Posts on Wednesday, April 22, 2020
A federal judge on Wednesday dismissed a suit by former “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett alleging he was the victim of a malicious prosecution over his allegedly staged hate crime attack in January 2019. U.S. District Court Judge Virginia Kendall ruled that Smollett’s claim against the city of Chicago and several police officers cannot go forward now that he’s been re-indicted by a special Cook County grand jury on charges stemming from the same incident.(snip) But the judge indicated that such a claim would likely fail since police had plenty of evidence showing Smollett had staged the attack, including sworn statements from the phony attackers,
Oklahoma is the latest state to start easing lockdown restrictions in a bid to kick start the economy amid the coronavirus pandemic.Gov. Kevin Stitt said Wednesday the state will begin to reopen Friday with barbershops, hair and nail salons, pet groomers and spas back in business.Others, including restaurants and movie theaters, can reopen within 10 days, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt said Wednesday.Oklahoma joins Colorado, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas in restarting their economies. It comes after President Donald Trump last week gave the nation's governors his road map for how the US can reopen businesses and schools shut down by the coronavirus.
Minnesotans need accurate data. Data on COVID-19 infections and deaths—and the modeling of that data—is key to decision-making during this public health emergency. If this data is poorly presented, it creates a false narrative about the facts on the ground, contributing to incorrect perceptions of danger, overly burdensome executive orders, and a longer-than-necessary economic shutdown.
On April 8, roughly eleven minutes into a video press conference, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz displayed a line graph created by the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH).
This graph compared confirmed COVID-19 cases in Minnesota to confirmed cases
Mitch McConnell said Wednesday that he is OK with states going bankrupt instead of increasing federal bailouts even further—as Democrats demand more money for state and local governments be included in the next coronavirus relief bill. 'My guess is their first choice would be for the federal government to borrow money from future generations to send it down to them now so they don't have to do that,' McConnell lamented.(Snip) He also insisted, however, that he didn't want to send money to states just to have them used the money to bail themselves out of preexisting issues, like a pileup of pension debts.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., argued Wednesday that many Americans should protest economic insecurity by refusing to work after coronavirus-related restrictions are lifted. "When we talk about this idea of reopening society, you know, only in America does the president -- when the president tweets about liberation -- does he mean go back to work. When we have this discussion about going back or reopening, I think a lot people should just say 'no' — we’re not going back to that,” she said. “We’re not going back to working 70-hour weeks just so that we could put food on the table and not
A Democratic Georgia state lawmaker has many wondering if he is going to #WalkAway from his party after his abrupt decision to step down.Georgia state Rep. Vernon Jones announced Wednesday that he has “left the plantation” and would not be completing his term, making the surprising statement just more than a week after declaring that he was endorsing President Donald Trump.(Video) “I’m sick and tired of me and my family being attacked and harassed by the Democrat Party for putting my country before my party,” Jones said in a statement to CBS 46 in Atlanta.“I take pride in being an independent thinker. My first amendment right to freedom of speech
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton told Breitbart News Tonight that he will continue to battle the progressive attempts to force mail-in voting, stressing that vote-by-mail is the “most likely place for fraud” and noting that Democrats hope to loosen voting rules in the Lone Star State to turn it blue.Paxton discussed the Democrats’ increased calls for vote-by-mail, describing the situation in Texas as “really simple.”“The law doesn’t allow for mail-in ballots in the cases that this judge ruled that they should be allowed,”
Al Gore’s eyebrows say it all. 77-year-old Joe Biden once again forgot what he was saying as he attacked President Trump from his Delaware basement. Biden was talking to Climate Change charlatan Al Gore during a virtual town hall when he stumbled over his words and had to regroup.You can see the confusion on Al Gore’s face as Biden babbled about non-existent “climate change.”WATCH: (Tweet/Video)
Joe Biden’s presidential campaign spent nearly $11,000 on gourmet ice cream that is also a favorite of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's.The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee’s campaign spent $10,600 on Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams between May 2019 and March 2020. The ice cream was listed as donor gifts, according to Federal Election Committee data.Pelosi has taken a lot of heat since last week when she joined James Corden on his late-night comedy show and showcased her freezer packed with ice cream. Among the selection were pints of Jeni’s Splendid."I don't know what I would've done if ice cream were not invented,"
The long goodbye.Like with many people around the country, the nationwide lockdown threatened to prevent a Texas woman from visiting her dying father before he succumbed to the coronavirus. Fortunately, Abby Adair Reinhard was able to bid her elderly dad farewell in a touching way: by talking to him on the phone for more than 30 hours until his death, which she chronicled in a heartbreaking Facebook post in early April. “It feels so good to laugh and cry,” wrote Reinhard of speaking with her 76-year-old father, Don Adair, for the last time.
Harvard University said it will not take the $8.6 million in aid with was granted as part of the U.S. government’s efforts to cushion the economic impact of the coronavirus lockdown, reversing itself and bending to U.S. President Donald Trump who said Tuesday that the university should not take the money.“Harvard is going to pay back the money and they shouldn’t be taking it,” Trump said Tuesday at a White House press briefing.Harvard said Tuesday that it planned to keep the money, promising to use it for student financial assistance but not for institutional costs.
The COVID-19 crash comes suddenly. In early March, the 37-year-old writer F. T. Kola began to feel mildly ill, with a fever and body aches. To be safe, she isolated herself at home in San Francisco. Life continued apace for a week, until one day she tried to load her dishwasher and felt strangely exhausted.(Snip)An ambulance raced her to the hospital, where she spent three days in the ICU, before being moved to a newly created coronavirus-only ward. Sometimes she barely felt sick at all, and other times she felt on the verge of death. But after two weeks in the hospital, she walked out. Now, as the death toll
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s “snitch line” has been forced to shut down because America is still America and the blowback was freakin’ awesome.
Oftentimes we use George Orwell’s seminal novel 1984 as a metaphor for something we don’t like, a metaphor for government overreach and the like. In this case, a metaphor is not necessary. Thanks to Comrade de Blasio, we are now allowed to use the word “literally” while referencing 1984, as in de Blasio is literally embracing 1984’s villainous Big Brother by literally asking Americans to snitch on their fellow Americans —
Wednesday, former Secretary of State John Kerry called into question President Donald Trump’s leadership during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
Instead of leading, Kerry suggested on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that Trump is “playing out an election strategy” and “attacking governors” and members of the media in a way he said he has never seen by a president.
“Look, the truth is, and everybody in America, I think, is beginning to come to understand that this president is not leading now, he’s playing out an election strategy,” Kerry stated. “He’s more focused on getting the economy moving before all the experts say you ought to be putting people back together in close quarters again
Until there’s a vaccine, the coronavirus isn’t going anywhere, so what could be safer than seeing a movie at the drive-in from the confines of your own automobile?
Man alive, I miss the drive-in. I’ve missed the drive-in for going on 30 years.
I bet Hollywood’s missing the drive-in right about now. We could all be going to the new James Bond movie tonight.
Oh, that’s right, some of you don’t know what I’m talking about.
Believe it or not, between Memorial Day and Labor Day — at least up in the Midwest where winter happens — we used to watch movies from the comfort of our own cars.
Gov. Chris Sununu was given the go-ahead by a judge Wednesday to oversee and authorize the spending of more than $1 billion in federal COVID-19 relief funds without the approval of a key legislative committee. Judge David Anderson in a 16-page ruling found that four top Democratic lawmakers who sued to block Sununu from acting unilaterally, and to force him to seek approval of the Legislative Fiscal Committee lacked standing to seek an injunction to stop Sununu.
Voter fraud is too nominal to make a difference in any given election, goes one popular line of argument. But tell that to voters in parts of Florida, Missouri, New York, and North Carolina in recent years.
Districts in these four states saw election outcomes overturned after absentee voter fraud came to light.
Now, with millions of Americans homebound because of COVID-19, progressives are amping up their push for national mail-in voting as Michelle Obama throws her support behind related legislation purporting to be a response to the pandemic.
VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis made an impassioned plea for protection of the environment on Wednesday’s 50th anniversary of the first Earth Day, saying the coronavirus pandemic had shown that some challenges had to be met with a global response. Francis praised the environmental movement, saying it was necessary for young people to “take to the streets to teach us what is obvious, that is, that there will be no future for us if we destroy the environment that sustains us”.(Snip)Recounting a Spanish proverb that God always forgives, man sometimes forgives but nature never forgives, Francis said: “If we have deteriorated the Earth, the response will be very ugly.”
Walt Disney heiress Abigail Disney launched a scathing attack against her family’s famous firm for furloughing 100,000 low-paid workers—while executives reportedly get $1.5 billion in bonuses. “WHAT THE ACTUAL F***?????” wrote the 60-year-old granddaughter of Walt Disney’s brother, Roy Disney, at the start of a furious 25-tweet screed accusing management of “pillaging and rampaging.”(Snip) “That’d pay for three months salary to front line workers. And its going to people who have already been collecting egregious bonuses for years,” she complained.
She noted that “front line workers at the parks had to fight for years to get their pay bumped
The global Chinese coronavirus pandemic and the “climate crisis” should be tackled together, Swedish climate worrier Greta Thunberg told an Earth Day event on Wednesday.
“Today is Earth Day and that reminds us that climate and the environmental emergency is still ongoing and we need to tackle both the corona pandemic … at the same time as we tackle climate and environmental emergency, because we need to tackle two crises at once,” the 17-year-old said, according to Reuters.
Joining a live-streamed event to mark Earth Day, launched 50 years ago to highlight environmental challenges, Thunberg said the outbreak of the coronavirus meant it was time to listen to the experts.
Michigan Health Care System
Furloughs Nearly 2,500 Employees
As Coronavirus Dominates Services replies
Furloughs Nearly 2,500 Employees
As Coronavirus Dominates Services replies
Nearly 2,500 employees at one of Michigan's largest health care systems learned on Tuesday they would be furloughed, due to particularly dire financial circumstances related to the novel coronavirus outbreak. Beaumont Health, which has 38,000 employees serving eight hospitals in southeast Michigan, announced that most of the 2,475 members who were temporarily laid off filled administrative roles unrelated to the care of patients afflicted with COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus strain, according to a Stamford Advocate report. The company also permanently eliminated 450 positions and initiated salary cuts to top executives. Beaumont Health CEO John Fox, who is
Since Wuhan virus became a “thing” in America, the media have abandoned any pretense that they are honest news brokers. At CNN, they’ve made themselves into news. During the press conferences, reporters don’t ask Trump questions aimed at eliciting information for the American people. Instead, they ask only questions they hope will harm him. And because Trump triumphs, they want to censor the press conferences.
The media has therefore turned most of the current narrative into a battle between pro- and anti-Trump people on the question of whether Trump responded in a timely and appropriate fashion as news about the Wuhan virus unfolded.
Decisions that have been made over the past month will have consequences for years to come. The haphazard manner in which these decisions are being made should concern every single citizen of Pennsylvania. The arbitrary nature in which businesses have been prohibited/allowed to operate is an exercise in miscommunication, dysfunction and ambiguity. Since March 17, 2020, businesses such as auto dealerships, real estate agencies and residential construction projects have been stalled. Given just three hours warning before the closure went into place, business owners and employees had the proverbial "rug pulled out from beneath them." No consultation, no discussion, no
Once upon a time, every American child knew about the first battle of the American Revolution, fought at Lexington and Concord, in Massachusetts. Even if they hadn’t had a history teacher drill the date into them, they knew the opening lines of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s famous poem, “Paul Revere’s Ride.” Published in 1861, just months before the Civil War started, its first verse began “Listen, my children, and you shall hear / Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, / On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five.”
The poem tells how Paul Revere rode through the Massachusetts towns of Somerville, Medford, and Arlington,
America’s taxpayers funded the purchase of cats from Chinese “wet markets” for medical research over the past 15 years, sustaining the very institutions that are now blamed for spreading the coronavirus in Wuhan.
Researchers at the U.S. Agriculture Department paid for dozens of animals, then had them killed and fed their tongues, brains and other parts to other cats as part of medical studies, according to the White Coat Waste Project, which exposed the controversial work in a report last year. The Trump administration ended the cat projects in the wake of the report, and the 14 surviving kittens were adopted out.
Get behind me, Satan! (Photo) Last Thursday the PPP Loan program ran out of money. The $349 billion allotted to the program to save small businesses had already been distributed. At least 20,000 business applications went unprocessed on Thursday and Friday. Last Tuesday, eight days ago on April 14th, Speaker Pelosi went on late night television and congratulated Senate Democrats for blocking the crucial funding to small business owners in America.Pelosi made the comments on MSNBC. Nancy Pelosi: “They [Republicans] asked for a quarter of a trillion dollars in 48 hours. I said, ‘I don’t think so.’… This all happened on the senate side and I congratulated Senate Democrats.”
President Trump said Wednesday that he's instructed the U.S. Navy to "shoot down and destroy" any Iranian gunboats harassing American ships, in the wake of a tense encounter in the Persian Gulf.
"I have instructed the United States Navy to shoot down and destroy any and all Iranian gunboats if they harass our ships at sea," Trump tweeted. The encounter happened last week. Six U.S. Navy warships were conducting drills with US Army Apache attack helicopters in international waters off Iran last Wednesday when they were repeatedly harassed by 11 Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Navy vessels, the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet reported.
Attorney General William Barr defended Trump’s use of executive power and slammed “the monolithic nature” of the American media during a long, wide ranging interview with Hugh Hewitt, Tuesday morning.
The attorney general also broke a bit of news regarding U.S. Attorney John Durham’s criminal probe into the Russia investigation, telling Hewitt that there are no election-year time constraints limiting the prosecutor’s ability to bring indictments in the case.
The talk show host began the interview by asking Barr (Snip)
“Has the President done anything, anything at all to give rise in you to a concern that he does not respect the Constitution or intend to abide by its separation of powers?”
The United Nations warned the coronavirus pandemic could trigger famine as the worldwide freeze on commerce sent shock waves through financial markets.
The bleak warning came on Tuesday as deaths from the virus surpassed 174,000 worldwide, with governments anxiously trying to chart a path out of the unprecedented global health and economic emergency. One World Food Programme director warned 'widespread famines of biblical proportions' could force millions in already vulnerable countries into starvation due to the global crisis. The economic impact of the pandemic could lead to a 'humanitarian catastrophe,' with the number of people suffering from acute hunger projected to nearly double
Professional Virgin
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Corona's corporate victims continue to pile up, from Playboy magazine and The Jewish Chronicle to airlines around the world. I had a crummy flight on Virgin Australia - Perth to Adelaide - a few years back, and have eschewed it ever since. But I may not be able to maintain my boycott: It has now gone into bankruptcy administration, and Virgin Atlantic looks to be heading the same way. Richard Branson has been forced to explain that, even though he's worth £4.7 billion, it's not kept in a silo on his private island where he ploughs it back and forth like Scrooge McDuck,
Nashville, TN — The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation reported a huge increase in people seeking firearm background check requests on the day the stimulus check arrived. Last Wednesday, the TBI received 3,917 requests for a firearm background check on the day most people received their stimulus check from the federal government. In comparison, On Wednesday, April 17, 2019, the TBI received just 972 requests. "We did see a large amount of sales that were not typical for our store this time of the year," said Art Cason, the general manager of Royal Range USA in Bellevue. He said they saw a 25% to 30% increase
Our Constitution set up three branches of government. And yet, in this crisis, only two branches are fully operational. In particular, the House of Representatives is no longer functioning as a legislative body at all but as an executive committee run by just one representative: the Speaker of the House. There are no open debates, no televised committee hearings, no minority rights. “The People’s House” is not open to the people.
Somehow, the executive branch managed to keep the White House open — from the Office of the President to the Situation Room, from the Department of Justice to the Joint Chiefs of Staff
The kerfuffle over how much authority the president has vis-à-vis state governors boiled over at a recent White House coronavirus briefing. Missing in the debate is the conundrum that became apparent in August 2005, during Hurricane Katrina. During a critical week, from two days before Katrina, to five days after, there arose a conflict the likes of which had never been seen in American disaster governance: an open clash between the president on one side and the Louisiana governor and the mayor of New Orleans on the other.
Global oil prices crash through the floor, imperiling a major industry and millions of jobs. Time for government action to fix the problem with a bundle of cash and handouts? Nope. We have a better idea. Restart the U.S. economy and put an end to the quarantine economy as soon as possible.
Monday’s oil news that near-term oil contracts had fallen below zero was frightening. Essentially, the markets told those holding short-term oil contracts they would have to pay someone to take their oil. It’s not even worth transportation and storage costs.
It’s what oil traders call “contango.”
Seattle will reopen five library bathrooms to better meet some of the hygiene needs of the more than 3,500 people living unsheltered in the city during the coronavirus pandemic, the city announced Tuesday afternoon. (snip) “Equity is an important value to the Library and I believe we have an opportunity to support our most vulnerable neighbors by providing restroom access during the COVID-19 crisis,” Chief Librarian Marcellus Turner said in a statement.
OK, so the country has been shut down for about a month, and we’re seeing cracks start to form. While some epidemiologists are talking about keeping things closed down for months longer, we’re also seeing growing public protests around the nation, as people call for restarting things.
Others shame them as “virus deniers” and accuse the protesters of wanting people to die. But it’s hard not to notice a class divide here. As with so many of America’s conflicts, the divide is between the people in the political/managerial class on the one hand and the people in the working class on the other.
Tuesday marked one month since the stay-at-home order to fight the novel coronavirus went into effect in Illinois. Now, there are indications from both Gov. JB Pritzker and Mayor Lori Lightfoot that the order might be extended. (Snip) The mayor added that she expects the stay-at-home order will go into May, but could extend well into June and even the end of June as well.
The governor did not give any specifics about when he might start to open up the state – whether in stages or otherwise. But he did indicate he might have more to say about that this coming Friday.
Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell on Tuesday hit back against recent criticism of the reorganization of intelligence community (IC) agencies from House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.).
Grenell wrote to Schiff that the reorganization under his leadership came on the heels of calls for change from intelligence committee staffers.
“Career IC officials have conducted four studies in the last two years calling for reforms at the ODNI [Office of the Director of National Intelligence], and the career officials are eager to implement the recommendations,” (Snip) “It is my duty to listen to these ODNI career employees who have ideas on how to improve the work we do
Concede the WH, take Congress?
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The Democrat Party decided in February to kill the campaign of Bernie Sanders once and for all. Everyone else dropped out except Biden and Warren. (Snip)It worked like a charm until they realized they were stuck with a dementia case as their candidate
Democrats aren't worried. They are hoping for a repeat of 1972.
Oh sure, Dick Nixon murdered George McGovern's presidential ambitions. Nixon was the first president to carry 49 states.
But Democrats held on to the House and the Senate, even gaining two Senate seats. And that was what mattered to them. It allowed them to work with the deep state to force Nixon out of office in
Foolishness and betrayal of our country have served to reveal dangers within our present condition. Misplaced corrective action, regardless of intent, is neither safe nor wise. The intelligence apparatus was weaponized against our candidate by those who controlled the levers of government. That said, today’s SSCI defense of political corruption is infuriating.
To understand what is taking place within the Mark Warner and Richard Burr report it is worthwhile revisiting the 2014 House Intelligence report by Mike Rogers and Dutch Ruppersberger which was presented in defense of severe corruption in/around Benghazi. (Snip) was a cover-up operation intended to defend their own interests and involvement in the CIA/State Dept. operation in Libya.
Ever since the COVID-19 effort shifted focus toward re-opening the U.S. economy, National Institute of Health (NIH) Allergy and Infectious Disease, Director Anthony Fauci has been less visible.
This step-back allows Dr. Fauci to better position himself for maximum political damage when the operatives deploy Fauci as an expert antagonist who recommended against re-opening; which frames the soon-to-be deployed ‘dangerous Trump‘ narrative.
This political plan is helped by the virus having a greater negative impact on minorities.(Snip)
with Fauci’s crew working on the Bill Gates objective for global COVID-19 vaccinations; the NIH today recommends against any treatment for the coronavirus using a hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin cocktail.
Andrew Cuomo has a plan for a “Trump-proof” reopening of New York. Or actually, he has a plan to hire some people to develop a plan. According to CNBC, “Cuomo has hired high-powered consultants to develop a science-based plan for the safe economic reopening of the region.” Wow, a science-based plan from high-powered consultants!
The report goes on to say that these consultants will be “producing models on testing, infections, and other key data points that will underpin decisions . . . .”
(Snip) So who are these consultants who will advise America’s loudest governor? The answer, of course, is McKinsey & Company.
Comrades, after the Meridian cornavirus enforcement police received several calls from compliant citizens, a dangerous group of subversive moms were identified engaging in non-approved playground activity against the interests of the state. Local authorities activated an emergency response task force & arrested the lead scofflaw mom at the park. According to video smuggled from the park by an underground network of rebellious female breeders, Mrs. Sarah Brady was instructed by the COVID-19 compliance officers to vacate the playground. Ms. Brady refused to comply with the order and was subsequently handcuffed and arrested for violations of the state lock-down, ie. misdemeanor trespassing.
IDAHO – Meridian officers made several attempts to
The Wuhan virus has ended the game China has been playing for the past 3 decades to rise from Marxist-rooted poverty to the world’s biggest manufacturer. Virtually all of the world’s advanced economies and many of the less-developed countries now realize that China is not a trustworthy partner. (snip) One of the keys to Western dominance of China was the creation and growth of a class of Chinese merchants who worked with the foreigners, making huge fortunes as their nation declined into poverty and subservience. They were called “compradors” (“Mǎibàn” in Chinese) – a term originally from Portuguese, meaning “buyers”
As the Muslim celebration of Ramadan arrives (April 23 to May 23), many of the faithful will expect to attend worship services at their local mosques. Will local and state governments treat Muslim worshipers at Ramadan the same as they treated Christian worshipers at Easter?
Will officials arrest imams for holding services as they did to a Christian pastor in Tampa? How likely is it that Kentucky officials will sprinkle nails in mosque parking lots and take license plate numbers of worshipers? Will NYC mayor Bill DeBlasio threaten to permanently shut down mosques
Four Minnesota ethanol plants are idled and many more have throttled back production as COVID-19 has sapped gasoline demand, crushing the biofuel industry. U.S. ethanol production has hit an all-time low. Nearly 30% of the nation’s 204 biofuel plants have been idled since March 1, while many others have slashed production. “The fuel market is just telling us to shut down and not operate,” said Randall Doyal, CEO of Al-Corn Clean Fuel in the southern Minnesota town of Claremont. “Economically, its abysmal.”(Snip) Ethanol makers consumed 36% of Minnesota’s corn crop in 2019, according to the Minnesota Bio-Fuels Association.
For the press, it's quite the 'gotcha' dance.
The National Institutes of Health's refusal to recommend the use of the common anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine in combination with the antibiotic azithromycin for the treatment of COVID-19 , was proof positive according to the "science" that President Trump was wrong about the use of the drug, as well as an incompetent who was touting quack medicine, given that he noted the treatment as promising on one of his tweets.
They've finally got something to pin on him.
Here's a sampler of some of the headlines out there from NPR, CNN, Forbes, The Hill and the New York Times:
Police in Westport, Conn., said they will be testing a "pandemic drone" that can scan the body temperatures of residents to determine if they have fevers or other health symptoms in an effort to combat the coronavirus.
Aerospace company Draganfly announced in a news release the drones will be equipped with a specialized sensor and computer vision systems that can display heart and respiratory rates. They can also detect people coughing in crowds, police said.
At least two people who died in early and mid-February had contracted the novel coronavirus, health officials in California said Tuesday, signaling that the virus may have spread — and claimed lives — in the United States weeks earlier than previously thought. Tissue samples taken during autopsies of two individuals who died at home in Santa Clara County, Calif., tested positive for the virus, local health officials said in a statement. The victims died on Feb. 6 and Feb. 17, respectively. Initially, the nation’s earliest coronavirus fatality was believed to have occurred on Feb. 29, in Kirkland, Wash., a suburb
Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has committed to choosing a woman as his running mate. But an Obama family confidante on Tuesday said there’s “no chance” that woman will be Michelle Obama.
Valerie Jarrett, a former Obama White House senior adviser, took a hatchet to the recent speculation that the former first lady would consider joining the Democratic ticket with Biden, who served as her husband's vice president.
Today is Earth Day, a celebration conceived by then-U.S. Sen. Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin and first held in 1970 as a “symbol of environmental responsibility and stewardship.” In the spirit of the time, it was a touchy-feely, consciousness-raising, New Age experience. Most activities were organized at the grassroots level.
In recent years, however, Earth Day has devolved into an occasion for professional environmental activists and alarmists to warn of apocalypse, dish anti-technology dirt, and proselytize.
However, if there was ever a time that Earth Day’s hysteria was completely overshadowed by genuine apocalyptic scenarios, the COVID-19 pandemic is providing it.
Passion
Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he pressed President Trump on testing during a “productive” Oval Office meeting on Tuesday afternoon, just days after they had an enormous row on Twitter and national television.Cuomo also told the president during the White House visit that New York no longer needed the USNS Comfort to treat COVID-19 infected patients, offering to deploy it to another hard-hit state.Trump confirmed later Tuesday that the ship would be headed back to its base in Virginia in preparation to be sent to another state — just weeks after it arrived in New York.
This is Who the Hell They Are
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God bless the media. Without it, I wouldn’t have known that CNN’s Don Lemon indignantly demands to know, “Who the hell do you think you are?!” Yours truly has only a vague sense of who Don Lemon is and has never in my memory seen his program on TV or him in the supermarket or anywhere else. But I can answer his question.Mr. Lemon reportedly directed his question to armed protesters who, despite the nation’s lockdown and stay-at-home orders, had gone public to demand their constitutional rights to assemble, to lodge their grievances with their government and to arm themselves. That would be the First and Second Amendments, respectively.
Rob Gronkowski wants to play football again. More specifically, he wants to continue playing with Tom Brady. Now, he'll get his wish. The 30-year-old is set to come out of retirement in conjunction with a trade that will send his contractual rights from the New England Patriots to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, his new team confirmed Tuesday. The Buccaneers, of course, signed Brady in March.
The Patriots agreed to send Gronkowski and a seventh-round draft pick to Tampa Bay in exchange for a fourth-rounder. "Rob Gronkowski is one of the best tight ends in NFL history and he plays the game
President Donald Trump on Tuesday questioned a CNN report that Kim Jong-un’s health is reportedly in “grave danger” following a surgery.
“With CNN, they come out with a report — I don’t put too much credence in it,” Trump said.Trump did not confirm or deny the report but said that he does not know if the reports are true.
The president expressed concerns for Kim’s health after meeting him on three different occasions to negotiate a peace deal with North Korea.
“I wish him well,” Trump said. “If he is in the kind of condition that the reports say, that the news is saying, that’s a very serious condition.”
Michael Moore is worried about Earth, although he’s not focused on fossil fuel and cow farts. Instead, he’s worried because he just discovered that green energy is a scam. That’s the point in his new documentary, “Planet of the Humans,” which was released Tuesday for free on YouTube. In a long and poorly written introduction on the YouTube page, the people who made the video explain that the green revolution could have worked out if only the whole movement hadn't sold itself out to the rich and powerful, resulting in a sham and a scam.
Silver Lining
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It’s an ill wind, they say, that blows no good. Even the coronavirus can produce a heartwarming story or two. The Guardian reports on the dire state of the U.S. newspaper industry:
Media outlets across the US have already responded to a huge drop in advertising triggered by the economic shutdown by sacking scores of employees. Some newspapers, just as demand is at its highest, have stopped printing – reverting to a digital-only operation that is just as vulnerable to the whims of advertisers.
The decrease in advertising was swift, as businesses tightened spending due to the economic impact of Covid-19.
Democratic governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan announced late Tuesday that the state was rescinding a contract to track the spread of the coronavirus that she had awarded to a Democratic consulting firm, according to Crain's Detroit.
The organization, Great Lakes Community Engagement, is run by Democratic political consultant Mike Kolehouse, who planned to use a software vendor affiliated with a Democratic data firm that is working for the governor's reelection campaign. Whitmer's decision to hire Democratic political operatives to run a public health project sparked immediate backlash, the Washington Free Beacon reported just hours before Whitmer's office said she had terminated the contract.
Acting-Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell has dinged Rep. Adam Schiff in a new letter, expressing surprise the Trump foe didn’t praise the appointment of two women to head counter-terrorism unit and rejecting the congressman’s belief that lawmakers control the DNI’s day-to-day management decisions.
Mr. Schiff, California Democrat and chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, had written to Mr. Grenell on April 7 questioning his legal authority to reorganize the Office of National Intelligence and its National Counterterrorism Center.
In an April 20 reply obtained by The Washington Times, Mr. Grenell called Mr. Schiff’s ideas “suggestions.”
Late last week, Sen. Lindsey Graham announced a webpage dedicated to the Senate Judiciary Committee’s probe into the Crossfire Hurricane illicit investigation into the Donald Trump campaign. Graham’s staff uploaded the four Carter Page Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) applications, which were recently further declassified.
These declassifications reveal more devastating details in the SpyGate saga. Here are seven new revelations.
1. The FBI Always Intended to Spy on the Trump Campaign
When news first broke that the Obama administration had obtained a FISA order to surveil Page, Democrats and the left-leaning press argued the FBI’s surveillance of the former Trump foreign policy advisor didn’t constitute spying on the Trump campaign
The Trump administration on Tuesday prohibited undocumented college students from receiving emergency federal cash assistance for expenses like food, child care and housing.
The economic rescue law passed by Congress gives $6 billion to colleges to dole out to students for expenses stemming from the disruption on campuses caused by the pandemic. But Education Department officials in new guidance said the money can go only to students who qualify for federal financial aid — U.S. citizens and some legal permanent residents.
That prevents undocumented students from accessing the money, although the law includes no explicit restrictions on which students could receive the emergency grants.
American department stores, once all-powerful shopping meccas that anchored malls and Main Streets across the country, have been dealt blow after blow in the past decade. J.C. Penney and Sears were upended by hedge funds. Macy’s has been closing stores and cutting corporate staff. Barneys New York filed for bankruptcy last year.
But nothing compares to the shock the weakened industry has taken from the coronavirus pandemic. The sales of clothing and accessories fell by more than half in March, a trend that is expected to only get worse in April. The entire executive team at Lord & Taylor was let go this month.
Former President Bill Clinton signed an order preventing the CIA from organizing a kill operation against al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, according to a new documentary.
The revelation is discussed by former CIA station chief Bob Grenier in the new Showtime documentary The Longest War, which was released Tuesday. Grenier, who was based in Islamabad, Pakistan, explained that the agency was permitted to engage in “lethal activity” against the terrorist leader but could not perform a strike with the explicit purpose of killing him.
“We were being asked to remove this threat to the United States essentially with one hand tied behind our backs,”
The kerfuffle over how much authority the president has vis-à-vis state governors boiled over at a recent White House coronavirus briefing. Missing in the debate is the conundrum that became apparent in August 2005, during Hurricane Katrina.
During a critical week, from two days before Katrina, to five days after, there arose a conflict the likes of which had never been seen in American disaster governance: an open clash between the president on one side and the Louisiana governor and the mayor of New Orleans on the other.
The Depression-Era Heritage. Put simply, the statutes governing emergency authority during disasters were enacted after the Great Flood of 1927,
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is drawing a line: There will be no more attempts at long-distance legislating on the coronavirus. In a telephone interview Tuesday after passage of a $484 billion coronavirus relief bill, the Senate majority leader made clear that the full Senate must be in session before Congress begins its fifth installment of responding to the pandemic. And he signaled he was growing weary of quickly shoveling billions of dollars out the door even as the economy continues to crater.
The latest measure cleared the Senate by voice vote, but it was the product of days of fraught negotiations and false starts —
I was already aware that many customers have had issues trying to get refunds from the airlines on flights they had booked before the coronavirus shut everything down. But I had no idea the extent of the problem was so vast. This report from NextGov indicates that there are currently enough of these cancellations that ten billion dollars worth of refunds are in limbo. The airlines want to give people travel vouchers instead of money, basically saying that once they have your money, they’re going to keep it. Whether you fly or not is up to you. Of course, these are the same airlines
President Trump recently declared House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was on “vacation.” Some Republicans derided the speaker for “camping out” in San Francisco, with a well-stocked freezer of Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams.
“She should come back and get this (coronavirus bill) done,” the president declared. “I don’t know why she’s not coming back.”
Nary a member of Congress has escaped a troll on Twitter or other social media of late, demanding that lawmakers quit hiding in their districts or home states, hustle back to Capitol Hill and “get back to work.”
Topping the list of assaults on our Constitutional freedoms is the war on our right to speak freely and peacefully assemble as governors warn their citizens to stay safe, stay home, and shut up. Joining them is the social media giant Facebook which, in its general censorship of conservative thought and opinion, has now decreed that using their platform to communicate complaints about government overreach during the Wuhan virus crisis and to organize protests against said overreach violates Facebook’s Alice-In-Wonderland “community standards”
San Bernadino County Sheriff John McMahon said California's decision to free inmates in the name of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) will endanger the public by recycling felons back into society.
In a Tuesday interview with Fox 11, McMahon claimed repeat child abusers are able to benefit from the state's new $0 cash bail emergency mandate and will be released back into circulation. There are 13 exceptions for serious offenses, but child abuse is not one of them.
“Felony child abuse does not fit into that list of 13, so even though this guy had a prior for domestic violence conviction for child abuse, he gets arrested for child abuse again,
If you’ve watched as much TV as this editor has (sorry!) then you are more than familiar with the ‘COVID branding’ that’s happening in commercials from companies across the board. Cars, insurance, pizza, food in general, grocery stores … you name it there’s a sappy COVID commercial out there. And hey, we get it, if they weren’t going this route it might seem tone-deaf but enough is enough.
Especially when we’ve figured out their ‘recipe’ and are starting to mock the crap out of it.
This thread is great: [tweets]
Over the last week, thousands of frustrated Americans gathered at state capitols in Michigan, Ohio, California, Minnesota, and other states to protest stay-at-home orders from totalitarian progressive leaders such as Governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, who argue that the lockdowns are crucial to containing the coronavirus. But with literally tens of millions of Americans losing their jobs and their businesses, and the economy collapsing with the worst possibly to come, Americans are legitimately complaining that the draconian cure is shaping up to be worse than the disease.
Speaker of the House and nepotism-enthusiast Nancy Pelosi decried the protesters, of course: “What they're doing is really unfortunate,” she condescended.
While the authorities are cracking down on miscreants attending drive-in church services or surfing in the ocean, urban gangs are practicing social distancing by shooting their victims from passing cars.
With 4 dead and 19 wounded over the weekend, Chicago’s gangs made it clear that they weren’t staying home. Either that or they thought that shooting rival drug dealers was an essential activity.
And for them it probably is.
While local media broadcast pictures of a deserted Windy City, the shootings paralleled those of previous years. Orders to stay at home, like most laws, don’t apply to criminals.
In one single day in early April, Chicago thugs killed 6 people and shot 21.
Not since Lazarus has the world heard of such an unbelievable rise.On Monday, CNN posted video of pseudo-newsman Chris Cuomo “finally” emerging from self-quarantine in his Southampton basement — despite Cuomo having been out and about in East Hampton just last week, getting into a fight with a “jackass loser fat-tire biker” who dared to ask why an infected Cuomo was breaking quarantine. Without a face mask.“Who the hell are you?” Cuomo replied. “I can do what I want.”Yes: If we’ve learned anything about Chris Cuomo these past three weeks, it’s that he’s an insecure, self-important, entitled blowhard
If the Mainstream Media Were Actually the
Enemy of the People, What Would They
Be Doing Differently? replies
Enemy of the People, What Would They
Be Doing Differently? replies
It’s a question worth pondering, and one that entered my mind after seeing two recent examples of “journalism” that we’ll get to shortly.The preponderance of the legacy media, and many in right-wing media as well, insist on the importance of outlets like The New York Times, CNN, and NPR. We are constantly told that they play a vital role in our society, one whose absence would cause our entire system to collapse into tyranny. But is that assumption reality? I’m growing more and more skeptical every day.I’ve previously been one to shy away from President Trump’s “enemy of the people” language, but perhaps I’ve been too kind?
Republicans seem mostly supportive of President Donald Trump’s announcement that he would temporarily suspend legal immigration into the United States to protect Americans from the coronavirus and a flooded job market when more than 22 million workers are unemployed. Details about the expected executive order are not clear, but despite Democrats slamming Trump for dismissing the contributions of some foreign workers, Bloomberg News reported it obtained a draft of the order, which includes exceptions for people working directly in the supply chain and also those working in health care or as medical research professionals.In the same Bloomberg article,
The only Democratic voters significantly bothered by Joe Biden's race and gender are white liberals with graduate degrees, according to a Pew survey published this week.
According to the poll, a majority of Democratic voters are not concerned that their party's presumptive nominee for president is an elderly white man. Nearly 60 percent of respondents said Biden's age and race do not bother them. Among black voters, 72 percent said they weren't bothered by Biden's race and gender, while 70 percent of Hispanic voters said the same.
Concern over Biden's whiteness was considerably higher among white Democrats,
CNN anchor Chris Cuomo staged a public emergence from quarantine in his home Monday, despite the fact that he had been caught leaving quarantine before.
"We had a huge day today in Casa Cuomo," he said during Cuomo Prime Time.
"Here it is, the official reentry from the basement, cleared by CDC," Cuomo said. "A little sweaty, just worked out. It happens. This is what I’ve been dreaming of literally for weeks."
Cuomo had left his basement prior to his "reentry" video, however. On April 12, he visited his property that is under development in East Hampton. A local cyclist named David, 65, confronted Cuomo about social distancing,