Posts on Thursday, April 2, 2020
Gov. Mike DeWine announced in his daily update that the health department will extend orders that close non-essential businesses and require most residents to stay at home unless engaged in some essential work or activity. The new rules will take effect Monday, when the original order was set to expire. The new order includes increased restriction on the occupancy of essential businesses, including grocery stores. (Snip) Other highlights - Guidelines for potential universal do not resuscitate policies are being discussed at the Centers for Disease Control and the Ohio Hospital Association.
So, tonight was going to be a thought piece, a way to put what is going on in context, to raise readers’ spirits, to bring a ray of light into the dark alley in which we are trapped.(Snip) You may recall that the most dangerous place on earth, Bob Dole wisely observed, is between Chuck Schumer and the TV cameras. And Chuck has been in front of TV cameras, and writing nastygrams to Trump over shortages of medical supplies in New York State, and calling for a military person to take over supply procurement at the federal level:
For the last two weeks my cellphone has been ringing non-stop as healthcare recruiters from all over the Northeast have been trying to contact me. Pay rates for RNs, LPNs, PCTs, and CNAs in New York City have almost doubled seemingly overnight and they keep going up. Salaried doctors and nurses already on staff are facing some pay cuts, but NYC hospitals and nursing homes are desperate, and many recruiters are about to make a killing adding desperately-needed support staff that deal directly with pateints. Something’s not adding up.
Less than a month ago, at the now infamous Elmhurst Hospital in Queens where patients with the Chinese virus
The U.S. Justice Department and Health and Human Services are giving New York and New Jersey nearly 200,000 N95 respirator masks and medical supplies that the agencies confiscated from individuals who were discovered hoarding the supplies.
The FBI discovered the medical materials last week as part of an operation by the Justice Department’s COVID-19 Hoarding and Price Gouging Task Force. The DOJ then alerted HHS of the situation.
Pelosi: Trump Didn’t Want to ‘Face the
Reality’ of Coronavirus—‘Denial and
that Delay Cost Lives’ replies
Reality’ of Coronavirus—‘Denial and
that Delay Cost Lives’ replies
Thursday on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and President Donald Trump’s attempt to blame impeachment for any delays in the response to the coronavirus pandemic is meant to distract from the president not wanting face “reality.”Mitchell asked, “Do you think it’s fair for Mitch McConnell to suggest that impeachment slowed down the federal response?”Pelosi said, “That’s just sad. They can’t handle their jobs, I guess, because what are they saying? We ignored it? It was self-evident. Most people knew about it and certainly those of responsibility.”
After repeatedly mocking President Trump for suggesting on March 19 that hydroxychloroquine could be an effective treatment for coronavirus, media organizations have begun acknowledging that the drug -- now approved for emergency use to treat coronavirus by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) -- may be useful after all.
Journalists and top Democrats have beaten a similarly hasty retreat from their previous claims that Trump's ban on travel from China was both xenophobic and ineffective. But media outlets' misinformation on hydroxychloroquine was unique because it involved not simply policy disagreements but also suggestive medical advice and directives that could have dissuaded some from seeking certain treatments.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) sent a letter to President Trump calling his response to the Coronavirus “confused and uncoordinated.” Schumer called for President Trump to appoint a military “czar” to help get supplies to people suffering from the Coronavirus. And President Trump responded with fire. The President on Thursday sent Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer a letter and absolutely destroyed the Democrat lawmaker.“Thank you for your Democrat public relations letter and incorrect sound bites, which are wrong in every way,”
A 67-year-old man who attended the Winter Party Festival was in the ICU fighting for his life, after he and his husband tested positive for COVID-19. J. Heider said his husband, Thom Carr, was in critical condition on a ventilator. (Snip) A second man who attended the festival on Miami Beach last month has died from coronavirus, festival organizers said Tuesday. In a Facebook post, the Winter Party Festival said Ron Rich, a festival volunteer, succumbed to COVID-19 over the weekend. "Ron was a familiar face to the guests who attended the Task Force Gala, Winter Party Festival and our
House Democrats want to include a climate-heavy infrastructure plan they outlined two months ago in a fourth coronavirus recovery package, even amid renewed Republican calls to reject anything resembling the "green new deal." Renewed interest in pushing a big-spending infrastructure plan has emerged in recent days, but could be overwhelmed by climate politics. The $760 billion package House Democrats unveiled in late January would heavily invest in rail and transit, as well as broadband, vehicle electrification infrastructure and climate resiliency. “Always focusing on emergency and mitigation we go to the next phase, which is of recovery,” said House Speaker Nancy
SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- The start of the month under a statewide stay-at-home order means many tenants and homeowners are scrambling to come up with the money for their rent and mortgage bills. On Wednesday, the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment declared a statewide rent strike, demanding that those payments be forgiven until people can return to work. With so many workers out of a job right now, a number of families do not know when their next paycheck is coming -- but the bills keep piling up. Spring usually marks the start of a busy wedding season for California florist Terra
You Probably Read About an Uninsured
Teen Who Died of COVID-19. The Truth
Is More Complicated replies
Teen Who Died of COVID-19. The Truth
Is More Complicated replies
Last week, a story about a teenager in Lancaster, California, who appeared to have died from COVID-19 after an urgent care clinic denied him treatment because he didn’t have health insurance, ripped through social media. The story was covered by dozens of news outlets, earned thousands of anguished tweets, and quickly became a symbol of Americans’ fears and the failures of the U.S. health care system. But the truth, it turns out, is more complicated.
A Georgia man accused of plotting to attack the White House with an anti-tank rocket and explosives has pleaded guilty to a federal charge. Hasher Jallal Taheb, 23, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to a charge of attempting to destroy, by fire or an explosive, a building owned by or leased to the United States, federal prosecutors said. “Taheb hatched a dangerous plan that would have resulted in unimaginable injury,” US attorney Byung J “BJay” Pak said in an emailed statement. “We are grateful to community members who noticed his dangerous evolution and alerted law enforcement.” Local law enforcement contacted the FBI
More than 6.6 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits last week. (Snip)C.D.C. is expected to advise all Americans to wear cloth masks in public.
The Trump administration is expected to announce as soon as Thursday that all Americans should wear cloth masks or other face coverings if they go out in public, based on a forthcoming recommendation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that would mark a shift in federal guidance amid new concerns that the coronavirus is being spread by infected people who have no symptoms.
Chanel Rion, OANN’s White House correspondent, said Thursday that White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham invited her to attend the day’s White House coronavirus task force briefing after she was barred by White House Correspondents’ Association for allegedly breaching social distancing guidelines. (Snip)JENNIFER FRANCO: You say Stephanie Grisham approved your appearance in the briefing room. Has the White House issued any sort of statement regarding that incident?
CHANEL RION: I spoke with Stephanie Grisham. I met with her and we discussed the situation, and she invited me again to attend briefing today as her guest, standing in the back, and I will be in the press room today if there
Inside The Dark Money Dem Group Using
An Umbrella Network To Flay Trump Over
His Virus Response replies
An Umbrella Network To Flay Trump Over
His Virus Response replies
Two left-leaning large super PAC groups that kickstarted a digital ad campaign targeting President Donald Trump’s coronavirus response have ties to a wealthy dark money network.
American Bridge 21st Century and Pacronym are cutting ads thrashing Trump’s handling of the virus and becoming two of the first super PACs to go after the president on the health crisis, The Washington Post reported. Both groups also have ties to two large nonprofit groups — New Venture Fund and Sixteen Thirty Fund — connected to a massive left-leaning consulting group. (Snip)Arabella Advisors, a philanthropic consulting company based in Washington, D.C., manages four nonprofits, including the NVF, Sixteen Thirty Fund, Hopewell Fund and
In an effort to the slow the spread of coronavirus, the U.S. Department of State has temporarily halted its passport services with the exception of travelers who have a "qualified life-or-death emergency."
The reduced services went into effect March 20 after the department raised a global travel advisory warning Americans not to leave the country.
Citizens who qualify for a passport must have a family emergency that requires them to travel outside the country within 72 hours. Qualified emergencies include serious illnesses or deaths of immediate family members such as a parent, child, spouse or sibling, aunt or uncle.
A Perham man is accused of killing his roommate by stabbing him in the eyes and shooting him repeatedly after a disagreement over a firearm.
Court documents show Derek Sweere has been charged with one count of murder in the second degree and one count of possessing ammunition or any firearm - conviction or adjudicated delinquent for crime of violence. (snip) ..stabbed Snyder in the left eye "about two inches" and then also his right eye, the complaint states.
Snyder then quit fighting. Sweere went to get his rifle that was loaded and shot Snyder 15 times
Park board considers closing Minneapolis
parks if better social
distancing practices aren't used replies
parks if better social
distancing practices aren't used replies
The Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board is considering closing down the city's parks if people don't use better social distancing practices.
Officials posted the message online.
"Outdoor recreation opportunities are important for people of all ages during this stressful time," said Al Bangoura, Superintendent of the MPRB.
EXCLUSIVE: The Trump campaign has been donating meals to hospitals across the country to feed doctors, nurses and first responders on the front lines of the coronavirus battle, Fox News has learned. Since last Thursday, President Trump’s reelection campaign has been calling up local restaurants and ordering large amounts of food to be delivered to more than a dozen hospitals in New York, New Jersey, Washington state and Michigan. The campaign has been placing these orders anonymously, but Fox News learned about the effort--and sources confirmed it.
WUHAN, China — Since the coronavirus outbreak, life in China is ruled by a green symbol on a smartphone screen. Green is the “health code” that says a user is symptom-free and it’s required to board a subway, check into a hotel or just enter Wuhan, the central city of 11 million people where the pandemic began in December. The system is made possible by the Chinese public’s almost universal adoption of smartphones and the ruling Communist Party’s embrace of “Big Data” to extend its surveillance and control over society.
On April 2, 2005, John Paul II, history’s most well-traveled pope and the first non-Italian to hold the position since the 16th century, dies at his home in the Vatican. Six days later, two million people packed Vatican City for his funeral, said to be the biggest funeral in history.
John Paul II was born Karol Jozef Wojtyla in Wadowice, Poland, 35 miles southwest of Krakow, in 1920. After high school, the future pope enrolled at Krakow’s Jagiellonian University, where he studied philosophy and literature and performed in a theater group. During World War II, Nazis occupied Krakow and closed the university,
Mainstream media publications that gave wall-to-wall coverage of Christine Blasey Ford’s allegations against then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh in 2018 have not given any coverage on the woman who came forward last week and accused Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden of sexual in the early 90s.
On March 24, The Intercept reported on the sexual allegations from former Biden staffer Tara Reade against then-Senator Biden in 1993.
The Washington Post, The New York Times, CNN, and MSNBC have not reported the allegation in the six days following The Intercept’s story.
The U.S. Coast Guard is telling foreign-flagged cruise ships to be prepared to care for people with COVID-19 for an "indefinite period of time" at sea or to seek help from countries other than the U.S., citing a health care system that is being overwhelmed. The instructions are in a new safety bulletin that took effect this week along the southern Atlantic coast, including Florida – which is reporting more than 6,700 coronavirus cases, as of Tuesday evening.
If a cruise ship must send someone ashore for medical care, its owner will be responsible for essentially every step of the trip, from arranging an evacuation to hiring a private ambulance
Most of West Antarctica and large areas of East Antarctica were once covered in rainforest, scientists say.
Today’s icy wasteland would’ve once played host to huge amounts of plant-life – during an unusually toasty period in history 90 million years ago.
Evidence for the rainforest suggests the climate was “exceptionally warm.”
The rainforest dates back to the mid-Cretaceous when sea levels were around 550 feet higher.
Like night follows day, Adam Schiff is vowing to launch another “investigation” into the Trump administration’s response to the Wuhan flu. Whether or not it was spawned in that wet market or the Wuhan lab as a bio weapon, China seems to be using it as a cudgel in a diabolical attempt to bring the U.S. to its knees. Trump likely knows this but for a moment must accede to the hysteria. China thought they had us between the rock and the hard place since they produce so many of our needed drugs, beginning with Tylenol and all manner of antibiotics.
Joe Biden has a problem: With all eyes on coronavirus, and Trump functioning as the Commander in Chief during what amounts to a war, complete with a wartime economy, Biden has become irrelevant. Because he’s older and therefore vulnerable to the virus, he can’t even leave his house. Instead, he’s hidden away. This is a lousy situation for someone who is trying to become president in the next election.
During his stumbling video appearances, Biden has three available tactics: (1) He can support the president during this crisis, (2) he can criticize the president, and (3) he can offer opposing solutions.
Biden refuses to do Item One,
Class, please pay attention as our immersive history lesson continues. The month of April is designed to teach how everyday life was in the old Soviet Union.
Consumer Goods Shortages
In the Soviet era, central planners had to continually balance national security and consumer demand for goods and manufacturing output. National security always won out, resulting in chronic food and consumer goods shortages across the communist bloc.
These shortages will be simulated by inadequate supply of chosen items, such as toilet paper, surgical gloves, and masks. Assigned homework will consist of standing in long lines for such items and wandering various stores
Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced she was forming a special House panel to oversee the distribution of billions of federal dollars dedicated to the response to the coronavirus outbreak.Pelosi, a California Democrat, said Thursday the panel would “prevent waste, fraud, and abuse” and would be bipartisan. She appointed the House majority whip, South Carolina Democrat James Clyburn, to oversee the panel.“The committee will be empowered to examine all aspects of the federal response to coronavirus and to assure that the taxpayers' dollars are being wisely and efficiently spent to save lives, deliver relief, and benefit our economy,” Pelosi told reporters.
The notoriously far-left city of San Francisco has reversed its own ban on plastic bags in response to the spread of the coronavirus, now prohibiting the use of reusable bags as a sanitary measure, according to Politico.The push to ban plastic bags, which leftists have claimed, without evidence, are more likely to cause pollution, had been achieved in many liberal cities, from San Francisco to New York. However, with the fear of spreading the contagious coronavirus, the same bags being used multiple times are more likely to help spread the disease than single-use plastic bags.The move is the latest action taken by San Francisco and the California state government
Pakistan has overturned the death sentence of the man convicted of killing US journalist Daniel Pearl, defence lawyers have told reporters. British-born Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, imprisoned since 2002, has had his sentence reduced to seven years for kidnapping, said lawyer Khawaja Naveed.
Three other men given life sentences over the killing have been acquitted by the Sindh High Court and released. The Sindh chief prosecutor says he will lodge an appeal in the Sheikh case. (snip) A group of US journalists, including former colleagues of Pearl, said in 2011 that they believed Sheikh had not carried out the beheading.
The Treasury Department now says that Americans on Social Security will not be required to file a "simple tax return" to receive a stimulus check from the U.S. government. The announcement reversed an earlier statement from the Internal Revenue Service that participants in the federal retirement program would need to file such a return to get the funds. The IRS directive would have impacted about 15 million people, including millions of seniors on Social Security, who aren't required to file tax returns, according to Chuck Marr, senior director of federal tax policy for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Seniors who rely on Social Security
Our leadership class responded to the outbreak of the coronavirus by shutting down the economy on a nationwide scale. While this will mitigate the loss of life the virus might otherwise have caused, it’s clear we’re also confronting a challenge no medical innovation can cure. We face an unprecedented situation — not a global pandemic, we’ve seen those before, but a modern capitalist economy that turned itself off for potentially more than 60 days, on purpose. Uncertainty crushes hope. So the question on the minds of our leaders should be: how do we give citizens more confidence that we can, and will, turn the economy back on?
A film showing a Wuhan based virus expert catching bats has fuelled a conspiracy theory that the disease was man-made and leaked from a lab.The seven-minute film features the centre's researcher Tian Junhua, who has visited dozens of caves in Hubei province to capture the flyin g mammals and take samples. Called "Youth in the Wild — Invisible Defender”, the short documentary has reawakened a wild conspiracy theory about the Covid-19 originating at the Wuhan Centre for Disease Control (CDC). Mr Tian works at the centre, which is not far from the animal market where officially the virus began.
President Trump -- flanked by Attorney General Bill Barr, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and top military officials at the White House coronavirus briefing -- announced on Wednesday a massive new "counternarcotics operation" in the Eastern Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea to "combat the flow of illicit drugs into the United States." "We must not let the drug cartels exploit the pandemic to threaten American lives," Trump said. "In cooperation with the 22 partner nations, U.S. Southern Command will increase surveillance, disruption and seizures of drug shipments and provide additional support for eradication efforts, which are going on right now at a record pace."
The private sector comes through again.Bob Kraft, the New England Patriots owner who has donated millions of dollars to charitable causes, has sent the team plane to China to pick up a massive load of personnel protective gear for Massachusetts healthcare workers.The Boeing 767 reportedly left Shenzhen, China, loaded with 1.2 million medical-grade N95 masks, according to WCVB. Gov. Charlie Baker and the billionaire NFL owner are expected greet the jet on the tarmac at Boston’s Logan Airport late today. About 500,000 more masks are apparently en route in a separate shipment.Known for his philanthropy along with his six Super Bowl trophies,
Rock musician Sean Lennon, the son of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, is slamming the news media for its coverage of the coronavirus pandemic, saying that they are spreading Chinese Communist propaganda and engaging in double standards.
Sean Lennon took to Twitter Wednesday to air his frustration with the way journalists are reporting on the global outbreak, especially when it comes to China. “The official media have lost their legitimacy,” he concluded.
Police in Ocean County on Wednesday night broke up a funeral in Lakewood and issued summonses to 15 people – including a 100-year-old man – accusing them of violating the state’s ban on public gatherings during the coronavirus pandemic, authorities said.
The funeral marked the fourth consecutive day police have been called to gatherings in Lakewood in violation of the emergency order set in place in March to slow the spread of the coronavirus. Previous incidents have included a bar mitzvah, an engagement party and a religious school for adults that continued to operate.
WASHINGTON — U.S. Democratic candidate Joe Biden said his party's nominating convention should be held in August rather than July as the coronavirus health crisis upends life in the country. "I doubt whether the Democratic convention is going to be able to be held in mid-July," Biden told NBC's "The Tonight Show" late Wednesday. "I think it's going to have to move into August." The call for the delay by Biden, the current frontrunner in the Democratic contest to challenge Republican President Donald Trump in the November presidential election, is the latest sign the coronavirus outbreak is having a profound impact
President Trump’s reelection campaign tweeted out manipulated audio to make it sound like former Vice President Joe Biden called the coronavirus a “hoax” in an effort to draw attention to what it views as Twitter’s double standard in policing political speech.
The new Trump campaign video is styled after an ad released by the Democratic super PAC Priorities USA, which featured misleading audio of Trump describing the coronavirus as a “hoax.”
The president's campaign has flagged multiple Democratic videos for Twitter in which he is heard calling the coronavirus a "hoax," arguing that the content runs afoul of the social media giant’s manipulated media guidelines. Twitter has declined to sanction
A couple days ago, Democrats and their media allies had a full-blown Victorian gentleman-style cow when President Trump merely raised the question of whether New York hospitals, which are short on personal protective equipment, might be victims of medical equipment "going out the back door."
Perfectly legitimate question, and doubly so in light of the anecdote he spoke of from a hospital executive. They all harrumphed umbrage, in unison. A sample:
No evidence for Trump's suggestion that masks are 'going out the back door' of New York hospitals -NBC News
I will admit my bias. Officially, I am in the “at risk” population for severe complications from COVID-19. I am also in the population that could be triaged away from critical care if our hospitals break under the pandemic’s stress.
I live with cystic fibrosis, an inherited condition that my fills my lungs with thick, sticky mucus. That thick, sticky mucus is the perfect medium for infectious pathogens to call home. Respiratory infections lead to clinical decline in CF patients because they flare our symptoms – cough, shortness of breath, and oxygen dependence – and lead to permanent lung damage. I have, unfortunately, suffered through my fair share.
Numerous news outlets noted on Wednesday that COVID-19 has now killed more Americans than the 9/11 attacks and reported the grim White House revelation that it could end up killing as many as 50 times the number of our fellow citizens than we lost in those acts of terrorism. Very little commentary, however, was devoted to the difference between the Democratic response to the current crisis compared to their reaction to that national emergency. Then, the Democratic Senate majority stood with the Republican House majority at the Capitol and sang “God Bless America.” Even then-Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) said the following about President Bush:
Infectious Disease Specialist Dr. Stephen Smith shared some very exciting news Wednesday night on The Ingraham Angle. Dr. Smith revealed that in his treatment of coronavirus victims he has not seen a single patient under the age of 70 was not diabetic, pre-diabetic or obese. Dr. Steven Smith then pointed out that not a single coronavirus patient under his care who was on the hydroxychloroquine regimen needed to be intibated.
A current global myth alleges that America under the Trump administration is not leading the world fight against the coronavirus in its accustomed role as the postwar global leader.
Yet the U.S. was the first major nation to issue a travel ban on flights from China, with Donald Trump making that announcement on Jan. 31. That was a bold act. It likely saved thousands endangered by Chinese perfidy and soon became a global model. None of the ban's loud critics are today demanding it be rescinded.
We Americans are truly blessed by having a mainstream media full of brilliant renaissance men, women, and gender non-specific entities who are masters of so many varied and intermittently useful skills and who are eager to share their knowledge with us benighted souls. The pandemic has revealed that every urban Twitter blue check scribbler, MSNBCNN panelist, NYT/WaPo doofus, and barely legal “senior editor” of a website you never heard of, is a Nobel Prize-winning epidemiologist, a master logistician, and a diversity consultant too boot.
They may all be lousy journalists, but damn it, they are also lousy at other jobs that they didn’t even pretend to train to do.
The European Union’s top court has ruled that the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland broke EU law by refusing to comply with a refugee quota programme launched after well over a million people entered the bloc, most fleeing war in Syria and Iraq. In an emergency move in 2015, EU nations agreed to relocate up to 160,000 refugees from Italy and Greece. (snip) The European court of justice said that “by refusing to comply with the temporary mechanism for the relocation of applicants for international protection, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic have failed to fulfill their obligations under European Union law”.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former Vice President Joe Biden may have spent their lives rising to power within the Democratic Party, but clearly somewhere back in their early days they were absent for Politics 101. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, on the other hand, was obviously sitting attentively in the front of the classroom, probably with his father and predecessor, Mario, the late three-term chief executive of the Empire State, serving as professor.
Far worse than letting a serious crisis go to waste, per Democrat hatchet man Rahm Emanuel’s infamous maxim, is to be seen as exploiting a global
Schiff already calling for 9/11-style commission
on coronavirus response; Nunes decries 'stunt' replies
on coronavirus response; Nunes decries 'stunt' replies
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, who a little over two months ago led Democrats’ prosecution in President Trump’s impeachment trial following an extensive investigation, is working to launch a new review concerning the administration’s actions -- this time calling for a nonpartisan commission on the government's coronavirus response.
Schiff, D-Calif., after repeatedly criticizing the president’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, said Wednesday he would work to create a panel to review the government's actions and readiness.
Americans may have lost their right to religion and assembly this past month.
But they still have their Second Amendment. (Tweet) Gun sales exploded in March as the government pushed forced lockdowns on the American public. Gun retailers recorded 2.5 million sales in March — a new record! WUNC reported: Americans bought millions of guns in March, apparently driven by fears of the societal impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.Retailers sold more than 2.5 million firearms in March, a year-over-year increase of 85%, according to estimates from industry research firm
Does America need Journalists?
replies
Chris Cillizza of CNN sent one of the most unintentionally hilarious posts into the Twittersphere when he proudly displayed his new (and ugly) sweater that read “America Needs Journalists.”Apart from the obvious tone-deafness of the message being sent at a time when most American would gladly trade the entire CNN staff for a single grocery store worker, trucker, medic, or just about anything else, this intrepid CNN American hero stumbled upon a sentiment that conservatives can fully get behind. America does need journalists. Too bad we have so few of them.Irony is never quite as thick as when journalists are preening about themselves,
Americans can’t wait for the restrictions on their movements and interactions—widely known as social distancing—to end.
That’s completely understandable. The coronavirus crisis has widely disrupted modern life.
But as we learned Sunday, the Trump administration’s commonsense “stop the spread” increased mitigation strategy is with us for a while—at least till the end of April.
Based on the challenges we’re facing, this is a prudent decision.
While a firm date for the end of this biological battle in the United States is just unknowable at this point, it’s reasonable to ask: How will we know when we’re seeing some light at the end of the social distancing tunnel?
As he watched his luggage being loaded onto a plane at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport on March 30, Trenton Thurber felt relieved that he would soon be home in Arizona.
But then Russia locked down its borders in the midst of the novel coronavirus pandemic, halting all traffic to and from the country, including Thurber’s flight on a Russian Aeroflot plane to New York’s JFK International Airport. From there he was due to connect to his home in Tucson.
Now the 26-year-old is one of the dozens of foreign citizens, including a handful of Americans, marooned inside Moscow’s largest, and today mostly empty, airport with few food and lodging options —
Count on Hunter Biden to remind us, no matter what else is in the news, what ethical obliviousness looks like.
Biden and his latest wife, Melissa, had a baby boy Saturday. In the course of discussing it, he insisted, yet again (when the questioning digressed), that he had not done “anything improper … in any way whatsoever” in his dealings with the Burisma energy company that was at the center of President Trump’s impeachment drama.
His only error, Biden said, was in showing the “poor judgment” of not realizing his board position with a dicey foreign corporation might give “a hook to some very unethical people to act in illegal ways
NY Unions to Amazon:
It Sure Would Be a Shame If Anything
Happened to Your Company, Jeff Bezos. replies
It Sure Would Be a Shame If Anything
Happened to Your Company, Jeff Bezos. replies
What was that notoriously cynical thing that one-time Obama aide, Rahm Emanuel, once said? Oh, yes, "you never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before."
And the middle of a national emergency, in the middle of a pandemic, in the middle of a time when everyone is making sacrifices, union members are threatening Amazon: Do what I say. Or Else.
New York's far-left collection of socialists, unionistas, and lawmakers have sent letters to Bezos and his top executives to dictate to them how they should run the warehouse that is bringing food
For years, we civil libertarians were told that our concerns about the secret court that oversees the FBI’s applications to monitor U.S. citizens were overblown. So what if the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court approved more than 99% of all applications. The bureau and Justice Department must follow an onerous process, we were assured, that protects innocent citizens from being snooped on by their government.
Those assurances, as it turns out, were not very reliable. On Tuesday, the Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz issued a new report that found systematic errors of fact in the FBI’s applications for warrants under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
Sacramento-
Probably the worst part of the coronavirus lockdown is the realization that Americans will put up with virtually any edict, no matter how draconian, and any subsidy, no matter how ridiculous, if they are scared about their health and worried about the economy. Our system will eventually return to normal, but we now know that it doesn’t take much to jettison the country’s various checks and balances and constitutional protections, at least temporarily.
We’ve got to be particularly careful, though, about activists and politicians who are using the coronavirus situation to push for far-reaching and permanent changes to our system. One of the worst ideas
US health regulators are telling drugmakers to immediately pull their popular heartburn drugs off the market after determining that a contamination issue with the medications poses a greater risk than previously thought.
The move from the Food and Drug Administration Wednesday applies to all prescription and over-the-counter versions of ranitidine, best known by the brand name Zantac. The drugs are widely used to treat stomach acid and ulcers.
Last night, Allahpundit wrote about the dire conditions onboard the aircraft carrier USS Roosevelt, currently docked in Guam and facing an outbreak of COVID-19. There are an undetermined number of sailors infected onboard and the ship’s captain is sounding the alarm, asking permission to get everyone ashore and into isolation. Speaking as a former sailor who spent five years serving on an aircraft carrier (three of them, actually), I wanted to share some of the realities of shipboard life that make this extraordinary situation one which calls for immediate action without the usual blizzard of red tape the Pentagon tends to generate when a decision is required.
A new poll indicates Wisconsin voters – by a nearly three-to-one margin – don’t think the Democratic National Convention should be held this July in Milwaukee anymore because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Sixty-two percent of registered voters questioned in a Marquette Law School survey released Wednesday said that given the outbreak, the convention should not be held as an in-person event, with 22 percent saying the massive gathering should be held as scheduled July 13-16.
An aircraft that's been used as an air ambulance in the Philippines as the country deals with the coronavirus outbreak caught fire while attempting to take off for Japan on Sunday, killing all on board, including an American, according to officials.
The aircraft, a Lion Air plane, was bound from Manila to Haneda Airport in Tokyo with eight people on board when it caught fire at the end of the runway at Manila International Airport.
"There were no survivors," Manila airport general manager Ed Monreal said at a news conference.
Pelosi pushes 'SALT shakeup'
stimulus that could reduce
her tax bill and enrich
her wealthy district replies
stimulus that could reduce
her tax bill and enrich
her wealthy district replies
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is pushing for a new stimulus bill that would roll back the state and local tax deduction (SALT), a proposal that would predominately help wealthy individuals -- including most residents in Pelosi's district and perhaps even Pelosi herself.
A 2019 report from the Joint Committee on Taxation projected that of those who would face lower tax liability from the elimination of the SALT cap – which only affects those who itemize tax deductions – 94 percent earn at least $100,000.
There is a growing realization in the Hindu American community that Democrats, who present themselves as warriors for social justice, do not believe in justice for Hindus. They are even willing to whitewash crimes against Hindus in order to appeal to Muslim voters. These concerns have grown sharply over the last few months.
Central to the issue are reactions to the policies of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is portrayed on the Left as being the Trump of India and disparagingly referred to as a Hindu nationalist. Modi is held in high esteem by many American Hindus. Various Modi policies have been condemned by Democrats but praised by Hindus