Posts on Friday, April 3, 2020
Trump fires Michael Atkinson, intelligence
IG who told Congress about Ukraine phone call: report replies
IG who told Congress about Ukraine phone call: report replies
Fox News Flash top headlines for April 3
President Trump has reportedly fired Michael Atkinson, the inspector general for the U.S. intelligence community who alerted Congress to concerns about a Trump phone call with the president of Ukraine – a matter that led to the president’s impeachment last year.
Trump formally notified the intelligence committees of both the Senate and House in a letter dated Friday that was obtained by Politico.
"This is to advise that I am exercising my power as President to remove from office the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community, effective 30 days from today," the president wrote.
A Detroit bus driver who had expressed anger on Facebook about a coughing passenger has died from COVID-19, officials said Thursday.
Jason Hargrove felt ill about four days after posting a passionate video on social media on March 21. He died Wednesday, said Glenn Tolbert, the head of the drivers union.
Hargrove, 50, posted a profanity-laced video complaining about a woman who he said had repeatedly coughed while on his bus. The coronavirus can spread through air droplets after people cough or sneeze. The woman was not in the video.
Hargrove said drivers are “public workers doing our job, trying to make an honest living, take care of our families.”
In the midst of a pandemic that has shuttered businesses and wreaked havoc on supply chains around the world, Democrats are worried about the inability of former Vice President Joe Biden to command attention from people.
On Friday, MSNBC analyst John Heilemann said there was a "super high" level of frustration inside the Biden campaign as the Democratic presidential front-runner struggles to gain the spotlight while President Trump dominates news coverage with near-daily coronavirus task force briefings.
“Frustration levels are super high,” Heilemann said during an appearance on MSNBC's Morning Joe. “The reality is that the former vice president is in a terrible position.
Sean Davis, co-founder of The Federalist, took a serious look at the IHME (Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation) Coronavirus model and called it “garbage.” (snip) The model projected that over 121,000 people would be hospitalized in the country yesterday. The actual number was 31,142. (25.7%)
Texas: Projection – 1,716; Actual – 196 (11.4%)
Georgia: Projection – 2,777; Actual – 952 (34.3%)
Virginia: Projection – 607; Actual – 305 (50%)
Tennessee: Projection – 2,214; Actual number – 200 (9%)
New York: Projection – 50,962; Actual number – 18,368 (36%)
MyPillow CEO Michael Lindell, a self-made former crack addict, is going to transform 75% of his manufacturing capacity to make 10,000 cotton face masks per day by the end of the week, ramping up production to 50,000 a day in a month.
That sounds like a patriotic act to me, especially given that Lindell is undertaking the effort without being forced to do so by a federal agency. I hope the guy becomes a billionaire after this is all over.
NBC? Not so much. The headline on its “analysis” of Lindell’s remarks was “Trump fluffs MyPillow in Rose Garden.”
A Massachusetts man convicted of repeatedly raping a 12-year-old boy was ordered released from jail Friday—because he suffers from health conditions that can make him vulnerable to coronavirus, according to new reports. Glenn Christie, 54, who uses a wheelchair, was ordered released from the Massachusetts Treatment Center by Superior Court Judge Heidi Brieger, WBUR reported. One of the conditions is that Christie tests negative for COVID-19, the station reported. Christie was convicted of child rape and indecent assault on a child under 14 and was being held for violating his probation conditions, according to the report.
Google said Friday it will begin publishing reports created from Google Maps users’ whereabouts to help governments make policy decisions regarding social distancing measures enacted to fight coronavirus. Karen DeSalvo, Google’s chief health officer, said Friday the company will protect individuals’ privacy by not revealing any one user’s location, contacts or movement at any point.(Snip) “The reports use aggregated, anonymized data to chart movement trends over time by geography, across different high-level categories of places such as retail and recreation, groceries and pharmacies, parks, transit stations, workplaces, and residential,” Dr. DeSalvo wrote on Google’s blog. “We’ll show trends over several weeks,
Patricia Bosworth, who gave up acting for the writing life, turning her knowledge of the theater into a series of biographies and mining her own extraordinary life for a pair of powerful memoirs, died on Thursday in Manhattan. She was 86.
Her stepdaughter, Fia Hatsav, said the cause was complications of pneumonia brought on by the coronavirus. Ms. Bosworth had some success as an actress. She was admitted to the Actors Studio in its glory days, learning method acting alongside Marlon Brando and Marilyn Monroe. She won some important roles onstage and appeared alongside Audrey Hepburn on film.
Pennsylvania governor instructs all residents
to 'wear a mask any time they leave
their houses' replies
to 'wear a mask any time they leave
their houses' replies
With more than 8,000 cases of the coronavirus in the state, Pennsylvania's governor is calling on citizens to use a mask to cover their faces when they leave home.
Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf instructed citizens during a Friday news conference to use cloth masks to cover their faces and pleaded with residents to save powerful N95 masks for healthcare workers as hospitals struggle with medical shortages.“Two days ago, I amplified our social distancing efforts by instituting a statewide stay-at-home order, and today I am asking all Pennsylvanians to wear a mask any time they leave their houses,” Wolf said. “Masks help prevent people from sharing illnesses.
Late stage socialism has some pretty clownishly weird stuff on offer but can't say I've ever seen anything like this:
According to the BBC:
A Venezuelan navy coastal patrol boat sank in the Caribbean after allegedly ramming a cruise ship that it had ordered to change direction.
The owners of the Portuguese-flagged RCGS Resolute said the naval vessel Naiguata also fired shots in an "act of aggression in international waters”.
The collision left the cruise ship, which has a reinforced hull for sailing in icy waters, with only minor damage.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich stated Thursday that President Donald Trump will be remembered by future generations as a “historic figure” for his response to the deadly coronavirus pandemic that has swept the world.Gingrich’s remarks came during a phone interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt as he and his wife Callista Gingrich, the U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, reside in Rome during the COVID-19 pandemic.“He is extraordinarily energetic. He is learning at an extraordinary pace,” Gingrich said. “And he’s an historic figure, and I think that by the time this is over, as he defeats
Documents from the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2011 show Soros Fund Management LLC invested heavily into WUXI Pharmatech Caymen, Inc.WuXi AppTec, as it is now called, has a facility in Wuhan, China. The company provides validated research including in vitro (HTS, SAR screening support) and in vivo disease models in cardiovascular, respiratory, metabolic and infectious diseases.The document was filed with the US government in August 2012.
Rush Limbaugh: Democrats ‘Salivating’ over
Coronavirus as Opportunity to ‘Decapitate’
U.S. Economy replies
Coronavirus as Opportunity to ‘Decapitate’
U.S. Economy replies
Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh warned Americans Thursday during his broadcast of the Democrats’ attempt to use the crisis of the coronavirus as a means to “decapitate the U.S. capitalist economy”: So, they’re seeing this as an opportunity to decapitate the United States capitalist economy. And they are salivating over it. For them it’s the crisis opportunity of a lifetime to push through their agenda. Despite this, despite the fact that the facts show that it is capitalism and farmers and frackers and truckers who are saving us. People in many industries the left impugns and laughs at and makes fun of,
Democrats want to mail every American a 2020 ballot and have people come to your house to pick up those ballots.
(Snip)
Can you imagine mailing out some 150 million ballots to every registered voter and having some politicized “organizer” pick them up?
“Sir, I’m here to pick up your presidential ballot.”
“I haven’t filled it out. You know, I’m not really paying attention.”
“That’s no problem. Why don’t you let me help you with that.”
(Snip)
Or how about the very idea of these “organizers” in possession and in control of who knows how many hundreds or thousands of ballots?
Democrats tried that in Arizona for the 2016 election. But the state
Air Force reverses decision to release Biden
travel records as Senate tempers flare over
Hunter probe replies
travel records as Senate tempers flare over
Hunter probe replies
The U.S. Air Force has backtracked on a promise to release records showing Hunter Biden flew aboard Air Force Two with his father, former Vice President Joe Biden.One America News reported that despite the Air Force promise in January to release the passenger lists, it was now refusing to do so even as a Senate committee is planning to move forward, over-vigorous Democrat opposition, with an investigation of the younger Biden’s overseas business dealings while his father was part of the Obama administration. (Video) Biden’s position as a director at BHR Partners, a Chinese investment firm with close ties to the Bank of China, raised red flags
Progressive organizations, many backed by billionaire activist George Soros, are at the front lines of a campaign advocating for a “vote by mail” system in the upcoming presidential election, citing fears that the Chinese coronavirus pandemic makes it too dangerous to vote in person.
President Donald Trump warned that voting by mail would hurt the Republican Party, lambasting Democrat proposals for more money in the coronavirus stimulus bill to fund absentee and vote-by-mail options.
“The things they had in there were crazy,” Trump said. “They had things – levels of voting that, if you ever agreed to it, you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.”
ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Authorities were searching Friday for the daughter and a grandson of former Maryland Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend after a canoe they were paddling in the Chesapeake Bay didn’t return to shore. Gov. Larry Hogan identified the missing relatives as Maeve Kennedy Townsend McKean, 40, and McKean’s 8-year-old son, Gideon Joseph Kennedy McKean. Hogan said at a news conference on Friday that he spoke with Kathleen Kennedy-Townsend about her missing relatives. Kennedy Townsend, who served two terms as Maryland’s lieutenant governor, is the eldest daughter of Robert F. Kennedy. The search started Thursday afternoon after the state
NEW YORK — Such were the expectations for the Navy hospital ship U.S. Naval Ship Comfort that when it chugged into New York Harbor this week, throngs of people, momentarily forgetting the strictures of social distancing, crammed together along Manhattan’s west side to catch a glimpse.
On Thursday, though, the huge white vessel, which officials had promised would bring succor to a city on the brink, sat mostly empty, infuriating local hospital executives. The ship’s 1,000 beds are largely unused, its 1,200-member crew mostly idle.
RUSH: I’ve been chomping at the bit to get here ever since last night, folks, and we’re finally here. EIB, Open Line Friday. Let us get started.(Snip) And David Asman just said that he wants to hear from Dr. Fauci when we’re gonna be able to. Dr. Fauci? Folks, if it’s left up to Dr. Fauci, we’re not gonna reopen ’til a year from September. We’re not gonna open until we get a vaccine, if it’s left up to Dr. Fauci. We didn’t elect Dr. Fauci. Everybody has a lot of admiration for Dr. Fauci. He’s 79 years old, he’s been at the National Institutes of Health,
CNN's Brooke Baldwin Tests Positive
for Coronavirus: 'It Came on
Suddenly — Chills, Aches, Fever' replies
for Coronavirus: 'It Came on
Suddenly — Chills, Aches, Fever' replies
CNN host Brooke Baldwin has tested positive for coronavirus. The news personality, who anchors the 2-4 p.m. edition of CNN’s Newsroom, announced on Friday that she has been diagnosed with COVID-19. “Hi friends — I’ve tested positive for coronavirus. I am OKAY. It came on suddenly yesterday afternoon. Chills, aches, fever,” Baldwin, who resides in New York, wrote in an Instagram post. Although Baldwin, 40, said she has been social distancing and has no underlying conditions, she still contracted the novel coronavirus, which was declared a pandemic in March. “I’ve been social distancing. Doing ALL the things we’re being told
Washington—Manufacturing giant 3M pushed backed against President Trump in a statement on Friday that suggested it would not comply with a White House order to stop exporting masks to Canada and Latin America. The Trump administration on Thursday invoked the Defense Production Act, compelling 3M to prioritize orders for desperately needed N95 respiratory masks for the US government’s national stockpile.(Snip) “The Administration also requested that 3M cease exporting respirators that we currently manufacture in the United States to the Canadian and Latin American markets,” the Friday morning statement read. “There are, however, significant humanitarian implications of ceasing respirator supplies to healthcare workers in Canada
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez declared Friday that inequality is a preexisting health condition and that minority and low-income communities should receive coronavirus relief in the form of reparations. “COVID deaths are disproportionately spiking in Black + Brown communities,” the New York democratic socialist tweeted to her 6.6 million followers. “Why? Because the chronic toll of redlining, environmental racism, wealth gap, etc. ARE underlying health conditions. “Inequality is a comorbidity,” she wrote. “COVID relief should be drafted with a lens of reparations.”(Snip) “We’re kind of creating a class and race issue,” Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said on WNYC’s “The Brian Lehrer Show,”
President Trump said 3M “will have a big price to pay” after he ordered the manufacturing giant to churn out more protective face masks for the coronavirus fight. Trump invoked the Defense Production Act to get more N95 respirators from the Minnesota-based company “after seeing what they were doing with their masks,” he tweeted Thursday evening. Health care workers have been grappling with a shortage of the masks that filter out airborne particles. “Big surprise to many in government as to what they were doing–will have a big price to pay!” the president tweeted. Trump’s tweet did not elaborate on the government’s concerns
The CEO and founder of Zoom Video Communications has offloaded more than $38million worth of stock in the company now facing intense scrutiny over alleged privacy breaches, DailyMail.com can reveal. Zoom's profile and stock skyrocketed as millions of users turned to it to keep in touch with colleagues, friends and family during the COVID-19 crisis lockdowns. But it has been hit by a string of privacy concerns and allegations that the company failed to live up to its claim that communications were 'end to end encrypted.'
Instead, code in the original App allowed users' personal data to be disclosed to third parties, including Facebook.
PORTLAND, Ore. — On Wednesday, Portland city leaders sent a letter to the governor asking for statewide rent forgiveness for people who lost incomes because of the pandemic. “We’ve never talked about a rent moratorium before or forgiving mortgages. I know it might sound outlandish to some, but I just ask them to consider the alternatives or offer alternatives. You can’t squeeze blood from a stone,” Portland City Commissioner Chloe Eudaly told KATU. Since then, reaction has been swift, claiming if put in place, it would cause long-term damage to basic economic structures. One of the biggest opponents is an
It’s been nearly a week since former Joe Biden staffer Tara Reade leveled disturbing accusations of sexual misconduct against the Democratic presidential frontrunner, and yet ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC and CNN haven’t said a single word about them. (Snip)
While you may think that’s only because of the ongoing coverage of the coronavirus pandemic, think again: In that same time period, CNN, MSNBC and NBC have hosted Biden for a total of three interviews (including an hour-long town hall on CNN), and no host asked even a single question about these new charges.
Compare that to how those same networks raced to promote misconduct charges against then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh
HBO made good on its promise, throwing the doors open on a free, live-streaming buffet of some 500 hours of premium content Friday morning. The free #StayHomeBoxOffice programming — served up without any ads — includes every episode of nine HBO series: “The Sopranos,” “Veep,” “Succession,” “Six Feet Under,” “The Wire,” “Ballers,” “Barry,” “Silicon Valley” and “True Blood.” Also available to watch without an HBO subscription are 20 movies from corporate sibling Warner Bros. and 10 HBO documentaries and docuseries.As of Friday, April 3, at 8:30 a.m. ET the mobile apps and websites for both HBO Now (the standalone streaming service) and HBO Go (for pay-TV subscribers) each display
Bill Withers, the singer-songwriter whose soulful hits "Lean On Me," Ain't No Sunshine" and "Lovely Day" became part of the soundtrack for a generation, has died.
He was 81.
Withers died Monday in Los Angeles of heart complications, according to his family.
"We are devastated by the loss of our beloved, devoted husband and father. A solitary man with a heart driven to connect to the world at large, with his poetry and music, he spoke honestly to people and connected them to each other," his family said in a statement obtained by CNN.
Do you fancy the sound of “Candace Owens, Congresswoman”? Or how about “Mayor Candace Owens”? “Governor”?
If so, I bring you good news: The popular activist and podcaster is considering a run for office.
She made clear as much on Twitter Thursday:
“I’m now honestly considering running for office. Never had any desire to previously, but something changed in me last night. Had a conversation with my husband, and I think it’s a plan.” [tweet]
Are you partial to the plan?
As observed by The Daily Caller, “The former Turning Point USA activist has gained popularity in conservative circles for her support of President Donald Trump
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) certainly has a way of rewriting history.
Pelosi appeared on MSNBC with Andrea Mitchell today with Mitchell about a Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) that impeachment may have slowed down the federal response to the Wuhan coronavirus.
It’s a good question because Democrats have prioritized their quest to get the president any way they can since he was elected and they have never counted the cost of that effort. While Trump responded immediately in January, Democrats were completely focused on their continuing narrative against Trump. The virus to them was just another avenue to try to attack Trump,
An international poll of more than 6,000 doctors released Thursday found that the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine was the most highly rated treatment for the novel coronavirus.
The survey conducted by Sermo, a global health care polling company, of 6,227 physicians in 30 countries found that 37% of those treating COVID-19 patients rated hydroxychloroquine as the “most effective therapy” from a list of 15 options.
BERLIN – A Venezuelan navy ship fired shots at a German-owned cruise ship on March 30 and rammed into the passenger vessel, leading to the sinking of the warship in the Caribbean.
The Iranian regime-allied Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro accused the captain of the RCGS RESOLUTE cruise ship of “terrorism and piracy" and sought to force the ship into a new direction on the high seas.
A man coughed on a grocery store employee in Moorhead while blaming racial minorities for the spread of the coronavirus, police said Thursday. The incident on Wednesday at a Cash Wise store on Hwy. 10 briefly landed the man in jail on suspicion of disorderly conduct and for allegedly threatening the life of the officer who arrested him, said Police Capt. Deric Swenson. The suspect has refused to give police his name, and authorities have yet to determine his identity, Swenson said late Thursday morning. He said the man is Latino.(Snip) The man became frustrated using the self-checkout lane and coughed on a white female
President Trump Stands Tall
replies
Amid the confusion, fear, and uncertainty surrounding the outbreak of the Chinese coronavirus pandemic in the United States, one thing is obvious: this country is astonishingly fortunate to have Donald Trump as our president. In predictably trite, small-minded fashion, the liberal media and clueless Democratic politicians have treated the pandemic as nothing more than an opportunity to score shallow political points against President Trump. All manner of "Trump has blood on his hands" and "His Pollyanna-ish downplaying of the scope of the crisis at the beginning cost us valuable time" comments and criticism have been forthcoming on an almost daily basis from the usual suspects.
The Aspen Times is on hard times and wants a bailout.
In case you’re not a gazillionaire, or in case you’re an unwoke one, Aspen is a rich ultra-left resort in the Colorado Rockies. Democrats outnumber Republicans about two or three to one.
Apart from skiing, the main sport in town is to make a show of detesting the money of moneyed visitors, and detesting the moneyed visitors themselves, while inventing ways to separate the detestable moneyed visitors from their detestable money. Such as $965/day ski lessons.
Which brings us to the newspaper, the Aspen Times.
The same Hollywood that allowed Harvey Weinstein to prey on starlets snapped into action after the producer’s actions finally got exposed in the press. Some of the industry’s players, including actress Kerry Washington, Ashley Judd, Eva Longoria and Reese Witherspoon, created the “Time’s Up” legal fund and movement. The former vowed to defend women against predators past and present. The latter? It trained much of its fire power on President Donald Trump.
ABC’s Nightline has returned to its old timeslot with a larger audience after late local news (instead of after Jimmy Kimmel Live). On Wednesday’s show, co-host Byron Pitts ended an interview with Vice President Mike Pence by asking him “not in a political way,” but whether he “talk[s] to God” about feeling remorse for Americans who have died “because of steps the federal government did not take soon enough.”So here we had a journalist ask the Vice President if he prays to the Lord with a heart of repentance for having been responsible for dead Americans. Surely, Chuck Todd would be proud of that question.
The unemployment rate jumped to 4.4 percent in March and the economy shed 701,000 jobs. The new numbers from the Department of Labor’s employment situation report end the record 113 straight months run of hiring. Employment in leisure and hospitality businesses fell by 459,000, with a loss of 417,000 of jobs in bars and restaurants. That’s enough to erase two years of gains. Economists had forecast that the government would say employers shed about 150,000 jobs and that the unemployment rate rose from a half-century low of 3.5 percent to 3.9 percent, according to FactSet.
NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that hundreds of inmates in New York City will be released from the prisons and jails to combat the Coronavirus. De Blasio announced the incredibly dangerous and stupid decision to release hundreds from jail as part of new “safety measures.” Click to watch the full video below!
On Thursday, The New York Times published a story suggesting that the South is uniquely dangerous for the spread of the coronavirus. Michael Barbaro, host of the Times podcast "The Daily," shared the map with the text, "In a word....The South." Yet both the NYT article and Barbaro's tweet ignored basic realities about American life that help explain the reasons behind the map — and show that the South is not a uniquely dangerous region during this crisis.
In the article, "Where America Didn't Stay Home Even as the Virus Spread," James Glanz dissects cellphone location data from the data intelligence firm Cuebiq.
The mass hysteria over COVID-19 in the U.S. is driven in large measure by misleading statistics and bad math about the disease’s body count. (snip) The problem starts with the fact that the highly influential statistics from the Big Apple paint a false picture of what is actually happening.
In New York City, the death of anyone who dies who tests positive for COVID-19 is counted as a coronavirus death. This is the case even if the coronavirus failed to play a significant role in the person’s passing or illness. This calculus violates established scientific standards.
On Thursday, Sen. Chuck Schumer wrote a letter to President Trump, accusing him of failing in his leadership, thereby creating a void that “left America with an ugly spectacle in which States and cities are literally fending for themselves, often in conflict and competition with each other….” (California’s Governor, Gavin Newsom, by the way, would disagree.) (snip) For Trump, the counterpuncher, Schumer’s vile accusations on Senate letterhead required a knockout blow and Trump’s responsive letter to Schumer is that blow.
Illinois is rushing to build hospital beds and launched a campaign to get residents to follow social distancing guidelines as the number of coronavirus cases in the state passed 7,500 Thursday.(Snip)Governor JB Pritzker began his remarks Thursday by saying he's done almost all he can to prevent the spread of the virus in Illinois, and criticizing the pace of federal actions and national stay-at-home guidelines.
"This will go down in history as a profound failure of our national government," Pritzker said.
Whether it is screwing up your face when sucking a lemon, or smiling while sitting in the sun, humans have a range of facial expressions that reflect how they feel. Now, researchers say, they have found mice do too. “Mice exhibit facial expressions that are specific to the underlying emotions,” said Dr Nadine Gogolla, co-author of the research from Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology. She said the findings were important
President Donald Trump's decision to slow the huge increases in fuel-efficiency standards put in place by the Obama administration in 2012 was met with derision and scorn by green groups, the big media and others on the left. In fact, it's a wise move, one that will save Americans money, but more importantly, will save lives.
Trump's action is perfectly timed. With the economy in turmoil from the COVID-19 pandemic shutdowns, automakers will not have the means to retool, research and revamp their car lines to obey President Barack Obama's absurdly stringent rules. Auto sales are now plunging.
Obama's rules would have required
It once seemed that every generation was somehow fated to have its lives, hopes and dreams turned upside down with a world catastrophe. Diseases, wars, financial collapses... But each and every generation is molded by the world in which they grew up. Just within reach of my own memory were the Great Depression and WWII which shaped, not only my parents' lives but their entire outlook on life. My peaceful plans for life were turned totally upside down by Washington politicians who saw fit, based on their own experience and judgment, to immerse the United States in Indochina's political gyrations.
Just so you know — these “experts” are making it up as they go along. And these experts are going to destroy the US economy based on total guesses and hysterical predictions. On March 15, 2020 Dr Anthony Fauci told Jon Karl on ABC that the US could expect up to 21 million coronavirus hospitalizations and up to 1.7 million coronavirus deaths.
The decision of American Navy to relieve the captain who warned publicly of coronavirus on his nuclear-powered aircraft carrier strikes us as the right move. We get that it’s a sad setback for an officer in an incredible command. The minute we read the captain’s letter about the crisis on United States Ship Theodore Roosevelt, though, we saw it as a breach on a matter that should have been kept within the chain of command.
That’s easy to say, we understand, for a newspaper whose landlubber of an editor can’t go to Jones Beach without getting seasick. We’ve followed the reports that Democrats on the House Armed Services Committee
The team is back in action. On Thursday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced the creation of the House Select Committee on the Coronavirus Crisis. The new panel will have the authority to investigate any aspect of the virus emergency and the Trump administration's handling of it.
Pelosi's announcement came a day after House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff called for a 9/11-style independent commission to investigate "mistakes" in the virus response. Shortly after that, Schiff told the Washington Post that in Congress, House Democrats must investigate the Trump administration's handling of virus testing and the government's distribution of personal protective equipment for healthcare workers.
Consider this scenario: A federal lawyer is filling out applications requesting FISA warrants to spy on American citizens who work for a major presidential campaign to determine whether the campaign staffers are collaborating with a foreign power to steal the presidency of the United States.
They must know that such a conspiracy, should it be exposed, would be the most explosive in the history of the nation — towering over the piddling criminality of Watergate or the Teapot Dome scandal. And any genuine effort to ferret out criminality and sedition within one of the nation’s major parties — perhaps going a high as the future president himself —
Last week, Philadelphia’s police department reported that criminal activity in the first three months of this year increased by double-digit percentages when compared with the same period in 2019—the most violent year since 2007. So far in 2020, property and violent crimes have spiked by 16 percent and 11 percent, respectively, with the largest increases in retail theft—which skyrocketed 59 percent, after district attorney Larry Krasner announced that his office wouldn’t prosecute that crime—and other serious violent offenses, such as aggravated assault, up by 20 percent.
Though the Philadelphia Inquirer has tried to downplay the spike in crime, statistics show that, even as the Covid-19 pandemic unfolds,
What Should Biden Do?
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We are living through an extraordinary and unprecedented time. It has required us to readjust our lives, our expectations and our plans. The business of politics is no exception. There's been a lot written over these last few days that this upending of normalcy is taking a toll on former Vice President Joe Biden's campaign. After all, in a non-COVID19 world, Biden would be having a great few weeks. Since his big win in South Carolina, Biden had been on a rout — winning big states and small, and building an insurmountable delegate lead. The political news media would be focused on his success.
A Sick Media
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The other day Chris Hayes of MSNBC was pouting about the media’s coverage of Donald Trump’s press briefings. He called the airing of them “crazy.” He particularly didn’t like MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell using one of them to talk about “reading the Bible.”
Hayes’ pouting captures the arrogance and secularist prejudice of the media perfectly. The media sees its role not as a reporter of news but as a propagandistic arbiter — a Big Brother that will tell the public what it can and cannot take seriously.
The media every day conforms more perfectly to Trump’s description of it as an “opposition party.” Its pulling away
An ABC News investigation offers sobering insight into how COVID-19 has spread and penetrated so broadly, so deeply and so quickly in the United States. It also helps explain why Americans, no matter where they live, must continue to heed the warnings of health officials to self distance and why the virus likely was here far earlier than first realized.
With the advent of COVID-19, the world has officially entered a dangerous new phase where a surge in international travel in recent decades served as the springboard -- jet fuel, really -- for an infectious disease potentially to kill hundreds of thousands in the U.S.
This is Hudson, our 23-month-old. Hudson is our baby with Down syndrome. He’s already beat transient leukemia and he’s already had open-heart surgery. We will do all we need to for this little guy, even practice social distancing from his daddy (CJ is a CRNA and works in a hospital with COVID-19 cases). Together, we will protect our children, despite the time needed. We pray daily that it’s not too long, we need daddy home with us and safe. This photo was taken on March 21, World Down Syndrome Day. Hudson was standing for his dad for the first time all by himself. Thanks for all you do!
Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly announced Thursday that the commanding officer of the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, now docked in Guam, was relieved "at my direction."
Navy Capt. Brett Crozier, the carrier’s commander, was sacked after he was accused of leaking a letter to the media that went "outside the chain of command" pleading for help after more than 100 sailors on board tested positive for the coronavirus, and nearly 100 others are suspected of contracting the virus.
President Trump’s coronavirus press briefings have given a locked-down nation some semblance of a daily routine during the pandemic. But, like everything else in Washington, they are also a source of controversy, as critics pan the events as equivalent to campaign rallies and urge the media to stop covering them.“Trump’s new fondness for these ‘briefings’ and their increasing conversion into Trump campaign rallies, with scientists rather than local government officials as the supporting cast, should cause cable news producers to reflect on the path they are headed down,” argued the Atlantic’s James Fallows.
Former Obama Adviser Predicts Massive
Turnout For Trump In November - Huge
Disadvantage For Biden replies
Turnout For Trump In November - Huge
Disadvantage For Biden replies
David Plouffe played a major role in Obama’s 2008 election. He may be a liberal, but he understands how elections work.He is now predicting that the Coronavirus crisis will not have a negative impact on turnout among Trump voters. It will, however, put Joe Biden at a disadvantage. FOX News reports:Ex-Obama adviser Plouffe predicts ‘historic’ turnout for Trump, says Biden now at a disadvantage The coronavirus pandemic and struggling economy will not deter President Trump’s supporters
President Donald Trump ripped House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday for creating a new select investigative committee to look into his handling of the coronavirus.“This is not the time for politics. Endless, partisan investigations, here we go again,” Trump said at the White House press briefing.Democrats announced Thursday that they would create a new select committee to investigate President Trump’s response efforts and his $2 trillion economic relief package.“Where there’s money, there’s also frequently mischief,” Pelosi said while announcing the creation of the committee. The president expressed disgust that Pelosi launched another “witch hunt”
Well, it’s not every day that a former Obama staffer honestly assesses the state of the upcoming November election, much less Obama’s former campaign manager, yet, here we are. President Trump is “very dangerous” to Joe Biden’s bid for president because of his loyal supporters, according to David Plouffe.
Plouffe, speaking on the “Fox News Rundown” podcast Thursday predicted that there will be a historic level of voter turnout in support of the president when election day comes in November. The pandemic and the economic consequences of the coronavirus outbreak aside, Trump voters will come out and support him for re-election.
The Trump campaign slammed Sleepy Joe on Thursday after he forgot a question he was asked during a press briefing.“You asked the third part of your question related to uh whether or not uh — what was the third part of your question, actually? You asked three pieces,” Biden said looking lost.“He’s not up for this, folks,” the Trump camp said.
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Normally I’m a “glass half empty” guy. But reading this fascinating WSJ piece about how a single soccer match helped seed Italy’s catastrophe makes it easy to look at the glass half full, even at a moment as grim as we’re in.
As bad as things are right now, consider how much wider the contagion might be if St. Patrick’s Day parades and pub crawls had been held as scheduled. New York City’s parade was canceled less than a week before the big day. So were Boston’s and Chicago’s. Imagine millions of people across the country shoulder to shoulder in the streets and in bars, passing this plague around
Scientists at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine believe that they’ve found a potential vaccine for the new coronavirus.The researchers announced their findings Thursday and believe the vaccine could be rolled out quickly enough to “significantly impact the spread of disease,” according to their study published in EBioMedicine. The vaccine would be delivered on a small, fingertip-sized patch. When tested on mice, the vaccine produced enough antibodies believed to successfully counteract the virus.
BERLIN — The coronavirus pandemic, with its simultaneous health and economic crises, is deepening fault lines within Europe in a way some leaders fear could prove to be a final reckoning.
The cohesion of the European Union had been battered by Brexit, bruised by the political fallout from the 2015 migration surge and the 2008 financial crisis, and challenged by rising autocracy in the east that runs contrary to the professed ideals of the European project.
Now, if Europe’s leaders cannot chart a more united course, the project lies in what one of its architects described this week as “mortal danger.”
In the early days of the coronavirus outbreak, the response