pork processor announced Sunday that it’s shutting down a South Dakota plant indefinitely after employees were infected with coronavirus, noting that the nation’s grocers are under severe stress. Smithfield Foods announced the shutdown as government officials keep lockdowns in place across the country amid an ebbing coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 20,000 people in the United States. China’s WH Group purchased the company in 2013 for for $4.7 billion. Smithfield Foods retooled processing operations to direct meat to China, which produced much of the world’s pork shortly before a pig disease killed millions of hogs and turned the communist country into a major importer.
MARIN COUNTY, Calif. - Some Bay Area residents are learning the hard way - violating the stay at home order can be costly.But it really depends on where you are in the Bay Area. Different cities and counties are enforcing the orders in their own way. At Sea Cliff beach in Santa Cruz County, a San Jose woman who wished to remain anonymous was cited Thursday after snapping a photo during what she called a "mental break" from the confines of home. “A sheriff's officer pulled up and told us that he was going to give us a citation for
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem on Monday announced a statewide clinical trial of hydroxychloroquine for the possible treatment of COVID-19, making her state the first in the country to institute a program exploring the potential effectiveness of the drug in treating and preventing coronavirus.
“From Day One, I’ve said we’re going to let the science, facts and data drive our decision-making in South Dakota,” Noem said in a statement provided to Fox News.
Noem, a Republican, announced the “comprehensive” clinical trial Monday after communicating with White House officials in the last week to “let them know that South Dakota’s medical community was ready to step up
Good Monday morning.Here’s what’s on the president’s agenda today: The president has lunch with the Vice President 5pm: Members of the Coronavirus Task Force hold a press briefing. When is the country going to open? The resistance freaks want the country to stay closed as long as possible because they think it will hurt Trump and they don’t care about the collateral damage of their political jihad. American companies destroyed and Americans out of work, Who cares ? Orange man bad.The narratives, which is very obvious if you read the corporate media, are that 1) Trump knew early on about the virus and 2) we can’t open the country
Europe’s five largest nations have suffered more than three times the coronavirus deaths as the United States, though collectively they have about the same population. The United States had recorded 20,614 deaths as of Sunday morning, while the five European countries (324 million people, compared with 330 million in the U.S.) tallied 63,054, according to a Washington Times analysis. New confirmed COVID-19 cases from Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Italy and Spain also exceeded the number of U.S. infected, 654,357 versus 530,200, according to the Johns Hopkins University global coronavirus tracker.(Snip) The 27-country European Union is showing signs of unhappiness with its strategies
America’s infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, appeared on CNN and told Jake Tapper that “obviously” fewer people would have coronavirus if we had shut down the country earlier. He punctuated it by saying there was “push back” to the idea.
A full listen to his answers show Dr. Fauci wasn’t aggressively laying blame anywhere, and he repeatedly warned against second guessing. He stated clearly, for example, that comparisons to South Korea were illogical. He admitted that he looks at things from a, “pure health standpoint,” meaning that he doesn’t concern himself with your job or your neighbor’s small business.
A full listen to his answers show Dr. Fauci wasn’t aggressively laying blame anywhere, and he repeatedly warned against second guessing. He stated clearly, for example, that comparisons to South Korea were illogical. He admitted that he looks at things from a, “pure health standpoint,” meaning that he doesn’t concern himself with your job or your neighbor’s small business.
The Thin Façade of Authority
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The virus will teach us many things, but one lesson has already been relearned by the American people: there are two, quite different, types of wisdom.
One, and the most renowned, is a specialization in education that results in titled degrees and presumed authority. That ensuing prestige, in turn, dictates the decisions of most politicians, the media, and public officials—who for the most part share the values and confidence of the credentialed elite.
The other wisdom is not, as commonly caricatured, know-nothingism.(Snip)
the other wisdom also puts a much higher premium on pragmatism and experience, values instilled by fighting nature daily and mixing it up with those who must master the physical
CONCORD – New Hampshire’s Democratic legislative leadership sued Republican Gov. Chris Sununu Monday asking a judge to force him to obtain Fiscal Committee approval before spending any COVID-19 relief dollars. The top two presiding officers and two budget writers filed an emergency motion in Hillsborough County Superior Court North (Snip) The suit came on the first business day after the Fiscal Committee held its most recent meeting last Friday and members heard Sununu assert that the state’s emergency powers law gives him the sound legal footing to make these spending decisions without approval of the Democratic-controlled fiscal panel.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) said Sunday that he wants the state to reopen nonessential businesses and public places "as soon as possible." During a daily press conference on the status of the state's coronavirus response, Cuomo pledged to work with the governors of New Jersey and Connecticut to determine when the state could emerge from lockdown safely. “People want to get on with their lives, people want to get out of the house, [they've got] cabin fever," the governor said Sunday. "We need the economy working, people need a paycheck, life has to function. When do we reopen?”
I remember very clearly my first day in Washington, D.C., in 2008. Then-Secretary of Treasury Hank Paulson testified before the Senate Banking Committee to ask for a massive cash infusion into the financial system as the nation found itself on the brink of the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression. I had just come from Charlotte, North Carolina, where I had been laid off from my trading job at Wachovia. I was in Washington to lend expertise and it quickly became clear that challenge number one was helping policymakers understand the magnitude of the problem.
Fortunately, it didn’t
CBS, the network that brought us the crying nurse with mental health issues who didn't understand hospital procedures, and the two, count 'em, two, video instances of Italian hospital mayhem to make phony claims about chaos at New York and Pennsylvania hospitals in the coronavirus pandemic, has now put out another whopper.
This time, it's a 60 Minutes segment about mask and personal protective equipment shortages at a New York City hospital, which, its report argues, is all Trump's fault.
Here is their tweet with the segment:
Michelle Obama is championing an expansion of vote-by-mail options with her voting rights group, When We All Vote, which is endorsing federal legislation for the first time.The former first lady and the celebrity-backed organization will announce Monday their support for legislation introduced by a handful of Democratic lawmakers during the COVID-19 crisis, according to Axios.The legislation gives all registered voters the ability to vote by absentee ballot and makes it easier for voters to obtain mail-in ballots. The group will encourage U.S. citizens to press their lawmakers on expanding access to vote-by-mail."There is nothing partisan about striving to live up to the promise of our country;
As most of the U.S. is shut down over the coronavirus pandemic, some violent crime rates continue to rise.While the virus has slowed overall crime in some major cities, certain types of violence has increased. Just days after the White House released its strict coronavirus guidelines, domestic violence rates surged across the country.The Seattle Police Department reported a 23% increase, while a domestic violence hotline in Nashville reported a 55% increase in calls over the first few weeks of March. Those numbers have only continued to surge as the U.S. and other parts of the world have been put under a quasi-form of indefinite house arrest.
Hollywood star Barbra Streisand managed to work in a plug for her single “Don’t Lie to Me” from her 2018 album Walls in a rant claiming that President Donald Trump is directly responsible for the more than 20,000 deaths in the United States due to coronavirus. The accusatory tweet posted on Easter Sunday said that Trump is “unfit” to lead the country. Barbra Streisand, who endorsed Hillary Clinton in 2016, lashed out at President Trump in her vitriolic tweet by calling him incompetent and a liar.
When prominent people die, the press publish “obituaries,” reports of their death and a summary of their life. I recently read a New York Times obituary that accidentally summarized the last years of The New York Times, a once-great newspaper.
The Times obit was meant to be about Dr. S. Fred Singer, a noted scientist, prolific writer (including at American Thinker) , and prominent critic of popular climate change models that contend that man has heated up the Earth. (snip) [It] was not a factual account but an ideological argument meant to discredit the life and work of Fred Singer, once the chief atmospheric scientist at NASA
This week is an important time for many Americans, with Easter Sunday celebrating resurrection and renewal and Passover signifying remembrance. In the case of my family, with my Catholic background and my wife’s Jewish heritage, we will be celebrating both.This year though, for possibly the first time in history, many communities are unable to celebrate together, as the world wrestles with a pandemic and life in many parts of the globe have ground to a halt. Sadly, some of those celebrations will also take place with empty chairs at the table, as families grieve those lost to this pandemic.
There’s nothing like a crisis to bring clarity. The response of some mayors and governors to the coronavirus pandemic in recent days has made it clear they think they have unlimited and arbitrary power over their fellow citizens, that they can order them to do or not do just about anything under the guise of protecting public health.
We’ve now witnessed local and state governments issue decrees about what people can and cannot buy in stores, arrest parents playing with their children in public parks, yank people off public buses at random, remove basketball rims along with private property, ticket churchgoers, and in one case try—and fail—
A pandemic rages, and death is everywhere.
It looms overhead like a low, dark cloud. It drowns out our church bells and voices and mocks us. Everything bears its witness: empty halls and dark storefronts and absent grandparents and sterile shields where smiles used to be. Streets are too silent and thoughts are too loud. One, two, 800, 100,000 gone — the toll rises.
Friends and paychecks disappear, leaving only vices. Morale sinks low as screen time skyrockets. Another hour lost, another drink consumed. Goodbye to gyms, hello to binging.
One girl looks longingly at the cap and tassel she’ll never wear.
After President Trump noted in March that an anti-malarial drug had shown some success in treating COVID-19, according to reports from clinicians, his opponents slammed him for playing doctor and flaunting the “audacity of false hope,” in the words of CNN’s Stephen Collinson.
How quickly they forget the lessons of the 1980s AIDS crisis.
Rachel Maddow demanded the media stop broadcasting Trump’s briefings, because “it’s misinformation.” The New Yorker called Trump’s interest in the efficacy of the drug, known as chloroquine, “quackery,” “eccentric,” “a reminder, if one was needed, of his scorn for rigorous science.”
USA Today, Vox, The Daily Beast, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post and NBC News all piled on.
In spite of the nasty negative press, the Democrats and the RINOs, President Trump’s achievements are truly remarkable.
Years from now, history will note a major event that occurred in 2016, an event that significantly altered the course of the country and the world. At the time, the U.S. was in the last year of a 10-year economic slump. It was, in fact, the only 10-year period in history where the economy did not achieve 3 percent annual growth in any year.
From 2007 to 2016 economic growth averaged about 2 percent. That subpar growth rate led to fewer opportunities for Americans. That led to poor employment prospects and stagnant wages.
Ordinary people have been doing extraordinary things these days, but the federal government keeps underperforming. The government's failure to make COVID-19 tests widely available is a prime example. Despite broad consensus on the need for COVID-19 testing, the number of those tested is far behind where it should be.
It’s time for something bold. President Trump needs to invoke the Defense Production Act to get large, capable companies to develop, manufacture, and widely distribute COVID-19 tests. Home tests, produced with consistent high quality, can augment existing testing approaches, enabling people to test without leaving home.
If Joe Biden weren’t such a corrupt, dissolute, politically vicious man, one might feel sorry for him as he simultaneously battles irrelevance and dementia while locked away in his home in Delaware. As it is, watching Biden public decay is the equivalent of watching someone take Dorian Gray’s picture out of the attic and place it in front of a television camera.
It doesn’t help Biden when his campaign churns out bland, meaningless bits of political pabulum that are meant to read as profound insights into public policy during a challenging time in America. The latest example is an opinion piece in the New York Times
During their Town Hall call-in session last week, Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan touched on an infrastructure stimulus package that could move through Congress soon – what many are calling Phase 4 of legislation that provides relief to families and businesses across the U.S. Our state’s economy has already been facing challenges, and the recent coronavirus pandemic has compounded them. Right now, the Alaska Permanent Fund and our primary industries of oil, tourism and fisheries are taking an especially hard hit, and we don’t know when it will let up.
The disappointment was palpable in every syllable of the headline: “Everything Is Awful. So Why Is the Stock Market Booming?” The author of this New York Times “analysis,” Neil Irwin, was clearly confused by the refusal of investors to head for the life boats: “Death and despair are all around,” he wrote, “Yet at Thursday’s close, the S&P 500 was up 25 percent from its recent low on March 23.” Last week’s rally should not, however, have come as a surprise to a professional market watcher. It was obviously the result of good news concerning the COVID-19 pandemic and a commitment by the Federal Reserve to keep the economy afloat.
If the daily White House coronavirus briefings prove nothing else, they demonstrate that President Trump remains the master of the superlative. The leader of what he already calls an incredible, fantastic, great, tremendous, wonderful, phenomenal, and perfect administration has over and over again each afternoon claimed to be the first president ever to do just about anything he is doing.
So the president would be pleased that, in at least one area, he genuinely is making history and doing something no other president has done. His briefings, born out of necessity in a crisis when other forms of communication failed him, have become an unprecedented exercise of the presidential "bully pulpit."
One of the least appealing aspects of the American character is the residual Puritanism that still compels a certain percentage of our countrymen, women and others, to nag, pester, and generally annoy the rest of us by trying to make us conform to their stick-up-the-Lieu vision of propriety. These people – these obnoxious Karens, for lack of a better FCC-compliant term – are delighted by the Chinese Bat Biter grippe and the opportunity it presents for them to try to impose their arbitrary will upon the rest of us. These mewling Mussolinis need to be slapped back, verbally if not physically, but as long
Don't forget Joe Biden
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It’s been easy to forget about Joe Biden. After all, it’s been weeks since he last participated in a presidential debate or has even been able to hold a campaign event. When he has appeared in television interviews from isolation at home, the former vice president has often seemed like an afterthought, given the onslaught of news about the coronavirus epidemic.
It makes sense that given the spread of the virus and its crippling effect on the economy, that public attention has focused on learning the latest information about when and how there could be a way out.
Biden himself has argued that his own campaign
For the first time in the 2020 coronavirus crisis, President Trump has appeared to publicly put some major distance between himself and the Coronavirus Task Force’s principal medical advisor and spokesman, Anthony Fauci, M.D. (snip) Indications of President Trump’s mounting unhappiness with Fauci came in a tweet by the president yesterday at 6:51 PM EDT in which he retweeted a tweet by DeAnna Lorraine, a Republican who unsuccessfully challenged Rep. Nancy Pelosi in the California primary last month, that included the line “Time to #FireFauci:”
Seven people died and hundreds of thousands were left without power as violent storms swept through the South on Sunday. Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi all declared a state of emergency Sunday in response to the storms, which included several powerful tornadoes, flash flooding and large hail.
In Mississippi, tornadoes killed three residents in Jefferson Davis County, two in Lawrence County and one each in Walthall and Jones counties. The two Lawrence County victims were a sheriff's deputy and his wife, the county sheriff's office announced late Sunday night. Deputy Robert Ainsworth was a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, and his wife Paula was a Justice Court deputy clerk, officials said.
Xi Jinping’s China did this
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There is authoritative and compelling evidence — including a study from the University of Southampton — that if interventions in China had been conducted three weeks earlier, transmission of COVID-19 could have been reduced by 95 percent.
For 40 days, President Xi Jinping’s CPC concealed, destroyed, falsified, and fabricated information about the rampant spread of COVID-19 through its state-sanctioned massive surveillance and suppression of data; its misrepresentation of information; its silencing and criminalizing of its dissent; and its disappearance of its whistleblowers.
On Easter Sunday, Pope Francis sent a letter to leaders of social movements promoting "structural changes" to the "economy of exclusion and inequality." Among other things, he encouraged these activists to use the coronavirus crisis as an opportunity to spur radical change and launch a "humanistic and ecological conversion." He also endorsed the idea of a universal basic income (UBI), championed by former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang.
Pope Francis addressed his letter to the World Meeting of Popular Movements (WMPM), an alliance of Roman Catholic Church leadership and "grassroots organizations working to address the 'economy of exclusion and inequality' by working for structural changes
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — Virginia-based Smithfield Foods announced Sunday that it is closing its pork processing plant in Sioux Falls until further notice after hundreds of employees tested positive for the coronavirus – a step the head of the company warned could hurt the nation’s meat supply.
The announcement came a day after South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem and Sioux Falls Mayor Paul TenHaken wrote to Smithfield and urged the company to suspend operations for 14 days so that its workers could self-isolate and the plant could be disinfected.
The plant, which employs about 3,700 people in the state’s largest city, has become a hot spot for infections. Health officials said Sunday
As British Prime Minister Boris Johnson struggles with his own case of the Wuhan virus, the British equivalent of President Trump’s virus task force no longer dismisses out of hand the South China University study saying the virus likely leaked from nearby viral research labs as some tinfoil hat conspiracy theory.
The Worst Governor in America
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One word keeps recurring in online discussions of Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s latest orders to fight the state’s raging COVID-19 outbreak: “Insanity.” Last week, the first-term Democrat issued an order extending the state’s stay-at-home policy, which had been set to expire April 15, until May 1. Michigan has the third-highest number of coronavirus cases of any state in America, and certainly strong measures are required to get the pandemic under control. But the devil is in the details, and Whitmer’s new order instantly provoked a firestorm of outrage.
Among the complaints was that Whitmer had prohibited sale of seeds and other garden supplies,
WATCH: Husband Rides in Bucket Truck to
Visit Beloved Wife After Long Separation
Due to Coronavirus replies
Visit Beloved Wife After Long Separation
Due to Coronavirus replies
A man in Watertown, Massachusetts, was reunited with his wife recently in a very unique way, following a long separation due to the coronavirus pandemic.
When Nick Avtges met his wife Marion over 60 years ago, he knew they were meant to be, according to WFLA.
“It was love at first sight. And the rest is history,” the 88-year-old said of their romance.
Since that time, the couple has spent every day together and raised four children.
"My parents have been the rock of our family,” said daughter Suzanne, adding, “The way they’ve dealt with a lot of different situations.”
Even after Marion went to live in a nursing home not long ago,
Hand it to The New York Times to take up the question of Tara Reade’s sexual-abuse accusations against Joe Biden … on Easter weekend, with its reduced holiday readership, in an article that does its best to minimize her charges.
It’s in stark contrast to the way the Times and its fellows treated the even thinner claims against Brett Kavanaugh during his Supreme Court confirmation hearings. And it underlines the hypocrisy of the “believe all women” double standard.
Reade was a Senate staffer for Biden in 1993 when, she says, he pinned her to a wall, reached beneath her clothing and penetrated her with his fingers.
The chaos around Wisconsin’s primary last week has raised the level of concern about November’s Election Day to Defcon-1 status. Will Republican legislators in key states block efforts to expand mail-in voting, and force people to stand in line together? Will we be clear enough of the virus for polling places to operate at all? Will Democrats sue and send the whole thing to the courts?
And for the 200-day stretch of campaign that still stands between now and November 5, it has also brought home a stark new reality. Though the primary has followed a largely traditional path, it is now clear that long before we hit November,
The world’s biggest oil producers on Sunday agreed to historic production cuts, representing almost 10 percent of global supply, putting an end to a price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia.
West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark, was up 0.7 percent at $22.91 a barrel at 4:00 am ET Monday, after being up as much as 5 percent overnight.
Brent crude, the international benchmark, turned lower by 0.8 percent at $31.22.
“We took the responsive and responsible action to focus on adjusting crude oil production by 10 mb/d beginning on 1 May 2020, for an initial period of two months; then by 8 mb/d from July to December 2020;
Sunday on MSNBC’s “AM Joy,” House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) said he would investigate what warnings from the intelligence community and health organizations that President Donald Trump ignored in the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic.
On “real-time oversight,” Schiff said, “We are right now going through our intelligence holdings. What did the intelligence community make us aware of at the end of last year or earlier this year? Other committees are doing like analyses.”
He continued, “It is very important, I think, in reviewing the intelligence component to this to realize the intelligence piece is just one piece of the warnings coming to the administration.
JERUSALEM – Israel's president on Sunday turned down a request from Blue and White party leader Benny Gantz for a two-week extension to form a new coalition government.
The announcement by President Reuven Rivlin means that Gantz and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have a midnight deadline Monday night to reach a power-sharing deal. If they fail, the country could be forced into a fourth consecutive election in just over a year.
Gantz asked Rivlin for the extension on Saturday night, claiming he was close to a deal with Netanyahu. But in his response, Rivlin said the extension would not be possible under the "current circumstances."
President Trump on Sunday night retweeted a post that called for the ousting of Dr. Anthony Fauci after the infectious disease specialist appeared on CNN. The tweet from DeAnna Lorraine, a former GOP candidate for Congress, included the hashtag #FireFauci and referred to Fauci’s concession that more lives could have been saved if the US had acted sooner to stop the spread of coronavirus. “Sorry Fake News, it’s all on tape,” Trump wrote, insisting his travel ban was the action needed to stem the virus. “I banned China long before people spoke up.”
At least six people were killed in Mississippi on Sunday when severe storms and tornadoes swept through the region, officials said.
The victims were from three counties that border Louisiana — Walthall, Lawrence and Jefferson Davis, according to Mississippi Emergency Management Agency director Greg Michel.
Before ravaging Mississippi, the powerful system pounded the northern part of Louisiana with multiple tornadoes and damaging winds, wrecking hundreds of homes and buildings in that part of the state.
The city of Monroe, Louisiana, was hit especially hard, with 200 to 300 homes destroyed when a tornado touched down around noon, the city’s mayor