Posts on Thursday, March 19, 2020
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas in some neighborhoods across the U.S.
Users on social media are documenting a decidedly cheerful trend that appears to be taking over at least a few streets across America: People are hanging up their Christmas lights to try and spread some semblance of cheer during the country’s ongoing coronavirus health crisis.
As noted by House Beautiful, the trend first gained traction on Twitter, with users hanging their own decorations and suggesting others do the same.
Whether spurred on by these tweets or not, several other folks soon took to Twitter with photos of their own mid-March Christmas decorations,
Big-box retailer Walmart Inc said on Thursday it would hire more than 150,000 hourly workers in the United States, citing a jump in shoppers due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Rival Amazon.com Inc made a similar move earlier this week, announcing it would hire 100,000 warehouse and delivery workers in the United States as the virus outbreak boosts online orders.
Walmart also said it plans to pay a special cash bonus of $300 to full-time hourly workers and $150 to part-time associates. The company will accelerate the next scheduled quarterly bonus, it said.
The 150,000 new workers being hired through the end of May will work in Walmart’s stores, clubs, distribution and fulfillment centers,
A U.S. regulatory agency on Thursday approved a controversial natural gas pipeline and marine export terminal project in Oregon, but the state's Democratic governor threatened to go to court to stop the project if it doesn't obtain every permit required from state and local agencies. The Jordan Cove project, which would create the first LNG export terminal on the West Coast in the lower 48 states, has already been denied one state permit. “Currently, this project does not have a green light from state agencies,” Gov. Kate Brown said. “I have asked the state’s lawyers to consider all appropriate legal action to assure that Oregon permitting processes will be followed.”
There are three accounts in the New Testament of Jesus Christ feeding a multitude of people with a handful of loaves of bread and a few small fish. In the Gospel of Matthew, the number of people is listed as 4,000. In the Gospels of Luke and Mark, the number is stated to be 5,000.
According to all three gospels, large crowds of people follow Jesus into a remote area, where he preaches to them for several hours. (The account in Matthew says that the crowds are with Jesus for "three days"). Christ's disciples advise him to send the crowds away to get food and drink.
While many of us turn to the government for answers to the COVID-19 pandemic, others rightfully seek solutions from the private sector. Last week, the Hoover Institution's Russ Roberts asked his many Twitter followers to help "create a list of voluntary (non-coercive) actions taking place right now to reduce COVID-19 spread or impact." The answers are too inspiring not to share.
First, many of Roberts' followers shared a list the benefits offered by their employers that help to alleviate workers' financial hardships or ensure their health is protected. For instance, Walmart, Target, Gap and many other firms announced that they will provide up to two weeks of paid leave
LOS ANGELES -- Many people staying at home for the coronavirus emergency apparently are stressed and getting high. A Southern California weed dispensary has seen a 30% spike in sales. Los Angeles Kush in Echo Park thinks its because of nervousness over COVID-19. Workers say repeat customers are stocking up on weed, coming in every day to buy the maximum amount of recreational marijuana. "People are definitely like 'without the cannabis man, we're going to definitely be stressed' cause you know a lot of people are staying home so cannabis does help them get through all of this stress. So, yeah
The Trump administration, moving quickly to halt the spread of the coronavirus, is seriously considering grounding all passenger air traffic for up to 30 days, temporarily halting stock trading on Wall Street, and imposing a shelter-in-place rule, according to officials.
Key officials have begun alerting industry leaders, Capitol Hill, and agencies that the “radical” plan could come early next week if the warlike efforts to stop the spread of the virus fail.
On Thursday, the administration began to prepare the nation for 9/11-style moves when the State Department issued a “Level Four” warning against traveling overseas. The warning is the most severe that the department has.
Nikki Haley, former United Nations Ambassador, resigned from Boeing's board effective immediately over objections of a possible government aid package for the planemaker, one of many initiatives being discussed by the federal government amid the coronavirus crisis. (Snip)
In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company stated:
"Ambassador Haley informed the Company that, as a matter of philosophical principle, she does not believe that the Company should seek support from the Federal Government, and therefore decided to resign from the Board."
- Boeing SEC Filing on Haley's resignation
Boeing said it is exploring a number of "approaches" with the
It’s all-out class warfare in the Hamptons. The year-round residents, the locals who serve and clean and landscape for the super-rich in the summertime — and put up with all manner of entitlement and terrible behavior in exchange for good money — are silent no more. “There’s not a vegetable to be found in this town right now,” says one resident of Springs, a working-class pocket of East Hampton. “It’s these elitist people who think they don’t have to follow the rules.”
World War V
replies
When academics were asked to predict the most probable risks to humanity they concluded "human extinction is more likely to result from anthropogenic causes than natural causes": man rather than nature was to be feared. The top candidates were a malign artificial intelligence and a runaway biotechnological event. The Covid-19 crisis may be a biological threat but few anticipated a pandemic could also increase the demand for greater artificial intelligence powered mass surveillance from a frightened population desperate for safety.
The fear of contagion was compared by Angela Merkel to WWII. "Not since German reunification, no, not since the Second World War has our country faced a
President Trump took another bold and decisive move during the Wuhan coronavirus epidemic, where the American energy sector is concerned. The Department of Energy announced that by the order of President Trump, the DOE will fill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to maximum capacity by acquiring 77 million barrels of American-made crude oil. [Tweets]
The hope is to prevent oil-related economic disturbances, and to support American workers burdened by Saudi Arabia and Russia, as House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) pointed out: [tweets]
It is one of the oldest of human lessons, straight from “Aesop’s Fables.” A shepherd boy watching a flock of sheep amuses himself by yelling “Wolf!” — knowing correctly nearby villagers will quickly run to help him. Sure enough the villagers come running — only to find there is no wolf in sight. Shaking their heads, the villagers go back to their chores, and then the shepherd boy does it again. The villagers race back again and again — no wolf. They have been tricked a second time. Not long after they have left the laughing shepherd boy a second time, in fact a real wolf does in fact appear
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) is the latest Trump critic to offer praise for the president’s response to the Wuhan coronavirus, calling it “incredible and the right response in this critical time.”
The Minnesota progressive was responding to a tweet from The Intercept’s Lee Fang about all the measures the Trump administration has taken to help Americans through this crisis:
“Trump suspending mortgage foreclosures, demanding cash payments to Americans, now invoking the Defense Production Act to force private firms to produce needed supplies is incredible,” Fang tweeted. “Kind of a shell shock for anyone who reported on any economic policies in the Obama years.”
Recent descriptions of the novel coronavirus have led to complaints of discrimination in the Twin Cities directed at the Asian-American community.
The complaints of racial discrimination were influenced in part by President Donald Trump after he started referring to COVID-19 as the “Chinese virus,” according to Bo Thao-Urabe. (snip) ... (Keith Ellison) has received at least four complaints of discrimination, including a local Asian woman who said she received a threatening note.
Sources: Lindsey Graham Uses China’s
Disease Crisis to Deliver Green Cards
to Wealthy Chinese replies
Disease Crisis to Deliver Green Cards
to Wealthy Chinese replies
Sen. Lindsey Graham is using the coronavirus recovery bills to dramatically expand the award of EB-5 green cards to wealthy Chinese if they lend money to U.S. real estate investors and other companies, according to several activists and Politico magazine. “How can people pushing this not see how politically explosive this is?” said Mark Krikorian, director of the Center for Immigration Studies. “An EB-5 increase would almost exclusively benefit Chinese: It is hard to imagine what they are thinking.”The plan by Graham, (R-S.C.) was provided to Politico, which said it would “boost the number of [EB-5] visas offered to wealthy immigrants who invest money in the United States
At a White House press briefing today, President Trump repeated the importance of social distancing to help avoid spreading the coronavirus and told the reporters present they were "actually sitting too close" to each other, adding that "we should probably get rid of 75-80% of you." (Video) At the White House, a reporter asked the president, "Members of Congress are now testing positive for coronavirus ... do you have any guidance for Congress?"President Trump replied, "I know all of them. I don't know if they're sitting like all of you [journalists] are sitting
The far right in America has received the coronavirus pandemic in much the same manner as any other event: with disinformation, conspiracies and scapegoating. Many seem to see it as a significant opportunity, whether it is for financial gain, recruiting new followers, or both.
The delayed and much criticized response to coronavirus by the Trump administration has helped them, leaving many Americans confused, bereft of information and looking for answers. A situation in which people are panic-buying supplies is ideal for a movement powered by fear and lies.
Republican U.S. Senate candidate Don Bolduc said China’s secrecy led to the worldwide spread of COVID-19 that could have more devastating consequences than the Ebola virus he dealt with as a brigadier general working in Africa. Bolduc, a Stratham resident, was the head of U.S. Special Operations Command in Africa during the Ebola outbreak in 2014. During a telephone conference call with reporters, Bolduc said those fighting Ebola dealt with many of the same challenges, including a shortage of protective personal equipment and a need to dramatically expand hospital bed capacity.
The State Department announced Thursday morning American Amer Fakhoury has been returned to the United States after being held by the Iranian regime in Lebanon. He was there on vacation and tortured during six months of detention. Fakhoury has late-stage cancer.
"American citizen Amer Fakhoury, who has been in detention in Lebanon since September, is returning to the United States where he will be reunited with his family and receive urgent medical treatment. His return comes as a relief to those who have followed the case with grave concern. We are relieved to be able to welcome him back home," Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced.
Gov. Tom Wolf has ordered all non-life-sustaining businesses in Pennsylvania to close their physical locations to slow the spread of the coronavirus.The deadline to shut down is 8 p.m. Thursday.
Wolf said enforcement actions against businesses that do not comply with the order will begin at 12:01 a.m. Saturday.
[snip] “…we need to take more aggressive mitigation actions,” Wolf said in a statement. “This virus is an invisible danger that could be present everywhere. We need to act with the strength we use against any other severe threat. And, we need to act now before the illness spreads more widely.”
President Donald Trump criticized American media for siding with China on Thursday at the White House.“It is fake news, it’s more than fake news, it’s corrupt news,” he said. “They write stories without calling anybody.Trump denied media reports of “chaos” in the White House.“I have no chaos, I am the one telling people to be calm,” Trump said. “We have unbelievable professionals.”The president cited recent “fake phony” stories from the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post critical of the White House handling of fighting the virus.“The press is very dishonest,” Trump said,
The damaging impact of air pollution in urban areas is likely increasing the coronavirus death rate, experts say. As COVID-19 spreads worldwide, experts have warned that people over the age of 60, along with those with preexisting health conditions—such as cardiovascular disease, cancer and chronic respiratory disease—are the most at risk. Air pollution, which has a bigger impact on lower income and non-white communities, is a major driver of the diseases mentioned above. According to one study, air pollution is responsible for an estimated 8 million early deaths per year. As a result of that health damage, respiratory infections
Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., has proposed giving taxpayers until July 15 to submit their 2019 income tax returns – 90 days from the original April 15 due date. The Tax Filing Relief for America Act, which Senators Steve Daines, R-Mont., and Angus King, I-Maine, are joining Thune in introducing, aims to have the filing deadline coincide with the new July 15 deadline for taxpayers to pay the IRS taxes owed for 2019. Senators Richard Burr, R-N.C., and Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., are co-sponsors. Earlier this week, the Treasury Department announced it would give taxpayers more time to pay what they owed
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has sparked a heated backlash as she appeared to be against considering cash payments for Americans in the midst of the coronavirus crisis.
The California Democrat even has members of her own party criticizing her lack of support for measures that would get cash into the hands of Americans as the economy falters under the global pandemic. The fact that President Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans have floated the idea as a possibility has only angered the left even more.
“We are the wealthiest nation in human history, and have the lowest borrowing costs of any major government on the planet,
A collection of groups that advocate for young people have denounced Idaho legislation that calls for segregating sports based on participants’ birth sex, not their chosen gender. “[S]tudents who would be affected by these bills are among our most vulnerable to experiencing depression and engaging in self-harm, including suicide,” the Human Rights Campaign said Thursday in a letter to Idaho lawmakers. The 10 groups that signed the letter include the National Education Association, the American Association of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the Child Welfare League of America and the National PTA. The Idaho House of Representatives approved an amended version
Let’s talk victory as powerful messages of
inspiration emerge and remind: ‘Americans
DON’T lose’ replies
inspiration emerge and remind: ‘Americans
DON’T lose’ replies
An uplifting social media thread sparked a series of powerful images and comments reminding Americans of some important things amid the coronavirus crisis.
“Being American means something,” Twitter user @Brickhouse0733 posted in a series of tweets on Thursday that crescendo into a rousing finale declaring “Americans don’t lose…” [tweets]
He continued with a salute to American farmers and truckers working hard amid the pandemic gripping the world, while also publicly calling out the many shoppers who hoarded toilet paper as panic erupted. [Tweets]
“Our young Millennials partying on the beach represents the last gasp of the worst American generation,” he dramatically added,
LOS ANGELES — A group of homeless and housing-insecure Angelenos seized more vacant, publicly owned homes in El Sereno on Wednesday, arguing that government officials have failed to provide the shelter that’s necessary for them to remain healthy during the coronavirus pandemic. (Snip) The protesters have taken over 12 homes and plan to remain in the properties indefinitely, organizers said. “With this health crisis and this housing crisis, we need every vacant house to be a home for those who don’t have a safe and stable place to sleep in,” said Ruby Gordillo, 33, while standing on the porch of
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said bluntly Thursday morning on Fox News that “the party is over” for spring break revelers who’ve been crowding the state’s beaches during the global coronavirus pandemic.
“The message I think for spring breakers is the party is over in Florida,” he told the hosts of FNC’s “Fox & Friends.” “You’re not going to be able to congregate on any beach in the state. Many of the hot spots that people like to go to, whether it’s Miami beach, Fort Lauderdale and Clearwater Beach, are closed entirely for the time being.”
Not every beach is closed, as the governor has steadfastly refused to issue a top-down authoritarian decree
The stunningly privileged, wealthy and out-of-touch elitists who comprise Hollywood have reportedly sought to “lighten the mood” as the world burns by serenading America with a communist tune that calls for a world with no borders.
That tune is “Imagine,” a ditty written by deceased rock legend John Lennon that he himself once admitted was a virtual rendition of the “Communist Manifesto.”
“‘Imagine,’ which says ‘imagine that there was no more religion, no more country, no more politics,’ is virtually the ‘Communist Manifesto,’ even though I’m not particularly a communist and I do not belong to any movement,” he once said, according to Far Out magazine.
First Lady Melania Trump has been recognized for her good works at the United States’ leading lady, but no task is currently more important than helping the American people have all of the tips, tricks and information available to stop the spread of the highly-contagious coronavirus.
The White House has announced that they plan to release a public service announcement across the nation (airtime reportedly donated for free) that will employ Melania Trump, United States Surgeon General Jerome Adams, Dr. Anthony Fauci, and Dr Deborah Birx. The campaign’s goal is to communicate to the American people the most effective and important ways that we can protect our most vulnerable populations
Fear Makes Power
replies
Don’t panic is rotten advice,” Peggy Noonan advised in her column in last weekend’s Wall Street Journal. A stream of similar opinions in the New York Times and from CNN, reminded me of Machiavelli’s historical observation that “whoever controls the people’s fears becomes master of their souls.”
The formula for achieving such mastery has not changed in millennia: stoke any fear, turn the fear to hate of whomever and whatever you accuse of standing in the way of safety, and make yourself the agent of that hate.
(Snip) Hence, whoever manages to madden crowds while directing their hysteria onto his enemies stands to reap power.
Coronavirus Sanitation: ‘No Wipes
In The Pipes,’ Influx Of Non-
Toilet Paper Items Being Flushed replies
In The Pipes,’ Influx Of Non-
Toilet Paper Items Being Flushed replies
SACRAMENTO – Long lines and empty shelves caused by the coronavirus have led to a toilet paper shortage, which has caused a ripple effect — going all the way to city sewer systems. With the insufficient supply of bathroom paper products, more Californians are buying flushable wipes, baby wipes, and other self-care paper products. The problem is the so-called flushable wipes and other products can cause problems in sanitary sewer systems. The bathroom hygiene products are marketed as flushable, but wastewater officials say that’s misleading. Items like flushable wipes, paper towels, cotton swabs, hair, trash, debris, and hygiene products can
…there had to be a point where the value of the Wall St economy surpassed the value of the Main St economy… Part I Here
We now look forward, and consider the question: How would the multinational underwriters, the multinational financial systems, reset all transactional tables (the bookkeeping systems underneath the valuation) if the U.S. stock market was ever forced to re-value economic nationalism over multinational globalism?
To first answer the “how” question, we must visit the “why” question. Why would the multinational financial underwriters want to reset their valuations? Obviously, the global financial system does not act altruistically.
What's frightening about the Chinese Virus is the overwhelming amount of inconclusive information. We're inundated with media speculation and hyperventilation, Chinese disinformation, and data that change daily thanks to the treatment and quarantine initiatives governments are trying around the world.
The fact that the disease has different rates of contagion and mortality in different parts of the world makes things more confusing. We can understand why it exploded in China, a place of censored information, pollution, smoking, and primitive socialized medicine. But why was it so virulent in Italy?
Surely, Italy's socialized medicine is better than China's.
A very big picture discussion requires a considerable baseline.
The stock market is not the U.S. economy; the stock market is an investment instrument that determines valuations of economic activity company by company. The valuation is considerably arbitrary, based on the determinations of the arbiters (investors). This is empirically true.
However, that said, how would the multinational underwriters, the multinational financial systems, reset all transactional tables (the bookkeeping systems underneath the valuation) …if the U.S. stock market was every forced to re-value economic nationalism over multinational globalism? Enter “Coronavirus”.
The evidence of China’s deliberate cover-up of the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan is a matter of public record. In suppressing information about the virus, doing little to contain it, and allowing it to spread unchecked in the crucial early days and weeks, the regime imperiled not only its own country and its own citizens but also the more than 100 nations now facing their own potentially devastating outbreaks. More perniciously, the Chinese government censored and detained those brave doctors and whistleblowers who attempted to sound the alarm and warn their fellow citizens when they understood the gravity of what was to come.
Cheap TVs, Expensive Flu
replies
Here’s a thought: While self-quarantining with their families in multimillion-dollar Manhattan co-ops, Wall Street wives ought to have a chat with their Master of the Universe husbands about China, globalism and political correctness. Those are the vectors of their robber-baron wealth.
Thanks to “globalism” — i.e., cheap goods from China — we’ve gotten many wondrous things, for example:
— Toothpaste on American shelves made with a poison found in antifreeze.
— Toxic Chinese drywall installed in about 100,000 U.S. homes, emitting noxious fumes that destroyed electrical wiring and metal fixtures and sickened homeowners. Replacement of the drywall, pipes and wiring cost Americans billions of dollars.
It started out as a tickle in his throat before bed, but by the next morning, it felt like the worst flu ever.
And by the time Kevin Harris was admitted to a hospital in Ohio five days later, he thought he was suffocating.
The doctors at St. Joseph Hospital in Warren were certain Harris, 55, had pneumonia — but three days later, they had the real diagnosis: coronavirus.
One of the doctors had tears in his eyes when Harris asked if he would live. Another doctor just shrugged and mumbled, “I don’t know.”
“They told me they didn’t have a cure,” Harris told The Post from his hospital room,
Trump announces FDA making
anti-malaria drug available
'almost immediately' to
tackle coronavirus replies
anti-malaria drug available
'almost immediately' to
tackle coronavirus replies
President Trump announced Thursday that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is making experimental drugs -- including those used for treating malaria -- available as part of the ongoing effort to tackle the spread of the coronavirus.
Trump announced at a White House press briefing that chloroquine, a drug designed for use in malaria, has been FDA approved and will be made available by prescription "almost immediately." He said it was one of a number of antiviral therapies to limit the symptoms of the virus that the administration is trying to get to Americans as quickly as possible. “I have directed the FDA to eliminate rules and bureaucracy
Prince Albert of Monaco has tested positive for the coronavirus, the palace announced Thursday.
In a statement, the palace said there were “no concerns for his health” and said the prince continues to work from his private apartment.
Albert, 62, the son of Prince Rainier and Princess Grace, is the reigning monarch in the European principality of Monaco.
The royal is the latest high-profile victim of the COVID-19 bug that has infected more than 200,000 worldwide and killed over 9,000, according to Johns Hopkins University.
Hunter Biden’s hip hop record label recently folded after defaulting on its mortgage payments, Nevada state records reviewed by The Washington Free Beacon show.
The son of former Vice President Joe Biden founded Biden Enterprise LLC in 2018 alongside a 42-year-old California man named Michael Elisaldez. The company purchased a $365,000 property in Nevada last year to use as a recording studio, but it was unable to get off the ground and went into foreclosure last month.
The company advertised itself with rising hip-hop and country music stars, and still owes significant amounts of money in back pay to Republic Silver State Disposal Inc. over garbage disposal, according to the Free Beacon.
A drug developed over half a century ago to treat malaria is showing signs that it may also help cure COVID-19 — especially when combined with an antibiotic, a promising new study reveals. Hydroxychloroquine, sold under the brand name Plaquenil—and also used to treat arthritis and other ailments—was determined to be effective in killing the deadly bug in laboratory experiments, Forbes reported, citing findings published March 9 in the Clinical Infectious Diseases journal. “(W)e predict that the drug has a good potential to combat the disease,” the study’s authors, most from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Wuhan, wrote in a letter
House Lawyers for Adam Schiff
Assert Privilege over Schiff Subpoenas
of Impeachment Phone Records replies
Assert Privilege over Schiff Subpoenas
of Impeachment Phone Records replies
(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA) and the U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence asked the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to dismiss the lawsuit against them for the controversial impeachment-related subpoenas for phone records, including those of Rudy Giuliani, President Trump’s lawyer. Schiff and the Committee are being represented by the Office of General Counsel for the House of Representatives. The phone records led to the publication of the private phone records of Giuliani, Congressman Devon Nunes, journalist John Solomon, Trump attorney Jay Sekulow, attorney Victoria Toensing, and other American citizens.
A mystery illness has killed more than 2,000 nomads in Ethiopia’s Somali region since 2014, according to a report published Tuesday by Voice of America (VOA).
Those who have treated the ill say symptoms of the mysterious illness include bleeding from the nose and mouth, swollen limbs, and a green or yellow tint to eyes. Victims of this mystery ailment comprise a nomadic tribe of cattle herders, who roam the Ogaden Basin region, rich in oil and natural gas reserves.
Another group drawn to the Ogaden Basin region is the Chinese oil and gas firm Poly-GCL, which has surveyed the area since 2014, when the nomads began to exhibit symptoms of the
COLUMBUS, Ohio - Governor Mike DeWine gave the order for more businesses, including 181 BMV locations, to close at the end of the business day on Wednesday to slow the spread of the coronavirus. The governor says he’s taking further action to help control how fast the virus spreads. Barbershops, beauty salons, hair and nail salons, tattoo parlors and 181 BMV locations have all been ordered to close by the end of business on Wednesday, March 18.(Snip)78,000 people have applied for unemployment in Ohio this week alone, but workers at barbershops and salons do not qualify for unemployment, said Lt. Governor Jon Husted.
Angelina Dixon sat in a lounge chair on her front porch shortly before 9:30 a.m. Wednesday sipping steaming coffee and smoking a cigarette. A 40-foot long yellow school bus pulled up just across the street, a teacher’s aide popped out, hurried over, greeted her warmly and handed her a white, plastic bag. It contained a breakfast pack of a muffin, a box of cereal, a pint of milk and a box juice. It also included a lunch of turkey and cheese cold cuts on a Kaiser roll and chips or Cheez Its crackers. Dixon’s son received one of about 100 meal bags
LIMA: China hit out on Monday at Peru's Nobel literature laureate Mario Vargas Llosa for allegedly expressing "irresponsible and prejudiced opinions" over the origins of the coronavirus pandemic.
The writer penned an article for Spain's El Pais newspaper and La Republica in Peru in which he said the coronavirus outbreak would have played out differently if China was a democracy.
"No-one seems to be remarking that none of this could have happened in the world if popular China was a free country and democratic rather than a dictatorship," said the 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature winner.
That brought a furious rebuke from the one-party state that has been widely criticised by rights groups
Since the start of the coronavirus crisis, frightening death rates have been publicized. China’s death rate was said to be approaching a scary 4 percent. That’s substantially higher than the death rate for seasonal flu, which is something less than 0.1 percent, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
Even worse, a February study by the World Health Organization (WHO) found the mortality rate for people over age 80 was one in five of those infected, or 21.9 percent.
But lately, the 4 percent death figure has drifted downward.
The worldwide panic over coronavirus has forced us all to think about how we live, work, do business, and interact. It might also give us a chance to rectify some serious lapses of judgment that we, as a country, have made.
For instance, with China’s economy still reeling from the economic impact of the disease, maybe it’s time for America to rethink our insane over-dependence on China for everything from clothes, to computers, to smart-phones, to even the medicines we need to combat corona—which, despite politically correct howls to remain mute about it, started in China!
Health care workers and truck drivers have already gotten their due here at The Breitbart-Dot-Com, and I would just like to add our grocery store workers to that list.
Whether it is your local IGA, your local Ralph’s, or your local mega-Walmart, while Americans prepare to self-quarantine, prepare to binge Netflix from a Charmin throne, the people who unload the trucks and stock those increasingly empty shelves are putting themselves in harm’s way, are going above and beyond in an already tough job that just got a whole lot tougher … and dangerous.Heavy cartons. Cold refrigeration units. Endless numbers of boxes that need to be opened, unpacked, broken down,
On Monday Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, announced that the first trial vaccine for the coronavirus is now being tested. The trial taking place in Seattle, which has been a hotbed for COVID-19. The test includes 45 people age 18-55 and they are receiving two injections, one at zero days, one at 28 days. The individuals will then be followed for one year. The trial results is still months away. On Monday night Laura Ingraham reported that a new study revealed the anti-viral medication chloroquine is successful in fighting the coronavirus.
A usually level-headed Christian conservative lashed out on Facebook, scolding everyone they thought was not taking the coronavirus seriously enough. Fake news media has successfully infected many with irrational fear. (Snip) CDC data confirms that the martial-law-light mandates steamrolling across America are disproportionate to the threat of the virus.
After years of counseling and prayer, John Ray decided he had finally developed the emotional fortitude to revisit the formative trauma of his youth. He started a private Facebook group, titled simply “Murchison/Mr. Grayson 40 Years Later,” and invited former classmates and teachers to join. Ray wasn’t entirely sure how his outreach would be received. He knew only that he couldn’t confront the past alone.
For one thing, Ray barely remembered the details of that day—May 18, 1978—when a friend at his Austin junior high school walked into class and, in front of Ray and twenty other eighth graders, shot and killed their teacher, Wilbur “Rod” Grayson.
Any celebrity saying this to Michelle Obama would have lost their corporate sponsorships immediately. Target store representative Chrissy Teigen went off on a foul-mouthed rant against First Lady Melania Trump on Tuesday, calling her a “wifebot” and culminating in a filthy “f___ you”. Teigen, who is married to popular musician John Legend, has a kitchen product line at Target called, the Cravings by Chrissy Teigen collection. Teigen’s rant against Melania Trump:
Within the next couple of weeks, the American people will have a clearer sense of how great a challenge our nation faces in the months and potentially years ahead. Despite Democrats’ insistent focus on making this pandemic crisis about President Trump and his Administration—and the media happily jumping on that bandwagon—there are facts that cannot be ignored, and many of them are things the Democrat members of Congress (or former members of the Obama Administration) don’t want the American people to know. Recall that Democrats like David Axelrod and members of the Obama national security team attempted to claim that the Trump Administration had “gutted” or “eliminated”
Two members of the US House of Representatives, Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida and Ben McAdams of Utah, said on Wednesday they have tested positive for the coronavirus, becoming the first members of Congress known to have contracted the respiratory illness. Diaz-Balart, 58, was the first to share on Twitter that he recently received his test results after developing symptoms of the disease. The congressman said in a statement that he has been self-quarantining in Washington, DC, since Friday. He said he has not returned home to Florida because his wife's pre-existing conditions put her at exceptionally high risk.
With much of the U.S. economy shut down to deal with the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak, Congress is putting together a $1 trillion stimulus package to prevent an economic meltdown, the third major bill to address the coronavirus pandemic. That’s a huge amount of money, but a question looms: How much of it will actually help the struggling economy, and how much of it will just be politically motivated pork?
Congress is moving on the massive stimulus fresh off of passing a multibillion-dollar aid package on Wednesday that provides paid sick and family leave for working Americans, free coronavirus testing, and
Wealthy people who have flocked to the Hamptons to escape the coronavirus are ransacking grocery stores in epic shopping sprees that are costing thousands of dollars a pop.Since COVID-19 hit Long Island’s tony beach towns last week, its residents have been lining up for groceries and other essentials as they prepare to hunker down at home. But unlike in other parts of the country, Hamptonites are dropping massive amounts of money as they clean up on high-end goods, like salmon, steaks and rare bottles of wine, sources said.“I had one customer spend $8,000,”
The H1N1 virus (colloquially known as swine flu) was "first detected in April of 2009 in the United States, and spread quickly around the world," despite the virus being of Mexican origin, as we later discovered. The Obama administration had declared it a "public health emergency" in late April, and by June, the World Health Organization declared it the "first flu pandemic in 40 years."
It wasn't until October of 2009, though, that Obama personally recognized it as a national emergency with the "potential to overburden health care resources in some localities." By that time, over one thousand Americans had died from it.
If Hillary Clinton had won the 2016 election, we would not know about the enormously complex attempted coup she undertook, with a vast cast of characters, to defeat Donald Trump as a candidate and then unseat him once he was elected president. Only because she lost, do we now know a great deal about all that.
We know Hillary commissioned and paid for the vaunted “dossier,” that she hired Fusion GPS to deliver opposition research that would take candidate Trump out of the running. We know that bad actors in the FBI (James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Pete Strzok, et. al.), at the DOJ
The mainstream media are disgusting. That sentence could open every article about the mainstream media in a time of coronavirus. The media’s hostility to Trump is so extreme that there is no lie they won’t tell to damage him – never mind that doing so might destroy the American economy or cause other unimaginable harm to the American people.
In addition to lies, the media’s other line of attack is to call everything Trump says or does “racist.” When it comes to the coronavirus, the media have a friend in the Chinese communist party that started this epidemic. The communists would also like Trump to be “racist,”
The confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court have proven to be consequential in advancing President Trump’s immigration agenda. Four cases decided during this term, three by a 5-4 margin, have reversed lower court decisions that sought to make it harder to restrict immigration.
In Kansas v. Garcia, the Court gave states wider latitude in prosecuting illegal immigrants for identity theft when they provide false Social Security numbers on job applications.
The issue in the case was whether the federal Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 preempted a Kansas statute that criminalized identity theft. The Trump Administration backed Kansas in the case.
Former President Barack Obama on Wednesday warned Americans they would likely be stuck in their homes until late May.
“[H]ere’s a sober but useful primer on what we should expect in the coming months,” Obama wrote on Twitter, sharing a New York Times opinion article from medical professionals Ezekiel J. Emanuel, Susan Ellenberg, and Michael Levy.
The article predicts that a return to “normal” American activity would take months, not weeks.
“That timeline suggests that your kids are not going back to school on April 1,” they wrote. “Nor are you returning to the office or catching a movie anytime soon. Plan for social distancing at least until mid-or late May,
Rasida Tlaib backpedaled after sharing a post by Parkland survivor and anti-gun activist David Hogg dismissing President Trump’s National Day of Prayer announcement over the coronavirus crisis.
Last weekend, President Trump declared Sunday a National Day of Prayer, saying: “It is my great honor to declare Sunday, March 15th as a National Day of Prayer. We are a Country that, throughout our history, has looked to God for protection and strength in times like these.” [tweet]
"No matter where you may be,” Trump continued, “I encourage you to turn towards prayer in an act of faith. Together, we will easily PREVAIL!”
One reason it’s difficult for any politician, regardless of reputation, to unseat an incumbent president involves the difficulty of remaining statesmanlike while engaging in partisan politics. From the birth of the republic until the late 19th century, candidates managed this by “standing for office” while their surrogates handled the cut and thrust of day-to-day campaigning. Today’s presidential challengers enjoy no such luxury. They are expected to get out among the voters and explain how they would do a better job than the incumbent. In a time of national crisis, this must be accomplished without exploiting the emergency and appearing cynically opportunistic. Joe Biden has already committed this fatal blunder.
Bailouts, in general, are neither good nor popular.
The most recent legislation billed as a “stimulus” package was President Barack Obama’s 2009 raft of special interest giveaways and green energy boondoggles.
It’s understandable, then, that a lot of conservatives are very wary of the proposed economic responses to the coronavirus crisis. And the odds are that, whatever Congress passes, it will end up — either because of the statute or the implementation — being filled with immense waste and cronyism.
No bank bailouts.
No auto bailouts.
No farm bailouts.
No leisure bailouts.
No bailouts.
It’s like the moronic mandarins of the mainstream media – luminaries like Honest Dan Rather, Brian “Badass Like Buttigieg” Williams, and Zombie Cronkite – got together to create a plan to make people hate the media even more than they already did. It was a daunting challenge, since people view the mainstream media as something akin to syphilis without the upside. But it’s as if they finally succeeded, accomplishing, against all odds, something besides failure, leveraging this pandemic to destroy the media forever. The Chinese Coronavirus Bat Soup Syndrome has taken what’s left of the media’s reputation, poured gasoline on it,
The coronavirus epidemic is slowing down in China, and will not pose a risk to the majority of people, an Israeli Nobel Prize laureate has said.
Michael Levitt, an American-British-Israeli biophysicist who won the 2013 Nobel prize for chemistry for "the development of multiscale models for complex chemical systems," has become something of a household name in China over the last few months. Although his specialty is not in epidemiology, he accurately forecast the slowing down of the spread of the virus in February, giving hope to those affected by the lockdown.
On Tuesday, the North Carolina-based global Christian charity Samaritan's Purse airlifted an emergency field hospital to the Italian city of Milan to help a health care system overwhelmed by the coronavirus. As of Wednesday, Italy experienced 35,317 confirmed cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, and 2,978 deaths.
Amid this crisis, Samaritan's Purse airlifted a 68-bed emergency field hospital to Milan. The DC-8 aircraft carried approximately 20 tons of medical equipment, a respiratory care unit designed for this specific mission, and 32 disaster relief personnel, including doctors, nurses, and respiratory specialists. That medical team will stay in Italy for a month.
With all of the Wuhan coronavirus panic monopolizing the news in the past week, something that has the potential to be a truly earth-shaking geopolitical event was largely missed.
President Trump announced Friday that he was ordering the Department of Energy to buy up some 77 million barrels of oil to fill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the massive store of crude oil the federal government has stashed in salt caverns along the Gulf Coast. The SPR’s capacity sits somewhere in the neighborhood of 713.5 million barrels; currently, it holds about 635 million barrels after Congress demanded last year that oil be sold off from the SPR.
In his debate with Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden made two pledges to voters and asked his opponent to do the same to nominate only a black woman for the next open Supreme Court seat and to choose a woman as his vice president. Even with identity politics, the pledge to impose a gender and race requirement for the next Supreme Court nominee is as ironic as it is troubling. What Biden was declaring, and what Sanders wisely avoided, would effectively constitute discrimination in admission to the Supreme Court. Indeed, the Supreme Court has declared that such race or gender conditions are strictly unconstitutional for admission to public colleges.
Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged madam Ghislaine Maxwell has sued his estate for coverage of legal bills, security costs and costs for “safe accommodations,” according to court papers filed in the US Virgin Islands.
The disgraced British socialite — who has been in hiding — says she worked for Epstein from 1999 through at least 2006 and he “promised Maxwell that he would support her financially.”
Maxwell says Epstein also paid for legal costs in two prior lawsuits filed by Sarah Ransome and alleged Epstein “sex slave” Virginia Roberts Giuffre.
The latest victim of the coronavirus: Playboy.
The nudie mag founded by Hugh Hefner 66 years ago will no longer publish a printed edition, it said on Wednesday, citing coronavirus supply chain woes that have only served to exacerbate its already sagging newsstand sales.
“Last week, as the disruption of the coronavirus pandemic to content production and the supply chain became clearer and clearer, we were forced to accelerate a conversation we’ve been having internally,” CEO Ben Kohn said in a post on Medium.com.
Shalva Dahan, the last patient in hospital at Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer who was on board the Diamond Princess cruise ship was released today, a spokesperson for Sheba said.
Dahan spent 28 days in an isolation room at Sheba after she was diagnosed with the novel coronavirus upon her return to the country from the ship. Several hundreds people aboard the boat that docked in Japan caught the virus.Sheba said that Dahan's last two test for coronavirus came back negative.
You had to keep scrolling down the home pages, whether it was the New York Times, Washington Post or some other outlet, to find out that Joe Biden had won three major primaries.
The presidential campaign suddenly seemed ephemeral, a sidebar story, an afterthought.
Even Biden’s brief victory speech, which focused mainly on the virus, had a weirdly disconnected vibe. It was a shaky livestream from Philadelphia, with no audience, and a delivery so low-key it was practically a golf whisper.
'The Rosie O'Donnell Show'
returning for single episode to raise
money amid coronavirus outbreak replies
returning for single episode to raise
money amid coronavirus outbreak replies
Rosie O'Donnell is helping others amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The 57-year-old actress will once again host "The Rosie O'Donnell Show" for a one-night-only episode to rain funds for The Actors Fund, Fox News can confirm.
The program will stream live on YouTube and Broadway.com on Sunday, March 22, at 7 p.m. ET, following the closures of all Broadway theaters until mid-April. “Everybody who knows me knows that Broadway has been one of the brightest lights in my life since the time I was a little girl," said O'Donnell in a statement. "It has also been the lifeblood of New York City for generation after generation.
The cases of the coronavirus jumped to 9,225 in the US on Wednesday.
The number of deaths blamed on the virus is 150 in the US.
The number of estimated deaths from the flu this year, based on numbers from the CDC is 22,000.
Top Israeli virologist Prof. Jihad Bishara, the director of the Infectious Disease Unit at Petah Tikva’s Beilinson Hospital, said this week most people will recover from the coronavirus without even knowing they were sick.
Dr. Bishara said global leaders and the media need to quit pushing panic and calm people down.
The Times of Israel reported:
A leading Israeli virologist on Sunday urged world leaders to calm their citizens
A leading House Democrat is suggesting that we end tariffs on Chinese imports amid the spread of Wuhan Virus , essentially rewarding the Chinese for their secretive and problematic handling of the virus that is quickly spreading to all corners of the globe.
Florida Congresswoman Stephanie Murphy, whose husband manufactures sportswear in Chinese factories according to an article by The Hill, could potentially benefit from such a move. The proposed legislation is co-sponsored by Democrat Joe Cunningham of South Carolina. Murphy also owns a patent on one of the products manufactured by her husband.
Murphy and Cunningham’s plan does not provide any insight or plans
Laura Ingraham demanded "total cooperation and openness from China" in response to their role in the coronavirus pandemic, adding the country has "blood on their hands" and they should be punished if they do not provide information. "It's essential that our health experts work cooperatively with other countries and that we all share data and findings about the disease as we try to stop it spread all over the world.(Snip)"But we need the Chinese government to give us total and complete access to all their scientific data, including, by the way, the findings of doctors who first studied and discovered the virus."
Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum challenged Symone Sanders after the senior Biden campaign adviser called the term “Chinese coronavirus” a “racial slur” on Wednesday’s “The Story with Martha MacCallum." [Video]
Responding to a question from MacCallum about whether former Vice President Joe Biden and others should say “this is a moment to get behind our president” despite their disagreements and “give credit where credit is due,” Sanders criticized the Trump administration both on the number of tests delivered so far and on President Donald Trump’s usage of the term “Chinese virus.”
“Some of what he said today was good, but the reality is he also stood at the podium
Since early March Italy became the epicenter of of the coronavirus epidemic.
As of Wednesday morning there have been 31,506 confirmed cases of coronavirus in Italy and 2,503 deaths.
But new data from the Italian government shows that the people dying from the coronavirus are either the elderly or have other complications.
Today’s news out of Italy confirms this is the case.
50% of those who died from coronavirus had THREE DIFFERENT SERIOUS HEALTH CONDITIONS and the average per person had 2.7 serious health conditions.
Only 12 coronavirus fatalities had NO previous health concerns before coming down with the coronavirus.
The controversial Ethiopian politician and Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, claimed in a press conference in early March that the fatality rate for the coronavirus was many multiples that of the fatality rate of the common flu.
This egregiously false premise has led to the greatest economic panic in world history.
The Director General of the WHO spoke on March 3, 2020 and shared this related to the coronavirus:
While many people globally have built up immunity to seasonal flu strains, COVID-19 is a new virus to which no one has immunity. That means more people are susceptible to infection, and some will suffer severe disease.
Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) and Congressman Mike Gallagher (R-WI) on Wednesday introduced a bill to end US dependence on Chinese-manufactured pharmaceuticals after China threatened to cut America’s access to vital drugs.The bill will take two years to phase in.“The Chinese Communist Party has threatened to cut off America’s access to vital drugs in the midst of a pandemic caused by its own failures. It’s time to pull America’s supply chains for life-saving medicine out of China and make the CCP pay for contributing to this global emergency,” said Cotton. “The Chinese Communist Party’s outrageous threats to withhold lifesaving drugs from the U.S. endangers public health and should open our eyes
Millions of Americans across the country are, day by day, adjusting their lives to better cope with the economic, social, and political impacts caused by the Chinese coronavirus pandemic, as a dark money network simultaneously works overtime to further politicize the festering crisis.A Democrat-aligned Super PAC announced on Tuesday that it will spend $5 million on negative ads targeting President Trump’s response to the coronavirus.“The campaign from Pacronym — a political action committee affiliated with the nonprofit group Acronym — represents the first major pivot to coronavirus-related advertising fewer than 250 days from the election,” the Washington Post reported
President Donald Trump signed the Families First Coronavirus Response Act on Wednesday, sending over $100 billion in aid to Americans suffering economically from the spread of the Chinese virus.The president did not sign the bill publicly, as the White House sent a statement from Trump notifying his approval of the legislation.“The Act makes emergency supplemental appropriations and other changes to law to help the Nation respond to the coronavirus outbreak,” Trump said in his statement.The bill negotiated between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin offers emergency paid sick leave, child care leave, as well as expanded unemployment benefits. It also allows Medicaid funding for free coronavirus testing