[Alpha News MN] 3M says it asked China for permission to sell more N95 masks in America after President Donald Trump scolded the company for exporting medical masks as American hospitals struggle to acquire them.
Now, it appears that the president has made good on this promise as he “formally invoked the Defense Production Act,” according to a Friday press release from 3M. Trump’s order has the effect of forcing 3M to prioritize America’s needs amidst the COVID-19 epidemic.
3M says that to follow this order, it “secured approval from China to export to the U.S. 10 million N95 respirators manufactured by 3M in China,” according to the release.
The Minnesota based company said it cannot simply sell the masks it makes in the US to American hospitals because those masks are destined for Latin America and Canada. 3M claims that the “significant humanitarian implications of ceasing respirator supplies to healthcare workers in Canada and Latin America” prevent them from allowing American hospitals to purchase these domestically produced masks.
Before this official action occurred, 3M failed to comply with other White House requests involving the availability of N95s, reports the Financial Times.
[PJMedia] Despite the fact that the Mueller report proved there was no collusion between Donald Trump and the Russians during the 2016 campaign, Democrats were convinced that there was more evidence out there, perhaps in the tiny fraction of the report that was redacted for national security reasons, that proved Trump actually did collude with the Russians.
It turns out that the most interesting things about Mueller's investigation were not what was redacted from the report, but what wasn't included in the first place. According to investigative reporter John Solomon, Bob Mueller hid evidence exonerating Donald Trump Jr. over the infamous Trump Tower meeting, during which Democrats were convinced he had met with a Russian lawyer to discuss dirt on Hillary Clinton.
But .... it's full of redactions! Shirley, that's where the Russian Collusion is hiding!
- Schiff, Clinton, etc.
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/03/2020 12:57
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A prosecutor that does this, hides evidence that exonerates the person they are prosecuting should be arrested and serve the full penalty of the crime being prosecuted. If the crime is treason (working with a foreign government to undermine the US elections) then up against the wall.
#3
No, it should be a federal crime meriting public execution. They are supposed to be the legal and public arm of the law, so when they commit crimes, the penalty needs to be ten times worse. At this point, an FBI agent is less trustworthy than a reporter or used car salesman and are potentially all traitors.
[swarajyamag.com] Inmates at the New Delhi headquarters of Islamic organisation Tablighi Jamaat follow practices that “guarantee” the spread of the virus to other inmates, says a man from Telangana who stayed at the Nizamuddin-based building for three weeks in November.
Johny (name changed), who spoke to this correspondent over the phone, requested to be anonymous.
Johny, born a Christian, converted to Islam in June 2019 to win over his girlfriend’s family. Soon after the mandatory circumcision, which he got done in August, he joined Tablighi Jamaat on the advice of a “doctor”.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: John Frum ||
04/03/2020
10:17 ||
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#1
A thousand men using a pool of water to wash feet, hands, noses, mouths? Eating with their hands fom a communal plate? What could possibly go wrong?
Posted by: John Frum ||
04/03/2020 10:39
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#2
If the Village People had known of this place, they'd have made a song about it.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
04/03/2020 12:41
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#5
If the administration was really up to it, this was an opportunity to effect a selective, natural depopulation which would have delivered maximum dividends by just the end of this year. Fools.
[USA Today] U.S. exports of surgical masks, ventilators and other personal protective gear to China skyrocketed in January and February, when the coronavirus was wreaking havoc in the country where it began and as U.S. intelligence agencies warned it would soon spread.
American companies sold more than $17.5 million worth of face masks, more than $13.6 million in surgical garments and more than $27.2 million in ventilators to China during the first two months of the year, far exceeding that of any other similar period in the past decade, according to the most recent foreign trade data available from the U.S. Census Bureau.
USA TODAY’s analysis of the trade numbers comes as medical professionals on the front lines of the nationwide crisis say they are being forced to reuse or go without personal protective equipment like surgical masks and face shields to account for a shortage. Some states also are scrambling to find ventilators to prepare for a crush of patients expected to need them.
The White House and congressional intelligence committees were briefed on the scope and threat of the coronavirus in January and February, but President Donald Trump has not stopped exports of key medical equipment ‐ a move taken by at least 54 other countries so far.
The data show how U.S. manufacturers stepped up production and cleared out inventory to supply protective medical equipment to China for weeks, even as the threat of the coronavirus became clear. The CDC reported its first case in the United States on Jan. 20. Within the next two weeks, the World Health Organization and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services had declared the disease a public health emergency.
#1
Thedata show how U.S. manufacturers stepped up production and cleared out inventory to supply protective medical equipment to China for weeks, even as the threat of the coronavirus became clear.
So stepping up production capability, clearing out old inventory, and targeting the origins (initial 'hot spot') was a bad thing ?
".....early-warning program aimed at training scientists in China"
Scientists in China need additional training dollars? Who knew ?
#2
This was discussed in yesterday's press conference. NOW they're restricting exports, but not across the board.
And, hell, if the shipments to China during January and February had been restricted, the press would have been screaming that it was irresponsible and making things worse.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
04/03/2020 12:38
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#6
For us to repent and correct the error of our of our wicked Globalist Shitshow ways, it was necessary that God send His Orange Prophet to Washington.
Future chroniclers will credit the advent of OrangeMan, along with COVID, as the first step in the destruction of the temple that was this nation's insane attachment to ChiComs and to shitwage imported illegal helots.
#9
That's gonna be a yuge collector's item there, Chuckie. I bet it'd fetch a hundred grand right now and who knows how much after November. You better frame it and take good care of it.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
04/03/2020 11:30
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#11
Entirely appropriate in view of all the hysteria being ginned up by Schumer, Pelosi, and the media.
We have to unwind all the stay-at-home and other orders--and probably sooner rather than later--but it is going to be more difficult to walk people back from the ledge if the Democrat leadership and the media keep pouring on the panic and hysteria without any context whatsoever.
Posted by: Tom ||
04/03/2020 16:32
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[LA Times] Two months before the novel coronavirus is thought to have begun its deadly advance in Wuhan, China, the Trump administration ended a $200-million pandemic early-warning program aimed at training scientists in China and other countries to detect and respond to such a threat.
The project, launched by the U.S. Agency for International Development in 2009, identified 1,200 different viruses that had the potential to erupt into pandemics, including more than 160 novel coronaviruses. The initiative, called PREDICT, also trained and supported staff in 60 foreign laboratories ‐ including the Wuhan lab that identified SARS-CoV-2, the new coronavirus that causes COVID-19. USAID? Who are these people again? Oh, ok. Got it.
Field work ceased when the funding ran out in September, and organizations that worked on the PREDICT program laid off dozens of scientists and analysts, said Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance, a key player in the program.
On Wednesday, USAID granted an emergency extension to the program, issuing $2.26 million over the next six months to send experts who will help foreign labs squelch the pandemic. But program leaders say the funding will do little to further the initiative’s original mission. No need in a re-start, too late. Trump failed. We've reassigned everyone to Afrikaanse oliphant studies.
“Look at the name: Our efforts were to predict this before it happens. That’s the part of the program that was exciting — and that’s the part I’m worried about,” Daszak said. Yes, your efforts. Twelve years running. Your reports please. Give us your reports, indications and warnings, etc.
“It’s absolutely critical that we don’t drop the idea of a large-scale, proactive, predictive program that tries to catch pandemics before they happen. Cutting a program that could in any way reduce the risk of things like COVID-19 happening again is, by any measure, shortsighted,” he added.
#1
A quick scan of the EcoHealth Alliance website provides a listing of over global 40 partners and contributors. Embedded in the list of Science advisors is the name of Dr. Scott Dowell, Deputy Director for Surveillance and Epidemiology at Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Twelve years running, an alleged $200-million shortfall stops fok'n everything. Bill & Melinda, where were you ?
#2
Wasn't this the program that only funded for a set amount of time (which ran out)? Last time I checked the House funds those things and weren't they a bit busy with other things last year?
[news18.com] Indore: Following an outrageous incident of assault on doctors in Indore, the police on Thursday arrested seven persons, including the mastermind of the attack.
Police teams are on the lookout for others involved in the assault that took place at Taatpatti Bakhal area here on Wednesday. Two women physicians were pelted with stones as a team of health department and administration visited the area for a health check-up of contacts of a patient who had earlier tested positive for coronavirus.
The arrested accused have been identified on the basis of the video of the incident which went viral after the incident, said Indore DIG Harinarayanchari Mishra.
Mishra said a total of 50 people are suspected to be involved in the incident, adding that the seven arrested have been booked on charges of obstructing government officers under several sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
One of the women doctors assaulted had lodged a complaint with the police and sources claim more serious charges could be brought against the accused in police custody.
Singh said a man has also been arrested for spreading fake news on social media.
Taatpatti Bakhal was declared a containment zone after a man who tested positive for coronavirus days died. Health teams were pressed into service to trace those who were in contact with the deceased.
Trouble broke out when the health team screened an elderly woman who later claimed she had no symptoms of coronavirus and yet the health staffers wanted her to go with them.
Meanwhile, noted Urdu poet Rahat Indori criticised the attack on physicians and said India is shocked to see such an incident from residents of Indore who are "generally considered sophisticated and well-behaved". Cautioning Muslims against reacting to rumours, Indori urged them to cooperate with the administration, including health staff.
“It’s not an issue of Hindu or Muslims but a natural calamity and everyone needs to understand this,” he said.
Posted by: John Frum ||
04/03/2020
08:56 ||
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#3
I looked for a post from Varmint Splat in the O Club yesterday and today, but saw nothing, Thimp Clusort2035. I assume that's you? Let us try again.
[outlookindia.com] Uttar Pradesh government has decided to book several members of the Tablighi Jamaat under the stringent National Security Act (NSA) after they allegedly misbehaved with female nursing staff and resorted to obscene behaviour at a hospital in Ghaziabad where they are being quarantined.
The members of Tablighi Jamaat A peaceful group of itinerant Deobandi preachers who form one of al-Qaeda's recruiting arms... was kept in an isolation ward in a hospital in Ghaziabad after they were evacuated from Nizamuddin Markaz, the headquarter of the Islamic organisation that emerged as one of the biggest hotspots of Coronavirus in the country.
According to a highly placed source quoted by news agency IANS, it has also been decided that female nurses and policewomen will not be deployed where the Tablighi Jamaat members are kept.
It may be recalled that the Chief Medical Officer of the MMG Hospital in Ghaziabad had written a letter to the Ghaziabad police informing about the 'criminal behavior of the Jamaatis'.
The CMO, in his letter, stated that the members of the Tablighi Jamaat who are kept at the isolation ward of the hospital, have been roaming in their wards naked. The letter stated that obscene comments and songs were being heard from the ward, and inmates were asking for beedi-cigarette from the staff of the hospital. The CMO also wrote that these people have also been making lewd gestures towards female employees of the hospital.
The Tablighi Jamaat group has come under severe criticism for flouting the guidelines issued by the Delhi and central governments in the wake of the Coronavirus outbreak.
The members of Tablighi Jamaat, who travelled to different states from Delhi after attending a mammoth congregation in March, became the carriers of the virus, infecting hundreds. In states like Tamil Nadu, Arunachal Pradesh and UT of Jammu and Kashmir, several cases of Coronavirus were found to have links with the congregation at Nizamuddin Markaz.
Posted by: John Frum ||
04/03/2020
08:28 ||
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#1
Many jihadi attackers in France have been former Tablighi Jaamat members. One French secret service official called the organization the "antechamber of terrorism" because of its apparent role in radicalizing Muslims. 9/11 terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui was a Tablighi Jamaat member, as was Kafeel Ahmed, who died in the Glasgow Airport Attack, as were the founders of Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, who hijacked Indian Airlines Flight 814 in 1999.
Posted by: John Frum ||
04/03/2020 8:43
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#2
It's all on the stupid Government, and the inept, corrupt judiciary. I don't understand whose hearts and minds they think they can win with all this p↺ssyfooting around the islamic issue.
I understand their corporate benefactors stand to lose mist, if they go General Dyer on the muzz, and India suffers some kind of sanctions. But Trump's presence practically guarantees that will not happen. Of course, he won't be always in office. Sooner or later an islamophile Democrat will arrive and India will suffer just the same.
The voter didn't ring in Modi for jobs or a higher GDP. They voted him in to deal with 'the enemy'. He seems to not comprehend that it wasn't his brilliance or his statecraft the Indian public values him for.
PROPRIETARY AND CONFIDENTIALHere are just a few key highlights from Wave I:Summary of findingsTreatments & Efficacy:•3 most commonly prescribed treatments amongst COVID-19 treaters are 56% analgesics, 41% Azithromycin, and 33% Hydroxychloroquine.•Hydroxychloroquine usage amongst COVID-19 treatersis 72% in Spain, 49% in Italy, 41% in Brazil, 39% in Mexico, 28% in France, 23% in US, 17% in Germany, 16% in Canada, 13% in UK and 7% in Japan.•Hydroxychloroquine was overall chosen as the most effective therapy from a list of 15 options (37% of COVID-19 treaters).•75% in Spain, 53% Italy, 44% in China, 43% in Brazil, 29% in France, 23% in US and 13% in UK.•The two most common treatment regimens for Hydroxychloroquine were:•(38%) 400mg twice daily on day one; 400 mg daily for 5 days.•(26%) 400mg twice daily on day one; 200mg twice daily for 4 days.•Outside the US, Hydroxychloroquine was equally used for diagnosed patients with mild to severe symptoms whereas in the US it wasmost commonly used for high risk diagnosed patients.•Globally, 19% of physicians prescribed or have seen Hydroxychloroquine prophylactically used for high risk patients, and 8% for low risk patients. The USA is actually behind the curve in using HCQ
Posted by: lord garth ||
04/03/2020
07:44 ||
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The USA is behind the curve because Trump recognized it and said something, and OrangeManBad.
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/03/2020 12:34
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#2
Great.
The indecision of the FDA put US in position at the end of the candy line. Just hope the bowl isn't empty when we get there.
Food for thought
[Daily Caller]
* Richard H. Ebright, a molecular biologist who has been quoted as a coronavirus expert by The Washington Post and MSNBC, said Thursday that it’s possible that COVID-19 leaked from a Wuhan lab.
* Shi Zhengli, China’s leading virologist on bat-borne viruses, said in March that she lost sleep worrying that the virus could have leaked from her lab in Wuhan after she first learned of the virus in December.
* Shi now tells those who share the concerns she once had to "shut their stinking mouths." "You wanna get me disappeared??"
A molecular biologist who has been quoted as a coronavirus expert by The Washington Post and MSNBC said Thursday in no uncertain terms that the novel coronavirus could have been unleashed due to a leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
China's top virologist on bat-borne viruses, Shi Zhengli, has sworn on her life that the virus did not leak from her Wuhan lab, saying that its spread was "nature punishing the human race for keeping uncivilized living habits."
But Richard H. Ebright, a professor of chemical biology at Rutgers University, told the Daily Caller News Foundation on Thursday that there is a real possibility that the virus entered the human population due to a laboratory accident.
When asked specifically if he believes the virus could have leaked from Shi's lab in Wuhan, Ebright said: "Yes."
"A denial is not a refutation," Ebright said. "Especially not a denial based on ‘nature punishing the human race for keeping uncivilized living habits.'"
And while Shi now tells those who question whether her lab could be connected to the release of the coronavirus to "shut their stinking mouths," she previously said she lost sleep worrying about the possibility that her lab in Wuhan could have been responsible for the virus's release.
Shi, known by her colleagues as the "bat woman" because of the 16 years she has spent hunting for viruses in bat caves, told Scientific American in March that she frantically searched for any evidence that her laboratory's records were mishandled upon learning of the virus's outbreak in Wuhan in late December.
"Could they have come from our lab?" Shi recalled thinking.
"I had never expected this kind of thing to happen in Wuhan, in central China," she noted, saying that her studies had shown that southern China posed the greatest risk of coronaviruses jumping from animals to humans.
Shi said she breathed a sigh of relief when results came back showing that the sequences of the coronavirus did not match the viruses she and her team had sampled from bat caves. Uh huh....not that it wasn't altered...
"That really took a load off my mind," Shi said. "I had not slept a wink for days."
Shi and her colleagues at the Wuhan Institute of Virology reported in early 2017 that after five years of surveying they had discovered 11 new strains of SARS-related viruses in horseshoe bats from China's Yunnan Province. The virologist said at the time that the 11 strains contained all the genes to make a SARS coronavirus similar to that of the 2003 outbreak.
Shi contributed to a study published in February reporting that the novel coronavirus is 96.2% identical to a viral strain that was detected in horseshoe bats from the Yunnan Province.
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/03/2020
07:17 ||
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#1
One thing is safe to say: Do not believe anything China says.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
04/03/2020 7:36
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#2
Well, there you have it. Turns out you can prove a negative. Certainly couldn't have been on location for any other reasons/depts/research. Oh, and that whole cottage industry of selling lab animals out the back door to the local market...nah, never mind.
Posted by: Herb McCoy ||
04/03/2020 8:01
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#6
bats are the chicken of the cave
Posted by: Bob Grorong1136 ||
04/03/2020 8:25
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#7
China's top virologist on bat-borne viruses, Shi Zhengli, has sworn on her life that the virus did not leak from her Wuhan lab, saying that its spread was "nature punishing the human race for keeping uncivilized living habits."
Her veracity was quite obviously extinguished with that one.
#8
Sounds like her overlords wanted her to back up the official line, despite much evidence to the contrary. Black market is always there.
Posted by: Marilyn Tojo7566 ||
04/03/2020 9:08
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#9
Still think the old chicoms that were willing to fire on peaceful Tienanmen students would be willing to release the virus on their own protesters in 2019/2020. Someone should see how many politiburo members came through unscathed when this is all over.
SCOOP: President Vladimir Putin’s government is rewriting its budget to prepare for oil prices at $20 a barrel this year despite U.S.-led efforts to get major producers to rein in production. https://t.co/Cs3D6zCrhZ via @markets@AndrianovaAnna
#1
Have a price war with Saudi Arabia primarily designed to kill US fraking which can't compete at those prices only to have Trump fill the stockpiles and the virus shut down industry so that the frakers can just hit pause while that cheap oil helps the otherwise tottering US economy.
#2
But no one can kill US fracking with a price war. The current operators of the wells can go out of business which is rough for the owners. But as soon as prices go back up someone will buy those shut-in wells etc, hire the field hands back and start fracking again.
#3
Time to offer some help to the Russians and to our producers and boost prices a bit.
Post-crisis we are far better off if we can peel Russia away from the Chinese and figure out a rapprochement with Putin over Ukraine and w Putin and the Saudis re global energy supply conditions.
[American Thinker] On April 2, American Thinker published a post in which I suggested that China’s culture was responsible for coronavirus. This post riffed off the fact that, on Sunday, Tucker Carlson had highlighted a study from China holding that the bat responsible for COVID-19 was not one of the bats sold and eaten at Wuhan’s infamous wet markets. Instead, the bat was of a type used at two nearby research laboratories.
Carlson said – and this seemed correct – that, to the extent the Chinese government had to have signed off on the study, we would be wrong to assume that China deliberately unleashed the virus on the world. (It could have, of course, but that’s not the conclusion one should draw from the study.)
The April 2nd post I wrote said that the problem could well be that the Chinese just don’t do things meticulously. Theirs is not a Japanese culture, one in which everything is done with reverence and obsessive attention to detail. Instead, the Chinese have a slapdash approach to just about everything.
Part of this is because the communist government’s mercantilist business model is to dump cheap products on the foreign market, undermining local economies. Meanwhile, Chinese tariffs mean that other countries cannot make up their job losses by bringing unique merchandise to the Chinese market. It’s this type of trade depredation that Trump has been fighting against since his first day as president.
Another part of this is because, for whatever reason, Chinese manufacturers don’t mind producing garbage or even toxic products, so long as they can make a profit. This may be because they’re going through the same “robber baron” phase that America had in the post-Civil War era. In many ways, Chinese manufacturing is following that old model of worker exploitation and “anything for a profit” production.
[NY Post] Sheldon Adelson: I’m paying all my workers for 2 months, so should any business that can
Although the resort hotels of my company, Las Vegas Sands, are shuttered, I’m paying every one of our nearly 10,000 employees as though they were still working. We’re even working to make up for lost tips. I hope to do that right up until the time that we can reopen our businesses.
It’s not only the right thing to do — it’s good business.
I’ve often said the story of my career would be a true rags-to-riches account, except for the fact that my parents couldn’t even afford the rags. As the son of hard-working, low-income, immigrant parents, I grew up with the same anxiety people across the nation are feeling right now.
Where is the next meal coming from? How can I pay the rent and electricity bill? Families are desperate to know when they can go back to work.
I recall one of the most important lessons I learned from my father. He would come home from work — when he could find work, that is — and put loose change in the family pushke (charity box). When I asked why he would give to others when we had so little, he would say, “There is always someone whose need is greater than ours.”
There are certainly great stories of corporate America doing all it can to support employees’ needs during a time when so many of our fellow Americans have been asked to stand down from their work.
But we employers, especially larger ones, can do more. We should do more.
To my fellow corporate executives who are looking at spreadsheets and trying to determine the impact this crisis will have on sales and share prices, let me say: Our job as business leaders is now as simple as it is challenging. It is to maximize the number of employees and their families that we can help — and help them for as long as possible.
America’s corporations and small- and medium-sized businesses are making excruciating decisions. Many will result in people being out of work; millions have already been added to the jobless rolls as a result of the pandemic. Those difficult decisions, especially for small- and medium-sized businesses, could determine whether they are able to reopen when this crisis is resolved.
That is why protecting the ability of small and medium-sized businesses to recover is where government must again be responsive. Yes, more than $2 trillion in government rescue aid is coming. However, the longer this crisis continues, the greater the risk to the livelihood of many more Americans.
Our elected officials are rising to the occasion. President Trump and congressional leaders of both parties worked to pass the largest rescue package in history, in record time. Our nation’s governors, led by the examples of Andrew Cuomo, Mike DeWine, Gavin Newsom and Steve Sisolak I don't think I'd include this POS
, are taking decisive actions to protect health and safety — decisions they surely never imagined they would be required to make.
#1
Better be nice to the help. Work is returning to America. Your workforce is your most important asset. Don't treat it as a liability, it won't necessarily act like one.
#2
>Our job as business leaders is now as simple as it is challenging. It is to maximize the number of employees and their families that we can help — and help them for as long as possible.
I think this is wrong... Your job is to continue to help your customers where there is continuing demand.
#3
I hope someone is keeping a virus era naughty/nice list because some of us are going to start adjusting our future purchasing patterns to that sort of thing. 3M for example is dead to me, so is GM for dragging their feet on converting to ventilators until hours before gov orders demanded they do so.
[Guns America] Get a suppressor in 90 days or fewer!!!
That is the thinking behind Congressman Greg Steube (R-FL-17) new bill, "H.R. 6126 ‐ the End the Normalized Delay of Suppressors (ENDS) Act."
Introduced last month, the ENDS Act would cap suppressor transfer times at 90 days, meaning as long as the prospective purchaser wasn’t denied during the National Firearms Act (NFA) process, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) would have to automatically approve the transfer after 90 days.
No more insane wait times! Currently, some purchasers can wait up to 18 months before getting their can.
"I have personally experienced the unnecessary delay of a suppressor application and as a member of Congress, I have met with many Floridians who have also experienced similar delays," said Congressman Steube in a press release. "A policy of delay, delay, delay is unacceptable and frankly violates the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding gun owners."
The bill makes perfect sense and falls in line with existing law. Under the Brady Act, for example, there is a "default to proceed" provision that allows a licensed firearms dealer to complete a gun transfer if the FBI doesn’t complete the buyer’s background check within three business days.
#1
In Nancy Pelosi’s House this will never make it out of committee. Perhaps the honourable Congressman from the great state of Florida will reintroduce it in late January, when conditions will have changed.
[Guns America] Inmates across the country who were released to protect prison populations from COVID-19 are already committing crimes in their local communities, including at least one former inmate who admitted to stabbing a man to death just four days after his release.
Jacob Burnett was released in Louisville, KY, two days into his two-year sentence for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Four days after being released, he admitted to stabbing and killing a 60-year-old man in a subdivision just east of the city, according to local media.
Another Louisville inmate, Kenneth Walker, was released to "home incarceration" even though he was accused of shooting local officer John Mattingly on March 13th. Corrections FOP Spokesperson Tracy Dotson told the media that his lodge has denounced Walker’s release.
In New Jersey, Monmouth County Sheriff Shaun Golden told Fox News that a recently released inmate has already been arrested for shoplifting and theft, according to Tap Into Middletown.
[Townhall] President Trump took 3M to task on Thursday night for the company's decision to sell medical masks to foreign governments while the United States struggles to provide masks to its own medical workers on the frontlines of the coronavirus pandemic. The president announced at the White House press briefing on Thursday that he had invoked the Defense Production Act to direct the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA to obtain masks from 3M.
Authorized distributors for 3M are reportedly filling orders from cash buyers representing foreign governments, Jason Moskowitz, the Director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management, told Tucker Carlson in an interview on Fox News. Texas Congressman Lance Gooden has called on 3M's distributors to immediately stop the export of face masks to foreign countries.
President Trump tweeted on Thursday that he invoked the Defense Production Act after learning that face masks were being sold to foreign governments, warning the company they "will have a big price to pay!"
[Washington Examiner] 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.
"We need to make sure there's no favoritism in terms of political allies, no discrimination against states or governors based on lack of presidential flattery," Schiff said, indicating the probe would be aimed squarely at President Trump.
Less than three months after sending to the Senate impeachment articles to remove the president from office and less than two months after the Senate trial ended in Trump's acquittal, the Pelosi-Schiff team is up and running again.
#1
...Hell, they gotta do something - Biden is dead in the water, there's not going to be a triumphant coronation at the national convention (for that matter, Bernie hasn't given up yet) and if we pull out of this with fewer than 200K deaths, Trump will be a hero. They're prepared to say/do anything at this point.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
04/03/2020 4:33
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#9
They don’t know what to do that Trump and the various governors haven’t done so they will either around with another phony investigation into the virus by a bunch of Ozero holdovers and try to pin that massive incompetence on Trump
First question the Republican members of those committees should ask of witnesses is “who appointed you to your position?”
#12
(sigh) I thought I could stop using the dread 'Shitshow' phrases - serious times, and we're all suffering now - but these people are determined to raise their Shitshow tentpoles yet again.
And again, and again.
Truly, they're deranged. These people have an obsessive-compulsive disorder that demands clinical treatment.
#14
Grom's comment #2 is correct. We are living in a Gods of the Copybook Headings world.
Consider all the destruction occurring, economic and otherwise. Just think how bad it would be if the Green Nude Eel were implemented.
Mises Institute via Instapundit
The Food and Drug Administration helped turn the coronavirus from a deadly peril into a national catastrophe. Long after foreign nations had been ravaged and many cases had been detected in America, the FDA continued blocking private testing. The FDA continued forcing the nation’s most innovative firms to submit to its command-and-control approach notwithstanding the pandemic. South Korean is in a far better situation dealing with coronavirus, because its government did not preemptively cripple private testing.
One of the clearest lessons from the current pandemic is that nothing has changed at one of the nation’s most powerful regulatory agencies. The FDA is repeating the same mistakes and showing the same arrogance that I chronicled decades ago in articles for the Wall Street Journal, the American Spectator, and other publications.
Dr. David Kessler, who became FDA commissioner in 1990, quickly sought to intimidate the companies that his agency regulates. A laudatory Washington Post article concluded, "What he cannot accomplish with ordinary regulation, Kessler hopes to accomplish with fear." Kenneth Feather of the FDA's drug advertising surveillance branch boasted: "We want to say to these companies that you don't know when or how we'll strike. We want to eliminate predictability."
...Dr. Kessler declared in 1992: "If members of our society were empowered to make their own decisions...then the whole rationale for the [FDA] would cease to exist." Kessler derided "freedom of choice" as an illusion unless people are presented only with government-approved choices. But the FDA "liberated" people by shielding them from information, devices, and drugs that could have saved their lives.
Many Americans could die in the coming weeks and months thanks to the FDA’s blockade on coronavirus testing. Should we consider those victims as martyrs for the principle of bureaucratic supremacy? The FDA’s current commissioner, Stephen Hahn, conceded last week: "There are always opportunities to learn from situations like this one." Perhaps the clearest lesson is that it is time to track the death toll of FDA regulatory debacles.
[American Thinker] Sometime in June 2001, while browsing the Wall Street Journal, I stumbled upon an item on an inside page all the way at the bottom. It was no more than 75 words in a box. It covered a CIA security announcement concerning an increase in internet and cell phone traffic among suspected terrorists from suspect areas in the Arab world. I canceled a Fourth of July trip downtown because of it.
I assumed that if an attack was coming, it would be on America's premium self-celebratory holiday, the Fourth of July.
When nothing happened, I took off my tinfoil hat, ascribing my worries to my suspicion of Islam ‐ suspicions I had carefully curated from prior events such as the first World Trade Center attack, the Cole, the embassy bombings, and the killing of Americans soldiers in the 1983 bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut.
It has become accepted knowledge that America's intelligence agencies missed 9/11 warning signs ‐ but that's not entirely true. Signs were seen, but they impelled no action. We were so convinced that the fall of the Soviet Union as the end of history precluded any need for urgency. Yet, even if there had been, no one, at that point, knew how to react.
I don't think I need to remind everyone of what happened on 09/11/2001.
I share this vignette as a means of showing that there are always signs. We, for whatever reason, miss them, or we ignore them for political purposes, or we refuse to believe them because they contradict the core tenets of our belief system.
I believe that China's actions today may be telegraphing an intent we are choosing to ignore. They show all the signs of a nation preparing to attack America. China seeks a bespoke world run by China with "Chinese characteristics" ‐ a dream that under Trump was drifting away.
China appears to be laying the groundwork for a "justified" attack on the United States, perhaps in the South China Sea or perhaps elsewhere. It will be a military attack, not an act of terrorism, and the excuse will be America's deliberate transmission of COVID-19 in Wuhan.
#1
Complex Epsilon-Delta mathematical proofs are unnecessary. A careful analysis will provide (likely has provided) an answer containing one or more of the following elements:
a. A simple laboratory accident involving the release of deadly bio-pathogens.
b. A naturally occurring epidemologial event resulting from wet market bush-meat.
c. The release of deadly bio-pathogens under the cover of an accident, i.e. a probing attack.
d. The release of deadly bio-pathogens as a precursor to actual conflict.
Again, I believe the supporting and confirming analysis is already in hand.
Unfortunately, I am privy to none of it.
#8
#5 Wuhan is one of their most important manufacturing centers.
Anyways, they're not dumb. If it were a deliberate release, it would've taken place somewhere far away. Just imagine how hard USA would've been hit if you didn't have a warning from that was happening in China & Europe.
Look, all I'm saying: don't underestimate your enemy.
Posted by: Herb McCoy ||
04/03/2020 6:12
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#13
I'll take (a) for 10 bucks - you don't release biological agents until you have protection for your own population.
Remember though force collectivization of farmers creating a famine that kills millions isn't a biological agent, just party policy. See - Ukraine Famine
#14
Hey, Herb, Admiral Yamamoto is said to have grave misgivings about attacking the Americans, having studied there and crossed the country seeing its industrial potential and population. Did his calculations have any weight with the leadership of his Asian country decision to launch a war. No.
You need a long time out to bone up on Chinese history.
1. They consider the Middle Kingdom to be the greatest civilization on earth. Technically, it probably was up till the early 1700s.
2. They've been humbled by the outside barbarian since.
3. They want to claim their place again. They are socially and politically at the same spot the Japanese found themselves in the early part of the 20th Century. They are just as racist/tribal and chauvinistic as any other population.
#15
It was a bio weapon that was leaked
Why were they developing a virus that our immune systems wouldn’t recognize?
Why do you develop bio weapons except to potentially use them
Why hasn’t some one stated the obvious that PRC is violating all of those nifty treaties about biological warfare?
#19
I am once again amused by the intellectual prowess of someone who thinks citing a Japanese example and applying it to the Chinese is somehow valid. Because they're "Asian".
I'm amused by someone who has never done the time and studied Asian history and culture to grasp anything related to it. The long line of influence of China-> via Korea -> Japan is in the books.
"Place in the Sun" knows no cultural exclusivity. Just look at the Jihadists trying to re-establish the Caliphate.
Herb, your mind is just as closed as those who you accuse of the same.
#22
China hasn't been coy that their primary target is the United States. They've been saying that for decades.
That said, I lean towards the release being an accident. A lab animal with a new virus that could infect humans was "disposed" in the market rather than the incinerator.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
04/03/2020 9:15
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#23
Hey, the Chinese at least have this going for them, Herb: they can do all that and still you come up with reasons that they're not really trying to passively-aggressively go to war with us. Multiply that by all the old-time libertarian isolationists and all the old-line communists in the Dems who helped sell China _and_ Vietnam _and_ North Korea to International Communism to begin with, and it adds up.
#25
Nah. Chinese can afford to wait another 20 or 30 years until all the remaining industry has been shipped over to them and few native engineers and (hard) scientists remain, only H1B imports. We'll probably surrender to them at the first mention of them cutting off our 6G body computers.
#26
Why does anyone assume they're entirely rational, deliberate, well-organized?
The CCP leadership are extraordinarily greedy, venal, chaotic, and torn apart by internal conflicts. Even the Soviets were more stable and predictable than these vicious and corrupt weasels.
#28
I still have have lingering thoughts of (e) kill/disband your own protesters to save your politburo necks from being torn apart by the crowds. But then I may be alone at that.
I'm (a) followed by opportunistic (e). The organizing principle of current China is preservation of the Party's power. The existential contagion was protest not coronavirus. In amplifying the response to an infectious outbreak, China was able to turn the totalitarian knob to high. Imagine the roundup of trouble makers that occurred under cover of COVID...
There's been a follow on opportunistic response in the west (f) catalyzed by (e). These are boom times for authoritarians.
#32
The virus has 8 or more major flavors. Each one that targets one people better than the other. I am sorry random evolution does not make successful flavors that fast.
I am of the point of view that they have been working on this set of beasties in the Wuhan Lab since at least 2004.
I believe China was developing them for release at the Japan Olympics. It accidentally got released earlier so what the heck... China said "Let's do it! Release all the forms on the world! Just the one virus form at home."
#33
Ref #32: I believe China was developing them for release at the Japan Olympics. It accidentally got released earlier so what the heck... China said "Let's do it! Release all the forms on the world! Just the one virus form at home." Posted by 3dc
Provocative! A potentially unexplored hypothesis, at least here. Great work 3dc.
#34
Maybe they thought wrecking the US economy would keep Trump from being reelected. Maybe they thought it was at least worth a try. You know they'd much rather have a pliant Joe Biden in office than Trump who is wise to them.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
04/03/2020 12:17
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#35
And then, right on cue, Nancy and Schifferbrains launch yet another investigation to try to blame it on Trump.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
04/03/2020 12:19
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#36
As for their own citizens, heck, when you have 1.4 billion you can afford to lose a few. You know the Inner Party is safely ensconced at locations forbidden to the unwashed.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
04/03/2020 12:22
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#37
All interesting points to ponder. I wonder how China’s ports and shipping firms are bracing for a second wave of supply chain disruptions (page 3) figures in?
Did the Chicoms miss that factor? Not care? Seems like this would add pressure to the population, thus feeding their unrest. Or is there no one left to complain?
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/03/2020 12:31
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#38
Of course, this did knock Hong kong off the front pages. The CCP may have considered HK a worse threat than the virus.
Posted by: Matt ||
04/03/2020 13:13
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#39
I'm (a) followed by opportunistic (e).
^
This.
The release may not have been planned, but it's created a geopolitical dynamic which the PRC is now exploiting with their "this was an American military op" meme.
With help from the Western left and the Justin Raimondo types.
#41
Seems if we go with this Olympic theory, China screws up and let's the first flavor of virus go in their own populace. Knowing the mistake,they try to keep it hidden as possible,while buying supplies,to try and put the cat back into the bag. While,knowing their special ops secret is out of the bag,unleash the other strains on the other countries.
#42
It's just a theory possibly worth exploring. An interesting take on COVID-19...
Hmmm... one has to wonder...?????????????
The corona Virus travelled entire world from Wuhan but it did not reach Beijing and Shanghai... can anybody put light?
Looks So Logical....After all Chinese Stock Market didn't crash....American and European Markets did....
Destroy other markets and be ready to capture them in every way
How to dominate the world quickly?
THE GREAT CHINESE STAGE
1. Create a virus and the antidote.
2. Spread the virus.
3. A demonstration of efficiency, building hospitals in a few days. After all, you were already prepared, with the projects, ordering the equipment, hiring the labor, the water and sewage network, the prefabricated building materials and stocked in an impressive volume.
4. Cause chaos in the world, starting with Europe.
5. Quickly plaster the economy of dozens of countries.
6. Stop production lines in factories in other countries.
7. Cause stock markets to fall and buy companies at a bargain price.
8. Quickly control the epidemic in your country. After all, you were already prepared.
9. Lower the price of commodities, including the price of oil you buy on a large scale.
10. Get back to producing quickly while the world is at a standstill. Buy what you negotiated cheaply in the crisis and sell more expensive what is lacking in countries that have paralyzed their industries.
PS: Pl read the book by Chinese colonels Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui, from 1999, “Unrestricted Warfare: China’s master plan to destroy America”, on Amazon. It's all there.
Worth pondering..
Just Think about this...
How come Russia & North Korea are totally free of Covid- 19? Because they are staunch ally of China. Not a single case reported from this 2 countries. On the other hand South Korea / United Kingdom / Italy / Spain and Asia are severely hit. How come Wuhan is suddenly free from the deadly virus?
China will say that their drastic initial measures they took was very stern and Wuhan was locked down to contain the spread to other areas. I am sure they are using the Anti dode of the virus.
Why Beijing was not hit? Why only Wuhan? Kind of interesting to ponder upon.. right? Well ..Wuhan is open for business now. America and all the above mentioned countries are devastated financially. Soon American economy will collapse as planned by China. China knows it CANNOT defeat America militarily as USA is at present
THE MOST POWERFUL country in the world. So use the virus...to cripple the economy and paralyse the nation and its Defense capabilities. I'm sure Nancy Pelosi got a part in this. . to topple Trump. Lately President Trump was always telling of how GREAT American economy was improving in all fronts. The only way to destroy his vision of making AMERICA GREAT AGAIN is to create an economic havoc. Nancy Pelosi was unable to bring down Trump thru impeachment. ....so work along with China to destroy Trump by releasing a virus. Wuhan,s epidemic was a showcase. At the peak of the virus epidemic.
China's President Xi Jinping...just wore a simple RM1 facemask to visit those effected areas. As President he should be covered from head to toe.....but it was not the case. He was already injected to resist any harm from the virus....that means a cure was already in place before the virus was released.
Some may ask....Bill Gates already predicted the outbreak in 2015...so the chinese agenda cannot be true. The answer is. ..YES...Bill Gates did predict. .but that prediction is based on a genuine virus outbreak. Now China is also telling that the virus was predicted well in advance. ....so that its agenda would play along well to match that prediction. China,s vision is to control the World economy by buying up stocks now from countries facing the brink of severe ECONOMIC COLLAPSE. Later China will announce that their Medical Researchers have found a cure to destroy the virus. Now China have other countries stocks in their arsenal and these countries will soon be slave to their master...CHINA.
Just Think about it ...
The Doctor Who declared this virus was also Silenced by the Chinese Authorities...
#45
Regarding the idea of this being an attack... The US has been on a mission to self-destruct for a few decades know. Even the War on Terror only brought us together for a short while. Certainly the Chinese could have seen this and waited another decade before launching an attack that would be the only thing likely to snap the US out of our liberal spiral.
#46
I'm in the accidental release from a lab grouping, and that the subsequent events including a massive overreaction on the part of the West has opened opportunities for exploitation in terms of increasing market/[roduction share of industries worldwide. The US has driven itself into a deep depression economically, and it will take a long time to repair the damages and second/third order consequences, not the least of which is public trust in our government by a large number of our citizens, pushed hard by the left unaware of this being their biggest loss longterm. The silver lining might be a return to quasi-isolationism as we become a hemispheric power and reindustrializing the nation, while losing the globalist mindset of the next generations and reintroducing trade and job skills over farcical pieces of paper. Fingers crossed Trump man-ups and starts the economy back end of April or before? Shelter in place the most vulnerable and get on with herd immunity while we find a vaccine for us old farts!
#47
silver lining might be a return to quasi-isolationism as we become a hemispheric power and reindustrializing the nation, while losing the globalist mindset
Bingo.
Less stuff, a slightly lower material standard of living but much stronger communities and families and a healthier culture.
Less capital diverted to bullshit consumer tech and a vast increase in funding of
1) infrastructure / deferred maintenance
2) basic biomedical research.
(Also an increase in funding of traditional high culture consumed locally in live performances rather than Hollywood garbage designed for a global market - see "healthiervukture," above).
Fewer college degrees given but each one worth more, and much less student debt.
A foreign policy of smart realism based on overwhelming force, cleverly-designed bilateral alliances, and above all, getting close to Russia and isolating China.
As to our domestic politics I've no f---ing idea how to fix the terminal rot that afflicts our Shitshow political class. Exile them for 10 years?
[Jpost] Scientists in several countries are testing a century-old tuberculosis (TB) vaccine to see if it might boost the immune system to reduce respiratory symptoms in people who get new coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague) ...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men... infections.
Researchers in Australia and Europa ...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum... are testing whether the Bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccine, introduced in the 1920s to fight tuberculosis, might be deployed to combat COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus. Clinical trials are focused on two groups at high-risk for COVID-19: health care workers and the elderly.
The BCG vaccine contains a live but weakened strain of tuberculosis bacteria that provokes the body to develop antibodies to attack TB bacteria. This is called an adaptive immune response, because the body develops a defense against a specific disease-causing microorganism, or pathogen, after encountering it. Most vaccines create an adaptive immune response to a single pathogen.
Unlike other vaccines, the BCG vaccine may also boost the innate immune system, first-line defenses that keep a variety of pathogens from entering the body or from establishing an infection. One study in Guinea-Bissau found 50% lower mortality rates in children vaccinated with BCG than in kids who did not get this vaccine. That is a much bigger drop in deaths than could be explained by a reduction in TB cases. Some studies have found similar reductions in respiratory infections among teens and the elderly.
[Jpost] Iran-linked hackers target WHO staff during coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague) ...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men... outbreak
It is not clear if any accounts were compromised, but the attacks show how the WHO and other organizations at the center of a global effort to contain the coronavirus have come under attack.
Posted by: Herb McCoy ||
04/03/2020 8:04
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#4
Bless your heart, Herb
Posted by: European Conservative ||
04/03/2020 8:08
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#5
Herb never found a world event he wouldn't blame on the US.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
04/03/2020 9:50
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#6
Knew a fellow and his wife who lived near a Mount Vernon, Indiana crude oil tank farm. Just a few dozen meters from their house was a noisy oil pump jack. I could never understand how they became accustomed to the noise. When I asked him about it, "oh, you get used to it after a while. It gets to be you don't even notice it."
[IsraelTimes] The head of the Hamas, a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth", terror group in Gazoo ...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamaswith about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... is warning Israel if more ventilators for coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague) ...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men... patients are not brought into the Paleostinian enclave then it will "take them by force." Stomping his tiny feet and shaking his tiny fists
"If ventilators are not brought into [Gaza], we’ll take them by force from Israel and stop the breathing of 6 million Israelis," Hebrew media reports quote Yahya Sinwar saying.
There have only been a handful of confirmed COVID-19 cases so far in Gaza, but a World Health Organization official warned earlier today that 80 to 90 percent of the ventilators in the Strip and the West Bank are already in use.
[IsraelTimes] The United States criticizes a Pak court’s overturning of a death sentence ...the barbaric practice of sentencing a murderer to be punished for as long as his/her/its victim is dead... handed down over the gruesome killing of American journalist Daniel Pearl, calling the decision an "affront."
"The overturning of the convictions for Daniel Pearl’s murder is an affront to victims of terrorism everywhere," says Alice Wells, the top US diplomat for South Asia.
She welcomes indications that Pak prosecutors will appeal the decision on British-born terrorist Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh.
Mr. Sheikh, after all, only helped deliver Daniel Pearl to Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, he didn’t actually help cut off his head. So clearly he is innocent, to a certain kind of mind.
[AnNahar] Greece on Thursday sealed off a migrant camp near Athens after 21 of its residents tested positive for the coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague) ...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men... -- beginning with a new mother at an Athens hospital.
"From today the facility is placed under sanitary isolation for two weeks," the migration ministry said in a statement.
Hours before the new cases were announced, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis had praised health safeguards at Greek camps.
"I think we're pretty good at contact tracing, and you can actually do contact tracing at the very beginning of an outbreak," Mitsotakis told CNN.
"I think we have a very good track record of dealing with this problem in a very humane manner," the PM said, referring to dire camp overcrowding.
"We will continue to keep a very, very close eye on what is happening in our camps... We're ramping up medical facilities," he said.
The woman from the Ritsona camp, reportedly of African origin, tested positive after giving birth at an Athens hospital this week.
The ministry said that of 63 people subsequently tested at Ritsona, some 80 kilometres (50 miles) north of Athens, 20 were positive but without symptoms.
No staff were found to be carrying the virus, it said.
The new mother's case was the first among asylum-seekers living in a Greek camp. The state has run several vaccination campaigns in past years, but no screening had been done for the present virus.
All access to Ritsona camp has been restricted and food will be delivered to the residents, the migration ministry said. Additional medical staff will be sent to the area and all residents will be screened, it added.
As of 1600 GMT on Wednesday, Greece's population of 11 million had recorded 50 deaths and 1,415 cases of novel coronavirus.
In camps on the Greek mainland and islands, where tens of thousands of asylum seekers live in overcrowded and unhygienic conditions, regulations have been announced to keep residents as far from the local population as possible.
The migration ministry on Thursday said that another asylum-seeker living in a flat in the northern city of Kilkis had tested positive after giving birth at a local clinic.
[AnNahar] Leb ...an Iranian colony situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozeen flavors of Christians. It is the home of Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers... on Thursday filed a U.N. complaint against Israel after its warplanes used Lebanese airspace to fire missiles at targets in Syria’s Homs, the Lebanese Foreign Ministry said.
"The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expats has filed a complaint before the U.N. Security Council in New York over the dangerous Israeli violation of Lebanese illusory sovereignty, after three Israeli aircraft bombed Syrian sites from the Lebanese airspace, which represented a threat to Lebanese civilians," the Ministry said in a statement.
"This violation comes at a time the entire world is facing the threat of the spread of the coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague) ...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men... pandemic," it added.
It also urged the U.N. Security Council to "put an end permanently to the Israeli violations," noting that "Israel violates the Lebanese aerial, maritime and territorial illusory sovereignty on daily basis."
Israeli warplanes flew at low altitude Tuesday over several Lebanese regions, sparking a state of panic, before they bombed targets in Syria’s Homs.
Syrian air defenses opened fire Tuesday night on missiles launched from Israeli warplanes flying in Lebanon’s airspace, shooting down some of them, Syrian state media said.
The Syrian state TV said the targeted a Syrian army position without saying where exactly. The Britannia-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, said Israeli warplanes fired eight missiles at the Shayrat air base in Homs province. It gave no further details.
Residents of the Lebanese capital Beirut heard the sound of warplanes in the air shortly before the Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s were reported.
There was no immediate comment from Israel.
In recent years, Israel has repeatedly carried out airstrikes in Syria against targets belonging to Iran ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate JewsZionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol... and Lebanon’s Hizbullah ...Party of God, a Leb militia inspired, founded, funded and directed by Iran. Hizbullah refers to itself as The Resistance and purports to defend Leb against Israel, with whom it has started and lost one disastrous war to date, though it did claim victory... .
[EN.ZAMANALWSL.NET] Ottoman Turkish artillery fire pounded a Kurdish village near the border town of Ras al-Ayn in northeastern Syria, leaving four people maimed, residents told Zaman al-Wasl Thursday. At least 20 artillery shells hit the village of al-Rabiaat on Wednesday, targeting the Kurdish YPG Death Eaters.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/03/2020
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Faylaq al-Majd in #Libya warning TFSA in Syria not to come to Libya "We got one salary payment of $2000 and nothing further#Haftar’s people are not giving mercy to anyone Note that fighters in Hamza and Sultan Murad report they're still getting paid#LNA pic.twitter.com/ndZOTTTBaghttps://t.co/r8pCUJGdab
[KhaamaPress] The Department of Defense, Pentagon, announced $7.1 million in fresh aid to support the operations of the unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) of the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces.
"Insitu Inc., Bingen, Washington, is awarded $7,187,794 for a modification to a firm-fixed-price delivery order N68335-19-F-0434 against previously issued basic ordering agreement N68335-16-G-0046," the defense departmetn said in a statement.
The statement further added "Work will be performed in Afghanistan (95%); and Bingen, Washington (5%)."
Pentagon also added "This order procures field service representatives and instructors to provide technical services, training, and program management needed to sustain and support ScanEagle unmanned aerial vehicles in Afghanistan in support of the government of the Islamic Theocratic Republic of Afghanistan."
"Work is expected to be complete by March 2021," the Defense Department added in its statement.
This will keep them busily employed in the fresh air and sunshine for the next bit. Hopefully lots of them will be infected along the way.
[AnNahar] In the streets of Beirut's southern suburbs, Hizbullah ...Party of God, a Leb militia inspired, founded, funded and directed by Iran. Hizbullah refers to itself as The Resistance and purports to defend Leb against Israel, with whom it has started and lost one disastrous war to date, though it did claim victory... paramedics and volunteers on trucks and on foot sprayed disinfectants on shops and buildings. At a hospital where it once treated its maimed fighters, the group's medical staff set up beds for a center to deal with coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague) ...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men... patients.
Continued on Page 49
[Popular Mechanics] A Venezuelan Navy offshore patrol vessel Naiguata sent to intercept a lowly cruise ship accidentally owned itself. After ramming the cruise ship RCGS Resolute's steel-reinforced hull, the patrol boat sank with no injuries. The Resolute suffered only minor damage because it was reinforced to withstand iceberg-infested waters. Ahh-SO! Not just regular steel-reinforced hull, but icebreaker-steel-reinforced hull.
A statement attributed to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro alleged that the cruise ship was actually to blame in an "act of aggression and piracy." YJCMTSU.
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/03/2020
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#1
...The Venezuelans do NOT wanna go full Captain Jack at this point - I've been waiting for them to start grabbing merchant shipping (they've been harassing/extorting it now for a while), but if anything will bring the US down there to sort things out, this will. Kinda hard to board and hijack ships if they're all sunk at dockside.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
04/03/2020 4:45
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#2
I was going to post this, but Rantburg is too damn fast :-)
Here's some additional info about that ship (RCGS Resolute is ex Hanseatic)
The Hanseatic is a cruise ship that was used for 25 years by the shipping company Hapag-Lloyd Kreuzfahrten GmbH mainly for expedition trips. She has been classified by the classification society Germanischer Lloyd as "+ 100 A5 E4 with freeboard 2,106 m, Passenger Ship with Cabins, IW ERS P5D11". The hull of the Hanseatic meets the requirements of the highest ice class (E4, corresponding Finnish-Swedish ice class 1A Super). Since October 2018 the ship has been in service as RCGS Resolute for the Canadian shipping company One Ocean Expeditions.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
04/03/2020 5:05
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Posted by: Frank G ||
04/03/2020 7:44
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#9
The mighty Bolivarian Navy: Divert your course 15 degrees to the North to avoid a collision.
Cruise Ship: Recommend you divert YOUR course 15 degrees to the South to avoid a collision.
The mighty Bolivarian Navy: This is the Captain of a Bolivarian Navy ship. I say again, divert YOUR course.
Cruise Ship: No. I say again, you divert YOUR course.
The mighty Bolivarian Navy: This is the most powerful anti-imperialist patrol vessel Naiguata, the second largest ship in the Bolivarian Navy fleet. We are accompanied by three destroyers, three cruisers and numerous support vessels. I demand that YOU change your course 15 degrees north, that's one five degrees north, or countermeasures will be undertaken to ensure the safety of this ship.
Canadians: This is a cruise ship with ice breaking capacities. Your call.
The might Bolivarian Navy: Ouuuuchhh!
Posted by: European Conservative ||
04/03/2020 8:04
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Posted by: European Conservative ||
04/03/2020 8:28
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#14
The Venezuelans used to have a pretty good Navy back twenty-five years ago before Chavez and the Eternal Now. Dad toured one of their German-sourced submarines one time, said it was pretty neat.
The captain of a ship looked into the dark night and saw a light in the distance. Immediately he told his signalman to send a message, “Alter your course ten degrees south.” He promptly received a reply, “Alter your course ten degrees north.”
The furious captain sent another message, “Alter your course ten degrees south. I am a captain!” Soon another reply was received, “Alter your course ten degrees north. I am seaman third class Jones.”
The captain sent a final message, “Alter your course ten degrees south. I am a battleship.” The reply was, “Alter your course ten degrees north. I am a lighthouse.”
#19
Alanc, I've heard that joke for years. As a retired naval line officer, I have three comments: 1) the captain should be relieved for cause for not realizing he was approaching a light house, 2) The navigator and quartermaster of the watch should also be relieved. 3)The officer of the deck should also be relieved for not informing the CO that the target was stationary.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
04/03/2020 15:51
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[BBC] Shenzhen has become the first Chinese city to ban the sale and consumption of dog and cat meat.
It comes after the coronavirus outbreak was linked to wildlife meat, prompting Chinese authorities to ban the trade and consumption of wild animals.
Shenzhen went a step further, extending the ban to dogs and cats. The new law will come into force on 1 May.
Thirty million dogs a year are killed across Asia for meat, says Humane Society International (HSI).
However, the practice of eating dog meat in China is not that common - the majority of Chinese people have never done so and say they don't want to.
"Dogs and cats as pets have established a much closer relationship with humans than all other animals, and banning the consumption of dogs and cats and other pets is a common practice in developed countries and in Hong Kong and Taiwan," the Shenzhen city government said, according to a Reuters report.
"This ban also responds to the demand and spirit of human civilization."
Major General Ahmed Al-#Mismari, the spokesperson of the Libyan National Army (#LNA), said that 20 Turkish soldiers were killed in an LNA air strike on the flight operations room at the Air College in #Misrata. #Libya#Turkey
with lots of pretty pictures at the link
[Greece.GreekReporter] Millions of Greeks from the northern parts of the country woke up on Thursday, April 2, only to see a completely white and wintry scene outside of their houses, amid the strict coronavirus lockdown.
Not only mountainous villages but also large towns and cities from West and Central Macedonia saw a thick blanket of snow covering their rooftops, cars and streets.
Of course, Northern Greece is used to low temperatures and snow, but even for their standards, such an intense snowfall in April is rare.
Posted by: lord garth ||
04/03/2020
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#1
Gee, what a surprise! We also woke up to 5" of fluffy white stuff on the ground this morning here in Colorado Springs. Of course, this isn't the first time, or even that rare. I've seen it snow as late as July 4th. . .
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
04/03/2020 18:04
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#2
expect more - San Diego is looking for rain Sunday - Thursday, late in the season
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/03/2020 18:06
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#3
One swallow doth not a summer make, but that nice solar physicist babushka, Valentina SomethingSomethingova, said we were in for a cool spell the next few years, what with the Grand Solar Minimum and all. We shall see.
Kata'ib Hezbollah published a statement today warning the U.S. against "being involved in any aggressive action against our people." The statement comes after weeks of warnings from Shiite militias against possible U.S. military action in #Iraq. pic.twitter.com/PTpLielYpQ
[EN.ZAMANALWSL.NET] The U.S. Democratic Party on Thursday postponed its presidential nominating convention by a month until August, citing the coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague) ...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men... health crisis which has upended life in the country.
The delay is the latest sign the coronavirus pandemic is having a profound impact on the presidential race and will continue to do so for months to come.
Democrats will use the convention in Milwaukee to formally pick their nominee to challenge Republican President Donald Trump ...His ancestors didn't own any slaves... in the November election. It had previously been scheduled for July.
"In our current climate of uncertainty, we believe the smartest approach is to take additional time to monitor how this situation unfolds," said Joe Solmonese, chief executive of the Democratic National Convention Committee.
#3
They are just hoping that Biden AND Bernie are finished off by the virus and they can just pick a candidate without the interference of annoying voters.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
04/03/2020 8:13
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#4
I thought they usually held it in August, during he same time period as....
#13
Lots of logistics to get in place. Infect Bernie and Biden, build up either Michelle or Hillary to come to the rescue. A couple of funerals to get televised in order to generate symphathy. Generating the story points to blame Trump.
[AJC] The commander of a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Pacific Ocean who pleaded with the Pentagon for more help with a coronavirus outbreak aboard his ship has been relieved of duty, according to several news reports, citing U.S. officials.
U.S. Navy Capt. Brett E. Crozier is being removed because of "a loss of trust and confidence," sources told NBC News.
On Monday Crozier wrote a four-page letter to his superiors in Washington about the dire situation unfolding aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt, which is docked in Guam with more than 4,000 sailors, dozens of them infected with the virus. Crozier criticized Navy leadership, saying failed to provide the proper resources to combat an outbreak. "We are not at war," Crozier wrote. "Sailors do not need to die. If we do not act now, we are failing to properly take care of our most trusted asset ‐ our sailors." The letter was first reported by the San Francisco Chronicle on Tuesday. Some news outlets, including CNN, are reporting that Navy brass suspect Crozier may have leaked the letter to the press.
All crew members have since been tested for the virus and by Wednesday 93 were confirmed positive and another 1,000 sailors had been taken to quaratine on shore in Guam. NBC reports that 2,700 more are expected to unboard, but some will remain behind with the ship.
Thomas Modly, the acting secretary of The Navy was expected to make an official announcement later Thursday.
#1
It will be some time before we can tell if it was our country's version of Breaker Morant(1980) -- someone that embarrasses the high command must get the axe to make a statement.
#2
We have known from the quarantine of the Diamond Princess ship at a Japanese port that once an outbreak starts on a ship the passengers must be evacuated to prevent further transmission.
What was the delay in action to disembark and properly isolate to prevent the needless transmission of the highly contagious covid 19 virus?
#3
He allowed shore leave knowing the disease was in port. Then leaks his demands to some 20 others trying to fix his mistake. While the sailors come first, his ass should come last.
#4
These vessels are surely tracked by the Russians, Chinese, Iranians, possibly all three and more. How difficult would it be to have 'comfort girl' vectors pre-positioned and isolated ?
#6
Excellent point POTD. Due to politics, Foggy Bottom diplodinks, etc., the skipper may have not had any control over events. He could have 'bet his bars' on this one.
Posted by: Herb McCoy ||
04/03/2020 6:24
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#8
Herb, you're an idiot. The Skipper has the last word on his command. Regardless of the "guidelines" he is expected to exercise command judgement where is ship and crew are concerned.
Granting shore leave was a stupid mistake on his part.
#9
Still not sure how a supercarrier would be unprepared for a major virus incident when that would have been one of the only tactics enemies could use to take one out.
#13
There is a chain of command even at his exalted level and it absolutely does not include the SF Chronicle and/or somebody likely to leak the memo to them.
Shore leave was a bad decision. Dealing with bad decisions, both your own and others' are part of being in charge. Crying to the media like some hapless bitch is most decidedly NOT a part of being in charge. It is a luxury alternative not available to Infantry soldiers, not in medias res at any rate.
This is appallingly bad behavior and utterly beneath the level of conduct of a man entrusted with a carrier battle group. Perhaps he can self isolate at Diego Garcia for a couple or four years while his discharge papers are put in order.
#14
Excellent points Cesare. Out of an abundance of caution, the skipper could have diverted or changed course prior to reaching Da Nang. Don't know if that would have prompted a relief, but floating a memo to the media was certainly a bad choice and career ender.
#18
These ships are designed to "repel",guard against biological attack, meaning seleted compartments can be isolated and put on "positive" pressure via the ventilation systems...there were options,but it would be a compromise to ship operations..
#19
Thanks Besoeker, I was not a Navy guy so I hesitate to comment. But I find this transparent attempt at a public/media life line for a screw up beneath contempt. The argument that 'they wanted to go on shore leave' frankly makes my anatomy crawl. At some point, somebody somewhere has to be an 'effing adult.
#22
It's one thing to write a CYA memo. It's another to use the media to drop it on your boss's head.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
04/03/2020 19:37
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#23
/\ Bingo! It would be interesting to find out who has been shepherding Captain Crozier's career in the past, hmmm? Leaking a CYA memo is not what you would expect of someone entrusted a CVN.
[AnNahar] The war in Syria killed 103 civilians in March, marking the lowest monthly non-combatant corpse count since the start of the conflict in 2011, a war monitor said Wednesday.
Of the total deaths, some 51 people were killed in shelling and air strikes by the Syrian regime, the Britannia-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The bulk of the remaining casualties were caused either by explosive remnants or mysterious "liquidations", the Observatory added.
The civilian corpse count was more than double that of March in February, when a regime offensive on Syria's last major rebel bastion was still in full swing.
According to the Observatory, the number of deaths that month stood at 275.
The war in Syria has left more than 380,000 people dead since it started nine years ago.
The highest civilian corpse count recorded in a month since the start of the conflict was 1,590 in July 2016, when battles between rebels and the regime raged in the northern province of Aleppo.
Damascus in early March paused a military offensive on rebels and jihadists in Syria's northwest, after a ceasefire brokered by regime ally Russia came into effect.
The Moscow-backed campaign had displaced nearly a million people in the region since December, piling pressure on informal settlements already brimming with families forced to flee previous bouts of violence.
[KhaamaPress] The Taliban ...Arabic for students... group has said it would cease fire in areas which would be affected by the novel coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague) ...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men... (COVID-19) in a bid to allow the medical teams provide healthcare services.
Zabiullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesperson, said in a Twitter post that the Taliban group would cease fire in the areas which are under the control of the group, provided that those areas areas are affected by coronavirus.
He also added that the move should not be interpreted as an act of ceasefire.
Mujahid made the remarks as efforts are underway to find a negotiated political settlement to end the war in Afghanistan.
Reduction in violence was among the main conditions included in the U.S.-Taliban peace deal which was signed late in the month of February.
However, nothing needs reforming like other people's bad habits... the latest trend shows that the Taliban group has not only reduced violence but is attempting to carry out coordinated attacks in the remote areas of the country despite the Afghan forces are in a full defense posture.
However, the man who has no enemies isn't anybody and has never done anything... a Western security source told TOLOnews last week that already attacks--from all sides in the conflict--are occurring in many areas where coronovirus cases have been reported, notably in Herat ...a venerable old Persian-speaking city in western Afghanistan, populated mostly by Tadjiks, which is why it's not as blood-soaked as areas controlled by Pashtuns... , which has the most cases of confirmed COVID-19, due to the province's proximity to Iran, the regional epicenter for the virus.
[KhaamaPress] The Afghan forces killed or maimed at least 9 Talibs by repulsing an attack on security posts in northern Jawzjan province.
The 209th Shaheen Corps in a statement said a group of Talibs were planning to attack the security posts in Manjegak district of Jawzjan province.
The statement further added that the Afghan forces took necessary actions while being in a full defensive posture and killed 6 Talibs by launching an operation to repulse the attack.
The security forces also maimed 3 other forces of Evil during the operation, the 209th Shaheen Corps added in its statement.
The Taliban ...Arabic for students... group has not commented in this regard so far.
[WASHINGTONEXAMINER] Speaker Nancy San Fran Nan Pelosi Congresswoman-for-Life from the San Francisco Bay Area, born into a family of professional politicians. On-again-off-again Speaker of the House. It's not her fault when they lose, but it's her accomplishment when they win. Noted for her heavily botoxed grimace and occasional senior... uhhh... moments... announced she was forming a special House panel to oversee the distribution of billions of federal dollars dedicated to the response to the coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague) ...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men... outbreak.
Pelosi, a Caliphornia, an impregnable bastion of the Democratic Party, 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 news hounds.
Pelosi said the House Select Committee on the Coronavirus Crisis, as she has named it, would examine billions of dollars in federal aid Congress has approved but also how "the private sector reacts to the funds they receive as well."
The most recent relief package, worth $2.2 trillion, enables Congress to appoint a panel to oversee $500 billion in federal loans to companies struggling to survive due to the economic slowdown caused by social distancing guidelines.
Pelosi told news hounds the panel would help ensure states and medical facilities were getting the resources they need.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/03/2020
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#1
Pelosi told news hounds the panel would help ensure states and medical facilities Kennedy Center and Planned Parenthood and the like were getting the resources they need.
FIFY real words must have been garbled by denture slip
[KhaamaPress] The Kabul Police foiled a bid to kidnap a pilot of the Afghan Air Force and arrested two people in connection with the abduction bid, the Ministry of Interior (MoI) said.
Kabul: one of many hives of scum and villainy to be found in these pages.
According to a statement released by MoI, the police forces arrested the suspects during a raid which they conducted in the 10th district of Kabul city.
The statement further added that the two suspects attempted to abduct the Air Force pilot from the 3rd district of the city on Tuesday evening.
However, a person who gets all wrapped up in himself makes a mighty small package... the interior ministry said the suspects failed to kidnap the pilot and beat feet from the area but the police forces later arrested the duo from 10th district of the city.
The Ministry of Interior also added that the police forces confiscated a Hummer vehicle, an Ak-47 assault rifle, 3 ammunition magazines of Ak-47 and some alcoholic beverages. Very Islamic
In #Libya, the number of #GNA Syrian mercenaries killed from just 5 TFSA factions exceeds 500 at this point. My sources can't get solid numbers for the other factions, because there's a deliberate lack of transparency. Sultan Murad has suffered the heaviest losses with 191. https://t.co/rWOzoWFoyo
#2
^ Being an asshole? Let the public have at her and her cuck husband
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/03/2020 5:58
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#3
Hopefully those masks were made in China and don't work properly anyway.
Between this and the lady touching all the laptops I saw yesterday its like someone is trying really hard to gin up some anti-Chinese incident in the US.
#4
This Twitter thread linked in the article claims to identify the woman, and show a group of Chinese shoppers together buying up supplies — click here, then click on the first show this thread as you scroll down.
#5
Seems to me these could be videos taken in Jan of expats sending supplies home to china where the virus was raging, combined with a misleading translation.
If this is Chinese action there will be hell to pay, but I'll wait and see.
#7
My dislike meter pegged out in 2009 when we briefed a lot of Chinese Emergency Management mid-level visitors at the California Emergency Management Agency. Most were mid-30's, arrogant, impolite and disdainful of our entire presentation, At one point, their mocking chit-chat was so loud and obvious and rude that we actually just stopped the briefing and started to close up the presentation. There was a sudden silence that followed a loud comment from one of the stern "minders" in the back of the room, and suddenly, they were upright, silent and attentive. Little assholes had embarrassed the senior leader and that was not ok! Seems like our fellow citizens may be seeing the faces behind the bullsh*t?
[AMGREATNESS] The notoriously far-left city of the Socialist paradise of San Francisco ...where God struck dead Anton LaVey, home of the Sydney Ducks, ruled by Vigilance Committee from 1859 through 1867, reliably and volubly Democrat since 1964... has reversed its own ban on plastic bags in response to the spread of the coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague) ...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men... , 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, today is that tomorrow you were thinking about yesterday... 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 Caliphornia, an impregnable bastion of the Democratic Party, state government to combat the virus. The city of San Francisco issued a county-wide stay-at-home order in mid-March, with Governor Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.) soon following suit with a statewide order. It is believed that these and other drastic "social distancing" measures have helped to halt the spread of the virus in the nation’s most populous state, which is not nearly as impacted by the disease as other heavily-populated states like New York and Washington state.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/03/2020
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#5
Virtue signalling. The grocery chains around here have been banning the reusables for about a month now...on their own...without government mandate (although that'll surely come).
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
04/03/2020 9:49
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#6
Maybe Pelosi and Schiff will put one of these plastic bags over their heads--of course to protect them from the COVID-19 virus. Duct tape around the neck will insure that it will stay in place.
#7
And when they return to paper, a renewable resource that actually decays in a landfill, sanity will have once again returned to that portion of the shopping experience. It was beyond stupid that we ever moved away from paper bags to begin with.
#10
Re #1: maybe, but very slow learners. UCSF showed in a study a few months after the ban was enacted (many years ago) that sick leave among garbage collectors had taken a sharp turn upwards.
[KhaamaPress] The National Investigation Agency of India (NIA) has filed a case to investigate the deadly attack on Sikh in Kabul city, it has been reported.
In a bid to launch its first investigation regarding a terror attack on foreign soil, the NIA registered its case under criminal conspiracy and terror charges, according to Hindustan Times.
An NIA official, who didn’t wish to be named, told The Hindustan Times "We will first seek all the documents from Afghanistan authorities through official channels to see what kind of evidence they have collected so far. A team will later visit Kabul".
According to Hindustan Times, the Narendra Modi government last year amended the NIA Act, empowering the agency to investigate terror activities against Indians and Indian interests abroad apart from cyber crimes and human trafficking.
The amended law came into force on August 2, 2019, the paper added.
This comes as a group of faceless myrmidons attacked the Sikh temple in Kabul city last week, killing at least 27 people including an Indian national and wounding many others.
The offshoot of the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems.... in Afghanistan, ISIS Khurasan, grabbed credit for the attack.
[ENGLISH.ALMANAR.LB] The Loyalty to Resistance® Parliamentary Bloc in Leb ...an Iranian colony situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozeen flavors of Christians. It is the home of Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers... stressed Thursday that the government is taking all the suitable measures with the least possible capabilities to confront the current challenges, especially the coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague) ...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men... outbreak.
After its weekly session, the bloc issued a statement which highlighted the importance of protecting the depositors’ funds, controlling the price of the US dollar and organizing the mechanism of the cash withdrawals from the banks.
Hezbollah bloc also called on the banks to open all their branches in order to avoid congestion in accordance with the governmental health plan to cope with the coronavirus,
The bloc also greeted the Paleostinians on Land Day and their steadfastness in face of the Zionist aggression, reiterating support to the Paleostinian people in their strife to regain their national rights.
The Loyalty to Resistance® bloc also hailed the Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of... is’ confrontation of the US-Saudi war on their country, calling on KSA to stop exhausting the Umma’s capabilities and exposing it to the foreign blackmail and intervention.
The bloc also denounced the ongoing US sanctions on the Islamic Theocratic Republic of Iran, which deprives the Iranians from their right to obtain the medical equipment to face the coronavirus.
In which Allah once again makes his opinion on the subject very, very clear.
[ENGLISH.ALMANAR.LB] Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani has tested positive for novel coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague) ...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men... , the Islamic Theocratic Republic of Iran ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate JewsZionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol... Broadcasting (IRIB) reported on Thursday, citing the parliament’s public relations department.
Larijani, tested due to having some of the coronavirus symptoms, has been quarantined and is receiving treatment, IRIB added.
Earlier, Iran’s Deputy Health Minister Iraj Harirchi, Vice President for Women and Family Affairs Masoumeh Ebtekar and former Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati also tested positive for the virus, also known as COVID-19.
Iran’s response to the health crisis has been affected by continuing US sanctions.
As of 2 April, the total number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Iran stands at 50,468, with 3,160 deaths; more than 16,700 have recovered, Iranian Health Ministry announced.
Globally, the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases has exceeded 962,000, with more than 49,000 deaths, data provided by Johns Hopkins University shows.
#7
#4 - as a high Iranian Official, they wouldn't generally release that info, if ever? They are immortal via Allah...til they aren't
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/03/2020 17:12
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#8
Lick the shrine.
Seriously though, sounds like Iran is having a tough time. You know it's gotten out of control when the big turbans are getting sick just like the serfs.
This could be an Islamic remake of Spinal Tap's seminal album, "Smell the Glove". If you know any Iranian heavy metal bands, have their people call my people. And somebody go look up the meaning of "seminal". I'm starting to have my doubts...
[KSTP] A Perham, MN 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.
According to the criminal complaint, on Monday at 10:05 p.m. the Perham Police Department responded to a call for assistance on the 600 block of 1st Avenue in Perham, Minnesota.
An officer arrived at the residence and spoke to 40-year-old Sweere, who had a significant amount of blood on him. The officer asked what happened. Sweere accused his roommate, later identified as deceased Brandon Snyder, for biting his arm, so he said he killed Snyder but claimed self-defense in doing so.
Sweere then said he stabbed Snyder and shot him 15 times, according to the complaint.
After the officer placed Sweere in the squad car, he located Snyder on the floor in a doorway with a large amount of blood. EMT personnel arrived and pronounced Snyder dead.
Sweere was transported to the Perham Police Department where he stated after the Miranda that he had had a few beers and some brandy that night, but claims he was not intoxicated. He denied using any drugs, including prescriptions. He admitted that he had been prescribed medications but had decided to go off them about three months prior.
The complaint stated that Sweere was asked again what happened to him. He explained he caught Snyder holding his .22 caliber Model 60 Marlin firearm in a room that was off-limits to other people. When confronting Snyder, he refused to give the firearm back, which caused them to started fighting.
Sweere stated he punched Snyder first because he took the firearm.
He told Snyder, "You're my friend, you're my friend, I'm going to kill you," according to the complaint.
Sweere had his legs wrapped around Snyder, so he could not get off of him. Then, Sweere grabbed a folding knife and 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, stating Snyder was already dead when he shot him.
Sweere then retrieved a 270-caliber rifle from the corner of his bedroom and shot Snyder one time.
The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension assisted in the investigation and asked Snyder's mother, Michelle Snyder, about the incident.
She stated that she received text messages from her son that he feared Sweere and wanted to leave the residence. Snyder had contacted her to come get him right before the incident.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/03/2020
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[MSN] 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 ...the Internal Revenue Service; that office of the United States government that collects taxes and persecutes the regime's political enemies... 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 for their sole source of income don't have to file tax returns.
The Treasury's reversal comes after politicians including Senators Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire and Sherrod I absolutely trust Hillary Brown Dem senator from Ohio who harbored the same presidential ambitions as the rest of his colleagues. At a distance he was indistinguishable from most other Dem politicians, including the females. It can be said that he waned without waxing... of Ohio, both Democrats, expressed alarm over the guidance, saying in a letter on Wednesday to the IRS and Treasury that it will "place a significant burden on retired seniors and individuals who experience disabilities."
The politicians had urged the IRS and Treasury to make sure the payments "are automatically sent to vulnerable seniors" and disabled Americans without them needing to file a tax return, especially given that the IRS's Volunteer Income Tax Assistance and Tax Counseling for the Elderly program has been closed due to the coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague) ...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men... .
Posted by: Fred ||
04/03/2020
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#2
a lot of seniors have SSec income and also income from elsewhere but don't file a tax return
either because they don't feel like it (or don't believe they have to) or because their income is off the books
after Hurricane Katrina a lot of people filed for emergency benefits on the basis that they lost income, FEMA couldn't find their tax filing because they hadn't filed
Posted by: lord garth ||
04/03/2020 11:36
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It's Kurt
[Townhall] 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.
[ENGLISH.ALMANAR.LB] Syrian authorities on Thursday sealed the holy shrine of Sayyeda Zeinab (a.s.) amid measures to step up lockdown to stem a major outbreak of novel coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague) ...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men... Interior Minister Mohamad Rahmoun told state media the decision was taken to seal the crowded area to stem any possible outbreak.
"It has a large residential population," he said, Rooters news agency reported.
State media had earlier said that medics had quarantined a building in the heavily garrisoned Sayyeda Zeinab neighborhood for suspected cases of the virus.
Earlier on Thursday, Syrian Health Ministry announced that 6 new infections were detected in Syria to raise the total number of 16 cases.
"6 new coronavirus infections were registered in Syria to raise the total number of 16 cases, among them 2 dead," the Ministry said in a statement.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that the situations which are related to the spread of the virus, also known as Covid-19, in Syria are dangerous as the country represents a destination for visiting religious shrines.
[ALMARSAD.CO] Former spiritual leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), Sami al-Saadi, who has close ties with the terrorist Shura Councils and Ansar al-Sharia ...a Salafist militia which claims it is not part of al-Qaeda, even though it works about the same and for the same ends. There are groups of the same name in Libya and Yemen, with the Libyan versions currently most active. Tunisia's Shabaab al-Tawhid started out an Ansar al-Sharia and changed its name in early 2014. It still uses the old name now and then, probably because the stationery's not all used up and the web site hasn't expired yet... , said that Moslems have duties that they should fulfill simultaneously. He said that medical teams, nurses and other healthcare professionals should work on combating the pandemic, while fighters on the fronts, along with their supporters and those who send them arms, must continue to fight the other pandemic‐namely, "Haftar" (the Commander of the Libyan National Army).
[gCaptain]Oil surged in London as China planned to start buying up cheap crude for its strategic reserves, while the U.S. president said he thought Saudi Arabia and Russia would resolve their differences to ease the price war.
Brent futures rose as much as 13% as Beijing instructed government agencies to start filling state stockpiles after oil plunged 66% in the first quarter. Meanwhile, Donald Trump said the Saudis and Russians were negotiating and he believes “there’s a way that that can be solved, or pretty well solved.”
Despite the president’s optimism, Saudi Arabia has shown few signs of relenting in its bid to flood the market. On Wednesday, the kingdom said it was pumping at a record and had this week loaded almost 19 million barrels of oil in a single day. Riyadh insists it will only back down if all the top producers — including the U.S. — agree to cut production. But Russia’s Vladimir Putin doesn’t plan to speak with Saudi Arabia in the coming days, the Kremlin said.
“When it comes to potential cuts, an OPEC+ deal would likely not be enough; we would need to see action which includes the likes of the U.S.,” said Warren Patterson, head of commodities strategy at ING Bank NV. “The sheer size of the surplus should put downward pressure on the market as we move through the quarter.”
China’s move to purchase oil for its strategic reserves comes as the physical crude market shows deepening signs of strain. Dated Brent, the benchmark for two-thirds of the world’s physical supply, was assessed at $15.135 on Wednesday, the lowest since at least 1999. Crude has slipped below $10 in some areas including Canada and shale regions in the U.S., Belarus wants to buy Russian oil for $4, while some grades have posted negative prices.
As supply balloons, there are growing signs that the world is running out of places to store the glut. Tanks at one of the largest storage hubs, at South Africa’s Saldanha Bay, are already almost full.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
04/03/2020
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[gCaptain] China’s ports and shipping firms are bracing for a second wave of supply chain disruptions that may be deeper and more prolonged than during the country’s coronavirus lockdown as the global spread of the virus chokes off international demand.
With Beijing reporting only sporadic domestic transmission of the coronavirus since March, workers have been allowed to return to posts, factories are restarting and ports are rushing to clear a backlog of cargoes.
But with virus outbreaks now overwhelming healthcare systems and shutting logistics channels in other major economies, exporters and industry analysts warn that global demand for products made and shipped out of China looks set to plunge. Let it plunge. Serves them right.
“We expect the near-term impact on trade growth in coming quarters likely to be the worst ever, as economies stall and external demand faces imminent collapse on large scale quarantine measures across major economies,” said Rahul Kappor, vice president at IHS Markit.
China’s container processing volumes fell 10.6% in the first two months of 2020 compared to the year before, while exports dropped 17.2%.
And while volumes rebounded in March as manufacturing and logistics operations rebooted, exporters fear that outbound shipments may be in for an even steeper slump in the months ahead.
“There is widespread concern among ports and shipping companies that the coronavirus overseas will hamper demand and in return take a toll on production in China,” said secretary general at China Ports & Harbours Association Ding Li.
The export slump could drag on throughout 2020, said Julian Evans-Pritchard, senior China Economist at Capital Economics, estimating China’s second-quarter exports could contract as much as 30% year-on-year.
EXPORT ORDERS TO PLUMMET
Some closely-tracked cargo metrics are already showing the impact of slowing demand in key centres.
Container vessel utilisation rates from Shanghai to north America and Europe were at 85% last week, down by 10 percentage points from a week earlier, data tracked by Shanghai Shipping Exchange showed.
Freight rates also dipped, with European routes down 3.1% weekly as of March 27 to $764 per twenty foot equivalent unit (TEU), and routes to the U.S. West Coast down 2.2% at $1,515 per TEU.
Ding added it may take time for cargo-handling data to show the full extent of the global demand contraction as many ports are still clearing backlogs.
Daily container handling volumes at China’s biggest port in Shanghai last week hit 110,000 TEU, about 90% of pre-virus levels, and other ports are also trying to rush through shipments to overseas clients before more stringent movement restrictions kick in.
“It’s even more nerve-wracking now than in February when we had orders but were not able to complete them. (Now) I don’t have plans or orders at all for April,” said a steel exporter. About time Chicoms feel the pain of their pandemic export.
That demand outlook uncertainty is also weighing on material markets, with the price of manufacturing-grade hot-rolled coil steel – used in automobiles and appliances – falling to four-month lows this week.
Textile and clothing manufacturers are also feeling the effects of a drop in international demand.
“Many exporters were notified by clients of order cancellations for the next two months … leading to increasing pressure on upstream firms’ supply chain,” said a statement from the China National Textile and Apparel Council (CNTAC) last week.
A CNTAC survey showed that 37% of 242 companies reported export order cancellations last week, while the number of firms reporting export orders at less than 50% of pre-virus levels rose by 11.4 percentage points to 26.4%.
China’s port association expects container handling volumes in China to fall 5% to 10% in the second quarter from a year ago, while imports of industrial materials such as coal and ores are also expected to slow alongside falling domestic production.
“Our solo goal for this year is to keep the operation alive … and only hope that exports order will resume after July,” said a Shandong-based exporter of agriculture products. There are a lot of countries hit by the virus hope the exports go away. And those hit countries will look to other sources.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
04/03/2020
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#1
exporters and industry analysts warn that global demand for products made and shipped out of China looks set to plunge.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/03/2020
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Top|| File under: Arab Spring
#1
if the map is true the GNA have lost about half their territory in past two months
well done LNA
Posted by: lord garth ||
04/03/2020 7:05
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Top||
#2
Since last April Brookings, leading the left-wing establishment of the Democrat Party, has urged Trump to intercede in the Libya debacle on the behalf of the Islamist GNA. Trump has wisely let history take its course.
[WASHINGTONEXAMINER] Joe Foreign Policy Whiz Kid Biden ...When the stock market crashed, Franklin Roosevelt got on the television and didn't just talk about the princes of greed. He said, 'Look, here's what happened.'... called on President Trump to ease sanctions on Iran ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate JewsZionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol... as the country deals with one of the deadliest coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague) ...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men... outbreaks in the world.
"In the midst of this deadly pandemic that respects no borders, the United States should take steps to offer what relief we can to those nations hardest hit by this virus ‐ including Iran ‐ even as we prioritize the health of the American people," Biden said in a statement on Thursday.
Iran, which has a population of about 83.7 million people, has reported more than 50,000 coronavirus cases and 3,160 deaths resulting from coronavirus complications, according to Johns Hopkins University, one of the highest corpse counts in the world.
"To stop this pandemic effectively, every country on earth will need to work together," Biden added. "Artificially limiting the flow of international humanitarian assistance to pursue a political point will not only allow the Iranian government to deflect responsibility for its own botched response, it will increase the threat this virus poses to the American people, now and in the future."
And it is with this comment that you ran off the rails again, Mr. McCoy. Having forgotten about rising above, you now receive the cut direct until further notice.
Posted by: Herb McCoy ||
04/03/2020 6:30
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#5
Don't be a twat, Herb. Medical and humanitarian goods have no tariffs or restrictions. We and others have offered help and assistance to Iran before and been rebuffed
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/03/2020 6:34
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#6
They absolutely rejected medical supplies which we have already offered. They want, really demanded money. Evidently a C 5 doesn't hold as much cash as you might have imagined.
[ToloNews] Afghanistan began on Thursday the process of releasing from jail 100 Taliban ...Arabic for students... Islamist faceless myrmidons in a prisoner swap for 20 of its security forces, a security bigshot and a Taliban representative said.
It is the first step towards freeing 6,000 prisoners held by the Afghan government and the hard boy group, among confidence-building measures key to the success of a peace deal between the United States and the Taliban to end nearly two decades of war.
"It was decided in the morning that 100 Taliban should be released in exchange for 20 members of Afghan cops today," said a bigwig in the office of President Ashraf Ghani ...former chancellor of Kabul University, now president of Afghanistan. Before returning to Afghanistan in 2002 he was a scholar of political science and anthropology. He worked at the World Bank working on international development assistance. As Finance Minister of Afghanistan between July 2002 and December 2004, he led Afghanistan's attempted economic recovery until the Karzais stole all the money... The names of those to be released had been sent to prison authorities, added the official, who sought anonymity because he had not been authorised to speak to the media.
The Taliban have said the swap begins this week as teams from the warring sides work out technical details and logistics for receiving prisoners amid a coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague) ...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men... pandemic.
"The technical issues require some time," said Zabihullah Mujahid, a Taliban front man. "I think the release of 100 Taliban fighters and 20 Afghan security force members will happen either tomorrow or the day after."
Both sides confirmed the Taliban prisoners are to be released at the Bagram military base north of the capital, Kabul. But the site for the release of the Afghan cops has yet to be firmed up.
A Taliban team of three arrived in Kabul on Tuesday to begin the prisoner exchange process and met Afghan officials despite a widespread lockdown against the virus, which has caused 239 infections and four deaths in Afghanistan.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo hailed Tuesday’s developments as "good news", a week after visiting both government leaders in Kabul and Taliban representatives in Qatar ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi... ’s capital of Doha, where the Afghan faceless myrmidons have an office, to urge the grinding of the peace processor forward.
The Taliban want Ghani to release 5,000 prisoners before they will hold talks with the Afghan government.
The group, which controls more than 40% of Afghan territory, is arranging transport for families to receive old and sick fighters released from jail, but has no plans to provide financial assistance.
NCOV19.live Quick Facts
updated: 10:30 p.m. EDT Thursday
(NOTE: Not all countries update at the same time)
1,022,370
Total Confirmed Cases
53,427
Total Deceased
34,069
Total Serious
209,864
Total Recovered
Over 500,000 Confirmed Coronavirus Cases in Europe
[ENGLISH.ALMANAR.LB] More than 500,000 coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague) ...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men... infections have been diagnosed in Europe, over half the global total, according to a tally by AFP from official sources at 1000 GMT Thursday.
The continent has recorded 508,271 cases and 34,571 COVID-19 deaths, compared to global figures of 940,815 and 47,836 respectively. The worst-hit countries are Italia with 13,155 fatalities and Spain with 10,003 ‐ both have more than 100,000 confirmed infections.
Coronavirus Death Toll in Spain Passes 10003
[ENGLISH.ALMANAR.LB] The coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague) ...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men... corpse count in Spain surged past 10,000 on Thursday after a record 950 deaths in 24 hours, with the number of confirmed cases passing the 110,000 mark, the government said.
Spain has the world’s second-highest corpse count after Italia, with the virus so far claiming 10,003 lives although the rate of new infections and deaths continued its downward trend, the health ministry figures showed.
The number of new infections increased by 7.9 percent, compared with 8.2 percent on Wednesday and more than 25 percent at the start of last week.
The daily rise in deaths also slowed to 10.5 percent on Thursday, virtually unchanged from 10.6 percent on Wednesday and down from 27 percent a week ago.
"The data show the curve has stabilised" and the epidemic has entered a "slowdown" phase, Health Minister Salvador Illa said.
Lebanon: Ministry of Health Announces 15 New Infections, 494 in Total
[ENGLISH.ALMANAR.LB] The Ministry of Public Health announced that, to date (April 2, 2020), 494 cases have been confirmed by the Hariri University Hospital and accredited university hospital laboratories, in addition to private laboratories, marking an increase of 15 cases since yesterday. It is to note that 539 tests have been conducted over the past twenty-four hours. Four new coronavirus deaths have been recorded, bringing the toll to 16.
France's coronavirus death toll jumps to nearly 5,400
[EN.ZAMANALWSL.NET] The number of cumulative known deaths from coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague) ...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men... in La Belle France surged to nearly 5,400 on Thursday as the country started including fatalities in nursing homes in its data.
Jerome Salomon, head of the public health authority, said the number of coronavirus-related deaths in hospitals rose 12% on Thursday to 4,503 from a day earlier.
He added that a provisional tally showed that a cumulative 884 people in total had died in nursing homes. This makes for a total of 5,387 lives lost to coronavirus in La Belle France.
Salomon said the number of known infections rose to 59,105 from 56,989 in La Belle France. The number of patients requiring life support rose to 6,399 from 6,017 on Wednesday.
Figures from the Department of Health show the number of COVID-19 deaths reported in the UK has risen by 569 to 2,921 and the number of confirmed cases has risen by 4,244 to 33,718
#BREAKING| The Zaandam and Rotterdam cruise ships infested with coronavirus are about to dock in Florida, with 200 guests. Zaandam has 4 deaths due to coronavirus and 10 in serious situation.#BaghdadPost#COVID19pic.twitter.com/gEHhWQeEck
Hamptons rental homes soar from $5,000 a month to $30,000 as NYC's richest flee the city
[MAIL] Small coastal towns that have taken in an influx of NYC’s elite fleeing the coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague) ...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men... epidemic are now reeling from a spike in COVID-19 cases as the prices of Hamptons rental homes soar from $5,000 per month to over $30,000 for just two weeks.
The exodus of the Big Apple's residents has caused some town populations to burgeon and practically double and rentals to skyrocket - but locals in these 'refugee' towns are becoming hostile and demanding city dwellers stay away from their vulnerable towns for fear they may bring the deadly infection.
Suffolk County, home to the Hamptons, is seeing the biggest outbreak with 7,605 cases reported as of Wednesday, a 892 jump from the day prior with 897 people hospitalized and 69 deaths.
However, Caliphornia hasn't yet slid into the ocean, no matter how hard it's tried... the region only has 2,710 total hospital beds. As of Monday only 575 beds and 85 of 322 ICU beds were available.
The popular vacation suburb of Southampton has already seen its population swell from 60,000 to over 100,000 over the past few weeks and rentals that usually go for around $5,000 surge to $30,000 for two weeks.
Coronavirus spike on Navajo Nation raises alarms
[Aljazeera] A steep rise in coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague) ...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men... cases on the Navajo Nation in the western part of the United States has caused concern among regional leaders, who worry the tribal lands are ill-equipped to handle the pandemic and the federal government is taking too long to address needs.
The Navajo Nation Department of Health and Navajo Area Indian Health Service reported 174 COVID-19 cases in the Navajo Nation on Wednesday, along with seven COVID-19-related deaths. There were roughly 49 confirmed cases one week ago.
Lakewood police break up funeral with 60-70 people, issue 15 summonses for coronavirus lockdown violations
[NJ] Police in Ocean County on Wednesday night broke up a funeral in Lakewood and issued summonses to 15 people accusing them of violating the state’s ban on public gatherings during the coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague) ...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men... 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.
Officers responding to a report of a large crowd on Wednesday found 60-70 people gathered for a funeral on the corner of Eighth Street and Madison Avenue, according to Ocean County Prosecutor Bradley D. Billhimer and Police Chief Gregory Meyer. The area is near a Jewish temple and a cemetery.
"This gathering was in violation of (Gov. Phil Murphy’s executive order), which bans gatherings of individuals, whether they be at weddings, parties, celebrations, or other social events including funerals," Billhimer and Meyer said in a statement.
"As officers tried to disperse the crowd, the crowd became unruly and argumentative," the statement said. Backup officers were called to help from the county sheriff’s office and prosecutor’s office, Billhimer and Meyer said.
One man who refused to give police his correct name and Social Security number was arrested. He was later identified as Samuel Manheim, 27, of Brooklyn, New York. Manheim was charged with hindering his own apprehension and violating the governor’s executive order during a state of emergency.
US Army rolls into Seattle with field hospital built for combat
[AlAhram] Army Specialist Jordan Acosta thinks his family would have been more comfortable seeing him deploy to Iraq than this field hospital in the US city of Seattle, one of the hardest-hit by the coronavirus.
A practical nurse specialist with a four-month-old baby at home, Acosta is part of the team of hundreds of US soldiers setting up a field hospital in Seattle that will treat non-coronavirus patients, relieving pressure on civilian hospitals.
Instead of being pitched in a war zone, this field hospital is rising inside a cavernous events center adjacent to CenturyLink Field, the staduim where Seattle's football team normally plays and which once had been scheduled to host a "Dancing with the Stars" performance this week.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Alpha News MN] 3M says it asked China for permission to sell more N95 masks in America after President Donald Trump scolded the company for exporting medical masks as American hospitals struggle to acquire them.
[news18.com] Indore: Following an outrageous incident of assault on doctors in Indore, the police on Thursday arrested seven persons, including the mastermind of the attack.
A peaceful group of itinerant Deobandi preachers who form one of al-Qaeda's recruiting arms...
[Guns America] Inmates across the country who were released to protect prison populations from COVID-19 are already committing crimes in their local communities, including at least one former inmate who admitted to stabbing a man to death just four days after his release.
[Washington Examiner] 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.
...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men...
...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men...
...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men...
...the barbaric practice of sentencing a murderer to be punished for as long as his/her/its victim is dead...
...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men...
...an Iranian colony situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozeen flavors of Christians. It is the home of Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers...
A Venezuelan Navy offshore patrol vessel Naiguata sent to intercept a lowly cruise ship accidentally owned itself. After ramming the cruise ship RCGS Resolute's steel-reinforced hull, the patrol boat sank with no injuries. The Resolute suffered only minor damage because it was reinforced to withstand iceberg-infested waters.
[BBC] Shenzhen has become the first Chinese city to ban the sale and consumption of dog and cat meat.
...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men...
[AJC] The commander of a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Pacific Ocean who pleaded with the Pentagon for more help with a coronavirus outbreak aboard his ship has been relieved of duty, according to several news reports, citing U.S. officials. 
[AnNahar] The war in Syria killed 103 civilians in March, marking the lowest monthly non-combatant 
...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men...
...Arabic for 
...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men...
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling 
...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men...
[KSTP] A Perham, MN man is accused of killing his roommate by stabbing him in the eyes and shooting him repeatedly after a disagreement over a firearm.
...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men...
...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men...
[ALMARSAD.CO] Former spiritual leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), Sami al-Saadi, who has close ties with the terrorist Shura Councils and 
...
[FoxNews] ... to protect against coronavirus
...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men...
#/media/Datei:MS_Hanseatic_vor_Anker.JPG){kind=link}