Good morning! Here is your news briefing for Thursday March 26, 2020
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AXIOS
⚾ Good Thursday morning. It’s Opening Day!
- Alas, there are no games, of course. Major League Baseball is offering “Opening Day at Home”: 30 classic games (one for each club) on various platforms, including digital streaming and social media, creating a full-day event. See the lineup.
☕ If you enjoy our conversations, keep your team, friends, family on the same page: Please invite them to sign up for Axios AM/PM.
Perhaps the most important thing about the $2.2 trillion, 883-page stimulus bill the Senate passed at 11:50 p.m. is that it’s not a stimulus bill at all, Axios Markets Editor Dion Rabouin writes.
- It’s not intended to stimulate growth and spending to offset a potential downturn. It’s designed to prevent mass homelessness, starvation and a wave of business closures not seen since the height of the Great Depression.
- The Senate vote was 96-0. The House is expected to vote tomorrow.
Why it matters: The bill’s price tag is around 10% of U.S. GDP, and Congress is already bickering internally about whether it goes far enough.
We’re likely to be in this same situation again, economists say — and soon.
- 🥊 Another stimulus bill will likely be necessary to get the economy running after the COVID-19 outbreak has been contained.
- 🥊 More immediately, it’s possible that a second massive spending bill will be needed just to stop further bleeding.
How to think about it: “This should not be thought of as a stimulus bill — this should be thought of as social insurance in a disaster state of the world for the most hard hit,” Jonathan Parker, professor of finance at MIT, told Axios.
- “The idea is to freeze time for a month or six weeks and let people emerge with not a huge amount of debt — not starving, not being evicted.”
- This would ideally produce “a V-shaped recovery where people find themselves roughly where they were when we went in.”
What’s inside: The bill includes unprecedented direct payments to individuals: Up to $1,200 a person and $500 per child, even for those who have no income, plus extended and upgraded unemployment insurance, even for gig workers.
- It includes $350 billion for small businesses and $500 billion for large companies in loans, loan guarantees and other investments.
- But Moody’s, the ratings agency, warns that outright debt defaults and liquidations are still likely for many businesses, especially smaller firms and those with speculative grade credit ratings.
What’s next: This morning, the Labor Department is expected to announce that as many as 3.4 million people filed for unemployment insurance last week.
- Not only would that be the highest level in history, it would be nearly five times the highest level of claims seen during the Great Recession.
The bottom line: This is likely just the first data point in a string of previously unfathomable reports on the U.S. economy.
Go deeper: How the bill helps you. …. Read the 883-page bill.
Even if you’re able to get tested for the coronavirus, it’ll still take about a week to get the results back — which means the U.S. still doesn’t have a real-time handle on the number of infected people, health care editor Sam Baker writes.
- Why it matters: We need to know where the virus is spreading in order to get a lid on those outbreaks before they become catastrophic.
- Testing more people is part of that, and the U.S. is improving on that. But we’re still working with outdated data.
What we’re hearing: An Arlington, Va., resident told Axios he got tested a week ago, but his results have now been delayed twice; he’ll likely end up waiting nine to 10 days for his results.
- There are other anecdotal reports of test results taking about seven days.
- Quest Diagnostics and LabCorp, the two private companies that have helped the U.S. ramp up its testing, both say they deliver results in an average of four to five days.
What’s next: The FDA signed off last week on a new test that can deliver results within about 45 minutes.
- At least for now, that test will be somewhat limited. Hospitals will use it to quickly diagnose patients with severe symptoms who are likely to be admitted and need a fast, accurate diagnosis to begin treatment.
N.Y. Times columnist Nick Kristof and Times Opinion writer Stuart Thompson worked with epidemiologists to create this interactive model:
- “These numbers offer a false precision, for we don’t understand Covid-19 well enough to model it exactly. But they do suggest the point that epidemiologists are making: For all the yearning for a return to normalcy, that is risky so long as a virus is raging and we are unprotected.”
Why it matters: “[H]ealth experts advise giving current business closures and social distancing a month to slow the pandemic, buying time to roll out mass testing and equip doctors with protective equipment.”
- “Then, depending on where we are, we can think about easing up — while prepared for a new burst of infections that will then require a new clampdown.”
Miriam Kramer, author of the weekly Axios Space Newsletter (sign up here) treats us to these stunning views:
- Above: Miami Beach in 2019 — and now.
- Below: The site of an emergency field hospital in Wuhan in 2017 — and now.
If President Trump follows through on his push to reopen big parts of the U.S. by Easter (April 12 — 17 days away), the spotty shield of state “stay at home” orders would look like even more of a patchwork, managing editor David Nather writes.
- Just 21 states have ordered people to stay at home, and most of those are states with Democratic governors.
- Only six — Ohio, Indiana, Idaho, West Virginia, Massachusetts and Vermont — have Republican governors.
If Trump declares it’s time to start getting back to normal, those GOP governors could face pressure to start easing their own social restrictions.
I was led to this Politico scoop by this tweet:
Sure enough, Dan Diamond and Nahal Toosi report that “the pandemic playbook” was written in 2016 “by career civil servants as well as political appointees, aware that global leaders had initially fumbled their response to the 2014-2015 spread of Ebola.”
- “The Trump administration was briefed on the playbook’s existence in 2017.”
Why it matters: Per the playbook, “the government should’ve begun a federal-wide effort to procure [more] personal protective equipment at least two months ago.”
A Trump NSC official said: “We are aware of the document, although it’s quite dated and has been superseded by strategic and operational biodefense policies published since.”
- “The plan we are executing now is a better fit, more detailed, and applies the relevant lessons learned from the playbook and the most recent Ebola epidemic in the [Democratic Republic of the Congo] to COVID-19.”
Interactive county-by-county map.
- IBM’s new county-by-county database.
Above: On April 7, 1969, Washington Senators manager Ted Williams (left) joined President Richard Nixon and Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn before POTUS tossed out the first pitch at RFK Stadium in Washington.
Below: The Washington Senators’ 1969 opening day program (Ted Williams on cover), garnished with ticket stubs from opening days in the 1980s.
- Go deep! AP sportswriters, past and present, recall their favorite Opening Days.
📬 Be safe, be careful. Please tell a friend about Axios AM/PM.
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THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
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CHICAGO TRIBUNE
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PRO TRUMP NEWS
THE HILL
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ROLL CALL
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Morning Headlines
After days of arduous negotiations between Trump administration officials and Democrats, the Senate voted Wednesday night to send the House a massive financial relief package to tide the U.S. economy and its strained health care sector over for the next few months as the COVID-19 pandemic escalates across the country. Read More…
As lawmakers struggle to finish what they’ve dubbed “phase three” of their response to the coronavirus pandemic, a $2 trillion stimulus bill, there was already disagreement among congressional leaders on the need for a phase four or more. “This is not going to be the last bill,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Wednesday. Read More…
Army lab fights coronavirus and its own demons
The Army’s Fort Detrick, home to a leading biological research facility, has gained newfound attention because the Trump administration has tapped the lab to help develop a vaccine, treatments and testing equipment for the novel coronavirus. But the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases is under a cloud. Read More…
Click here to subscribe to Fintech Beat for the latest market and regulatory developmentsin finance and financial technology.
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An escape from reality is tempting, but America needs truth from its leaders
OPINION — Where is the president? Can he pivot from the showman persona that is his comfort zone to the take-charge chief offering truth and transparency? From President Donald Trump, we hear optimistic promises of a grand Easter, in sentiments that are not in line with his medical experts. The reality show star needs to be real. Read More…
5 districts that changed so much, so fast, you could get whiplash
Oftentimes, political trends and change take years or more to develop. The partisan transformation of the South is a good example. In the case of a handful of House seats, however, the partisan switch in representation has been rapid and remarkable. There are at least five whiplash districts. Read More…
10 highlights from the coronavirus stimulus package
Almost 900 pages make up the text for the package Congress hopes will boost the economy and relieve the country from the growing strain of the novel coronavirus. In case you didn’t have time to review the entire stimulus, we’ve rounded up the highlights here. Read More…
Get yourself a tight-knit group of female friends, Kuster says
For New Hampshire Rep. Ann McLane Kuster, one thing hasn’t changed since her early days as a Capitol Hill staffer: She surrounds herself with a network of female friends. “You want to have women friends who support you through thick and thin,” she says. Read More…
Her shortness of breath wasn’t coronavirus. It was an anxiety attack
Liz Westbrook is a two-time Ironman athlete and spin instructor. She can run a mile in under 7 minutes. Fast-paced and high-intensity are in her wheelhouse. For her, sweat is an accessory. But last week, while on a work-related conference call, the “cold sweats” and “rapid heartbeat” she felt were not something she volunteered for. Read More…
She should be on her honeymoon. Instead, she did her wedding dance in sweatpants in the living room
It’s been a wet and chilly week in Washington. It’s also not where Melanie Baucom hoped she’d be. “It’s definitely odd,” Baucom, who works on Capitol Hill as a press secretary for Idaho Republican Sen. Mike Crapo, told Heard on the Hill over the phone. “We should be on our honeymoon right now.” Read More…
CQ Roll Call is a part of FiscalNote, the leading technology innovator at the intersection of global business and government. Copyright 2020 CQ Roll Call. All rights reserved Privacy | Safely unsubscribe now.
POLITICO PLAYBOOK
POLITICO Playbook: Pelosi’s 880-page birthday present
DRIVING THE DAY
TODAY IS SPEAKER NANCY PELOSI’S 80TH birthday, and the emergency coronavirus bill — all 880 pages of the behemoth — has landed on the House’s doorstep after a late-night, unanimous vote, 96-0. NYT A1, for the history books
FOUR REPUBLICAN SENATORS — Rand Paul of Kentucky, Mitt Romney and Mike Lee of Utah and John Thune of South Dakota — did not vote. Thune, the second-ranking Senate Republican, was sick and went back to South Dakota “out of an abundance of caution” on a charter flight with a member of his police detail, his spokesman said. He wore a mask on the flight.
THE BILL WAS DELAYED AT THE LAST MINUTE because Senate Minority Leader CHUCK SCHUMER wanted the terms of all loans made to businesses made public every seven days, according to aides in both parties.
POLITICO TALKS TO THE MAIN PLAYERS … SENATE MAJORITY LEADER MITCH MCCONNELL: “It’s a proud moment for the Senate. We responded to the way the American people are acting among themselves by helping each other and putting whatever past grievances they have behind and trying to work together to get this behind us.”
SCHUMER: “It’s one of the most major pieces of legislation we’ve done. I guess there are only a few other moments, I suppose. Obamacare. But otherwise you can’t think of something so major since the Great Society, Lyndon Johnson …”
THE TICK TOCK: JOHN BRESNAHAN, MARIANNE LEVINE and ANDREW DESIDERIO: “Inside the 10 days to rescue the economy”
NYT’S ERIC LIPTON and KEN VOGEL: “Fine Print of Stimulus Bill Contains Special Deals for Industries”: “Restaurants and retailers will get a tweak to federal tax law they have been seeking for more than a year that could save them $15 billion. Community banks are being granted their long-held wish of being freed to reduce the amount of capital they have to hold in reserve. And for-profit colleges will be able to keep federal loan money from students who drop out because of the coronavirus.”
WAPO’S ERICA WERNER, MIKE DEBONIS and PAUL KANE: “The bill also contains a grab bag of provisions that in some cases seem to range far afield from the coronavirus pandemic, including $13 million for Howard University, $25 million for Washington’s Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and $75 million for the National Endowment for the Humanities. Senate aides said those allocations and others were justified to help the institutions prepare for and respond to the coronavirus outbreak.”
CROSS ONE OFF THE PHASE FOUR LIST … THE UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE — which is going broke — got $10 billion in this bill.
THE SENATE’S next scheduled vote is April 20, but MCCONNELL noted from the floor Wednesday night that the chamber had to be “nimble” if it needs to come back into session before then. He said he would give senators 24 hours’ notice.
NOW, THE HOUSE … Majority Leader STENY HOYER announced that the House will consider this bill FRIDAY MORNING at 9 a.m.: “In order to protect the safety of Members and staff and prevent further spread of COVID-19 through Members’ travel, the Republican Leader and I expect that the House vote on final passage will be done by voice vote. Members who want to come to the House Floor to debate this bill will be able to do so.”
PELOSI gaggled Wednesday afternoon, and laid out how she saw the process going once she got the bill (these gaggles are now pooled because of social distancing). PELOSI said she would like to see “a good debate on the floor” about this bill.
— PELOSI spoke about the voice vote procedure — where lawmakers shout “aye” or “nay” on the floor. Any one lawmaker could then ask for a recorded vote, which would force the chamber back into session. But if that happens, the leadership will likely move to change the rules to allow for “proxy voting,” a system in which a small group of lawmakers votes on behalf of a much larger group on the floor.
HERE’S WHAT PELOSI told PAUL KANE about that in the pooled gaggle: “If somebody calls for a recorded vote, and once they know we have options [to pass the bill], they probably won’t call for it.”
EARLY MARKET REACTION … WSJ: “Global Stocks Retreat After Back-to-Back Gains in Dow,” by Anna Hirtenstein and Chong Koh Ping
ANALYSIS … WAPO’S HEATHER LONG: “The $2 trillion relief bill is massive but it won’t prevent a recession”: “The good news is the majority of the money is going to laid-off workers, small business owners, hospitals and state and local governments. The bad news is it won’t be enough to stop a recession. And it’s an open question whether the nation can avoid an economic depression, the likes of which haven’t been seen since the 1930s.”
MILESTONE … AP/NEW YORK: “U.S. coronavirus deaths top 1,000”
AMERICA, 2020 — “13 Deaths in a Day: An ‘Apocalyptic’ Coronavirus Surge at an N.Y.C. Hospital,” by NYT’s Michael Rothfeld, Somini Sengupta, Joseph Goldstein and Brian Rosenthal: “Elmhurst, a 545-bed public hospital in Queens, has begun transferring patients not suffering from coronavirus to other hospitals as it moves toward becoming dedicated entirely to the outbreak. Doctors and nurses have struggled to make do with a few dozen ventilators. Calls over a loudspeaker of ‘Team 700,’ the code for when a patient is on the verge of death, come several times a shift. Some have died inside the emergency room while waiting for a bed.
“A refrigerated truck has been stationed outside to hold the bodies of the dead. Over the past 24 hours, New York City’s public hospital system said in a statement, 13 people at Elmhurst had died.” NYT … Video from inside the hospital
Good Thursday morning.
FED CHAIRMAN JAY POWELL will be on the “Today” show on NBC at 7 a.m. SAVANNAH GUTHRIE will interview him.
SHADOWBOXING … ALEX ISENSTADT: “Infighting erupts in Trumpworld as coronavirus attacks mount”: “Donald Trump is getting hammered by millions of dollars in Democratic campaign ads depicting his response to the coronavirus as negligent and inept. But the main super PAC backing his reelection has been silent in response — and Trump’s political advisers are not happy about it.
“In interviews, more than a half-dozen White House aides, campaign officials and other Trump allies said they felt deserted by the group, America First Action, openly questioning why it’s leaving Trump exposed on the airwaves at the most vulnerable moment of his presidency.
“‘There is a major vacuum on the political front right now, with the White House focused on coronavirus response and the campaign, rightly so, echoing the White House,’ said Chris LaCivita, who as chief strategist of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth orchestrated the 2004 John Kerry takedown. ‘With attacks coming from all over, the simple question is: Where the hell is the president’s air cover?’” POLITICO
SCOOP … DAN DIAMOND and NAHAL TOOSI: “Trump team failed to follow NSC’s pandemic playbook”: “The Trump administration, state officials and even individual hospital workers are now racing against each other to get the necessary masks, gloves and other safety equipment to fight coronavirus — a scramble that hospitals and doctors say has come too late and left them at risk. But according to a previously unrevealed White House playbook, the government should’ve begun a federal-wide effort to procure that personal protective equipment at least two months ago.
“‘Is there sufficient personal protective equipment for healthcare workers who are providing medical care?’ the playbook instructs its readers, as one early decision that officials should address when facing a potential pandemic. ‘If YES: What are the triggers to signal exhaustion of supplies? Are additional supplies available? If NO: Should the Strategic National Stockpile release PPE to states?’
“The strategies are among hundreds of tactics and key policy decisions laid out in a 69-page National Security Council playbook on fighting pandemics, which POLITICO is detailing for the first time. Other recommendations include that the government move swiftly to fully detect potential outbreaks, secure supplemental funding and consider invoking the Defense Production Act — all steps in which the Trump administration lagged behind the timeline laid out in the playbook.” POLITICO
L.A. TIMES: “1 million Californians file for unemployment; homeowners hurt by coronavirus will get a break,” by Phil Willon and Liam Dillon: “Several major banks and other financial institutions have agreed to delay foreclosures and provide mortgage relief to California homeowners who are struggling to make their monthly payments due to the novel coronavirus outbreak, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Wednesday. …
“Eligible homeowners would be able to defer mortgage payments for at least three months and perhaps longer if they suffer hardship due to the pandemic. Any late payments would not be reported to credit agencies. Newsom said the mortgage relief package was negotiated with four of the nation’s largest banks — Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank, CitiBank and J.P. Morgan Chase — as well as 200 state-chartered banks and credit unions.”
— REMINDER: U.S. JOBLESS numbers will be out at 8:30 a.m. Eastern.
BERNIE WANTS TO STICK IT OUT — “‘He is still in’: Bernie could remain in race through June,” by Holly Otterbein and David Siders: “Since his staff announced last week that he is reassessing his campaign, Bernie Sanders has not yet definitively said whether he is still running. But he’s given every indication he’s pressing forward — and perhaps remaining in the presidential race for months to come.
“Despite Joe Biden’s nearly insurmountable delegate lead, the Sanders campaign said he plans to participate in an April debate, if one happens. His team has held volunteer organizing calls in the past week in New York and Pennsylvania, which are planning to hold their primaries perhaps as late as June. And his campaign is also touting that it is ramping up staff in New York, which a senior aide said is ‘a sign that he is still in.’
“Sanders, who hasn’t aired ads or fundraised since losing badly in the March 17 primaries, could still very well call things off. But one thing is certain: He’s not acting like a candidate who’s finished with the primary.” POLITICO
— “Sanders Is Ready to Debate Again. Biden Says ‘We’ve Had Enough Debates,’” by NYT’s Katie Glueck and Tom Kaplan
BIDEN TAKES ON DESANTIS — “Biden blindsides Trump’s Florida ally,” by Marc Caputo and Matt Dixon in Miami
TRUMP’S THURSDAY — The president will participate in a G-20 leaders’ video teleconference at 8 a.m. in the Situation Room.
— THE CORONAVIRUS TASK FORCE will hold a briefing at 5 p.m.
PLAYBOOK READS
JOHN HARRIS column: “Trump Is An Authoritarian Weakman”
JOHNNY MAC STRIKES AGAIN — “White House abruptly transfers DHS official amid loyalty purge,” by Daniel Lippman: “The White House removed a top public affairs official at the Department of Homeland Security in a move that shocked many in the department as it takes a lead role in handling the coronavirus pandemic … Heather Swift, who was DHS’s deputy assistant secretary of public affairs, was abruptly pushed out of her position on Friday after the Presidential Personnel Office raised questions about her loyalty to President Donald Trump …
“The personnel office may have discovered some old social media postings that officials there did not like … though POLITICO was unable to find any examples of posts the Trump administration might find objectionable. Swift, who has not yet left the department, is moving to a top communications job at the National Endowment for the Arts.” POLITICO
— WHITE HOUSE DEPARTURE LOUNGE: Justin Bis is leaving the White House, where he was special assistant to the president and associate director of presidential personnel, according to two administration officials familiar with the matter. He did not respond to a request for comment on his next step.
DIPLOMACY IN ACTION — “U.S. insisting that the U.N. call out Chinese origins of coronavirus,” by NBC’s Josh Lederman: “The Trump administration is pushing the U.N. Security Council to call attention to the Chinese origins of the coronavirus, four diplomats posted to the United Nations told NBC News, triggering a stalemate as the global body seeks to cobble together a response to the pandemic.
“Talks among U.N. Security Council nations over a joint declaration or resolution on the coronavirus have stalled over U.S. insistence that it explicitly state that the virus originated in Wuhan, China, as well as exactly when it started there. China’s diplomats are enraged according to the diplomats, even as they seek to put their own language into the statement praising China’s efforts to contain the virus.” NBC
— EARLIER: “Pompeo, G-7 foreign ministers spar over ‘Wuhan virus’”
BACKSTORY … AP’S JILL COLVIN and ELANA SCHOR: “President Donald Trump’s ‘beautiful’ idea to reopen the U.S. economy by Easter Sunday and pack church pews that day was dreamed up during a conference call among business leaders desperate to get the country back up and running. …
“Though it’s unclear exactly when the idea made its way to Trump or whether others in his orbit had pegged the date as well — one official said they had heard the idea mentioned multiple times around the Oval Office — by late Sunday, Trump was publicly siding with such thinking, tweeting: ‘WE CANNOT LET THE CURE BE WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM ITSELF.’ On Monday, he said he was considering easing his administration’s recommendations that Americans largely stay home within weeks, not months. And on Tuesday, he formally endorsed the idea of an Easter goalpost during a Fox News Channel virtual town hall.” AP
N.Y. MAG’S GABE DEBENEDETTI: “Joe Biden Is Spending His Time in the Coronavirus Bunker Thinking a Lot About His VP”: “[N]ot one of the top Biden associates I spoke with in the last week had much doubt where he would ultimately focus a lot of his eventual vetting: his former rivals Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, and Amy Klobuchar. Realistically, a congressman close to the Biden inner circle predicted, no matter what happens, ‘the final five will include those three.’
“Keeping in mind his own experience and his age, the former veep, 77, has always insisted to friends that his running mate must be ready to be president. But people close to him say he has recently become increasingly explicit that he may be choosing his own replacement, and that the candidates’ competence is now likely to be front and center in his considerations.” New York
MEANWHILE, IN MISSISSIPPI — “Governor Orders Limited Gatherings, Declares Most Businesses ‘Essential,’ Supersedes Local Safety Efforts,” by the Jackson Free Press’ Nick Judin: “Gov. Tate Reeves signed an executive order early this evening superseding a patchwork of local bans on public gatherings in Mississippi and other heightened restrictions that several municipalities across the state have ordered or considered in the wake of COVID-19’s spread inside Mississippi. The state reached 320 official cases today, up 300 percent since 80 known cases on Friday.
“The order seems to declare that most types of businesses in Mississippi are ‘essential’ and thus exempt from social-distancing requirements suggested in the order.” Jackson Free Press
PLAYBOOKERS
Send tips to Eli Okun and Garrett Ross at politicoplaybook@politico.com.
IN MEMORIAM — “Richard Reeves, Columnist and Author on Presidents, Dies at 83,” by NYT’s David Stout: “Mr. Reeves, who was a lecturer at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California, wrote more than a dozen books and, from 1979 to 2014, a syndicated column that appeared in more than 100 newspapers. He was also a familiar face on public affairs programs on PBS.
“As an author, Mr. Reeves was in particular an insightful and unsparing student of the American presidency, producing well-received portraits of John F. Kennedy, Richard M. Nixon, Gerald R. Ford, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton.” NYT
TRANSITIONS — Josh Lipsky is now director of programs and policy at the Atlantic Council’s Global Business and Economics Program. He previously was senior comms adviser at the IMF and speechwriter to Christine Lagarde, and is an Obama White House and State Department alum. … Janet Montesi is now deputy press secretary at FEMA. She previously was special assistant to former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. …
… Jimmy Walsh is now deputy government relations director at the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition. He most recently was a professional staff member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee and adviser to ranking member Michael McCaul (R-Texas). … Bob Martin is joining Chris Christie’s Christie 55 Solutions as a managing director. He previously was Christie’s commissioner of environmental protection in New Jersey.
WELCOME TO THE WORLD — Rayna V. Farrell, VP of comms at the Business Roundtable, and Adam Farrell, a project manager for the Whiting-Turner Contracting Company, on Sunday welcomed Jay Joseph Farrell. He came in at 7 lbs, 15 oz. Pic
BIRTHDAY OF THE DAY: Vivian Yee, NYT Middle East correspondent. A trend she thinks doesn’t get enough attention: “This gets plenty of attention in Middle East circles, but seems worth giving a boost: American policy has favored sanctions over military intervention in Syria — which, by the way, is experiencing its worst humanitarian catastrophe of the war as the Syrian government and Russia retake Idlib Province chunk by chunk — but there are many questions about whether there’s anything to be gained from further broad sanctions on the Syrian government, which has never changed its behavior, or if they’re just making life even harder for Syrians who have already been through nine years of war and economic collapse.” Playbook Q&A
BIRTHDAYS: Speaker Nancy Pelosi is 8-0 … acting OMB Director Russ Vought is 44 (h/t wife Mary) … Bob Woodward, WaPo associate editor, is 77 … former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor is 9-0 … Jon Huntsman, who’s running for Utah governor again, is 6-0 … Margaret Brennan, moderator of CBS’ “Face the Nation” and CBS News senior foreign affairs correspondent … Matt Lira … Larry Page is 47 … former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee is 67 … Kelli Ritter … former Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) is 53 … James Gelfand … Letty Burgin … Doug Deason is 58 … Jenny Kaplan … FP1 Strategies’ Chandler Hudson Bair … Caroline Darmody … Joe Sangirardi … Dan Caldwell of Concerned Veterans for America and Stand Together … Sarah Iyere … Katie (Hughes) Janov … Kate Lee …
… Michael Waxman, CEO of Waxman Strategies … Amanda House, director of video at Breitbart … Miriam Warren, VP at DCI Group … Caren Street … William Hague is 59 … CBS’ Kira Kleaveland … Kevin Zeithaml is 27 … Chris Rovzar, editorial director of Bloomberg Pursuits … Nancy Snyderman … Pamela Pulkownik … Michael Kirby, managing editor at FedNet … FDIC’s Edward Garnett III … Nelson Reyneri … Carlos Mark Vera, founder of Pay Our Interns, is 26 (h/t Nihal Krishan) … Melanie Roussell Newman, SVP of comms and culture at Planned Parenthood … Lori D’Orazio … Phil Chui is 3-0 … Stacy Rastauskas … Twitter’s Lexi Neaman … Rachel Milkovich … Melissa Toufanian … Patricia Weems Gaston … Bill Lucey … Bob McDevitt … Michael Sean Comerford … Lisa Quigley
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CAFFEINATED THOUGHTS
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CONSERVATIVE DAILY NEWS
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PJ MEDIA
The Morning Briefing: Senate Unanimously Passes Coronavirus Relief Bill—Someone Should Check on Granny Boxwine
Worst Episode of Family Feud Ever
After three days of descending into dysfunctionally divisive hell at a time when Americans most needed some unifying behavior — as well as some money — the United States Senate finally put on its Big Politician Pants, lit a unity candle, and had the most kumbaya of all kumbaya moments.
The elders of the village stayed up past their bedtimes and passed the coronavirus relief bill with a unanimous 96-0 vote:
In the wee hours of Wednesday evening, the U.S. Senate finally passed the $2 trillion coronavirus stimulus bill after a great deal of Democrat stalling and a futile effort by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to put forward a separate bill jam-packed with liberal Christmas wish-list items. The bill provides crucial relief to businesses struggling with the social distancing strategy of stopping the spread of the coronavirus. It now heads to the House.
The stimulus bill is far from perfect, but its passage unmasked Pelosi’s tactics as a disgraceful waste of time during this crisis. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) slammed the speaker for her attempt to jam her liberal pipe dreams down Americans’ throats in the midst of a crisis.
The fact that the Speaker of the House was able to throw a wrench into the workings of the Senate as successfully as Pelosi did for a few days is just one more bizarre aspect of this Bizarroworld we live in during these pandemic times.
Pelosi engaged in some of the most shameless politicking for personal gain of her career, and that’s saying quite a lot. Thankfully, it was all for naught. However, as Tyler mentioned in his headline, she was gambling with people’s lives. This should be a permanent stain on her career, but the thoroughly evil press is no doubt working on ways to run interference for her.
As I wrote last week, I’m a veteran skeptic of the government’s ability to “help.” Ronald Reagan’s legendary quote on the subject always comes to mind: “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the Government, and I’m here to help.”
I have the luxury of being skeptical at the moment because I have work though. If any of this can truly bring relief to people in need then I hope that happens in a hurry. I’m not fond of being proven wrong, but I wouldn’t mind taking the hit in this instance.
If You Love Your Work You’ll Never Work a Day in Your Life
Donald J. Trump
✔@realDonaldTrump
96-0 in the United States Senate. Congratulations AMERICA!
The optics on this have to be brutal for the Trump Derangement Syndrome crowd, who were no doubt cheering on all of the partisan bickering in the Senate the past few days. There are people in this country who have been rooting for dysfunction and economic chaos. That means that they’re perversely rooting for the virus.
Am I implying that there are Americans who would rather have President Trump’s reputation damaged by a body count than see him succeed or get re-elected?
No, I’m stating it outright.
A Reminder That Everyone Isn’t Awful
ABC News
✔@ABC
This woman is helping the homeless in Los Angeles by handing out hamburgers, hand sanitizer and vitamin C all while practicing social distancing. https://abcn.ws/2QLfLMl
PJM Linktank
Johns Hopkins Study: USA More Prepared for Pandemic Than Any Other Country
Democrats lie. It’s what they do. Biden Super PAC Ad Relies on Debunked False Claims to Attack Trump
Yes, Debbie Downer, DIY Masks Will Work for Health Care Professionals Who Are Running Low
I have plenty, thanks for asking. Can’t Find TP? Check a Local Restaurant.
Portland High School Opens Its Doors and Amenities to Truckers
In the Same Poll Where Trump Triumphs on COVID-19 Response, the Media Come In Dead Last.
No, Democrats, Corporations Couldn’t Have Been Better Prepared for the Pandemic
‘The Atlantic’ Begs Joe Biden Not to Die
America Is Running Out of Hospital Beds and Rural Areas Are Hardest Hit
SPLC Blames Trump’s ‘Racist, Anti-Asian Epithets’ for Coronavirus-Related Anti-Asian Harassment
VodkaPundit: Hunkered Down: Parenting in the Time of Coronavirus
Behold This Kentucky Mayor’s Profanity-Laced Warning About COVID-19
No Sleep ’til Easter: Life in Liberal Lockdown
Cornonavirus Is No Reason for the Feds to Take Over the Election Process
VIP
VIP Gold
Coronavirus Convention? Dems Pledge To Hold 2020 Milwaukee Event — Publicly, At Least
From the Mothership and Beyond
Well then…Ernest Hemingway Once Survived a Quarantine with His Wife and His Mistress
Joe Biden Is Not The Leader We Need In A Post-Coronavirus World
Schlichter: Virus Heroes and Zeros
Dr. Birx Warns About Frightening and Misleading Coronavirus Projections
Trump Smacks Down Reporter Who Asks Him How Many Wuhan Coronavirus Deaths Are Acceptable to Him
MSNBC Host Reveals Her Biggest Fear About the Wuhan Coronavirus Pandemic
FBI Kills Terror Suspect Planning to Bomb Hospital Over Government Response to the Coronavirus
After Last Week’s Sexist Tweets, DSCC Uses Stephen King to Fundraise Against Susan Collins
‘This Is Not a Corporate Giveaway’: Kevin McCarthy Defends Senate Bill
Oh, Look: De Blasio Forgets to Mention His Role In NYC’s Wuhan Coronavirus Outbreak
L.A. Political Fundraiser to Plead Guilty to Facilitating Bribes to City Councilmember
Another facelift? Oh, So This Is Why Joe Biden Has Been Hiding
Kinsa “Health Map” Shows Fever Rates Decreasing Virtually Everywhere In The United States
Iran’s Coronavirus Death Toll Passes 2,000, New Travel Restrictions Are Put In Place
Contra Andrew Cuomo, While A Grim Choice, We May Have To Restart The Economy
Pompeo, Cotton: You Bet We Will Provide A “Reckoning” For China Over COVID-19
Remington Offers NY Factory To State To Produce Medical Supplies
Man Defends Self After First Date Turns Into Home Invasion
Politifact Determined To Cover Biden’s Confiscation Desires
Wuhan Virus Numbers: Nightly Update March 25, 2020-As Of 2359GMT
Terrence K. Williams Posts a Hilarious Response to Madonna’s Wuhan Bathtub Broadcast
Even Dr. Fauci Lost It With Media Today After Yet Another Political Question
Winning. Under Freedom Foundation Pressure, Teamsters 117 Shutters Dues-Funded Political Fund
Employees at nine Amazon warehouses have contracted the coronavirus
This SF dude had a friend deliver TP via drone while sheltered in place
12 heist movies to make you feel like you’re up to something while social distancing
5 tips to keep you sane during the coronavirus crisis
Why orange juice prices are soaring on global markets
Bee Me
Too good.
The Babylon Bee@TheBabylonBee‘Live, Laugh, Love’ Sign Discovered In Paul The Apostle’s Prison Cell https://buff.ly/3adSw5o
‘Live, Laugh, Love’ Sign Discovered In Paul The Apostle’s Prison Cell
ROME—The Apostle Paul was imprisoned in Rome near the time of his death, after a long life suffering in various prison conditions throughout his ministry. Christians have often wondered how Paul the…
babylonbee.com
The Kruiser Kabana
CCTV IDIOTS@cctvidiotsAs if the people aren’t suffering enough, now they’ve got this stuck in their heads
This is just the kind of distraction we all need. Watch the whole thing, the way he finishes is fun.
I want to build tree house, which is difficult when one is surrounded by cactus.
___
PJ Media Associate Editor Stephen Kruiser is the author of “Don’t Let the Hippies Shower” and “Straight Outta Feelings: Political Zen in the Age of Outrage,” both of which address serious subjects in a humorous way. Monday through Friday he edits PJ Media’s “Morning Briefing.”
THE DISPATCH
The Morning Dispatch: The Relief Bill Escapes the Senate
Plus, a 2004 intelligence report predicted nearly everything we’re living through right now.
| The Dispatch Staff | 2 hr | 2 |
Happy Thursday! Most of us are starting to feel settled in working from home by now—but beware! Let your guard down, and all sorts of teleconferencing mishaps await. Just ask Sen. Tammy Duckworth.
Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories
- As of Wednesday night, there are now 68,960 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the United States (a 25 percent increase from yesterday) and 1,031 deaths (a 29 percent increase from yesterday), according to the Johns Hopkins University COVID-19 Dashboard, leading to a mortality rate among confirmed cases of 1.5 percent. About 15 percent of the 418,810 coronavirus tests conducted in the United States have come back positive, per the COVID Tracking Project, a separate dataset with slightly different top-line numbers.
- The Senate passed, 96-0, the CARES Act, a $2 trillion bill that will provide economic relief to individuals, families, and businesses affected by the coronavirus pandemic. The House is expected to vote on the bill on Friday.
- Robert Levinson, a retired FBI agent who went missing in Iran 13 years ago, died in Iranian custody, his family concluded based on information provided to them by U.S. officials.
A Close Call and a Unanimous Vote
In Wednesday’s Morning Dispatch, we reported that the Senate had struck a late-night handshake agreement on a $2 trillion economic aid package, and that all that remained was to hold the vote.
Ultimately, that’s exactly what happened. Shortly before midnight, the Senate voted unanimously—absent four quarantined senators—to send the bill on to the House. But everything that came before was much more chaotic than expected. For a little while Wednesday afternoon, it looked like the vote might not happen at all.
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell presented the deal to his conference on a members-only call. Shortly after, he had a minor mutiny on his hands. A knot of GOP senators, spearheaded by Sens. Ben Sasse, Lindsey Graham, and Tim Scott, objected to one of McConnell’s concessions to Senate Democrats: an additional $600-a-week boost to unemployment payouts for the next four months. The senators argued that this extra payout would create “a strong incentive for employees to be laid off instead of going to work,” which could “risk life-threatening shortages in sectors where doctors, nurses, and pharmacists are trying to care for the sick,” and introduced an amendment to limit the maximum unemployment payout to a worker’s previous paycheck.
This Was All Predicted in 2004
Paul Miller, a professor of the practice of international affairs at Georgetown University, has a fascinating piece on the website today about the intel community and how it foresaw our current situation. It’s more than 3,000 words but let’s be honest: If you can’t find the time to read a great longform piece now, when will you? And it’s well worth the investment—trust us. Some of our biggest takeaways:
Hold up: The National Intelligence Council (NIC) predicted this whole pandemic back in 2004?
Incredibly, yes. In 2004, the NIC published a report called Mapping the Global Future—written to describe what the world could look like in 2020—that predicted the appearance of “a new pandemic … such as the 1918–1919 influenza virus that killed an estimated 20 million worldwide,” warning that it could “put a halt to global travel and trade during an extended period, prompting governments to expend enormous resources on overwhelmed health sectors.” Sound familiar?
As Miller writes, “[t]hat document is now one of the most astonishingly accurate predictions in the history of U.S. intelligence.”
What did it predict about how this would affect different parts of the globe?
As Miller writes, the NIC consistently believed that the economic fallout of a global pandemic would be worse in developing countries and the global South. In 2004 it warned that “such a pandemic in megacities of the developing world with poor health-care systems—in Sub-Saharan Africa, China, India, Bangladesh or Pakistan—would be devastating and could spread rapidly throughout the world.” In 2012, the fictional analyst commented that because of rising nationalism, “with the increased security and border controls, the U.S., some Europeans, and even China are better able to weather the pandemic,” than the developing world.
Worth Your Time
- You’ve likely heard quite a bit about the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918. In this video, David Remnick of The New Yorker interviews historian John M. Barry, author of “The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History,” about how the 1918 influenza compares to COVID-19.
- When we talk about the coronavirus’s likely effects on our medical system, we tend to think of “hospital capacity” as a relatively static concept: so many beds, so many ventilators, so many medical professionals. But this Atlantic piece from emergency physician Dr. Thomas Kirsch raises an unsettling possibility: Unless America acts to protect its practitioners from the disease they’re treating, we may end up in a situation where the problem is compounded by doctors and nurses deciding the risk to their own health and that of their families is no longer worth it.
- 3M, a manufacturing company that makes respirator masks, was not prepared for the SARS epidemic of 2002. Its management decided that wouldn’t happen again, and designed protocols to ensure the company would be equipped for epidemic-level demand. Now, 3M is putting its “surge capacity” to the test and Bloomberg reports its secret weapons are working effectively enough that the company plans to make more than 1 billion masks by the end of this year.
- In yesterday’s White House Coronavirus Task Force briefing, Dr. Deborah Birx, the Task Force’s response coordinator, shared a story about why strict adherence to social distancing is so important to her. A century ago, Birx’s grandmother caught the Spanish flu at age 11, infecting Birx’s great-grandmother, who eventually succumbed to the disease. “[My grandmother] never forgot that she was the child who was in school who innocently brought that flu home,” Birx said. This family tragedy was in no way that 11-year-old girl’s fault. But, as Birx said, “this is why we keep saying to every American, you have a role to protect each and every person that you interact with.” Click here and head to the 53-minute mark to watch her story for yourself.
Presented Without Comment
Toeing the Company Line
- Jonah’s latest Wodin’s Day Correspondence (??) (🔒) took us Morning Dispatchers to task over yesterday’s headline. “This isn’t a stimulus bill, it’s a life-support bill,” he writes. “It’s the difference between cocaine and oxygen, or between a shot of adrenaline and a blood transfusion.” Okay, Jonah, fine. We’ll still give you the traffic and tell our readers to click here to read the whole thing, because it’s a great piece.
- The latest Dispatch Podcast is out! Join Sarah, Steve, Jonah, and David as they discuss the latest coronavirus developments and Joe Biden’s efforts to break through, before wrapping up with a conversation about their favorite quarantine beverages. Tune in here.
- The relief package passed last night includes billions in loans for small businesses. But for some, even that help won’t be enough. On the website today, Aparna Mathur looks at how we could improve the Chapter 7 bankruptcy process to help entrepreneurs now more than ever.
Reporting by Declan Garvey (@declanpgarvey), Andrew Egger (@EggerDC), Alec Dent (@Alec_Dent), Sarah Isgur (@whignewtons), and Steve Hayes (@stephenfhayes).
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March 26, 2020  Trending now
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One last thing …  Democratic presidential frontrunner Joe Biden misrepresented the approval rating for the president during a live video stream and was instantly fact-checked by a reporter. The former vice president was discussing the response to the coronavirus pandemic when he claimed erroneously that the approval rating for President Donald Trump had not improved … Read more
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LARRY J. SABATO’S CRYSTAL BALL
This message was sent to rickbulow1974@gmail.com from goodpolitics@virginia.edu Larry J. Sabato – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
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NOQ Report Daily |
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- DNC quietly considering convention switch from Joe Biden to Andrew Cuomo: Sources
- How Nancy Pelosi torpedoed Joe Biden
- President Trump responds to CNN report: ‘I have no time for stupidity’
- China’s propaganda campaign has gone viral
- The ChiComVirus: Bringing out the worst of the authoritarian left
| DNC quietly considering convention switch from Joe Biden to Andrew Cuomo: Sources
Posted: 26 Mar 2020 04:56 AM PDT Following the South Carolina primary victory, sources close to and within the Democratic National Committee told NOQ Report the power brokers behind the Democratic Establishment were working on getting the “moderate” candidates other than Joe Biden to drop out before Super Tuesday. Our editor (wisely?) chose not to run the story because we could not get anyone on the record and anonymous sources are generally anathema for news outlets that rely on incontrovertible facts. We don’t want to be CNN or the NY Times, after all. This time, the same two sources have independently confirmed, albeit anonymously this time as well, that there is serious talk about how to replace Biden with Andrew Cuomo ahead of the convention, or possibly during the convention itself. How will they accomplish this? By getting Biden to drop out and free his delegates, then endorsing the New York Governor as his chosen replacement. We’ve reached out to both the Biden campaign and the Governor’s office for comment, but thus far neither has confirmed nor denied the report. Cuomo’s popularity is rising among Democrats as his state is ravaged by the Wuhan Coronavirus. Twitter “political fan fiction” has been popping up for a couple of days about the possibility, especially following interviews earlier this week in which the former Vice President seemed ill-prepared for a general election campaign. Betting markets are already starting to show Cuomo ahead of Senator Bernie Sanders and non-candidate Hillary Clinton as the second most likely nominee. Campaigns and other political groups have been known to prompt betting for their preferred outcome in order to drive up odds and generate buzz as a result. It seems to be working as Cuomo has gone from less than 1% last week to as high as 14% in some markets. At this stage, these can only be called rumors. Our sources are trustworthy, but until there’s actual momentum and real buzz about the alleged move, it must remain classified as pure speculation. Nevertheless, we’re seeing more attention paid to Cuomo in recent days by mainstream media. While not speculating about the actual election, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow started calling Cuomo the “President of the coronavirus response” while also calling for President Trump’s coronavirus press conferences to not be covered. Is this really a possibility? Yes. The DNC has been changing rules on the fly to try to eliminate some candidates like Andrew Yang and Tulsi Gabbard while promoting Mike Bloomberg, then Biden. They’ve since been very dismissive of Sanders after spending weeks being antagonistic towards his campaign. But as questions mount regarding Biden’s fitness for the campaign, let alone the office, the DNC seems to be looking at all of their options. It won’t help Biden’s case that a former staffer has accused him of sexual assault.
The time will likely come for conservatives to attack Joe Biden in the general election, but let’s keep that powder dry. He doesn’t have the nomination yet, so turning our attention towards Andrew Cuomo may behoove us in the long run. American Conservative MovementJoin fellow patriots as we form a grassroots movement to advance the cause of conservatism. The coronavirus crisis has prompted many, even some conservatives, to promote authoritarianism. It’s understandable to some extent now, but it must not be allowed to embed itself in American life. We currently have 8000+ patriots with us in a very short time. If you are interested, please join us to receive updates.
The post DNC quietly considering convention switch from Joe Biden to Andrew Cuomo: Sources appeared first on NOQ Report – Conservative Christian News, Opinions, and Quotes. |
| How Nancy Pelosi torpedoed Joe Biden
Posted: 25 Mar 2020 07:23 PM PDT Over the weekend, the Senate worked at a fevered pace to put together a bi-partisan economic rescue package. According to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, the Senate had five working groups cooperating across party lines targeting the common goals of helping both the workers and the companies impacted by the forced economic shut down due to the spread of the Coronavirus. Then, without warning, on Sunday evening Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi inserted herself into the mix and blew the whole thing up. Pelosi and cohort Chuck Schumer (Senate Minority Leader) turned the tables on the spirit of cooperation and instructed every single Democratic Senator to vote against allowing their bipartisan work product from coming to vote. This led to the obvious results: A furious GOP and a terrified market. Even with the Federal Reserve swooping in try to save the day, the Dow dropped over 500 points, or another 3%. Pelosi and Schumer grabbed economic defeat right out of the jaws of victory. Why? Far left politics, that’s why. Pelosi just happened to have her own 1,100 page bill in her back pocket and unleashed it on the public midday Monday. And oh, what a bill it was. It contained all kinds of far-left goodies that were totally unrelated to the current crisis. According to Townhall, the Pelosi bonanza included the following demands:
Which leads to how this actually hurts former Vice President Joe Biden and helps President Trump. Since before Trump was even elected, the left has been describing him as a tyrant. Here’s what the Washington Post was saying as far back as December 2, 2015:
There is no better time for a tyrant to make a power grab than during a crisis. A tyrant never lets a good crisis go to waste. Trump has resisted the power grab. Although Trump had invoked the War Powers Act, until today and despite calls from the left to do so, he has resisted its use, instead allowing the governors of each state to be responsible for their own needs while the federal government played their role of support. That’s not what a tyrant does in a time of crisis. Donald Trump had the opportunity but did not go for the big power grab as we’ve been told he would for 4+ years. A tyrant (pronounce: tie-rant) is a person who rules with absolute power. In our government, a system of checks and balances, theoretically there is no one party or person with absolute power. But in a time of crisis, there can be. What would a tyrant do? The tyrant would wield power for personal or political gain at the risk of the nation and its people. And that person clearly was not President Trump. It was Nancy Pelosi. Trump and Pelosi’s actions once and for all should dispel the talking point that Trump is a despot in waiting. “Everywhere you turn, Trump is tearing down the guard rails of democracy. Tearing down the things that prevent the abuse of power…” – Joe Biden, 6/11/2019 No, Joe. It’s now clear for all to see. The tyrant, the abuse of power, is on your side of the aisle and it’s Nancy Pelosi. But Pelosi hurt Biden in another way. Of all the demands listed in the Pelosi bill, the one that has been ignored but actually stands out like a sore thumb to me is the bail out of the Postal Service. Where in the world did that come from? As per the 2019 Postal Service Fiscal Report, the USPS is $11B in debt and the “Controllable loss for the year was $3.4 billion, an increase of $1.5 billion compared to 2018. The net loss for the year was $8.8 billion, an increase in net loss of $4.9 billion compared to 2018.” What does this have to do with Joe Biden? Think of the USPS not as your friendly mail carrier. Instead, think of the USPS as the “Public Option.” In healthcare terms, the Public Option is a government run insurance provider that would theoretically drive down the cost of coverage. I know. It sounds great. But, according to Jacob Hacker, the Architect of the Public Option, it’s actually Single Payer in plain sight. Because it can offer products at below market price and operate at a structural loss, eventually it will drive for-profit providers out of the market. The Public Option can then just wait for the right Administration or the right crisis to bail them out. Biden has been pushing for the Public Option as part of his Obamacare expansion. As the need for the bailout of the USPS shows, government-run entities become fatty, wasteful political tools. One reason the USPS is in such trouble is because of its massive pension benefit liability. That’s a political structural fiscal defect, or an “uncontrollable cost” that cannot be fixed except for a federal bail-out. That’s what Nancy Pelosi is doing. Her bill bails out the Postal Service’s structural pension liability and takes the USPS off the hook for $11B. But while doing so, she’s proven once and for all that Biden’s Public Option is just another fiscally irresponsible, terrible idea. American Conservative MovementJoin fellow patriots as we form a grassroots movement to advance the cause of conservatism. The coronavirus crisis has prompted many, even some conservatives, to promote authoritarianism. It’s understandable to some extent now, but it must not be allowed to embed itself in American life. We currently have 8000+ patriots with us in a very short time. If you are interested, please join us to receive updates.
The post How Nancy Pelosi torpedoed Joe Biden appeared first on NOQ Report – Conservative Christian News, Opinions, and Quotes. |
| President Trump responds to CNN report: ‘I have no time for stupidity’
Posted: 25 Mar 2020 05:14 PM PDT The left is losing the narrative. It doesn’t happen often until the truth is revealed; many Americans bought into the Russia hoax for two years until reality proved them all wrong, for example. This time, the narrative that President Trump isn’t handling the Wuhan Coronavirus crisis properly is already being dismissed as a strong majority of Americans approve of his actions. That hasn’t sat well with mainstream media, particularly those in the once-proud halls of CNN. As their inability to shift public sentiment against President Trump becomes more apparent, they’ve gone back to an old, failed strategy of making up quotes from within the White House to make him seem week. Today, the President wasn’t having it.
The bogus report from CNN wasn’t really intended to sway perspectives as much as it was meant to get the President wondering about leaks once again. He didn’t take the bait, instantly realizing it was not an accurate report and calling them out for their dishonesty. But it was the stark reality of his other comment that struck gold. “I have no time for stupidity,” he Tweeted. This is so true. We’re in the middle of an economic crisis predicated by both the “Chi-Com Virus” as well as the media’s attempts to cause economic upheaval. It’s working to some extent as businesses shut their doors and people stay home. But this will pass. It’s important that the President continues to push for the nation to reopen, not because we should ignore the risks of the coronavirus spreading but because we can be safe and productive at the same time. We made it through past pandemics without shutting the nation down. We go through deadly flu seasons every year. The panic promoted by mainstream media is purely manufactured. They’re playing on our fears and hoping we’ll turn around and blame the President for the pandemic the Chinese Communist Party failed to prevent. They also want us to blame the President for the economic collapse mainstream media orchestrated. It won’t work. It can’t. Imagine if mainstream media actually delivered the truth instead of leftist propaganda. It’s hard, I know, after over a decade of #FakeNews kowtowing to Democrats and lambasting conservatives. If the media was honest, this crisis would be over more quickly. American Conservative MovementJoin fellow patriots as we form a grassroots movement to advance the cause of conservatism. The coronavirus crisis has prompted many, even some conservatives, to promote authoritarianism. It’s understandable to some extent now, but it must not be allowed to embed itself in American life. We currently have 8000+ patriots with us in a very short time. If you are interested, please join us to receive updates.
The post President Trump responds to CNN report: ‘I have no time for stupidity’ appeared first on NOQ Report – Conservative Christian News, Opinions, and Quotes. |
| China’s propaganda campaign has gone viral
Posted: 25 Mar 2020 04:21 PM PDT If you think that China isn’t pulling out all the stops to convince the world that it isn’t responsible for letting the Wuhan Virus loose and wrecking the entire world economy, then you better think again. Not only have they co-opted the Western news media into pushing the line that pointing out COVID-19’s point of origin is somehow racist and xenophobic—with willing dupes like The Atlantic’s Anne Applebaum even praising the ChiCom government as heroes for their response to the outbreak—they’ve also taken to social media to plant the ludicrous accusation that the disease actually came from here in the United States, and that the U.S. Army was responsible for spreading it. At the forefront of that effort is Lijan Zhao, a mouthpiece for Xi Jinping and his band of thugs, who has been burning up the Twitterverse with all kinds of laughable claims to that effect. He’s also been actively discouraging any association of the virus with China, by routinely making laughable claims such as this:
Especially when that’s the stigma of your own government’s incompetence, dishonesty and downright malfeasance in creating a global pandemic that has threatened the lives and livelihood of billions of people. So naturally, I had to chime in with a little reply of my own—one that stated a few of the facts Lijan claims to hold so dear:
And boy, did the floodgates open after that. Within moments, dozens of replies starting pouring in, and kept on coming all through the night. Hell, half of the mentions I got on Twitter today were because of that post—all of them some variation on the same theme. Care to guess what that was?
Hard as it may be to believe, but “hmy_lib” with the bunny avatar has only been on Twitter since February and has a whopping 33 followers. Could it be that the bunny is really a Chinese bot programmed to parrot the government’s propaganda efforts? Well, if he is, he’s got lots of company.
Give “lxy” some credit, at least her avatar actually looks like a human being. Only 18 followers since August 2019 kind of gives the game away, though. Then there’s…this guy, I guess? It’s hard to tell.
Really like the Boring! touch at the end. Very Trumpian. But only 8 followers since 2012? Color me skeptical. And so on and on and on it went…
Until it got quite inexplicable.
And then downright bizarre.
I guess Tay-Tay’s latest woke album must really be a disappointment if she’s shilling for the Chinese Politburo. Seriously folks, you all really do need to calm down. Aside from being an amusing exercise in Twitter trolling, though, there is a darker lesson to be learned here. To wit, if the Chinese propaganda machine is kicking into high gear going after a Twitter nobody like me, imagine the lengths to which they’re going in order to influence the big media players. American Conservative MovementJoin fellow patriots as we form a grassroots movement to advance the cause of conservatism. The coronavirus crisis has prompted many, even some conservatives, to promote authoritarianism. It’s understandable to some extent now, but it must not be allowed to embed itself in American life. We currently have 8000+ patriots with us in a very short time. If you are interested, please join us to receive updates.
The post China’s propaganda campaign has gone viral appeared first on NOQ Report – Conservative Christian News, Opinions, and Quotes. |
| The ChiComVirus: Bringing out the worst of the authoritarian left
Posted: 25 Mar 2020 04:11 PM PDT Global crises tend to either bring out the best in people or the worst, depending on their proclivities during normal times. The political right tends to favor individual rights and liberty, hence the term pro-liberty right. The political left tends to favor collective ‘rights’ and control, hence the term authoritarian left. For now, we’ll set aside the usual point that the political left falsely labeling themselves as being liberal is one of their biggest lies in order to focus on the larger picture as well as some new lies they keep conjuring up in covering the ChiComVirus pandemic. Why we call it the ChiComVirusAt present, the authoritarian left in the states and the mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party are speaking in one voice, trying to blame this on someone else when it should be clear that the bureaucratic nature of big government is at fault here. National Review detailed the missteps and outright lies promulgated by the CCP at the outbreak of this disease. Suffice it to say, while governments based on economic freedom are not perfect, the top down command and control nature of the regime of socialism with Chinese characteristics had them hide the problem instead of taking steps to contain the outbreak. Whether this was deliberate or accidental doesn’t really matter right now. Had this taken place in the West, the whistleblower would have been praised instead of imprisoned and the current steps being taken would have been put in place, containing the problem. Instead, we had a bloated government trying to protect itself while endangering the people. They didn’t take action until it was too late, then went overboard with draconian measures. There is a reason the CCP and the authoritarian left are so exercised over this issue. They want to deflect the blame from their cherished ideology to have it settle elsewhere. That is why we call it the ChiComVirus as they are doing on The Liberty Daily. It places the blame directly on the cause of the crisis and no, communism isn’t a race. The left’s quandary of worshiping control while Trump is in chargeOver on Blue Collar Logic, a recent posting and video noted that this situation makes a very important point about our current situation given that it places the left in an untenable quandary. Their secular religion of authoritarianism has them worship the false god of government while they have to deal with President Trump as the head of that government. They have always looked to the government as the solution to every problem and the means to control others. So while they desperately want the government to have more control over everyone, that control would end up in the hands of president Trump. Perhaps this explains why they have emphasized state level control over the past few years and especially now with this crisis, pushing Governor Andrew M. Cuomo as a de facto opposition leader and potential Democratic party nominee. Never let a serious crisis go to wasteThis is epitomized by the coronavirus bailout bill that could just be the beginning of our problems. An editorial in USA Today was blatant on the issue: Democrats, please don’t waste the coronavirus crisis. Hold out for what Americans need. In addition to this a Democratic representative told colleagues the coronavirus bill Is ‘Tremendous Opportunity to Restructure Things to Fit Our Vision’. But they are going to experience a backlash come November. Then of course, there are all the localities that are using this crisis as an excuse to deprive the people of their unalienable human rights while thousands of inmates released are released from jail:
Leave it to the left to still lie about TrumpThis may seem to be old news, but the national socialist media is taking things up another notch. It’s not just the repetition of the story blaming President Trump for a couple in Arizona ingesting fish tank cleaner instead of talking about how Over 65 Doctors, Medical Professionals And Scientists Call For Government To Use Hydroxychloroquine To Fight Coronavirus. They are coming up with fake headlines: Crisis such the ChiComVirus tend to emphasize certain personality traits, bringing out the best in some and the bad in others. It’s unfortunate that we may see this going from bad to worse with Bernie Sanders staying in the race in hopes of taking advantage of the weakness of former Vice President Joe Biden. Hopefully everyone is seeing the authoritarian left for what they truly are and leave the party and reject their socialist national agenda. The deadly virus of collectivism is far worse than any disease. Image courtesy of the Patriot Post American Conservative MovementJoin fellow patriots as we form a grassroots movement to advance the cause of conservatism. The coronavirus crisis has prompted many, even some conservatives, to promote authoritarianism. It’s understandable to some extent now, but it must not be allowed to embed itself in American life. We currently have 8000+ patriots with us in a very short time. If you are interested, please join us to receive updates.
The post The ChiComVirus: Bringing out the worst of the authoritarian left appeared first on NOQ Report – Conservative Christian News, Opinions, and Quotes. |
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ARRA NEWS SERVICE
ARRA News Service (in this message: 19 new items) |
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- Cause and Infect: China’s Legacy of Lies
- China Infects the World, Then Lies and Blames America
- This Will Turn
- Obama Administration failed to restock masks after H1N1
- Chutzpah: ADL Wants a Federal Bailout
- The Power of Prayer, We Have A Deal, The Power Of Hope, A New Low
- Supreme Court Refuses to Rewrite Civil Rights Law in Comcast Case
- The Red Tape Pandemic
- Democrat Senators Urge UN Security Council Mandates on Coronavirus Crisis
- Democrats Stop Obstructing Emergency Relief
- Abortion Activists Endanger Public Health
- China Syndrome . . .
- President Trump Right To Seek Balance in Moving Forward in Health Emergency
- A Policy Misadventure
- A $50 Billion Airline Bailout for Warren Buffett
- Trump Approval Rating Returns to Highest Point of Presidency
- The Truth About the Charge That Trump ‘Eliminated’ White House Pandemic Office Before Coronavirus
- The Thing About Gun Sales and the Pandemic
- The End of the World
| Cause and Infect: China’s Legacy of Lies
Posted: 25 Mar 2020 10:02 PM PDT  by Tony Perkins: Some people won’t know the name Li Wenliang. Nor will they have a chance to thank him. He died in China on February 7th of the plague he warned was coming. The Wuhan ophthalmologist was just 34 when his heart stopped, a husband and father — with another baby on the way. “He wasn’t an idealistic whistleblower. He was not a dissident. He wasn’t even political,” one reporter mourned. “He was simply a doctor doing his job.” And for that, China silenced him. Permanently. Dr. Wenliang was treating patients when Chinese officials arrested him. Furious that he’d sounded the alarm over the mysterious virus exploding through the region, they made him sign a statement to keep quiet. “We solemnly warn you: If you keep being stubborn, with such impertinence, and continue this illegal activity, you will be brought to justice — is that understood?” It was the beginning of a massive, regime-wide cover-up that’s claimed 19,000 lives and sent the global economy spiraling out of control. Now, with the world in utter chaos and people dying faster than countries can bury them, the fury over China’s deadly conspiracy is white hot. Leaders like Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who are watching with horror as the infections ravage America, are determined to hold the Chinese Communist Party responsible. “Since day one, [they] intentionally lied to the world about the origin of this pandemic.” He talked about the orders for laboratories to destroy samples and the persecution of doctors like Li. “It is time for an international investigation,” Hawley insisted. “…The Chinese Communist Party must be held to account for what the world is now suffering.” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, whose agency is getting frantic calls from Americans trying to get home, understands better than anyone the human toll of China’s actions. “Every day, every week matters in terms of how this information is transmitted around the world. That is, when you share this information, the best scientists around the world can begin to work on it. You can start all the processes, not only vaccines and things that mitigate, but you can begin to put in place the things that will cause the spread to be decreased. And it’s multiplicative — so every day that the Chinese Communist Party sat on this information and didn’t do the right thing… [they] increased the number of people who would be exposed, and thereby put all of us all around the world — the Chinese people as well — at unnecessary risk.” Even now, he said on “Washington Watch” Tuesday, the disinformation campaign continues — not just in China but in Russia and Iran as well. “They’re talking about it coming from the U.S. Army, and they’re saying maybe it began in Italy — all things to deflect responsibility.” And yes, countries have more urgent problems on their hands right now, but “the world needs to understand what’s really going on,” the secretary insisted, “because it’s still important.” If nothing is done, this culture of lies will continue to cost the world innocent human lives. “It’s still important to have transparency even today. This is an ongoing global crisis, and we need to make sure that every country today is being transparent sharing what’s really going on, so that the global community, the global health care, infectious disease community can begin to work on this in a holistic way. My concern,” Mike said frankly, “is that this cover-up, this disinformation that the Chinese Communist Party is engaged in, is still denying the world the information it needs so that we can prevent further cases or something like this from recurring again.” In Iran, where the government ignored the virus to keep turnout high for the February elections, the casualties have been astronomical. Now, of course, they’re lying to their people and trying to turn them against America because they know their grip on their regime is very tentative. If they can shift their focus away from themselves, the Iranians can hide what they knew and when they knew it. But, as Secretary Pompeo points out, “the people most harmed by the absence of transparency and good governance are the people of their own country.” And as much as Iran and China try to deceive them, the people know it. So maybe, the secretary said, one of the best outcomes we can hope for in this catastrophe is that they see a country like America treating people with dignity and respect. “Those are the things that fundamentally separate us from regimes like… Iran and the Chinese Communist Party. And it’s why, when we move our way through this… as I know we will, the people all around the world will see that is our system — a republic where we have freedom and liberty and we know that our rights come from our Creator — these are the systems that will ultimately prove to be most effective at delivering good outcomes for every human being.” Tony Perkins (@tperkins) is President of the Family Research Council . Article on Tony Perkins’ Washington Update and written with the aid of FRC senior writers. Tags: Tony Perkins, Family Research Center, FRC, Family Research Council, Cause and Infect, China’s Legacy of Lies To share or post to your site, click on “Post Link”. Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and “Like” Facebook Page – Thanks! |
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| China Infects the World, Then Lies and Blames America
Posted: 25 Mar 2020 10:03 PM PDT  by Newt Gingrich: Watching the Chinese Communist dictatorship mismanage an epidemic, cover it up, and then lie about it has been infuriating. But it is also a good lesson in how dangerous and how profoundly dishonest the dictatorship is. China’s guilt at having allowed a local epidemic to turn into a worldwide pandemic is even more infuriating when the Chinese Foreign Ministry publicly alleges that the coronavirus came from America. Both President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have correctly pushed back hard against the Communist dictatorship’s lies. The simple fact is that Communist-ruled China has a long record as a source of potential epidemics and pandemics. In 2005 Laurie Garrett warned in Foreign Affairs: “Scientists have long forecast the appearance of an influenza virus capable of infecting 40 percent of the world’s human population and killing unimaginable numbers. Recently, a new strain, H5N1 avian influenza, has shown all the earmarks of becoming that disease. Until now, it has largely been confined to certain bird species, but that may be changing.” Then in 2007, four scientists at the University of Hong Kong asserted: “Coronaviruses are well known to undergo genetic recombination, which may lead to new genotypes and outbreaks. The presence of a large reservoir of SARS-CoV-like viruses in horseshoe bats, together with the culture of eating exotic mammals in southern China, is a time bomb. The possibility of the reemergence of SARS and other novel viruses from animals or laboratories and therefore the need for preparedness should not be ignored.” Despite these clear warnings, the Chinese communist government did nothing to stop the sale of wild animals in wet markets or to stay adequately alert for a potential virus. In fact, the dictatorship took the opposite position in the early days of the coronavirus outbreak. It wanted to hide any potential disease outbreak and hoped it would go away. Consider the tragic chronology of the coronavirus pandemic. The first confirmed case was noticed on December 8, 2019, according to the Wuhan government. By Dec. 16, a patient was admitted to the hospital who worked at a wildlife market that was affiliated with the outbreak. By Dec. 21, there were about three dozen people showing similar symptoms (which were later found to be confirmed or suspected coronavirus cases). By Christmas, four days later, the medical staff at two separate hospitals were quarantined when they came down with an unidentified viral pneumonia. Apparently by the day after Christmas, Dec. 26, 2019 a laboratory had identified samples from Wuhan as a new SARS-like virus. The next day Wuhan public health officials and hospital leaders were told that there was a new coronavirus causing the illness. This was the moment. If the dictatorship had decided then and there to call in the experts and focus on containing the new threat, the entire world would have been spared a year of pain, thousands of dead, massive costs, and economic collapse. However, dictatorships all too often reject and suppress bad news. Just as the Soviets initially tried to suppress the news of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, so too did Gen. Secretary Xi Jinping’s police state initially tried to suppress the news instead of trying to suppress the disease. When Dr. Ai Fen, the head of the emergency department at Wuhan Central Hospital, shared a picture of lab test results and a video of lung scans on Dec. 30, she was harshly reprimanded. When Dr. Li Wenliang disseminated information about the virus through posts on WeChat in a group with more than 100 of his classmates from medical school that said there were “7 SARS like cases confirmed from the Hua’nan Seafood Market,” the government reaction was to censor the spread of this information and take it out of social media. On the last day of the year, 23 days after the apparent first confirmed patient started showing symptoms, the Wuhan branch of the National Health Commission said, “The investigation so far has not found any obvious human-to-human transmission or infection of medical staff.” Officials claimed, “The disease is preventable and controllable.” The Times of London reported that by late Dec. 2019, laboratories in China discovered an unknown highly infectious virus, but “were ordered to stop tests, destroy samples, and suppress the news.” On the first day of 2020, in an effort to keep others quiet and stop information from spreading, eight whistleblowers, including Dr. Li, were issued summons by the Wuhan Public Security Bureau and brought in for questioning for posting information about the virus on WeChat. The police detention was widely reported in the media. Medical professionals all got the message to stay quiet about the disease. Ironically (and tragically) by Jan. 2, the Wuhan Institute of Virology identified and mapped genome of a new coronavirus – but it was kept secret. By Jan. 6, the rumors were strong enough that Secretary Azar and CDC director Dr. Robert Redfield offered to send a team to China. The dictatorship didn’t accept the offer. However, it is clear Gen. Secretary Xi knew about the virus by Jan. 7 – about the time the Americans were offering to help. By Jan. 9, the Chinese government was admitting they had a virus and announced they had mapped the genetic sequence but did not release the data until Jan. 12. They did not however reveal critical information about who was sick, when they got sick, and critical demographic information about those infected, so evaluation of the outbreak remained inadequate. Jan. 12 was also the day Dr. Li, who had been reprimanded for reporting on the virus, was hospitalized for contracting coronavirus. On Jan. 13 the first case was reported outside of China in Thailand. The next day, on Jan. 14, the World Health Organization continued its recent behavior of protecting dictatorships. It announced that Chinese authorities have witnessed “no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel coronavirus.” The World Health Organization continued its recent pattern of lying for dictators when an official said during a press conference that day that there could also be “limited human-to-human transmission, potentially among families.” On Jan. 15, the first confirmed US infected patient left Wuhan while Li Qun (the head of China CDC emergency center) said on state television “after careful screening and prudent judgment, we have reached the latest understanding that the risk of human-to-human transmission is low.” Finally, on Jan. 20 China confirmed human-to-human transmission and the first case was announced in South Korea. The Chinese dictatorship’s efforts to suppress and deny the reality of the virus came at tremendous human cost to the Chinese people and to the rest of the world. An analysis by the University of Southampton estimated that 95 percent of the infections would have been avoided if the aggressive intervention had only occurred three weeks (not three months, three weeks) earlier than they had. The amount of the damage the Chinese dictatorship has done to its own people and by letting the epidemic get out of control and turn into a pandemic – and the amount of damage it has done to people around the world – is stunning. One courageous (and maybe foolish) Chinese businessman, Ren Zhiqiang, wrote a direct critique of the Communist dictatorship: Faced with growing worldwide condemnation for mismanaging and spreading the coronavirus, the dictatorship decided to create a propaganda campaign blaming America. On March 12 Hua Chunying who is the head of the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s Department of Information, tweeted that it was “absolutely wrong and inappropriate to call this the Chinese coronavirus.” Then, they went a step further. China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Zhao Lijian, also tweeted on March 12 “It might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan. Be transparent! Make public your data! US owe us an explanation!” By the way, Twitter is banned in China. As a final note to this whole dishonest performance, Dr. Tedros Adhanom, the Chinese supported Director-General of the World Health Organization praised the Chinese handling of the virus. accusedHe said: “We appreciate the seriousness with which China is taking this outbreak, especially the commitment from top leadership, and the transparency they have demonstrated, including sharing data and genetic sequence of the virus. WHO is working closely with the government on measures to understand the virus and limit transmission. WHO will keep working side-by-side with China and all other countries to protect health and keep people safe.” Dr. Adhanom won the job with Chinese backing even though he was accused of covering up three different cholera epidemics as health minister in Ethiopia. He is a reminder of the unending Chinese dictatorship’s corruption and dishonesty. Tags: Newt Gingrich, commentary, China, Infects the World, Then Lies, Blames America To share or post to your site, click on “Post Link”. Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and “Like” Facebook Page – Thanks! |
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| This Will Turn
Posted: 25 Mar 2020 08:58 PM PDT  by Mario Murillo Ministries: While leftists are saying, “Christianity is done in America,” I say, “At the end of this lockdown, an amazing ingathering of young souls will begin.” To try to prove me wrong, the Left drags out the usual suspects—trends and statistics (including the coronavirus) — in an attempt to validate their argument. My first response is, “Are you done? Because your arguments just fell like an egg from a tall chicken.” Not only is Christianity not finished in America, but you and all your “woke folk” have inadvertently sown the seeds for the next Christian resurgence. Your ideology has carved out a Jesus-shaped crater in the young souls of our nation. The wreckage caused by the bankrupt values of the God-haters is everywhere. It was always there, but many didn’t have the time to see it. The Left has drained the beauty out of childhood, romance, laughter, innocence, friendship, and nature. Those who are stuck at home, now have the time to sit and think about why in the world they ever believed such inane ideas, ideas that have led to such emptiness.  Three verses from the Bible have ignited in me. They have to do with outcomes in the midst of impossible crises, such as Luke 21:12-15 where Jesus said, “But before all these things, they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons. You will be brought before kings and rulers for My name’s sake. But this will turn out for you as an occasion for testimony. Therefore settle it in your hearts not to meditate beforehand on what you will answer; for I will give you a mouth and wisdom which all your adversaries will not be able to contradict or resist.” The ‘occasion for testimony’ is upon America. We have never seen the nation shut down like this. We have never seen idols toppled in such a sudden and complete way. While it is very good news for some in the church, it is terrible news for others. God is separating two groups in the church. He will not have carnal voices in this next testimony. He will give voice to chosen ones and grant them astounding defenses of the truth, and power to speak with devastating effectiveness. While it is very good news for some in the church, it is terrible news for others. God is separating two groups in the church. He will not have carnal voices in this next testimony. He will give voice to chosen ones and grant them astounding defenses of the truth, and power to speak with devastating effectiveness. He is chasing the hirelings out of His presence. Right now, all over the world believers are headed in vastly opposite directions. Their emotions are opposite. Their viewpoints are opposite. Their destinations are opposite. Some are headed toward a visitation of God. Others are being herded out of the way to make room for a new and glorious work of the Holy Spirit. Flashy, fleshly preachers were repeatedly warned—but now it is too late. This virus was the deadline. How could they remain carnal and self-important in the face of this crisis? How could they still resist God even in this calamity? Well known leaders, who at this hour bask in popularity, are totally oblivious to their impending demotion. God is about to sideline them. On the other hand, totally unknown churches and leaders are about to rise. God will have a witness! It will be pure. It will be free of carnal agendas. It will demonstrate signs and wonders from a holy and loving innocence, and these witnesses will not take the glory. Remember when I told you this. The coronavirus epidemic will give way to the most explosive opportunity for soul winning in our lifetime. But many believers are going to be left out—receiving in their souls the fruits of their rebellion and the rejection due them for years of resisting the dealings of the Holy Spirit. Today church buildings lie dormant. Today we wrestle with uncertainty about how long it will last and how bad it will get. But the Holy Spirit bears witness that it will end as suddenly as it came. Many Christians and preachers will emerge with a false sense of security and have no clue as to why they have been demoted. God has deadlines! Luke 19:41-42, “Now when Jesus approached and saw the city, He wept over it, saying, “If you had only known on this day, even you, the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.” Preachers in America have crossed a deadline, and now God’s next move will be hidden from their eyes. On the other hand, there are humble servants who are grieving over America. It looks impossible, but this will turn! It looks like the door is closing, but this will turn! It seems that our enemies are too powerful and too great to ever allow a true revival, but this will turn! Believers who will soon be revealed to be secret weapons, are waiting on God at this very moment. Broken hearts are the birthplace of the impossible. Many don’t know what’s happening to them. They can’t explain the birth pangs. You know who you are. You are not wasting time fretting with vain imaginations. You are following hard after God. You feel strange rumblings, as deep calls unto deep. What will these Vessels of Fire and Glory look like? They will be irresistible. They will be unstoppable. These vessels will set the stereotype of what a Christian is, on its ear, in America. What will it be like when it starts to turn and God-starved people meet God-filled people? Matthew 11:12 says, “And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force.” This will turn out for you, as an occasion for testimony! Tags: Mario Murillo, Ministries, This Will Turn To share or post to your site, click on “Post Link”. Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and “Like” Facebook Page – Thanks! |
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| Obama Administration failed to restock masks after H1N1
Posted: 25 Mar 2020 08:33 PM PDT  by Free Press International News Service: There is a shortage in the Strategic National Stockpile of one of the most needed supplies amid the coronavirus outbreak — N95 respirator masks — in large part because the Obama administration failed to replenish the supply following the H1N1 outbreak in 2009, reports say. Current Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar reported last month that only 12 million N95 masks were available in the stockpile, “a tiny fraction of the 3.5 billion masks one of Azar’s deputies later testified the nation’s healthcare system would need,” the Los Angeles Times noted. In 2009, the H1N1 outbreak hit the United States, leading to 274,304 hospitalizations, 12,469 deaths, and a depletion of N95 respirator masks. Johns Hopkins University’s coronavirus tracker reported 35,225 confirmed COVID-19 cases in the U.S. as of Monday. Following the H1N1 swine flu pandemic, the Obama administration was advised to replenish the national stockpile but did not. A federally backed task force and a safety equipment organization both reportedly recommended to the Obama administration that the stockpile be replenished “Our association is unaware of any major effort to restore the stockpile to cover that drawdown,” said Charles Johnson, president of the International Safety Equipment Association. Bloomberg News reported similar findings last week, noting, “After the H1N1 influenza outbreak in 2009, which triggered a nationwide shortage of masks and caused a 2- to 3-year backlog [of] orders for the N95 variety, the stockpile distributed about three-quarters of its inventory and didn’t build back the supply.” Bloomberg reported that the Trump administration had asked construction companies to “donate their inventory of N95 masks to your local hospital and forgo additional orders of those industrial masks” and the Defense Department would provide 5 million N95 masks and 2,000 ventilators to help bridge the gap. The George W. Bush administration published the National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza plan in 2005, which called on the federal government to distribute medical supplies from the Strategic National Stockpile governed by the Health and Human Services Department in the event of an outbreak. Vice President Mike Pence, who heads the administration’s coronavirus task force, said on Sunday that a quarter-million people had been tested for the virus, with 9 out of 10 people testing negative. Tags: Free Press International, News Service, Free Pressers, Obama Administration, failed to restock masks, after H1N1 To share or post to your site, click on “Post Link”. Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and “Like” Facebook Page – Thanks! |
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| Chutzpah: ADL Wants a Federal Bailout
Posted: 25 Mar 2020 08:18 PM PDT
by Michelle Malkin: When I think of “essential” workers in America, the smear merchants of the Anti-Defamation League are at the bottom of the barrel. For decades, they’ve demonized conservatives and Christians as agents of “hate” and treated our very existence as incitements to violence. The ADL’s manufactured outrage machine has broadened its target list to anyone remotely critical of Israel for any reason, President Donald Trump, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, “America First” college students, innocuous hand gestures, cartoon frogs and anyone who dares to think or write that “It’s OK to be white.” Now, in the wake of the “Chinese flu” pandemic, ADL is lining up with all the other federal bailout vultures clamoring for free money. This week, the group issued a statement calling on Congress to include “relief for charities” in any COVID-19 legislation. “In times of crisis,” ADL self-righteously urged, “nonprofits are on the front lines, ready to respond and serve communities across the nation — but funds are needed to continue doing so.” The “relief package” pushed by ADL and several hundred other groups demands $60 billion in “emergency stimulus funding to support our work… during this time of crisis and need.” What a crock. The primary “front lines” ADL occupies are on the battlefields against American sovereignty and free speech. By my count, the open borders zealots of ADL have filed 17 amicus briefs in our courts supporting obstruction of Trump’s immigration enforcement and national security measures. The group is particularly proud of its brief in Trump v. Hawaii, in which it “led a coalition of six Jewish organizations using our unique moral voice to passionately argue against the so-called Muslim ban, citing three historical examples when our nation later recognized that we were wrong to turn our back, including denying refuge to Jews fleeing the Nazis.” The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the travel restrictions and affirmed the broad plenary powers of the executive branch over immigration. On top of the $60 billion ADL wants for itself and its ideological fellow travelers (including tax-funded refugee resettlement contractors Catholic Charities, Church World Service and Lutheran Services), the group called on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi this week to include Medicaid coverage and tax rebates for illegal immigrants in her Chinese flu rescue package. ADL’s full-throated promotion of America’s demographic transformation through mass migration stands in stark contrast to its unapologetic defense of Israel’s restrictionist immigration policies and militarized borders. But heaven forbid you point out the hypocrisy. Instead of fighting defamation, the ADL traffics in false accusations of anti-Semitism under the guise of “Never Again” repeating the Holocaust. Putting American citizens over hundreds of thousands of Third World and Muslim refugees is “xenophobic,” the ADL decries, and would lead to a repeat of World War II Nazism. Hanging banners from highway overpasses calling for our government to “secure borders” or “defend American workers” is a “white supremacist tactic.” And pointing out the obvious nexus between open borders and disease will put you on the dreaded ADL “extremism” radar. Yes, the ADL prides itself on “monitor(ing) and report(ing) on the rhetoric of anti-immigration activists and their supporters… (who) have long promoted the notion of immigrants as bringing disease, crime and environmental problems into the United States.” Instead of refuting the facts, they just point, sputter and smear. In 2009, during the swine flu outbreak traced to Mexico, I wrote on my blog that “the spread of contagious diseases from around the world into the U.S.” was the “result of uncontrolled immigration.” ADL swooped in with a raging condemnation of me and others who “demonize Mexicans and immigrants, blaming them for the spread of the virus.” ADL’s virtue-signalers went on to warn that “(a)nti-immigrant groups and some mainstream media commentators are using the outbreak to advance their prejudiced views and agendas, warning that the virus in the U.S. is the result of illegal immigration.” It’s not “prejudice.” It’s reality. Every sovereign nation on every continent, including Israel, has now closed its borders to foreign travelers and trespassers to head off this global pandemic. If we had learned from swine flu history 11 years ago, perhaps the current outbreak would not have resulted in such a delayed and addled response mired in deadly political correctness. But the ADL is still conducting business as usual during this latest open borders contagion, blithely attacking “anti-Semitic, racist tropes” as the real public health menace. Really. According to its most recent financial statements, ADL and the ADL Foundation raked in nearly $80 million in operating revenues in 2018, with net assets at the worth more than $92 million. Fear-mongering is big business. The idea that ADL’s professional character assassins serve any vital role in assisting vulnerable American citizens in need of food, shelter or medical assistance is pure chutzpah. The notion that they should be entitled to a single penny of taxpayer subsidies from American workers being laid off in droves is an affront to decency. Crying “racism” and “diversity” to fill coffers and silence political opponents exacerbated the current catastrophe. ADL’s treachery should be reviled, not rewarded. Tags: Michelle Malkin, Rasmussen Reports, Chutzpah, ADL, Wants a Federal Bailout To share or post to your site, click on “Post Link”. Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and “Like” Facebook Page – Thanks! |
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| The Power of Prayer, We Have A Deal, The Power Of Hope, A New Low
Posted: 25 Mar 2020 08:07 PM PDT
by Gary Bauer, Contributing Author: The Power Of Prayer As these requests come in, we are dividing them among our staff. We hope these prayers are a blessing to you. It is certainly a blessing to us to petition God on behalf of so many friends who have stood with us over the years. Again, if you would appreciate our staff praying for your needs, please send your email request to garybauer@cwfpac.com. “We Have A Deal” What broke the impasse? I suspect the president’s lthreat to veto Pelosi’s pork-filled wish list had a lot to do with it. Here are the main components of the Senate’s compromise legislation:
That the Senate is on the verge of passing this relief bill is obviously good news. The bad news is that Schumer and Pelosi needlessly caused days of additional anxiety and suffering. While they constantly berate Trump’s response to the crisis, they were more interested in pushing their pro-abortion, anti-business, climate change agenda. Meanwhile, progressives are still grumbling and it’s not at all clear when the House will act on this emergency relief bill. We will keep you posted. The Power Of Hope & Faith Something else happened yesterday that got a lot of publicity. I’m referring to the president’s repeated assertion that the cure cannot be worse than the disease. During a Fox News town hall, the president said “Our country wasn’t built to be shut down.” He added, “I would love to have the country opened back up and raring to go by Easter.” Trump explained: “Wouldn’t it be great to have all the churches full? . . . You’ll have packed churches all over our country. I think it would be a beautiful time, and it’s just about the timeline that I think is right.” When Trump said that, I got a tear in my eye. The president was saying that there’s no better day to resurrect America than Resurrection Day. I know millions of us would be grateful to thank God in our churches that day! Sadly, there was a vicious reaction on the left to this expression of hope. During the president’s daily press briefing, one reporter repeatedly demanded to know why he said “Easter,” as if it were some violation of the “separation of church and state.” I believe the president’s words signaled to many investors that lockdowns and quarantines will not become our “new normal,” that there is an end in sight. Let’s hope and pray that is true. A New Low This isn’t about Wall Street. It’s about Main Street! President Trump is trying to hold down the number of coronavirus deaths and limit the serious health consequences as much as possible. While doing that, he is also trying to limit the damage to the American economy – to small businesses, to entrepreneurs and to families – in ways that are consistent with critical public health needs. Instead of the left’s distorted analysis, here’s what the president is essentially suggesting:
In recent weeks, I have been on multiple conference calls with key administration officials, including the vice president and other top policy makers. It is clear during every call that the focus of the Trump/Pence Administration is saving as many lives as possible by slowing down the virus and cutting red tape to hasten the development of a vaccine, while at the same time keeping the core economy strong enough to provide for the American people now and in the future. A new Harris poll suggests that most Americans are also weighing the same thing: 91% expressed concern about ongoing damage to the economy. I am thankful that Donald Trump and Mike Pence are making that judgment, rather than Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi. Just something to remember in November! How It Could Look
The media will do their best to destroy Trump if he makes such a recommendation. But a new Gallup poll finds that 60% of Americans approve of Trump’s handling of the coronavirus crisis, including 27% of Democrats. What Makes News The CDC does not report daily flu deaths in the U.S. The flu season generally runs six months (180 days) from October to March. Total flu deaths this season are at least 23,000. Tragically, we will have more days when 100 or more people succumb to the coronavirus. But so far at least 127 people a day are dying from the flu. The 2017-2018 season was particularly bad. More than 61,000 people died from the flu then, approximately 339 deaths a day. By the way, 2,300 unborn children are murdered through abortion every day. Think of those headlines: 100 coronavirus deaths on a single day is breaking news, while 127 deaths from the flu gets a collective yawn. And 2,300 babies killed, most with no serious health issues, gets nothing at all. Meanwhile, the abortion industry is demanding that it be permitted to remain open during this crisis as an “essential service,” while many truly useful businesses are closed. Brace Yourself There are estimates that tomorrow’s figure could be anywhere from 1.5 to 2.8 million new jobless claims. The human suffering encapsulated in that figure is impossible to imagine. This is what the president is trying to weigh as he follows the advice of public health experts in combating the coronavirus. Women For Trump Click here to register for the special livestream event! Tags: Gary Bauer, Campaign for Working Families, The Power of Prayer, We Have A Deal, The Power Of Hope, A New Low To share or post to your site, click on “Post Link”. Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and “Like” Facebook Page – Thanks! |
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| Supreme Court Refuses to Rewrite Civil Rights Law in Comcast Case
Posted: 25 Mar 2020 07:28 PM PDT
by Hans von Spakovsky: In a decision applying the 1866 Civil Rights Act as written and intended by Congress, the Supreme Court on Monday unanimously overturned the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (no surprise there) and held that entrepreneur Byron Allen had not established a case against Comcast Corp. for failing to carry his television channels. Allen, a former comedian, owns Entertainment Studios Network, which carries such scintillating (I am being facetious) channels as Pets.TV, Recipe.TV, MyDestination.TV, and Cars.TV. Allen wanted Comcast to carry his channels on its cable network, but Comcast refused. It cited a lack of demand for ESN’s programming, bandwidth constraints, and its preference for news and sports programming that ESN doesn’t offer. When Allen couldn’t get the contract he wanted, ESN, along with the National Association of African American-Owned Media, sued Comcast for $20 billion in lost revenue. Allen, who is black, claimed that Comcast had refused to contract with him for racial reasons because the cable company supposedly disfavored “100% African American-owned media companies,” even though ESN didn’t dispute that Comcast “had offered legitimate business reasons for refusing to carry its channels,” according to the court. This, ESN alleged, violated the Civil Rights Act of 1866, codified at 42 U.S.C. § 1981, which guarantees all persons “the same right … to make and enforce contracts … as is enjoyed by white citizens.” A federal district court dismissed the lawsuit for failing to show that, were it not for racial animus, Comcast would have contracted with ESN. But the dismissal only occurred after the trial court gave Allen two additional opportunities to produce facts supporting ESN’s claims of racial discrimination. The 9th Circuit, one of the most overturned appellate courts in the country, reversed, claiming that §1981 only required ESN to show that race played “some role” in Comcast’s refusal to contract with ESN, adopting ESN’s argument that all it had to show was that race was a “motivating factor” in Comcast’s refusal to enter into a contract with ESN. In a unanimous opinion written by Justice Neil Gorsuch in Comcast Corp. v. National Association of African American-Owned Media, the justices disagreed with the 9th Circuit. They held that the 1866 Civil Rights Act—§1981—did not create an exception to the general rule that tort plaintiffs bear the burden of proving “but-for-causation” for their injury, and that burden applies throughout the life of the lawsuit. In other words, a plaintiff such as Allen has to show that the proximate reason ESN did not get a contract with Comcast was directly because of his race. Put another way, Allen had to prove that if he had not been black, he would have gotten a network contract. That is the “ancient and simple” common-law rule that applies to all tort claims, Gorsuch wrote. The same rule also applies to all federal anti-discrimination statutes unless Congress creates an explicit exception. Congress did not do so when it enacted §1981, which was passed “in the aftermath of the Civil War to vindicate the rights of former slaves,” as demonstrated not only by “the statute’s text,” but also by “its history.” ESN urged the court essentially to amend the statute by applying the “motivating factor” causation test of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to §1981. But the court refused “to import” that provision into the 1866 Civil Rights Act. That’s something Congress can do through the democratic process, not the courts. As Gorsuch said, “We have two statutes with two distinct histories, and not a shred of evidence that Congress meant them to incorporate the same causation standard.” In fact, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a liberal group, criticized the decision, claiming that it “weakens our nation’s oldest civil rights statute.” In applying the actual language of the statute, the justices didn’t “weaken” the law. They just didn’t rewrite it the way the Lawyer’s Committee and other so-called civil rights groups wanted them to. The only disagreement among the nine justices was from Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who took exception to one minor point contained in a single footnote of Gorsuch’s opinion. While Gorsuch stated that the issue was not properly before the court and should be reserved “for another day,” Ginsburg would have held that §1981’s ban on racial discrimination covers not only the final decision whether to enter a contract, but also the earlier stages of the contract formation process. Although Comcast won a significant victory before the Supreme Court, this is probably not the end of the case, and a lot of lawyers are going to keep earning big bucks in this litigation unless ESN drops the suit. That’s because the high court did not entirely dismiss ESN’s lawsuit. Instead, it held that the 9th Circuit applied the wrong standard for evaluating a discrimination claim under §1981. Thus, it vacated the lower court decision and sent the case back down to the 9th Circuit to apply the correct standard to ESN’s claims. So, we may be hearing more about this cable television dispute for years to come. Tags: Hans von Spakovsky, Supreme Court, Refuses to Rewrite, Civil Rights Law, in Comcast Case To share or post to your site, click on “Post Link”. Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and “Like” Facebook Page – Thanks! |
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| The Red Tape Pandemic
Posted: 25 Mar 2020 07:08 PM PDT
by John Stossel: Coronavirus is frightening. I’m working from home, practicing “social distancing.” Experts say it’ll help “flatten the curve” so fewer people will be infected simultaneously. Then hospitals won’t be overwhelmed. But the infection rate grows. Doctors and hospitals may yet be overwhelmed. It didn’t have to get to this point. Coronavirus deaths leveled off in South Korea. That’s because people in Korea could easily find out if they had the disease. There are hundreds of testing locations — even pop-up drive-thru testing centers. Because Koreans got tested, Korean doctors knew who needed to be isolated and who didn’t. As a result, Korea limited the disease without mass quarantines and shortages. Not in America. In America, a shortage of COVID-19 tests has made it hard for people to get tested. Even those who show all the symptoms have a difficult time. Why weren’t there enough tests? Because our government insists on control of medical innovation. That’s the topic of my new video. When coronavirus appeared, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention made its own tests and insisted that people only use those CDC tests. But the CDC test often gave inaccurate results. Some early versions of the test couldn’t distinguish between coronavirus and water. Private companies might have offered better tests, and more of them, but that wasn’t allowed. The World Health Organization even released information on how to make such tests, but our government still said no. Instead, all tests must go through the government’s cumbersome approval process. That takes months. Or years. Hundreds of labs had the ability to test for the virus, but they weren’t allowed to test. As a result, doctors can’t be sure exactly where outbreaks are happening. Instead of quarantining just sick people, state governors are forcing entire states to go on lockdown. At the same time, many people who show no symptoms do have COVID-19. Without widespread testing, we don’t know who they are, and so the symptomless sick are infecting others. A few weeks ago, the government finally gave up its monopoly and said it was relaxing the rules. There would be quick “emergency use authorizations” replacing the months- or years-long wait for approval. But even that took so long that few independent tests were approved. So President Donald Trump waived those rules, too. Now tests are finally being made. But that delay killed people. It’s still killing people. Other needlessly repressive rules prevented doctors and hospitals from trying more efficient ways to treat patients. For example, telemedicine allows doctors and patients to communicate through the internet. When sick people consult doctors from home, they don’t pass on the virus in crowded waiting rooms. But lawyers and bureaucrats claimed such communications wouldn’t be “secure,” and would violate patients’ privacy. Only last week did officials announce they would allow doctors to “serve patients through everyday communications technologies.” Americans shouldn’t have to ask permission to use “everyday” technologies. Now doctors fear that as more people get sick, hospitals won’t have enough beds for the critically ill. But the bed shortage is another consequence of bad law. Critical access hospitals in rural areas are not allowed to have more than 25 beds. Trump has now announced that he’s waiving those rules. In some states, there’s a shortage of doctors or nurses. That, too, is often a product of bad law — state licensing laws that make it illegal for professionals licensed in one state to work in another. Trump said he would waive “license requirements so that the doctors from other states can provide services to states with the greatest need.” Then it turned out that he could only allow that for Medicare; he didn’t have the power to override stupid state licensing rules. Fortunately, many states finally waived harmful licensing laws on their own. It’s good that governments finally removed some rules. But the time that took killed people. Once coronavirus passes, America should leave those regulations waived. And we should repeal many others. Tags: John Stossel, Red Tape Pandemic, commentary, Rasmussen Reports To share or post to your site, click on “Post Link”. Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and “Like” Facebook Page – Thanks! |
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| Democrat Senators Urge UN Security Council Mandates on Coronavirus Crisis
Posted: 25 Mar 2020 06:54 PM PDT . . . Why did the UN health agency get off to such a poor start?  by Joseph Klein: President Trump is mobilizing an unprecedented all hands-on-deck response to the novel coronavirus 2019. He is using all available instruments of the federal government in order to save American lives, while not destroying the American economy in the process. Meanwhile, several Democrat senators, including Senators Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, decided to waste their time writing a letter on March 20th to President Trump urging him to turn to the United Nations Security Council for help. They asked him to introduce a “resolution to declare pandemics a threat to international peace and security, and require action by member nations to address that threat as soon as the Security Council reconvenes.” The coronavirus is a mortal threat to life all over the world. Given its failed record on a host of issues squarely within its jurisdiction, the UN Security Council is totally useless in dealing with this health threat or its ramifications – whenever it decides to reconvene. Yet the senators writing the letter to President Trump stupidly think that the president should look to the Security Council to “establish binding commitments for UN member nations to align their health preparedness frameworks with best international practices.” Do they have China’s practices in mind? The resolution, the letter said, “should affirm the responsibility of all UN Member States to protect refugees and asylum seekers, international displaced persons (IDPs), and the food insecure — all of whose circumstances leave them especially vulnerable to pandemics.” Markey, Warren and their fellow Democrat senators want the Security Council to “mandate a global giving campaign to approved UN aid organizations or host governments whose people or hosted populations are already suffering from acute need.” These senators’ job is to get as much relief as is needed as soon as possible to the American people who are suffering the effects of the virus through no fault of their own. We don’t need any UN resolutions to “establish binding commitments” or to “mandate” another plan for global wealth redistribution to unaccountable entities. The World Health Organization (WHO) is the specialized agency of the United Nations that is supposed to be responsible for international public health. It got off to a very bad start dealing with the novel coronavirus 2019 outbreak. Taking at face value information from China, the origin of the outbreak, WHO went along with China’s initial refusal to even admit human to human contamination. WHO delayed declaring the coronavirus a “public health emergency of international concern” until January 30 – waiting a full month after the first case of the virus was reported on December 31. An Emergency Committee was convened by the WHO Director-General to address the crisis. The committee stated on January 30 that it “welcomed the leadership and political commitment of the very highest levels of Chinese government, their commitment to transparency, and the efforts made to investigate and contain the current outbreak.” The Chinese Communist Party might as well have written such propaganda. We know that China’s delay in coming clean about the virus and refusing to accept help from foreign government health specialists contributed greatly to the spread of the virus. Relying on advice from the Emergency Committee, WHO’s Director-General issued his set of “Temporary Recommendations” on January 30th, which “does not recommend any travel or trade restriction based on the current information available.” Fortunately, President Trump did not listen to that nonsensical portion of WHO’s advice. He instituted very tight restrictions on travel from China into the United States on January 31. Joe Biden condemned the decision as “hysterical xenophobia.” A few days later, the president expanded the travel restrictions to six additional countries. Elizabeth Warren, one of the signatories to the letter to President Trump urging him to get the Security Council involved, accused President Trump of expanding “his racist, xenophobic Muslim Ban.” She added, “Congress must pass the NO BAN Act.” Of course, President Trump did not listen to such nonsense either. He later extended the restrictions to travel from Europe, including the United Kingdom and Ireland. Contrary to WHO’s initial recommendation against imposing travel restrictions and the Democrats’ carping, Dr. Anthony Fauci praised President Trump’s travel restrictions. “One of the things we did right was very early cut off travel from China to the United States,” he said. He called President Trump’s action “the right public health call.” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO’s current Director-General, has gone out of his way not to offend China. “Tedros’ permanent and forceful endorsement of Chinese actions throughout the crisis has, of course, created a counter-reaction: the organization itself is now accused of having missed the opportunity to forestall a global pandemic,” AFP reported. Now WHO is claiming that the United States could become the new epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic. If WHO had done its job in the first place, rather than rely on the Chinese government’s talking points, Americans in all likelihood would not be facing that dire prospect today. Even one of the UN’s leading specialized agencies that has relevant expertise in the health field proved to be incapable of successfully addressing an international crisis with significant geopolitical implications when it might have been able to do some good. The Security Council would be completely useless in having anything to do with the pandemic and its consequences. President Trump should disregard the Democrat senators’ foolish letter urging him to turn to the Security Council for a solution. His job as president of the United States is to first take care of the well-being of the American people. Period. Tags: Joseph Klein, Democrat Senators, Urge, UN Security Council Mandates, Coronavirus Crisis To share or post to your site, click on “Post Link”. Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and “Like” Facebook Page – Thanks! |
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| Democrats Stop Obstructing Emergency Relief
Posted: 25 Mar 2020 06:38 PM PDT . . . Senate agrees to $2 trillion emergency relief bill, the largest such effort in U.S. history.  by Thomas Gallatin: In the early morning hours on Wednesday, Senate Democrats finally agreed to a China Virus relief deal — a package totaling a whopping $2 trillion. This is the largest stimulus bill in U.S. history by far. “The rescue package will send $1,200 checks to most Americans at a cost of $250 billion,” The Washington Times reports. “It set up a $367 billion loan program to help small businesses make payroll and $500 billion in subsidized loans for big businesses. The aid includes $250 billion in unemployment insurance benefits, $150 billion of stimulus spending for states and local governments, and $130 billion for hospitals.” Importantly, “the deal bars any of the payouts going to President [Donald] Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, cabinet officials, Congress members or any of their immediately family.” Following the deal’s announcement, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who had blasted congressional Democrats on Sunday for backing out of the bipartisan deal at the last minute, stated, “Democrats are finally taking ‘Yes’ for an answer. Help is on the way.” McConnell further noted that the $2 trillion relief package essentially amounted to a “wartime level of investment into our nation.” News of the impending deal sent stock markets surging to the biggest one-day rise since 1933. This is welcome news to the millions of Americans who’ve witnessed their retirement accounts take a beating. Trump expressed an unusually magnanimous tone following the agreement, declaring, “I also want to thank Congress, because whether or not we’re happy that they haven’t quite gotten there yet, they have been working long hours. I’m talking Republicans and Democrats — all of them, the House [and] the Senate. I want to thank Congress because they are really trying to get there, and I think they will.” Trump also added a note of optimism, stating that he “would love to have the country opened up and just raring to go by Easter.” However, he readily acknowledged that such a goal was subject to change depending on the state of the pandemic. “We’ll be looking at a lot of things,” he noted. “We’ll also be looking at very large portions of our country, but I’ll be guided very much by Dr. [Anthony] Fauci and by [Dr.] Deborah [Birx].” The relief bill is by no means a perfect package. It wasn’t before the Democrats’ obstruction gambit and it certainly isn’t any better after they finished with it. However, such is the nature of political gamesmanship, even during a national crisis. Essentially, what changed was that Democrats were able to gain more money for their special interests, in direct contradiction to Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s preposterous lie: “Everything we’re suggesting just relates to COVID-19. It’s not about making law for the future. … It’s not changing policy except as it applies here.” Soon, the bill will head to the House, where it is expected to pass. There have been a few representatives on both sides of the aisle who have expressed reservations with the Senate bill, but Pelosi is unlikely to derail the relief package a second time and risk further political damage. In the end, the looming question is a troubling one: How many of the legislation’s “temporary” relief provisions will actually be permanent? Tags: Thomas Gallatin, The Patriot Post, Dems Stop Obstructing Emergency Relief, Stop Obstructing, Emergency Relief To share or post to your site, click on “Post Link”. Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and “Like” Facebook Page – Thanks! |
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| Abortion Activists Endanger Public Health
Posted: 25 Mar 2020 06:26 PM PDT  by Bill Donohue: Should abortions be considered elective surgery and therefore not be permitted during the coronavirus pandemic, or are they an essential healthcare issue that should be permitted? Predictably, in pro-life states like Ohio and Texas officials are saying abortions constitute elective surgery and should therefore not be allowed, while in pro-abortion states like Massachusetts and Washington, officials are defending them. This issue has even split those in the medical community working in the same facility. Nearly 300 doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center recently sent a letter to management asking them to “postpone procedures that can be performed in the future” so that they can accommodate the expected surge in patients due to the coronavirus. The central issue in this case transcends the usual abortion debate: any elective surgery that is being performed during this crisis uses resources that are needed to help those who are hospitalized with the coronavirus. Chethan Sathya is a pediatric surgeon and journalist in New York City. Here is his analysis of what is at stake. “Surgeries are resource-intensive—requiring surgeons, anesthesiologists, nurses, transport teams, medical beds and equipment such as ventilators. Suspending elective surgeries will free up those doctors, other medical personnel, and rooms and equipment.” Dr. Sathya is also concerned about the effect that doing elective surgeries is bound to have on medical staff. “Because of the number of health-care workers required to work close to one another for each surgery,” he writes, “I have no doubt that continuing to perform non-urgent surgeries would lead to further spread of the virus among health-care workers.” In other words, those who are pushing for abortions during the coronavirus are endangering the lives of healthcare workers. But do they care? Here is how Planned Parenthood has responded. “We’re closely monitoring the spread of the new cononavirus, or COVID-19. The health and safety of our patients, staff, and communities is our top priority.” Notice that Planned Parenthood is only interested in its own agenda. It says not a word about tying up resources needed by those who are truly sick. By taking away needed personnel, gear and equipment from servicing those who are infected with the coronavirus, it is jeopardizing the lives of those at risk. The heart of this dispute rests on the question of whether abortion is elective surgery or not. Planned Parenthood, NARAL, and others in the abortion industry argue that abortion is not elective surgery and must be provided at all times. But is it? Take two women, Joy and Jane. Joy has a life-threatening heart problem and is scheduled for surgery. Jane wants an abortion. No one in his right mind would equate the two. If Joy doesn’t get heart surgery, she will probably die. If Jane is denied her abortion, she lives (as does her baby). It comes down to this: Joy has a need; Jane has a want. No woman wants to have heart surgery—they either need it or they don’t. Conversely, no woman needs an abortion—it is, as they like to say, a matter of choice. Does that mean that abortion is like any other elective surgery, such as a facelift (rhytidectomy) or a tummy tuck (abdominoplasty)? No. In those cases, only the person’s face or tummy is affected. In the case of an abortion, another person is affected. And there is nothing elective about that person’s fate. Tags: Bill Donohue, Catholic League, Abortion Activists, Endanger Public Health To share or post to your site, click on “Post Link”. Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and “Like” Facebook Page – Thanks! |
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| China Syndrome . . .
Posted: 25 Mar 2020 06:16 PM PDT . . . Chinese propaganda and the mainstream media news seem to be aligned on blaming Trump for the coronavirus.
Tags: AF Branco, editorial cartoon, China Syndrome, Chinese propaganda, mainstream media, news, blaming Trump, coronavirus To share or post to your site, click on “Post Link”. Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and “Like” Facebook Page – Thanks! |
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| President Trump Right To Seek Balance in Moving Forward in Health Emergency
Posted: 25 Mar 2020 06:09 PM PDT  by Rick Manning: The balancing act that President Donald Trump is attempting between public health concerns over the Chinese virus and the economic disaster being left in the wake of the government social distancing flattening the curve cure is perhaps the defining question of his presidency. In a conference call with Vice President Mike Pence yesterday, I was asked along with other attendees to remind people about the President’s Guidelines: 15 Days to slow the spread. But he also stated that the President is looking to end the economic shutdown in weeks not months. Let’s talk about that. The social distancing hopefully will have had the effect of somewhat limiting the exponential growth of the disease. And while it may seem callous, since the first case was identified on Jan. 14, at this writing there have been fewer than 700 deaths and 55,000 cases. To put this into perspective, an average of about 110 Americans die in car accidents each day. This is not to criticize the decision to shut down flights from China in January, or to shut down flights from Italy and elsewhere in Europe, and to push social distancing along with the cancellation of mass gatherings. Those were valid decisions based upon the possibility that this Chinese virus could kill as many as one and a half million Americans. However, since the health emergency has been declared, we have companies like 3M and Haines producing masks, medical gowns and automakers are turning their assembly lines loose on making needed ventilators. The Defense Department and FEMA are actively setting up field hospitals to back stop the private medical systems capacity, and pharmaceutical manufacturers are moving rapidly toward finding treatments for this nasty little virus. Senior health facilities have been locked down and those who are most vulnerable have been a high priority focus for education and help. All of these things have happened due to President Trump’s system wide approach to dealing with the Chinese created emergency. The President has cut through the bureaucratic red tape to allow new tests that work to be created and widely disseminated (note: it is reported that the Chinese test kits provided to the Czech Republic are generating more false results than correct ones, making it clear that testing without accuracy has no value at all.) Chloroquine is under a mass efficacy test focusing upon health providers, and other meds like Zithromycin are reported to be having positive results around the world. Tens of millions of masks should be produced for U.S. distribution in the next few weeks, and the panic buying should subside so our store shelves will be restocked. I lay this out because the health emergency situation should be dramatically different in two to three weeks than it is today, giving the President a pathway to re-opening our nation for business without significantly increasing our collective risk of our medical systems being overrun during the economic re-start. The economic havoc already being wrought by the emergency response cannot be understated. Personally, I have two nephews laid off and my step-brother is having to lay people off from his business. People like Kim McKenna Johnson who runs One Cross Medical in Campbellsville, Kentucky is helping patients over the phone to overcome their fears, but their waiting rooms are empty because of that same fear. She estimates that her health provider service company will go under in two weeks as they run out of funds to pay staff. Or, Hector Alvarado who runs an auto detailing company in California. Many of Mr. Alvarado’s orders have been cancelled, and like so many others, he cannot afford to be shut down because he is 100 percent self-employed with his family depending upon the income he provides. These are just two of thousands, if not tens of thousands of local small businesses having their very survival threatened as the fallout from the wise upfront actions of the President to meet the virus head on, and they are exactly why he is pushing hard to create a pathway to open up our nation for business. Killing our nation’s economy for a decade with the social distress, increased suicides and drug addiction associated with it is not an acceptable outcome. President Trump wisely has taken measures to slow the spread of the virus over the past two and a third months since it first was diagnosed on our shore, but he now has to move toward balancing the scales so the cure for the disease doesn’t kill the patient. These are difficult decisions, but it is important that the voices of those whose businesses are at risk and the employees they have had to lay off be heard as part of this national discussion. America’s free enterprise system is proving its greatness as companies are voluntarily moving their production lines to meet the emergency health supply needs without having to be compelled by the federal government. Small businesses have accepted the sacrifices put upon them to meet the crisis, but they should not be forced to shutter their doors, as we move to the next stages in dealing with the health effects of the Chinese virus. Congress needs to act on the CARE Act which provides a lifeline to these businesses, and in the weeks ahead, the President will have to make the very difficult decision on when and how to push the start button on the economy. To make the decision easier, each of us should follow the guidelines put out by the White House last week for social distancing. Listen and follow directions of state and local officials; If you feel sick, stay home, do not go to work and contact your health provider; If your children are sick, keep them at home, don’t send them to school and contact your health provider; If someone in your house has tested positive, everyone in your household should stay home; If you’re an older person, stay home and away from other people; If you are a person with a serious underlying health condition that can put you at additional risk, stay home and away from other people. Let’s do the things needed today so America can get back to work tomorrow. Tags: Rick Manning, Americans for Limited Government To share or post to your site, click on “Post Link”. Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and “Like” Facebook Page – Thanks! |
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| A Policy Misadventure
Posted: 25 Mar 2020 05:58 PM PDT  by Paul Jacob, Contributing Author: The National Commission on Military, National and Public Service released its report today, advocating that Congress should force our daughters to register for the military draft. “The commission recommended that the United States keep a draft option in place,” explains The New York Times. Commission chair and former Nevada Congressman Joe Heck called it a “low-cost insurance policy against an existential national security threat.” But that flies in the face of former Selective Service Commissioner Bernard Rostker’s testimony: “there is no need to continue to register people for a draft that will not come; no need to fight the battle over registering women, and no military need to retain the MSSA [Military Selective Service Act].” And speaking of “an existential national security threat,” the scenario Heck put forth at one hearing was a simultaneous invasion from both Canada and Mexico. Puh-leeze. “This is a necessary and fair step,” states the 255-page report, according to Politico, “making it possible to draw on the talent of a unified Nation in a time of national emergency.” It has always been possible to draw on the talents of the American people — both men and women. Just not to draft folks against their will. Legitimate arguments for fairness and equality* must not obscure what we are talking about: A step closer to using force to fill the military’s ranks. There is only one reason for a military draft: the inability of a nation to persuade citizens to voluntarily defend their country. Yet, as I told the commission last year, never have Americans failed to rise to their country’s defense. Conversely, too often our “leaders” have substituted foreign misadventures for actual national defense. This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. * More soon on the sort of “equality” being envisioned in the next military draft. Tags: Paul Jacob, Common Sense, A Policy Misadventure To share or post to your site, click on “Post Link”. Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and “Like” Facebook Page – Thanks! |
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| A $50 Billion Airline Bailout for Warren Buffett
Posted: 25 Mar 2020 05:58 PM PDT . . . Why do Republicans want to bail out a top Democrat funder?  by Daniel Greenfield: In March, as the Wuhan Flu was taking off in America, the Oracle of Omaha began buying airline stocks. Specifically, one of the wealthiest men in the country increased his stake in Delta Airlines to 11%. Warren Buffett wasn’t oblivious to the coronavirus. The University of Nebraska Medical Center, not far from the black gated mansion of the billionaire, was on the front lines of fighting the outbreak. Passengers from the Diamond Princess cruise ship were being treated 5 minutes from his house. What was Warren Buffett thinking when he shoved $45 million more in good money after bad? Berkshire Hathaway now owns 11% of Delta Airlines, and between 8% and 10% of United Airlines, Southwest Airlines, and American Airlines. When you’re squeezed into a 17-inch airline seat, it’s because a major funder of Democrat political causes is extracting maximum value from his investment. And now Airlines for America, whose major members include American, Delta, United, and Southwest, along with lesser airlines, want a $50 billion bailout. That includes $25 billion in grants and $25 billion in loans and tax relief. While the airlines warn about an economic catastrophe, Buffett isn’t worried. The airlines made up 4% of Berkshire Hathaway’s portfolio and amounted to $3.7 billion in losses. Warren Buffett is no stranger to bailouts. In 2010, he penned a fake folksy New York Times op-ed thanking “Uncle Sam” from his nephew “Warren”. Later that year, he became a key propaganda figure in Obama’s push to raise taxes. By the winter of the year, Obama had placed the Presidential Medal of Freedom around the neck of the man who had fundraised for him and acted as his financial adviser. As Peter Schweitzer noted, “It was only on September 23 that he became a highly visible player in the drama, investing $5 billion in Goldman Sachs, which was overleveraged and short on cash… Berkshire Hathaway received preferred stock with a 10 percent dividend yield and an attractive option to buy another $5 billion in stock at $115 a share… As he admitted on CNBC at the time, ‘If I didn’t think the government was going to act, I wouldn’t be doing anything this week.’” Buffett seems to think that the government will act and bail out the airlines. Again. And this time for a lot more than the $15 billion price tag of the airline bailout that passed after September 11. By 2009, Berkshire Hathaway had invested $26 billion in eight financial companies, including Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America, which benefited from around $100 billion in TARP money. By 2011, Buffett was buying $5.9 billion in Goldman Sachs stock for $5 billion. There’s no question that the Democrat billionaire is a very sharp investor. But there’s no reason for taxpayers to keep subsidizing his investments. As small businesses are forced to shut down and millions of people are put out of work, should they really be helping Warren Buffett get even richer? Just as during the bailout, Buffett is betting that the government is going to back his investment. If the major airlines were really about to go down, Buffett would be trying to get everything out, instead of getting in deeper. The billionaire is betting that Berkshire Hathaway will emerge in a stronger position after the bailouts and the surge of optimism that will follow the lifting of the coronavirus curfews. He’s almost certainly right. But if he wants to profit from the turnaround and the potential takeover of an airline, he should do the heavy lifting on his own. Berkshire Hathaway is sitting on $125 billion in cash. But why cash out his treasury bills when the D.C. swamp will be happy enough to do most of the heavy lifting for him. Where will those taxpayer-funded profits go? In 2014, the Oracle of Omaha predicted that Hillary Clinton will win. “I will bet money on it, and I don’t do that easily,” he boasted. And maxed out his contribution to the Ready for Hillary PAC. He also shoveled money into the DNC. In this election cycle, he poured $245,000 into the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Republicans lobbying for an airline bailout are literally fighting to secure taxpayer money that will then be used to fund their political opponents. It’s an insane act of fiscal political suicide. Beyond political donations, Buffett has spent millions covertly funding abortion activism. Due to his obsessive secrecy, the full scope of his abortion funding is unknown, but the Buffett Foundation donated almost $4 billion to abortion causes, including $674.5 million to Planned Parenthood. Arguably, the Oracle of Omaha has done the most to promote abortion of anyone in America. It’s a revelation that clashes with his folksy image and invocation of small-town values. But behind the Garrison Keillor routine, Buffett is just another version of George Soros with an American accent. That’s not just rhetoric. At the heart of Soros’ power over American politics is the Democracy Alliance, a club of powerful organizations funneling money into transforming this country. The Democracy Alliance’s core partners include the NoVo Foundation, run by Buffett’s son and daughter-in-law, and funded by $150 million from the Oracle of Omaha. NoVo funds hate groups like Van Jones’ Color of Change, which plotted to defund the David Horowitz Freedom Center, along with the Rockefeller Family Fund, the Tides Foundation, and the National People’s Action. That last donation is especially interesting considering NPA’s role in creating the Community Reinvestment Act which forced banks to dispense mortgages to insolvent borrowers. This, as the Freedom Center’s Discover the Networks notes, “ranks high among the primary causes of the 2008 financial crisis.” That’s both fascinating and disturbing considering Buffett’s links to that crisis. Buffett avoided the subprime crisis while profiting massively from the resulting disaster. Putting money in Buffett’s pocket will mean more cash for Biden, it will mean more Democrats in the House and the Senate, more abortions, and more power for George Soros’ Democracy Alliance. So why are Republicans ready to make concessions to Democrats in exchange for the privilege of electing more Democrats with a Buffett bailout? Even if one were to argue that a bailout of the airline industry may be necessary, why would Republicans lobby to cut their own throats? When the wall isn’t funded, how can the GOP justify a second billion-dollar bailout of an industry that will then just turn around and cut another 2 inches from the cramped seats of the taxpayers who bailed them out? Tags: $50 Billion, Airline Bailout, for Warren Buffett, Daniel Greenfield, FrontPage Mag To share or post to your site, click on “Post Link”. Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and “Like” Facebook Page – Thanks! |
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| Trump Approval Rating Returns to Highest Point of Presidency
Posted: 25 Mar 2020 05:32 PM PDT  by Graham Piro: President Donald Trump’s approval rating has returned to the high-water mark of his presidency, according to a new Gallup poll. Forty-nine percent of Americans approve of the job the president is doing, an increase of 5 percentage points from earlier this month. The poll also found 60 percent of Americans approving of Trump’s handling of the coronavirus crisis and 38 percent disapproving. The 49 percent mark represents the highest number Trump’s approval rating has reached during his time in office. In late January, after the impeachment trial ended, he reached the same number before declining gradually over the course of February and March. While his overall approval rating is divided along party lines, a significantly larger share of Democratic respondents approve of Trump’s handling of the coronavirus crisis than they approve of his job performance overall. Twenty-seven percent of Democratic respondents approve of his handling of the situation, while just 13 percent approve of his overall performance. The 13 percent number also represents an increase of 6 percentage points from earlier in March. Trump’s approval rating among independents also jumped over the course of the month, to 43 percent from 35 percent. His lowest number came in the summer and fall of 2017, when his approval rating bottomed out at 35 percent. Former vice president Joe Biden, the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee, is still consistently leading Trump in head-to-head polls with less than eight months to go before the election. Tags: Graham Piro, Free Beacon, President Trump Approval, Rating Returns, to Highest Point, of Presidency; To share or post to your site, click on “Post Link”. Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and “Like” Facebook Page – Thanks! |
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| The Truth About the Charge That Trump ‘Eliminated’ White House Pandemic Office Before Coronavirus
Posted: 25 Mar 2020 03:23 PM PDT
by Fred Lucas: A chief line of attack during the coronavirus crisis from former Obama administration officials and leading Democrats is that President Donald Trump shut down a White House office on pandemics that might have stopped COVID-19 from spreading—or at least alleviated the threat. The attack is based on a 2018 decision by then-national security adviser John Bolton to reorganize the White House’s National Security Council. But the top National Security Council official at the time of the change stressed that no office was closed. “We consolidated three directorates into one,” Tim Morrison, former senior director for counterproliferation and biodefense on the NSC, told The Daily Signal in a phone interview. “This eliminated layers in the reporting chain and in the accountability chain.” The National Security Council is made up of officials detailed from other agencies, primarily the Defense Department and the State Department. Part of the NSC’s mission is to identify emerging threats and inform the president and Cabinet officials about options. The accusation that Trump got rid of a pandemic office is among the left’s politicized attacks on the White House since the coronavirus outbreak began. The administration assembled a coronavirus task force run by Vice President Mike Pence to address security and medical issues. President Barack Obama closed the White House Health and Security Office in 2009, according to The Washington Post. But after the emergence of the Ebola virus in 2014, the Obama administration opened the Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense as part of the NSC. As part of a larger reorganization, Bolton in 2018 merged the Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense with two other functions into a new Directorate of Counterproliferation and Biodefense. The move was based on what Bolton believed would be a natural overlap. Not a single staffer lost his position, according to Morrison, now a senior fellow specializing in Asia-Pacific security at the Hudson Institute. However, former Vice President Joe Biden griped in a tweet referring to the NSC office on pandemics: “Donald Trump eliminated it—and now we’re paying the price.”
As Democrats asserted that Trump closed the office and Republicans said he hadn’t, The Washington Post left-leaning Fact Checker column looked into it and did not make a ruling, stating: He told The Daily Signal that if anything, the combined structure had more clout and ability to inform the president than the previous office had. However, amid the coronavirus pandemic, that hasn’t slowed Trump critics’ politicizing of the matter. Ron Klain, the Democratic political operative who Obama named as his Ebola response coordinator, said in a video message that Obama’s White House set up a permanent pandemic prevention response office at his urging. “That office was doing a great job. But in 2018, Donald Trump abolished that office,” Klain said. “So, when the coronavirus hit our country, no one on the National Security Council staff was put in charge.” Aside from the fact that no related White House office actually was shut down, Morrison noted, the international climate was much different in fighting Ebola. “During the Ebola response, we had a vaccine and the government of Congo worked with us, not blocking us at every turn as the government of China has,” Morrison said. “Our national security strategy with China has improved in that it’s military, political, and economic.” Not all calls for restoring a single pandemic office were rooted in politics. In November, a study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies suggested restoring the office before the coronavirus threat was known. It states: “Biological experts do remain in the White House and in our government,” wrote Cameron, now vice president for global biological policy and programs at the Nuclear Threat Initiative. “But it is clear that eliminating the office has contributed to the federal government’s sluggish domestic response.” But Morrison, who ran the NSC directorate that included pandemics under Trump, notes that the increased testing for COVID-19 in South Korea is not entirely comparable. “The U.S. and South Korea are very different. South Korea is a small, urbanized, more homogeneous population,” Morrision told The Daily Signal. “Their ports of entry are much smaller and easier to control.” The White House’s pandemic office wasn’t eliminated and its functions continue, said James Carafano, vice president for foreign policy and national security at The Heritage Foundation. Regardless, Carafano contends that the NSC would have a minor role in fighting the coronavirus anyway. “The NSC doesn’t play a real aggressive role in pandemic responsibility,” Carafano told The Daily Signal. “It’s there to coordinate operational activity. For example, if a hurricane hits, the NSC would have an advisory role, but it would be minor.” The Federal Emergency Management Agency “would take the lead” in a natural disaster such as a hurricane, he said, while the Department of Health and Human Services would do so in a pandemic. Tags: Fred Lucas, The Truth, About the Charge, That Trump, ‘Eliminated’ White House Pandemic Office, Before Coronavirus To share or post to your site, click on “Post Link”. Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and “Like” Facebook Page – Thanks! |
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| The Thing About Gun Sales and the Pandemic
Posted: 25 Mar 2020 02:59 PM PDT  by Frank Miniter: As the COVID-19 pandemic spreads, people aren’t just emptying store shelves of toilet paper, bread and milk. They are also buying guns, lots of guns. The FBI said, for example, that on Monday, March 16, background check calls in to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) were 300% higher than they were on the same day a year ago; in fact, since February 23, the daily volume for NICS background checks has been nearly double what it was a year ago. NICS is so overwhelmed that the FBI has alerted retailers that most NICS checks will get an immediate determination of “proceed” or “deny.” For checks that get a “delay” notification, it’s important to keep in mind that NICS investigations might be slightly delayed and the three business days mandated by the Brady Act doesn’t include days when state offices are closed. The mainstream media is taking facts like these and reporting that the surge in gun and ammunition sales are all about “fear” and “panic.” This simplistic spin misunderstands America. It also is yet another attempt to cast America’s many millions of gun owners as unsophisticated rubes. The truth about this very real surge in gun sales is actually much more interesting than simple panic purchasing. For example, Donald Trump Jr. touched on an interesting caveat when he recently tweeted: “The irony of it all is that it’s my Democrat friends reaching out to me now asking me which guns they should buy just in case… in particular which ARs. I guess they’re ok with the 2A now??? You don’t need it, till you need it.” Looking for security in uncertain times is a natural reaction; shouldering responsibility, however, is not necessarily a negative thing. Actually, if this is a wake-up call for some Americans who’ve never understood the fundamental importance of their Second Amendment freedoms, that’s a good thing. “We welcome these new gun owners to the larger gun-owning community and encourage them to choose the best safe-storage options for them and their families, to seek out training to use their firearms safely and responsibly and not just get out to a range and shoot, but take someone with you and introduce them to the shooting sports,” said Mark Oliva, director of public affairs for the National Shooting Sports Foundation. As Oliva points out, part of this story is that, during this national crisis, millions of America’s gun owners actually now have more time to go to the range. The NCAA has cancelled “March Madness” basketball. MLB has postponed the 2020 season. A lot of people are now temporarily out of work. A lot of schools are closed. So going to the range or just plinking on the back forty offers some positive family time when going to movie theaters and more just aren’t options—it takes guns and ammo to shoot recreationally. Personal safety is clearly a part of this heightened demand, but then being prepared isn’t just the Boy Scout motto; it is actually a basic part of the American character. America grew to the Pacific on rugged individualism. Fly today from New York to Los Angeles on a clear night and look at your window and you’ll see little twinkling lights from small towns, farms and bright spots that are big cities across this great nation. Out there are over 100 million legal gun owners. Out across those horizons are people who know that if they’re in trouble, law enforcement will come—God bless them—but that until they do, they must fend for themselves. This is a big part of why, during national emergencies, gun and ammunition sales go up. Again, this isn’t a bad thing; this is a practical thing. Self-reliance isn’t the antithesis to helping others, but is rather exactly what communities big and small rely upon. A rise in gun sales during a national emergency is the exhibition of the practical nature of Americans on display. We take care of ourselves, our families and our neighbors. It’s a shame that the mainstream media can’t appreciate this about us. Tags: Frank Miniter, NRA, America’s 1st Freedom, gun sales, pandemic, NICS, Frank Minter To share or post to your site, click on “Post Link”. Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and “Like” Facebook Page – Thanks! |
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| The End of the World
Posted: 25 Mar 2020 02:49 PM PDT  by Tom Balek: We all use the phrase “one in a million”. It was thought to originate from an individual’s chance of being struck by lightning, which is actually one in 1,222,000. Highly unlikely. Statistics are generally accepted as truth, and they should be. Math is math. 1 plus 1 will always be two, no matter how you spin it. But statistics can be manipulated for advantage. The lightning example is based on the annual number of individuals struck by lightning (270) in the United States divided by the population (330 million). Of those victims, only 27 die, so your chance of being killed by lightning is only one in 12 million. And where you live has an impact too. You are 30 times more likely to be hit by lightning in Montana than in California. The COVID-19 pandemic engages us all in a game of numbers that is unprecedented. The news/entertainment media and elite globalists worldwide would have us believe they care deeply about every human life on the planet, but close scrutiny reveals their self-serving ambition. And all sides of the argument about whether we should be afraid or not, whether we should shut down the entire world economy or not, are based on numbers. Here are some numbers (as of the date of this writing) for your consideration and perspective: US deaths each year due to heart disease 647,000 US deaths 2016 due to abortion 623,471 US deaths 2017-2018 due to influenza 80,000 US deaths projected this year due to COVID-19 ? US deaths so far this year due to abortion 200,000 US deaths so far this year due to 148,898 US deaths so far this year due to 23,000 US deaths so far this year due to 685 The question remains, is the cure worse than the disease? How many lives will be economically destroyed by a prolonged “shutdown” of virtually all commerce in the US and around the world? And how many deaths would result from that? If there is bad intent behind the pandemic and government-induced economic disaster, who would benefit? All government leaders and their chosen workers would continue to be paid and gain authority and control. Hedge fund investors (can you say George Soros?) would make a killing as markets plunge. Whenever government makes decisions for the masses, winners and losers are chosen. Which side would you land on? Anybody who really wants to avoid death from lightning could move to the North Pole, where lightning never strikes. And if we really wanted to prevent deaths from COVID-19, we would identify who is the most vulnerable and put them in iron-clad quarantine, leaving the rest of us to live full lives, mindful of the many risks we face. Tags: Tom Balek, Rockin’ On The Right Side, The End of the World To share or post to your site, click on “Post Link”. Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and “Like” Facebook Page – Thanks! |
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From NBC’s Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, Carrie Dann and Melissa Holzberg FIRST READ: Americans are picking health precautions over a rush back to work — at least for now If there is a legitimate political debate between health and wealth during the spread of coronavirus inside the United States, it’s worth pointing out that health is winning by a landslide – at least so far.  REUTERS/Carlo Allegri/File Photo A recent online Politico/Morning Consult poll found that 74 percent of registered voters saying they support a national quarantine that prohibits non-essential travel and trips outside of the home.
Sixty-six percent of American adults say they are avoiding large gatherings, per an online Reuters/Ipsos poll, which is up 10 points from just days earlier in the same survey.
And an online Economist/YouGov poll shows that 64 percent of adults say they are personally worried about the coronavirus.
So far, for all of the attention on the slight bump for President Trump in some polls, an even bigger story is going on in public opinion: Americans are overwhelmingly prioritizing health over the economy.
And it’s not a close call – at least not yet.
TWEET OF THE DAY: So about that Easter timeline 
The United States isn’t testing more than any other country – not a per-capita basis First in a tweet yesterday and then in his White House press briefing, President Trump declared that the United States has performed more coronavirus tests than any other country.
“We now are doing more testing than anybody by far,” Trump told reporters.
But that isn’t true – certainly not on a per-capita basis.
The United States has now performed 484,000 tests, per the COVID Tracking Project, while South Korea (recognized for its testing success so far) has performed 365,000 tests. But the U.S. has a population of 327 million, which comes out to about 1,500 coronavirus tests per 1 million Americans.
South Korea has a population of 51 million, which comes out to about 7,000 tests per 1 million South Koreans.
By the way, just two weeks ago – on March 12 – the United States had tested fewer than 10,000 Americans.
As Ed Wong writes in The Atlantic, “The testing fiasco was the original sin of America’s pandemic failure, the single flaw that undermined every other countermeasure.”
DATA DOWNLOAD: The numbers you need to know today 68,358: The number of confirmed cases of coronavirus in the United States, per the most recent data from NBC News and health officials. (That’s 13,548 more than yesterday morning.)
1,001: The number of deaths in the United States from the virus so far. (That’s 220 more than yesterday morning).
About 484,000: The number of coronavirus TESTS that have been administered in the United States so far, according to researchers at The COVID Tracking Project. (That’s about 116,000 more than yesterday morning.)
“Within three weeks”: That’s when Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin says direct payments to Americans making under $99,000 will be sent from the IRS.
50,000: That’s the number of Americans still stuck overseas because of virus-related travel restrictions.
Half: That’s the percentage of New York City’s population that should expect to get coronavirus, according to Mayor Bill de Blasio.
By a 96-0 vote, Senate passes $2 trillion stimulus After a day of hold-ups and threats, the Senate passed its $2 trillion relief package for coronavirus by a 96-0 vote, NBC’s Capitol Hill team reports.
The fate of the legislation is now in the House’s hands – but President Trump said yesterday he would sign passed legislation as soon as it landed on his desk. “I encourage the House to pass this vital legislation and send the bill to my desk for a signature without delay. I will sign it immediately,” he said.
But the House has not returned to session yet to vote quickly.
Our Hill team reports that the earliest the House will take up the bill is on Friday when they return.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said in a letter to his conference that he expects the bill will pass by voice vote – but Speaker Nancy Pelosi made sure to express on Wednesday that this won’t be the last bill and she’s not entirely pleased with the bill’s content. “What is important is for us to recognize the good that is in the bill – appreciate for what it does, don’t judge it for what it doesn’t because we have more bills to come,” Pelosi said.
So what are some of the highlights of the Senate bill?
2020 VISION: Biden shuts the door on debating Sanders again A day after Bernie Sanders’ campaign said it would be willing to participate in another Democratic debate next month, Joe Biden told reporters on Wednesday that there have been “enough debates.”
“My focus is just dealing with this crisis right now,” Biden said in a virtual press conference yesterday, per NBC’s Marianna Sotomayor. “I haven’t thought about any more debates. I think we’ve had enough debates. I think we should get on with this.”
In a separate virtual campaign event yesterday – a discussion with young adults – the former vice president talked about being a transitional figure for a new generation, Sotomayor adds.
“I’m also going to be a leader who will help spur progress forward empowering the next generation of leaders to seize the possibilities that are out there, not to drag us backwards,” Biden said.
“I hope I can just be one of those transition figures that gets to the point where you guys are running the whole show,” he said to the young viewers tuning into his livestream, per Sotomayor.
Ad watch from NBC’s Ben Kamisar: See, Washington can work Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is leaning heavily on his work to pass coronavirus relief legislation in a new ad campaign across Kentucky, months before his likely Senate matchup with Democrat Amy McGrath.
The Republican recently launched a new ad that plays up the bipartisan spirit in Washington (a spirit that has been at times threatened during this back-and-forth over the final agreement), highlighting how McConnell is “at the center of the battle to rush aid to Americans.” It goes onto slam McGrath for pushing “false, partisan attacks” while “Mitch McConnell leads.”
There’s been no love lost between the two candidates, as the Courier-Journal pointed out in a deep dive into how the two campaigns are sparring during the coronavirus crisis.
McGrath has been up on the air both with a spot that talks about how her campaign has been volunteering to help at-risk Kentuckians, but also with a spot that questions whether Kentuckians are benefitting from McConnell’s power in the Senate.
THE LID: Trust but verify Don’t miss the pod from yesterday, when we looked at who Americans do and don’t trust for information about the pandemic.
ICYMI: What ELSE is happening in the world? Former FBI agent Robert Levinson’s family says they believe he has died in Iran.
Anti-abortion groups are trying to halt abortions during the pandemic.
Joe Biden singled out Florida’s Ron DeSantis over his response to the crisis.
The former VP’s inner circle isn’t just a boys club anymore, writes the AP.
Brenda Jones will run against Rashida Tlaib again.
The Democratic debate over health care is much more vivid in the age of coronavirus.
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“We have a global responsibility as humanity and especially those countries like the G20.”
“The CDC office in Beijing is a shell of its former self.”
“Individuals even with bravery and valor are not powerful enough to beat it back.”
“For airlines, it’s apocalypse now.”
“We have already suffered losses due to COVID 19-related concerns.”
“If they don’t go forward, I won’t go forward.”MANHATTAN INSTITUTE
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![Watch Joe Biden’s Heart Break Over Trump’s Approval Ratings [VIDEO]](https://ci5.googleusercontent.com/proxy/D-9y_R-8lSHsAcomSXflUhrNcLp2Y76X1gIKuMvLkEY36W9Mtg4dKI6EIzj3ZZg1lB5kzglFdxbgYWQTjJn_FQa5Q_mQ0hpATXpnZ_pRp6pxCbL7dvYDc-6jSq9tzFE1S_m5cYilNYjYEQ6HvIP-=s0-d-e1-ft#https://www.louderwithcrowder.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/bidentrumpapproval-1200x630.jpg "Watch Joe Biden’s Heart Break Over Trump’s Approval Ratings [VIDEO]")
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March 26 2020
Today is the Morning Jolt I’ve dreaded writing, because the news is almost entirely bad. The Senate economic relief bill is passed, but much later than it should have been; the first coronavirus-related attempted terrorist attack occurs in Missouri; far too much bad news from our nation’s hospitals; and an important note about CPAP machines. |
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“Makes an original and compelling case for nationalism . . . A fascinating, erudite—and much-needed—defense of a hallowed idea unfairly under current attack.” — Victor Davis Hanson
Episode 258: What Happens after the… 
U.S. Coronavirus Deaths… 
19 West 44th Street, Suite 1701, New York, NY, 10036, USA
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