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Friday, March 20, 2020

Strange bedfellows?

Political Cartoons by AF Branco

If True, Resignation Is The Best But Not Only Option


Tucker Carlson teams up with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Fox News star Tucker Carlson and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., don’t agree on much.
But when it comes to Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., they both agreed on Thursday — Burr must resign.
Now.
Burr, the Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman, sold as much as $1.7 million in stocks just before the market dropped in February amid fears about the coronavirus epidemic.
Senate records show that Burr and his wife sold between roughly $600,000 and $1.7 million in more than 30 separate transactions in late January and mid-February, just before the market began to fall and as government health officials began to issue stark warnings about the effects of the virus.
Several of the stocks were in companies that own hotels.
The stock sales were first reported by ProPublica and The Center for Responsive Politics. Most of them came on Feb. 13, just before Burr made a speech in Washington, D.C., in which he predicted severe consequences from the virus, including closed schools and cutbacks in company travel, according to audio obtained by National Public Radio and released Thursday.
Burr told the small North Carolina State Society audience that the virus was “much more aggressive in its transmission than anything that we have seen in recent history” and “probably more akin to the 1918 pandemic.”
Burr’s remarks were much more dire than remarks he had made publicly.
While there is no proof that Burr had any inside information as he sold the stocks and issued the private warnings, critics say the million-dollar move was suspiciously timed.
Both Carlson and Ocasio-Cortez have called for Burr to resign.
Burr said on Twitter Thursday that Americans were already being warned about the effects of the virus when he made the speech to the North Carolina State Society.
“The message I shared with my constituents is the one public health officials urged all of us to heed as coronavirus spread increased,” Burr wrote. “Be prepared.”
Burr sent out the tweets before reports of his stock sales. A spokesperson for the senator said in a statement that Burr “has been deeply concerned by the steep and sudden toll this pandemic is taking on our economy” and supports congressional efforts to help the economy. The spokesperson declined to be identified in order to share the senator’s thinking.
The North Carolina senator was not the only lawmaker to sell of stocks just before the steep decline due to the global pandemic.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., also sold off a huge amount of stocks after early coronavirus briefings, before the public was made aware.
“Feinstein, who serves as ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and her husband sold between $1.5 million and $6 million in stock in California biotech company Allogene Therapeutics, between Jan. 31 and Feb. 18,” according to Fox News.
And Georgia Sen. Kelly Loeffler, a new senator who is up for re-election this year, sold off hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of stock in late January, as senators began to get briefings on the virus, also according to Senate records.
In the weeks that followed, Loeffler urged her constituents to have faith in the Trump administration’s efforts to prepare the nation.
“@realDonaldTrump & his administration are doing a great job working to keep Americans healthy & safe,” Loeffler tweeted Feb. 27.
The Daily Beast first reported that Loeffler dropped the stock in late January. The senator is married to Jeffrey Sprecher, the chairman and CEO of Intercontinental Exchange, which owns the New York Stock Exchange.
The Associated Press contributed to this article

We Have Been Afraid Of This

China is faking its recovery from the coronavirus outbreak: report

Can't trust much info from the Chinese gov't

The first batch of 137 medical team members in Liaoning Province returned to Shenyang City from Wuhan City. Shenyang Public Security Bureau arranged traffic police cars to open the road, and lined up at 11 intersections along Qingnian Street to salute and welcome the medical staff home Friday. (Costfoto/Barcroft Media via Getty Images)
According to reports from the Chinese government, the worst of the coronavirus outbreak in the communist nation has passed, and even the hardest-hit regions have started returning to normal.
Those reports are being disputed by local Chinese officials who say the government is using deceptive measures to create the appearance of normal business operations and productivity, according to the Chinese media outlet Caixin.
Back to normal? For the first time since the coronavirus known as COVID-19 was discovered, China has reported no new infections. For the past couple of days, the number of new reported deaths has been in the single digits.
As a result, some of the businesses in China that were forced to shut down have begun reopening, and some travel restrictions have been lifted (although that is creating some new issues, including a fear of imported COVID-19 cases).
Not what it seems: Although the Chinese government, well-known for concealing or manipulating information, would obviously prefer the world seeing signs of strength and recovery, that might not be the case. Chinese whistleblowers tell Caixin they're working to create an appearance that things are back to normal when they're not:
Beijing has spent much of the outbreak pushing districts to carry on business as usual, with some local governments subsidizing electricity costs and even installing mandatory productivity quotas. Zhejiang, a province east of the epicenter city of Wuhan, claimed as of Feb. 24 it had restored 98.6 percent of its pre-coronavirus work capacity.

But civil servants tell Caixan that businesses are actually faking these numbers. Beijing had started checking Zhejiang businesses' electricity consumption levels, so district officials ordered the companies to start leaving their lights and machinery on all day to drive the numbers up, one civil servant said. Businesses have reportedly falsified staff attendance logs as well — they "would rather waste a small amount of money on power than irritate local officials," Caixan writes.
The number of reported coronavirus cases worldwide has now surpassed the number in China, and Italy alone has more reported deaths than China, despite having nearly 40,000 few reported cases.
(H/T: Yahoo News)

Wednesday, March 18, 2020

A Small List Of Trump's Accomplishments

  • Appointed two conservative Supreme Court Justices
  • Implemented the nation’s most historic tax cuts
  • Rebuilt our nation’s military
  • Brought unemployment numbers to a record low
  • MILLIONS of new jobs have been created
  • Overhauled NAFTA by signing the USMCA into law
  • Our borders are being secured - the WALL is being BUILT
  • And, finally, America is being put FIRST.

Is This The Next Step For California?The Rest Of The Country?

Newsom Threatens Martial Law as California Begins Taking Over Hospitals

Alert: California Makes 'Martial Law' Threat
Volume 90%
 
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As California’s number of confirmed COVID-19 cases barrels toward the four-digit mark, the state’s highest official has announced that martial law is a possibility.
Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom put the extreme measure on the table during a news conference Tuesday as he detailed California’s plan to combat the spread of the novel coronavirus.
According to NBC Bay Area, Newsom confirmed the state’s measures included taking over two vacant hospitals to help lessen the impact of the virus on existing medical facilities.
Along with the hospitals, California is attempting to acquire tens of thousands of hotel rooms to house hospital patients and the state’s massive homeless population.
The SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes the COVID-19 disease, is rapidly spread in close quarters and unsanitary conditions. The fear is that homeless camps in San Francisco and other west coast cities will become breeding grounds for the potentially fatal illness.
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Newsom also put the California National Guard on alert, while declaring that he has the authority to suspend civil law and the freedoms guaranteed by it — if he feels it’s necessary.
While the governor’s office maintained the military force would be used for humanitarian purposes, Newsom claimed that “we have the ability to do martial law … if we feel the necessity.”
Across the state, nearly all primary educational facilities have closed their doors for at least two weeks. For many, Newsom warned that the closures could last into summer break.
Similar measures to slow the spread of COVID-19 have been instituted in other states, with some local governments, including California’s, even closing bars and restaurants.
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While coming down with the coronavirus feels like having the flu or a bad cold for most healthy people, the virus still boasts a fatality rate around 10 times that of seasonal influenza.
For the elderly and immunocompromised people, the risk is much greater.
These vulnerable people are who quarantines are intended to protect.
The less the disease can spread among the healthy, the lower a chance it has of reaching those unable to fight it off.
Quarantines may be an acceptable measure to achieve this in countries like China and North Korea, but the suspension of civil law and freedoms has no place in America.
In place of military law backed by force of arms, it should be up to every American citizen to practice common sense during our own viral outbreak.
Proper hand washing, social distancing and other common-sense techniques will do more than enough to slow the spread of COVID-19 until medical workers fighting on the frontlines of the pandemic can eliminate this virus for good.